title: Eco-socialism

text: Reflecting tensions within the environmental and socialist movements, there is some conflict of ideas. However, in practice a synthesis is emerging which calls for democratic regulation of industry in the interests of people and the environment, nationalisation of some key environmental industries, local democracy and an extension of co-ops and the library principle. For example, Scottish Green Peter McColl argues that elected governments should abolish poverty through a citizens income scheme, regulate against social and environmental malpractice and encourage environmental good practice through state procurement. At the same time, economic and political power should be devolved as far as is possible through co-operatives and increased local decision making. By putting political and economic power into the hands of the people most likely to be affected by environmental injustice, it is less likely that the injustice will take place.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists criticise many within the Green movement for not being overtly anti-capitalist, for working within the existing capitalist, statist system, for voluntarism, or for reliance on technological fixes. The eco-socialist ideology is based on a critique of other forms of Green politics, including various forms of green economics, localism, deep ecology, bioregionalism and even some manifestations of radical green ideologies such as eco-feminism and social ecology.


title: Eco-socialism

text: As Kovel puts it, eco-socialism differs from Green politics at the most fundamental level because the 'Four Pillars' of Green politics (and the 'Ten Key Values' of the US Green Party) do not include the demand for the emancipation of labour and the end of the separation between producers and the means of production. Many eco-socialists also oppose Malthusianism and are alarmed by the gulf between Green politics in the Global North and the Global South.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists are highly critical of those Greens who favour "working within the system". While eco-socialists like Kovel recognise the ability of within-system approaches to raise awareness, and believe that "the struggle for an ecologically rational world must include a struggle for the state", he believes that the mainstream Green movement is too easily co-opted by the current powerful socio-political forces as it "passes from citizen-based activism to ponderous bureaucracies scuffling for 'a seat at the table'".


title: Eco-socialism

text: For Kovel, capitalism is "happy to enlist" the Green movement for "convenience", "control over popular dissent" and "rationalization". He further attacks within-system green initiatives like carbon trading, which he sees as a "capitalist shell game" that turns pollution "into a fresh source of profit". Brian Tokar has further criticised carbon trading in this way, suggesting that it augments existing class inequality and gives the "largest 'players' ... substantial control over the whole 'game'".


title: Eco-socialism

text: In addition, Kovel criticises the "defeatism" of voluntarism in some local forms of environmentalism that do not connect: he suggests that they can be "drawn off into individualism" or co-opted to the demands of capitalism, as in the case of certain recycling projects, where citizens are "induced to provide free labor" to waste management industries who are involved in the "capitalization of nature". He labels the notion on voluntarism "ecopolitics without struggle".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Technological fixes to ecological problems are also rejected by eco-socialists. Saral Sarkar has updated the thesis of 1970s 'limits to growth' to exemplify the limits of new capitalist technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells, which require large amounts of energy to split molecules to obtain hydrogen. Furthermore, Kovel notes that "events in nature are reciprocal and multi-determined" and can therefore not be predictably "fixed"; socially, technologies cannot solve social problems because they are not "mechanical". He posits an eco-socialist analysis, developed from Marx, that patterns of production and social organisation are more important than the forms of technology used within a given configuration of society.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Under capitalism, he suggests that technology "has been the "sine qua non" of growth"; thus he believes that even in a world with hypothetical "free energy" the effect would be to lower the cost of automobile production, leading to the massive overproduction of vehicles, "collapsing infrastructure", chronic resource depletion and the "paving over" of the "remainder of nature". In the modern world, Kovel considers the supposed efficiency of new post-industrial commodities is a "plain illusion", as miniaturized components involve many substances and are therefore non-recyclable (and, theoretically, only simple substances could be retrieved by burning out-of-date equipment, releasing more pollutants). He is quick to warn "environmental liberals" against over-selling the virtues of renewable energies that cannot meet the mass energy consumption of the era; although he would still support renewable energy projects, he believes it is more important to restructure societies to reduce energy use before relying on renewable energy technologies alone.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists have based their ideas for political strategy on a critique of several different trends in green economics. At the most fundamental level, eco-socialists reject what Kovel calls "ecological economics" or the "ecological wing of mainstream economics" for being "uninterested in social transformation". He furthers rejects the Neo-Smithian school, who believe in Adam Smith's vision of "a capitalism of small producers, freely exchanging with each other", which is self-regulating and competitive.


title: Eco-socialism

text: The school is represented by thinkers like David Korten who believe in "regulated markets" checked by government and civil society but, for Kovel, they do not provide a critique of the expansive nature of capitalism away from localised production and ignore "questions of class, gender or any other category of domination". Kovel also criticises their "fairy-tale" view of history, which refers to the abuse of "natural capital" by the materialism of the Scientific Revolution, an assumption that, in Kovel's eyes, seems to suggest that "nature had toiled to put the gift of capital into human hands", rather than capitalism being a product of social relations in human history.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Other forms of community-based economics are also rejected by eco-socialists such as Kovel, including followers of E. F. Schumacher and some members of the cooperative movement, for advocating "no more than a very halting and isolated first step". He thinks that their principles are "only partially realizable within the institutions of cooperatives in capitalist society" because "the internal cooperation" of cooperatives is "forever hemmed in and compromised" by the need to expand value and compete within the market. Marx also believed that cooperatives within capitalism make workers into "their own capitalist ... by enabling them to use the means of production for the employment of their own labour".


title: Eco-socialism

text: For Kovel and other eco-socialists, community-based economics and Green localism are "a fantasy" because "strict localism belongs to the aboriginal stages of society" and would be an "ecological nightmare at present population levels" due to "heat losses from a multitude of dispersed sites, the squandering of scarce resources, the needless reproduction of effort, and cultural impoverishment". While he feels that small-scale production units are "an essential part of the path towards an ecological society", he sees them not as "an end in itself"; in his view, small enterprises can be either capitalist or socialist in their configuration and therefore must be "consistently anti-capitalist", through recognition and support of the emancipation of labour, and exist "in a dialectic with the whole of things", as human society will need large-scale projects, such as transport infrastructures.


title: Eco-socialism

text: He highlights the work of steady-state theorist Herman Daly, who exemplifies what eco-socialists see as the good and bad points of ecological economics — while Daly offers a critique of capitalism and a desire for "workers ownership", he only believes in workers ownership "kept firmly within a capitalist market", ignoring the eco-socialist desire for struggle in the emancipation of labour and hoping that the interests of labour and management today can be improved so that they are "in harmony".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Despite the inclusion of both in political factions like the fundies of the German Green Party, eco-socialists and deep ecologists hold markedly opposite views. Eco-socialists like Kovel have attacked deep ecology because, like other forms of Green politics and green economics, it features "virtuous souls" who have "no internal connection with the critique of capitalism and the emancipation of labor". Kovel is particularly scathing about deep ecology and its "fatuous pronouncement" that Green politics is "neither left nor right, but ahead", which for him ignores the notion that "that which does not confront the system becomes its instrument".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Even more scathingly, Kovel suggests that in "its effort to decentre humanity within nature", deep ecologists can "go too far" and argue for the "splitting away of unwanted people", as evidenced by their desire to preserve wilderness by removing the groups that have lived there "from time immemorial". Kovel thinks that this lends legitimacy to "capitalist elites", like the United States State Department and the World Bank, who can make preservation of wilderness a part of their projects that "have added value as sites for ecotourism" but remove people from their land. Between 1986 and 1996, Kovel notes that over three million people were displaced by "conservation projects"; in the making of the national parks of the United States, three hundred Shoshone Indians were killed in the development of Yosemite.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Kovel believes that deep ecology has affected the rest of the Green movement and led to calls for restrictions on immigration, "often allying with reactionaries in a ... cryptically racist quest". Indeed, he finds traces of deep ecology in the "biological reduction" of Nazism, an ideology many "organicist thinkers" have found appealing, including Herbert Gruhl, a founder of the German Green Party (who subsequently left when it became more left-wing) and originator of the phrase "neither left nor right, but ahead". Kovel warns that, while 'ecofascism' is confined to a narrow band of far right intellectuals and disaffected white power skinheads who involved themselves alongside far left groups in the anti-globalization movement, it may be "imposed as a revolution from above to install an authoritarian regime in order to preserve the main workings of the system" in times of crisis.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Bioregionalism, a philosophy developed by writers like Kirkpatrick Sale who believe in the self-sufficiency of "appropriate bioregional boundaries" drawn up by inhabitants of "an area", has been thoroughly critiqued by Kovel, who fears that the "vagueness" of the area will lead to conflict and further boundaries between communities. While Sale cites the bioregional living of Native Americans, Kovel notes that such ideas are impossible to translate to populations of modern proportions, and evidences the fact that Native Americans held land in commons, rather than private property – thus, for eco-socialists, bioregionalism provides no understanding of what is needed to transform society, and what the inevitable "response of the capitalist state" would be to people constructing bioregionalism.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Kovel also attacks the problems of self-sufficiency. Where Sale believes in self-sufficient regions "each developing the energy of its peculiar ecology", such as "wood in the northwest [USA]", Kovel asks "how on earth" these can be made sufficient for regional needs, and notes the environmental damage of converting Seattle into a "forest-destroying and smoke-spewing wood-burning" city. Kovel also questions Sale's insistence on bioregions that do "not require connections with the outside, but within strict limits", and whether this precludes journeys to visit family members and other forms of travel.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Like many variants of socialism and Green politics, eco-socialists recognise the importance of "the gendered bifurcation of nature" and support the emancipation of gender as it "is at the root of patriarchy and class". Nevertheless, while Kovel believes that "any path out of capitalism must also be eco-feminist", he criticises types of ecofeminism that are not anti-capitalist and can "essentialize women's closeness to nature and build from there, submerging history into nature", becoming more at place in the "comforts of the New Age Growth Centre". These limitations, for Kovel, "keep ecofeminism from becoming a coherent social movement".


title: Eco-socialism

text: While having much in common with the radical tradition of Social Ecology, eco-socialists still see themselves as distinct. Kovel believes this is because social ecologists see hierarchy "in-itself" as the cause of ecological destruction, whereas eco-socialists focus on the gender and class domination embodied in capitalism and recognise that forms of authority that are not "an expropriation of human power for … self-aggrandizement", such as a student-teacher relationship that is "reciprocal and mutual", are beneficial.


title: Eco-socialism

text: In practice, Kovel describes social ecology as continuing the anarchist tradition of non-violent direct action, which is "necessary" but "not sufficient" because "it leaves unspoken the question of building an ecological society beyond capital". Furthermore, social ecologists and anarchists tend to focus on the state alone, rather than the class relations behind state domination (in the view of Marxists). Kovel fears that this is political, springing from historical hostility to Marxism among anarchists, and sectarianism, which he points out as a fault of the "brilliant" but "dogmatic" founder of social ecology, Murray Bookchin.


title: Eco-socialism

text: While Malthusianism and eco-socialism overlap within the Green movement because both address over-industrialism, and despite the fact that Eco-socialists, like many within the Green movement, are described as neo-Malthusian because of their criticism of economic growth, Eco-socialists are opposed to Malthusianism. This divergence stems from the difference between Marxist and Malthusian examinations of social injustice – whereas Marx blames inequality on class injustice, Malthus argued that the working-class remained poor because of their greater fertility and birth rates.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Neo-Malthusians have slightly modified this analysis by increasing their focus on overconsumption – nonetheless, eco-socialists find this attention inadequate. They point to the fact that Malthus did not thoroughly examine ecology and that Garrett Hardin, a key Neo-Malthusian, suggested that further enclosed and privatised land, as opposed to commons, would solve the chief environmental problem, which Hardin labeled the 'tragedy of the commons'.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Joan Martinez-Alier and Ramachandra Guha attack the gulf between what they see as the two "varieties of environmentalism" – the environmentalism of the North, an aesthetic environmentalism that is the privilege of wealthy people who no longer have basic material concerns, and the environmentalism of the South, where people's local environment is a source of communal wealth and such issues are a question of survival. Nonetheless, other eco-socialists, such as Wall, have also pointed out that capitalism disproportionately affects the poorest in the Global North as well, leading to examples of resistance such as the environmental justice movement in the US and groups like MOVE.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists choose to use the term "socialist", despite "the failings of its twentieth century interpretations", because it "still stands for the supersession of capital" and thus "the name, and the reality" must "become adequate for this time". Eco-socialists have nonetheless often diverged with other Marxist movements. Eco-socialism has also been partly influenced by and associated with agrarian socialism as well as some forms of Christian socialism, especially in the United States.


title: Eco-socialism

text: For Kovel and Lowy, eco-socialism is "the realization of the 'first-epoch' socialisms" by resurrecting the notion of "free development of all producers", and distancing themselves from "the attenuated, reformist aims of social democracy and the productivist structures of the bureaucratic variations of socialism", such as forms of Leninism and Stalinism. They ground the failure of past socialist movements in "underdevelopment in the context of hostility by existing capitalist powers", which led to "the denial of internal democracy" and "emulation of capitalist productivism". Kovel believes that the forms of 'actually existing socialism' consisted of "public ownership of the means of production", rather than meeting "the true definition" of socialism as "a free association of producers", with the Party-State bureaucracy acting as the "alienating substitute 'public'".


title: Eco-socialism

text: In analysing the Russian Revolution, Kovel feels that "conspiratorial" revolutionary movements "cut off from the development of society" will "find society an inert mass requiring leadership from above". From this, he notes that the anti-democratic Tsarist heritage meant that the Bolsheviks, who were aided into power by World War One, were a minority who, when faced with a counter-revolution and invading Western powers, continued "the extraordinary needs of 'war communism'", which "put the seal of authoritarianism" on the revolution; thus, for Kovel, Lenin and Trotsky "resorted to terror", shut down the Soviets (workers' councils) and emulated "capitalist efficiency and productivism as a means of survival", setting the stage for Stalinism.


title: Eco-socialism

text: In Kovel's eyes, Lenin came to oppose the nascent Bolshevik environmentalism and its champion Aleksandr Bogdanov, who was later attacked for "idealism"; Kovel describes Lenin's philosophy as "a sharply dualistic materialism, rather similar to the Cartesian separation of matter and consciousness, and perfectly tooled ... to the active working over of the dead, dull matter by the human hand", which led him to want to overcome Russian backwardness through rapid industrialization. This tendency was, according to Kovel, augmented by a desire to catch-up with the West and the "severe crisis" of the revolution's first years.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Furthermore, Kovel quotes Trotsky, who believed in a Communist "superman" who would "learn how to move rivers and mountains". Kovel believes that, in Stalin's "revolution from above" and mass terror in response to the early 1930s economic crisis, Trotsky's writings "were given official imprimatur", despite the fact that Trotsky himself was eventually purged, as Stalinism attacked "the very notion of ecology... in addition to ecologies". Kovel adds that Stalin "would win the gold medal for enmity to nature", and that, in the face of massive environmental degradation, the inflexible Soviet bureaucracy became increasingly inefficient and unable to emulate capitalist accumulation, leading to a "vicious cycle" that led to its collapse.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Beyond the forms of "actually existing socialism", Kovel criticises socialists in general as treating ecology "as an afterthought" and holding "a naive faith in the ecological capacities of a working-class defined by generations of capitalist production". He cites David McNally, who advocates increasing consumption levels under socialism, which, for Kovel, contradicts any notion of natural limits. He also criticises McNally's belief in releasing the "positive side of capital's self-expansion" after the emancipation of labor; instead, Kovel argues that a socialist society would "seek not to become larger" but would rather become "more realized", choosing sufficiency and eschewing economic growth. Kovel further adds that the socialist movement was historically conditioned by its origins in the era of industrialization so that, when modern socialists like McNally advocate a socialism that "cannot be at the expense of the range of human satisfaction", they fail "to recognize that these satisfactions can be problematic with respect to nature when they have been historically shaped by the domination of nature".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists generally advocate the non-violent dismantling of capitalism and the state, focusing on collective ownership of the means of production by freely associated producers and restoration of the Commons. To get to an eco-socialist society, eco-socialists advocate working-class anti-capitalist resistance but also believe that there is potential for agency in autonomous, grassroots individuals and groups across the world who can build "prefigurative" projects for non-violent radical social change.


title: Eco-socialism

text: These prefigurative steps go "beyond the market and the state" and base production on the enhancement of use values, leading to the internationalization of resistance communities in an 'Eco-socialist Party' or network of grassroots groups focused on non-violent, radical social transformation. An 'Eco-socialist revolution' is then carried out.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Many eco-socialists, like Alan Roberts, have encouraged working-class action and resistance, such as the 'green ban' movement in which workers refuse to participate in projects that are ecologically harmful. Similarly, Kovel focuses on working-class involvement in the formation of eco-socialist parties or their increased involvement in existing Green Parties; however, he believes that, unlike many other forms of socialist analysis, "there is no privileged agent" or revolutionary class, and that there is potential for agency in numerous autonomous, grassroots individuals and groups who can build "prefigurative" projects for non-violent radical social change. He defines "prefiguration" as "the potential for the given to contain the lineaments of what is to be", meaning that "a moment toward the future exists embedded in every point of the social organism where a need arises".


title: Eco-socialism

text: If "everything has prefigurative potential", Kovel notes that forms of potential ecological production will be "scattered", and thus suggests that "the task is to free them and connect them". While all "human ecosystems" have "ecosocialist potential", Kovel points out that ones such as the World Bank have low potential, whereas internally democratic anti-globalization "affinity groups" have a high potential through a dialectic that involves the "active bringing and holding together of negations", such as the group acting as an alternative institution ("production of an ecological/socialist alternative") and trying to shut down a G8 summit meeting ("resistance to capital"). Therefore, "practices that in the same motion enhance use-values and diminish exchange-values are the ideal" for eco-socialists.


title: Eco-socialism

text: For Kovel, the main prefigurative steps "are that people ruthlessly criticize the capitalist system... and that they include in this a consistent attack on the widespread belief that there can be no alternative to it", which will then "delegitimate the system and release people into struggle". Kovel justifies this by stating that "radical criticism of the given... can be a material force", even without an alternative, "because it can seize the mind of the masses of people", leading to "dynamic" and "exponential", rather than "incremental" and "linear", victories that spread rapidly. Following this, he advocates the expansion of the dialectical eco-socialist potential of groups through sustaining the confrontation and internal cohesion of human ecosystems, leading to an "activation" of potentials in others that will "spread across the whole social field" as "a new set of orienting principles" that define an ideology or "'party-life' formation".


title: Eco-socialism

text: In the short-term, eco-socialists like Kovel advocate activities that have the "promise of breaking down the commodity form". This includes organizing labor, which is a "reconfiguring of the use-value of labor power"; forming cooperatives, allowing "a relatively free association of labor"; forming localised currencies, which he sees as "undercutting the value-basis of money"; and supporting "radical media" that, in his eyes, involve an "undoing of the fetishism of commodities". Arran Gare, Wall and Kovel have advocated economic localisation in the same vein as many in the Green movement, although they stress that it must be a prefigurative step rather than an end in itself.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Kovel also advises political parties attempting to "democratize the state" that there should be "dialogue but no compromise" with established political parties, and that there must be "a continual association of electoral work with movement work" to avoid "being sucked back into the system". Such parties, he believes, should focus on "the local rungs of the political system" first, before running national campaigns that "challenge the existing system by the elementary means of exposing its broken promises".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Kovel believes in building prefigurations around forms of production based on use values, which will provide a practical vision of a post-capitalist, post-statist system. Such projects include Indymedia ("a democratic rendering of the use-values of new technologies such as the Internet, and a continual involvement in wider struggle"), open-source software, Wikipedia, public libraries and many other initiatives, especially those developed within the anti-globalization movement. These strategies, in Wall's words, "go beyond the market and the state" by rejecting the supposed dichotomy between private enterprise and state-owned production, while also rejecting any combination of the two through a mixed economy. He states that these present forms of "amphibious politics", which are "half in the dirty water of the present but seeking to move on to a new, unexplored territory".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Wall suggests that open-source software, for example, opens up "a new form of commons regime in cyberspace", which he praises as production "for the pleasure of invention" that gives "access to resources without exchange". He believes that open source has "bypassed" both the market and the state, and could provide "developing countries with free access to vital computer software". Furthermore, he suggests that an "open source economy" means that "the barrier between user and provider is eroded", allowing for "cooperative creativity". He links this to Marxism and the notion of usufruct, asserting that "Marx would have been a Firefox user".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Many eco-socialists have noted that the potential for building such projects is easier for media workers than for those in heavy industry because of the decline in trade unionism and the globalized division of labor which divides workers. Kovel posits that class struggle is "internationalized in the face of globalization", as evidenced by a wave of strikes across the Global South in the first half of the year 2000; indeed, he says that "labor's most cherished values are already immanently ecocentric".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Kovel therefore thinks that these universalizing tendencies must lead to the formation of "a consciously 'Ecosocialist Party'" that is neither like a parliamentary or vanguardist party. Instead, Kovel advocates a form of political party "grounded in communities of resistance", where delegates from these communities form the core of the party's activists, and these delegates and the "open and transparent" assembly they form are subject to recall and regular rotation of members. He holds up the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and the Gaviotas movement as examples of such communities, which "are produced outside capitalist circuits" and show that "there can be no single way valid for all peoples".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Nonetheless, he also firmly believes in connecting these movements, stating that "ecosocialism will be international or it will be nothing" and hoping that the Ecosocialist Party can retain the autonomy of local communities while supporting them materially. With an ever-expanding party, Kovel hopes that "defections" by capitalists will occur, leading eventually to the armed forces and police who, in joining the revolution, will signify that "the turning point is reached".


title: Eco-socialism

text: The revolution as envisaged by eco-socialists involves an immediate socio-political transition. Internationally, eco-socialists believe in a reform of the nature of money and the formation of a World People's Trade Organisation (WPTO) that democratizes and improves world trade through the calculation of an Ecological Price (EP) for goods. This would then be followed by a transformation of socioeconomic conditions towards ecological production, commons land and notions of usufruct (that seek to improve the common property possessed by society) to end private property. Eco-socialists assert that this must be carried out with adherence to non-violence.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists like Kovel use the term "Eco-socialist revolution" to describe the transition to an eco-socialist world society. In the immediate socio-political transition, he believes that four groups will emerge from the revolution, namely revolutionaries, those "whose productive activity is directly compatible with ecological production" (such as nurses, schoolteachers, librarians, independent farmers and many other examples), those "whose pre-revolutionary practice was given over to capital" (including the bourgeoisie, advertising executives and more) and "the workers whose activity added surplus value to capitalist commodities".


title: Eco-socialism

text: In terms of political organisation, he advocates an "interim assembly" made up of the revolutionaries that can "devise incentives to make sure that vital functions are maintained" (such as short-term continuation of "differential remuneration" for labor), "handle the redistribution of social roles and assets", convene "in widespread locations", and send delegates to regional, state, national and international organisations, where every level has an "executive council" that is rotated and can be recalled. From there, he asserts that "productive communities" will "form the political as well as economic unit of society" and "organize others" to make a transition to eco-socialist production.


title: Eco-socialism

text: He adds that people will be allowed to be members of any community they choose with "associate membership" of others, such as a doctor having main membership of healthcare communities as a doctor and associate membership of child-rearing communities as a father. Each locality would, in Kovel's eyes, require one community that administered the areas of jurisdiction through an elected assembly. High-level assemblies would have additional "supervisory" roles over localities to monitor the development of ecosystemic integrity, and administer "society-wide services" like transport in "state-like functions", before the interim assembly can transfer responsibilities to "the level of the society as a whole through appropriate and democratically responsive committees".


title: Eco-socialism

text: In Kovel's eyes, part of the eco-socialist transition is the reforming money to retain its use in "enabling exchanges" while reducing its functions as "a commodity in its own right" and "repository of value". He argues for directing money to "enhancement of use-values" through a "subsidization of use-values" that "preserves the functioning core of the economy while gaining time and space for rebuilding it". Internationally, he believes in the immediate cessation of speculation in currencies ("breaking down the function of money as commodity, and redirecting funds on use-values"), the cancellation of the debt of the Global South ("breaking the back of the value function" of money) and the redirecting the "vast reservoir of mainly phony value" to reparations and "ecologically sound development". He suggests the end of military aid and other forms of support to "comprador elites in the South" will eventually "lead to their collapse".


title: Eco-socialism

text: In terms of trade, Kovel advocates a World People's Trade Organization (WPTO), "responsible to a confederation of popular bodies", in which "the degree of control over trade is ... proportional to involvement with production", meaning that "farmers would have a special say over food trade" and so on. He posits that the WPTO should have an elected council that will oversee a reform of prices in favour of an Ecological Price (EP) "determined by the difference between actual use-values and fully realized ones", thus having low tariffs for forms of ecological production like organic agriculture; he also envisages the high tariffs on non-ecological production providing subsidies to ecological production units.


title: Eco-socialism

text: The EP would also internalize the costs of current externalities (like pollution) and "would be set as a function of the distance traded", reducing the effects of long-distance transport like carbon emissions and increased packaging of goods. He thinks that this will provide a "standard of transformation" for non-ecological industries, like the automobile industry, thus spurring changes towards ecological production.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists pursue "ecological production" that, according to Kovel, goes beyond the socialist vision of the emancipation of labor to "the realization of use-values and the appropriation of intrinsic value". He envisions a form of production in which "the making of a thing becomes part of the thing made" so that, using a high quality meal as an analogy, "pleasure would obtain for the cooking of the meal" - thus activities "reserved as hobbies under capitalism" would "compose the fabric of everyday life" under eco-socialism.


title: Eco-socialism

text: This, for Kovel, is achieved if labor is "freely chosen and developed... with a fully realized use-value" achieved by a "negation" of exchange-value, and he exemplifies the Food Not Bombs project for adopting this. He believes that the notion of "mutual recognition ... for the process as well as the product" will avoid exploitation and hierarchy. With production allowing humanity to "live more directly and receptively embedded in nature", Kovel predicts that "a reorientation of human need" will occur that recognises ecological limits and sees technology as "fully participant in the life of eco-systems", thus removing it from profit-making exercises.


title: Eco-socialism

text: In the course on an Eco-socialist revolution, writers like Kovel advocate a "rapid conversion to ecosocialist production" for all enterprises, followed by "restoring ecosystemic integrity to the workplace" through steps like workers ownership. He then believes that the new enterprises can build "socially developed plans" of production for societal needs, such as efficient light-rail transport components. At the same time, Kovel argues for the transformation of essential but, under capitalism, non-productive labour, such as child care, into productive labour, "thereby giving reproductive labour a status equivalent to productive labour".


title: Eco-socialism

text: During such a transition, he believes that income should be guaranteed and that money will still be used under "new conditions of value… according to use and to the degree to which ecosystem integrity is developed and advanced by any particular production". Within this structure, Kovel asserts that markets and will become unnecessary – although "market phenomena" in personal exchanges and other small instances might be adopted – and communities and elected assemblies will democratically decide on the allocation of resources. Istvan Meszaros believes that such "genuinely planned and self-managed (as opposed to bureaucratically planned from above) productive activities" are essential if eco-socialism is to meet its "fundamental objectives".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Eco-socialists are quick to assert that their focus on "production" does not mean that there will be an increase in production and labor under Eco-socialism. Kovel thinks that the emancipation of labor and the realization of use-value will allow "the spheres of work and culture to be reintegrated". He cites the example of Paraguayan Indian communities (organised by Jesuits) in the eighteenth century who made sure that all community members learned musical instruments, and had labourers take musical instruments to the fields and take turns playing music or harvesting.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Most eco-socialists, including Alier and Guha, echo subsistence eco-feminists like Vandana Shiva when they argue for the restoration of commons land over private property. They blame ecological degradation on the inclination to short-term, profit-inspired decisions inherent within a market system. For them, privatization of land strips people of their local communal resources in the name of creating markets for neo-liberal globalization, which benefits a minority. In their view, successful commons systems have been set up around the world throughout history to manage areas cooperatively, based on long-term needs and sustainability instead of short-term profit.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Many eco-socialists focus on a modified version of the notion of 'usufruct' to replace capitalist private property arrangements. As a legal term, usufruct refers to the legal right to use and derive profit or benefit from property that belongs to another person, as long as the property is not damaged. According to eco-socialists like Kovel, a modern interpretation of the idea is "where one uses, enjoys – and through that, improves – another's property", as its Latin etymology "condenses the two meanings of use – as in use-value, and enjoyment – and as in the gratification expressed in freely associated labour". The idea, according to Kovel, has roots in the Code of Hammurabi and was first mentioned in Roman law "where it applied to ambiguities between masters and slaves with respect to property"; it also features in Islamic Sharia law, Aztec law and the Napoleonic Code.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Crucially for eco-socialists, Marx mentioned the idea when he stated that human beings are no more than the planet's "usufructaries, and, like "boni patres familias", they must hand it down to succeeding generations in an improved condition". Kovel and others have taken on this reading, asserting that, in an eco-socialist society, "everyone will have ... rights of use and ownership over those means of production necessary to express the creativity of human nature", namely "a place of one's own" to decorate to personal taste, some personal possessions, the body and its attendant sexual and reproductive rights.


title: Eco-socialism

text: However, Kovel sees property as "self-contradictory" because individuals emerge "in a tissue of social relations" and "nested circles", with the self at the centre and extended circles where "issues of sharing arise from early childhood on". He believes that "the full self is enhanced more by giving than by taking" and that eco-socialism is realized when material possessions weigh "lightly" upon the self – thus restoration of use-value allows things to be taken "concretely and sensuously" but "lightly, since things are enjoyed for themselves and not as buttresses for a shaky ego".


title: Eco-socialism

text: This, for Kovel, reverses what Marxists see as the commodity fetishism and atomization of individuals (through the "unappeasable craving" for "having and excluding others from having") under capitalism. Under eco-socialism, he therefore believes that enhancement of use-value will lead to differentiated ownership between the individual and the collective, where there are "distinct limits on the amount of property individuals control" and no-one can take control of resources that "would permit the alienation of means of production from another". He then hopes that the "hubris" of the notion of "ownership of the planet" will be replaced with usufruct.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Most eco-socialists are involved in peace and anti-war movements, and eco-socialist writers, like Kovel, generally believe that "violence is the rupturing of ecosystems" and is therefore "deeply contrary to ecosocialist values". Kovel believes that revolutionary movements must prepare for post-revolutionary violence from counter-revolutionary sources by "prior development of the democratic sphere" within the movement, because "to the degree that people are capable of self-government, so will they turn away from violence and retribution" for "a self-governed people cannot be pushed around by any alien government". In Kovel's view, it is essential that the revolution "takes place in" or spreads quickly to the United States, which "is capital's gendarme and will crush any serious threat", and that revolutionaries reject the death penalty and retribution against former opponents or counter-revolutionaries.


title: Eco-socialism

text: While in many ways the criticisms of eco-socialism combine the traditional criticisms of both socialism and Green politics, there are unique critiques of eco-socialism, which are largely from within the traditional socialist or Green movements themselves, along with conservative criticism.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Some socialists are critical of the term "eco-socialism". David Reilly, who questions whether his argument is improved by the use of an "exotic word", argues instead that the "real socialism" is "also a green or 'eco'" one that you get to "by dint of struggle". Other socialists, like Paul Hampton of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty (a British third camp socialist party), see eco-socialism as "classless ecology", wherein eco-socialists have "given up on the working class" as the privileged agent of struggle by "borrowing bits from Marx but missing the locus of Marxist politics".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Writing in "Capitalism Nature Socialism", Doug Boucher, Peter Caplan, David Schwartzman and Jane Zara criticise eco-socialists in general and Joel Kovel in particular for a deterministic "catastrophism" that overlooks "the countervailing tendencies of both popular struggles and the efforts of capitalist governments to rationalize the system" and the "accomplishments of the labor movement" that "demonstrate that despite the interests and desires of capitalists, progress toward social justice is possible". They argue that an ecological socialism must be "built on hope, not fear".


title: Eco-socialism

text: Conservatives have criticised the perceived opportunism of left-wing groups who have increased their focus on green issues since the fall of communism. Fred L. Smith Jr., President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute think-tank, exemplifies the conservative critique of left Greens, attacking the "pantheism" of the Green movement and conflating "eco-paganism" with eco-socialism. Like many conservative critics, Smith uses the term 'eco-socialism' to attack non-socialist environmentalists for advocating restrictions on the market-based solutions to ecological problems. He nevertheless wrongly claims that eco-socialists endorse "the Malthusian view of the relationship between man and nature", and states that Al Gore, a former Democratic Party Vice President of the United States and now a climate change campaigner, is an eco-socialist, despite the fact that Gore has never used this term and is not recognised as such by other followers of either Green politics or socialism.


title: Eco-socialism

text: Some environmentalists and conservationists have criticised eco-socialism from within the Green movement. In a review of Joel Kovel's "The Enemy of Nature", David M. Johns criticises eco-socialism for not offering "suggestions about near term conservation policy" and focusing exclusively on long-term societal transformation. Johns believes that species extinction "started much earlier" than capitalism and suggests that eco-socialism neglects the fact that an ecological society will need to transcend the destructiveness found in "all large-scale societies", the very tendency that Kovel himself attacks among capitalists and traditional leftists who attempt to reduce nature to "linear" human models. Johns questions whether non-hierarchical social systems can provide for billions of people, and criticises eco-socialists for neglecting issues of population pressure. Furthermore, Johns describes Kovel's argument that human hierarchy is founded on raiding to steal women as "archaic".


title: Zoya Nasir

text: Zoya Nasir is a Pakistani actress, entrepreneur and beautician. She made her acting debut with a lead role in ARY Digital's crime drama "Hania" and later appeared in "Deewangi". Zoya is currently playing a role of Narmeen in Hum TV's "Dobara". and playing a role of Sameen in ARY Digital's Mere HumSafar.


title: Zoya Nasir

text: Zoya belongs to a film family. Her father is a renowned screen writer with a Guinness Book of World Record of most number of movies written (who also wrote Maula Jutt and the Legend of Maula Jutt). Her mother Amna Ulfat is a politician and currently she is a member of the Censor Board of Pakistan. Her late grandfather Ghulam Hussain was also a movie director and actor while her grandmother's name was Khatija Begum. Zoya pursued her passion as a beautician and has a salon in Lahore by the name of Sasha's by Zoya Nasir. Now she is pursuing acting full time and has a lot of projects in hand.


title: Michael Mullen

text: Michael Glenn Mullen (born October 4, 1946) is a retired United States Navy admiral, who served as the 17th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1, 2007, to September 30, 2011.


title: Michael Mullen

text: Mullen previously served as the Navy's 28th chief of Naval Operations from July 22, 2005, to September 29, 2007. He was only the third officer in the Navy's history to be appointed to four different four-star assignments; the other appointments being the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Commander, Allied Joint Force Command Naples from October 2004 to May 2005, and as the 32nd vice chief of Naval Operations from August 2003 to August 2004. As Chairman, Mullen was the highest-ranking officer in the United States Armed Forces and diversified the top ranks of the Pentagon. He retired from the Navy after over 42 years of service. Since 2012, Mullen has been a visiting professor at Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs.


title: Michael Mullen

text: Mullen was born on October 4, 1946, in Los Angeles, the eldest of five children of Mary Jane (Glenn), who worked as an assistant to comedian Jimmy Durante, and Hollywood press agent John Edward "Jack" Mullen. He attended St. Charles Borromeo Church School in North Hollywood, and graduated from Notre Dame High School, Sherman Oaks in 1964. Mullen then attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis and was classmates with former Commandant of the Marine Corps Michael Hagee, former Chief of Naval Operations Jay L. Johnson, former Secretary of the Navy and Senator from Virginia Jim Webb, National Security Council staff member during the Iran–Contra affair Oliver North, former Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, and NASA administrator Charles Bolden. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1968.


title: Michael Mullen

text: Along with his congeniality, [he] displayed fine leadership qualities. With his well rounded personality, his enthusiasm, and his desire to do his best, Navy-Air is indeed getting an outstanding officer. -- 1968 "Lucky Bag", USNA college yearbook


title: Michael Mullen

text: As a junior officer, he served in various leadership positions aboard , , and . He has commanded three ships: the gasoline tanker , the guided missile destroyer , and the guided missile cruiser ; and has also commanded Cruiser-Destroyer Group Two from . Mullen's last command at sea was as Commander, U.S. Second Fleet/Commander, NATO Striking Fleet Atlantic (COMSTRIKFLTLANT).


title: Michael Mullen

text: In 1985, Mullen graduated from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, with a Master of Science degree in Operations Research, and in 1991, he attended the six-week Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program.


title: Michael Mullen

text: Mullen served as Company Officer and Executive Assistant to the Commandant of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy. He also served in the Bureau of Naval Personnel as Director, Chief of Planning and Provisions, Surface Officer Distribution and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense on the staff of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation. On the Chief of Naval Operations' staff, Mullen served as Deputy Director and Director of Surface Warfare and as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Resources, Requirements, and Assessments (N8). He was the 32nd Vice Chief of Naval Operations from August 2003 to October 2004.


title: Michael Mullen

text: Mullen was recognized by his peers in 1987 with the Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale Award for Inspirational Leadership skill.


title: Michael Mullen

text: As Commander, Allied Joint Force Command Naples, Mullen had operational responsibility for NATO missions in the Balkans, Iraq, and the Mediterranean. As Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, he was responsible for providing overall command, operational control, and coordination of U.S. naval forces in the European Command area of responsibility. He assumed these duties on October 8, 2004, and was relieved of them upon his becoming Chief of Naval Operations.


title: Michael Mullen

text: On October 29, 2006, the "Honolulu Advertiser" published an op-ed by Mullen that defined the concept of the 1,000-ship navy. However Admiral Gary Roughead, Mullen's successor as Chief of Naval Operations, rejected Mullen's concept in favor of a more inclusive vision that includes non-governmental organizations and cooperation with non-allied countries.


title: Michael Mullen

text: On June 8, 2007, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates announced that he would advise President George W. Bush to nominate Mullen to succeed General Peter Pace as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Bush announced the nomination formally on June 28, 2007.


title: Michael Mullen

text: On August 3, 2007, the United States Senate confirmed Mullen as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen was sworn in on October 1, 2007. Upon taking office, Mullen became the first naval officer to hold the Chairman's position since Admiral William J. Crowe, who served as Chairman prior to the enactment of the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986, and who was the immediate predecessor to Army general and later United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.


title: Michael Mullen

text: During his tenure, he was responsible for the appointment of multiple African-American officers to the highest ranks of the military, including the appointment of General Lloyd Austin, now the first black secretary of defense, as Director of the Joint Staff.


title: Michael Mullen

text: On March 18, 2009, Gates recommended to President Barack Obama that Mullen be re-nominated for a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on September 25, 2009 and began his second term on October 1, 2009.


title: Michael Mullen

text: On February 2, 2010, Mullen and Gates said that they fully supported President Obama's decision to end the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, which prevented openly gay people from serving in the military. "It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do," Mullen said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. "No matter how I look at the issue...I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me, it comes down to integrity—theirs as individuals and ours as an institution."


title: Michael Mullen

text: During Mullen's Senate confirmation hearings for his first term nomination as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mullen identified political progress in Iraq as a critical component of Iraq policy. He noted that, "there does not appear to be much political progress" in Iraq. He also said, "If [the Iraqis] aren't making progress in [the political] realm, the prospects for movement in a positive direction are not very good. Failure to achieve tangible progress toward [political] reconciliation requires a strategic reassessment." Mullen further told the Senate that the United States needs to "bring as much pressure on [Iraq's political leaders] as [the U.S.] possibly can."


title: Michael Mullen

text: Regarding the length and scope of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, Mullen told the Senate that while he does not envision permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, "vital interests in the region and in Iraq require a pragmatic, long-term commitment that will be measured in years, not months."


title: Michael Mullen

text: President Obama, United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Admiral Mullen provided the certification required by the Act to Congress on July 22, 2011. Implementation of repeal was completed 60 days later, so that DADT was no longer policy as of September 20, 2011.


title: Michael Mullen

text: In a speech at Kansas State University, Mullen outlined his views about the best application of military force in present times. He characterized most wars, such as World War II, as wars of attrition, where the reduction or elimination of enemy forces signaled victory. He characterized the Cold War as an issue of containment. In characterizing the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he described them as "a fight against a syndicate of Islamic extremists led by al-Qaeda and supported by a host of both state and non-state actors", citing the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan as their "epicenter".


title: Michael Mullen

text: During the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, President Trump threatened to order federal troops to quell protests; in opposition, Mullen authored an article published in "The Atlantic". Mullen stated, “I am deeply worried that as they execute their orders, the members of our military will be co-opted for political purposes.”


title: Michael Mullen

text: President Obama nominated General Martin Dempsey as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Memorial Day 2011. Dempsey had only been sworn in as army chief of staff the previous month. On September 30, 2011, Mullen officially retired from the military when his term as chairman ended.


title: Michael Mullen

text: In December 2012, one year into his retirement, Mullen was in the news again, for having been the target of computer hacking, a situation that led to subsequent FBI investigations. In 2013, Mullen joined the board of General Motors.


title: Michael Mullen

text: On July 11, 2013, Mullen joined the Board of Directors of Sprint Nextel Corp directly after a buyout from SoftBank, one of Japan's largest cellular companies. In 2016, Mullen joined the Advisory Board of Afiniti, an American unicorn big data and artificial intelligence business.


title: Michael Mullen

text: Mullen was vetted by Michael Bloomberg to be his running mate in the 2016 presidential election, but Bloomberg decided against running.


title: Michael Mullen

text: In an interview with ABC News on December 31, 2017, Mullen stated his belief that the United States was close to a nuclear war with North Korea.


title: Michael Mullen

text: In 1987, Mullen was awarded the Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale Award for Inspirational Leadership.


title: Michael Mullen

text: In 2009 the U.S. veterans group Soldier On awarded Admiral Mullen the first Soldier On Award, created for them by sculptor Andrew DeVries. The Soldier On Award recognizes individuals whose leadership and actions have advanced the goal of ending veteran homelessness.


title: Michael Mullen

text: An auditorium was dedicated in his name March 1, 2012, before a graduation ceremony at the Surface Warfare Officers School in Newport, Rhode Island.


title: Michael Mullen

text: Mullen is married to Deborah and together they have two sons, CDR John “JMuls” Mullen and Michael Edward Mullen. CDR Mullen is currently the Commanding Officer of NTAG OHIO River Valley.


title: Rita Ora discography

text: English singer and songwriter Rita Ora has released two studio albums, two extended plays, 21 singles as a lead artist as well as seven as a featured artist, and six promotional singles. Four of Ora's singles have topped the UK Singles Chart, while overall, 13 of her singles have reached the top 10, becoming the British female artist with the most top 10 entries in the ranking. In February 2012, Ora made her international breakthrough upon being featured on English producer DJ Fresh's single "Hot Right Now", which entered the top 50 in several countries. Her debut studio album, "Ora", was released by Columbia, Ministry of Sound and Roc Nation in August 2012. The record reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and has since been certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). It further reached the top 30 in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and Scotland. Singles from the record including, "How We Do (Party)" (2012) and "R.I.P." (2012), both peaked atop the UK Singles Chart, while "Shine Ya Light" (2012) and "Radioactive" (2013) reached the top 10 and top 20 in the United Kingdom, respectively.


title: Rita Ora discography

text: Ora's second studio album, "Phoenix", was distributed by Atlantic in November 2018. The record peaked at number 11 on the UK Albums Chart and attained a gold certification in the UK. Elsewhere, it entered the record charts, among others, in Austria, Canada, Germany, Italy and the United States. Also have been exhibited in London 2014 Tour at Fabric Club with DJ Elviz and DJ Ennex (local students). Five singles preceded the record, including "Your Song" (2017), "Anywhere" (2017), "For You" (2018) and "Let You Love Me" (2018), which reached the top 10 on the UK Singles Chart. In February 2021, Ora released her second extended play (EP) in collaboration with Kazakh producer Imanbek. The record spawned "Big" (2021) and "Bang Bang" (2021), which entered the charts in several countries.


title: Marin Alsop

text: Marin Alsop ([ˈmɛər.ɪn ˈæːl.sɑːp]; born October 16, 1956) is an American conductor, the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Ravinia Festival. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2020.


title: Marin Alsop

text: Alsop was born in New York City to Ruth E. (Condell) and Keith Lamar Alsop, both professional string players, and grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She was educated at the Masters School and studied violin at the Juilliard School's Pre-College Division, graduating in 1972. She attended Yale University as a mathematics major, but transferred to Juilliard, where she earned BM (1977) and MM (1978) degrees in violin. While at Juilliard, Alsop played with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet.


title: Marin Alsop

text: Alsop was commencement speaker at Juilliard's 116th Commencement Ceremony on June 18, 2021 in Damrosch Park, where she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music.


title: Marin Alsop

text: After failing three times to win admission to Juilliard's conducting program, Alsop founded the New York String Ensemble in 1981, the female jazz ensemble String Fever, and in 1984 Concordia, a 50-piece orchestra specializing in twentieth-century American music. In 1983 she was concertmaster in a recording session of Philip Glass's chamber opera "The Photographer". In 1985, she played violin on the original Broadway cast recording of the musical "Big River". She won the Koussevitzky Prize as outstanding student conductor at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1989, where she met her hero and future mentor Leonard Bernstein. She was the first woman to win the prize.


title: Marin Alsop

text: Alsop was music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music from 1992 to 2016. From 1993 to 2005, she was first principal conductor and then music director of the Colorado Symphony; she was then named the orchestra's conductor laureate. Alsop also served as associate conductor of the Richmond Symphony in Richmond, Virginia, from 1988 to 1990, music director of the Eugene Symphony in Eugene, Oregon from 1989 to 1996, music director of the Long Island Philharmonic from 1990, music director of the Oregon Festival of American Music from 1992 to 1996, and Creative Conductor Chair for the St. Louis Symphony from 1994 to 1996. In 2002, she co-founded the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship, now the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship, for female conductors. On September 20, 2005, Alsop became the first conductor ever to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.


title: Marin Alsop

text: In September 2007, Alsop was appointed the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, having been named music director designate for the 2006–2007 concert season. She was the first woman appointed to lead a major American orchestra. The appointment generated some controversy among orchestra members, who felt they had not been sufficiently consulted. Alsop successfully addressed their concerns.<ref name=retires/ In June 2009, the orchestra announced the extension of her contract for another five years, through August 2015. In July 2013, the BSO announced a further extension of her contract as music director through the 2020–2021 season. In February 2020, the orchestra announced that Alsop would conclude her music directorship of the orchestra at the close of the 2020–2021 season and take the title of music director laureate. She conducted a series of three farewell concerts in summer 2021.


title: Marin Alsop

text: Alsop's initiatives with the BSO have included the "Webumentary Film Series", a free iTunes podcast titled "Clueless About Classical", and the OrchKids program, directed at underprivileged Baltimore children. In August 2015, Alsop was appointed director of graduate conducting at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, succeeding one of her mentors, Gustav Meier.


title: Marin Alsop

text: In 2020, it was announced that Alsop would become the inaugural principal conductor at the Ravinia Festival.


title: Marin Alsop

text: In the UK, Alsop has served as principal guest conductor with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and with the City of London Sinfonia. She was Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from 2002 to 2008, the first female principal conductor in the orchestra's history. She was voted "Gramophone" magazine's Artist of the Year in 2003 and won the Royal Philharmonic Society's conductor's award in the same season. In April 2007, Alsop was one of eight conductors of British orchestras to endorse the 10-year classical music outreach manifesto "Building on Excellence: Orchestras for the 21st Century" that called for increasing the presence of classical music in the UK, including giving all British schoolchildren free entry to a classical music concert. Alsop received an honorary degree of Doctor of Music from Bournemouth University on November 7, 2007. Alsop served as an Artist-in-Residence at the Southbank Centre, London, for the 2011–2012 season. In 2013, she was the first woman to conduct at the Last Night of the Proms.


title: Marin Alsop

text: In 2012, Alsop became principal conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra (OSESP), the first female principal conductor of OSESP. In July 2013, OSESP granted her the title of music director and in April 2015 extended her contract to the end of 2019. Alsop led the orchestra on a European tour, including its first appearance at the Proms in August 2012, the first Proms appearance by any Brazilian orchestra. They returned to Europe in October 2013, with concerts in Berlin, London, Paris, Salzburg and Vienna and to the Proms in August 2016. In December 2017, OSESP announced that Alsop would stand down as its music director in December 2019 and take the title of honorary conductor.


title: Marin Alsop

text: In 2010, 2013, 2015 and 2016, Alsop conducted the Belgian National Orchestra at the Queen Elisabeth Competition. On 7 September 2013, Alsop became the first female conductor of the Last Night of The Proms, and returned to conduct the Last Night on 12 September 2015. On 4 September 2014, at the Proms, she was awarded Honorary Membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society. In 2014, Alsop first guest-conducted the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra; in September 2019, she became the orchestra's first female chief conductor. Alsop was a recipient of one of the 25th Annual "Crystal Awards" for 2019 at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Since 2020, she has been artist in residence at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.


title: Marin Alsop

text: Since 1990, Alsop's partner has been Kristin Jurkscheit, a horn player; they have a son. While Alsop was conducting the Colorado Symphony, of which her partner was a member, their relationship provoked controversy; Alsop responded that the relationship predated her appointment to lead the orchestra and had no bearing on her job performance.


title: Marin Alsop

text: Alsop conducted her first recording in 2000 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in a selection of works by Samuel Barber, which was released as part of the "American Classics Series" on Naxos Records. This disc was followed by four more released between 2001 and 2004 dedicated to the works of Samuel Barber. In 2003, she released her first disc of Leonard Bernstein, recorded with the Bournemouth SO and Chorus. Following this, in 2005, Alsop's fully staged production of Bernstein's "Candide" with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was nominated for an Emmy Award (DVD: PBS Great Performances/Image Entertainment).


title: Marin Alsop

text: In June 2006, Alsop conducted the BSO and violinist Joshua Bell in John Corigliano's violin concerto "The Red Violin", recorded by Sony Classics and released in September 2007. She and the BSO made their first-ever live recording release for iTunes of Igor Stravinsky’s "The Rite of Spring". Following her advent to the Baltimore post, one of her first projects as music director was a series of recordings of Dvořák for Naxos. The first disc in the series, featuring Symphony No. 9, "From the New World", and "Symphonic Variations", was released in February 2008, and was nominated for "BBC Music Magazine"’s 2008 Album of the Year.


title: Marin Alsop

text: Other recordings by Alsop with Naxos include a Johannes Brahms symphony cycle with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (the first commercially recorded Brahms symphony cycle by a female conductor), and a continuing series of Bournemouth SO recordings, which include Bartók's "The Miraculous Mandarin", Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" and the symphonies of Kurt Weill.


title: Marin Alsop

text: In 2009, Alsop released a recording of Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" with the BSO that earned a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Album. In 2010, her recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and soloist Colin Currie won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.


title: Marin Alsop

text: Other recent releases include Dvořák symphonies No. 7 & No. 8 with the BSO, "Nixon in China", and works by Roy Harris, Aaron Copland, and Barber, all on the Naxos label. In 2012, Alsop and the BSO released a recording of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1, also on Naxos.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: Transatlantic crossings are passages of passengers and cargo across the Atlantic Ocean between Europe or Africa and the Americas. The majority of passenger traffic is across the North Atlantic between Western Europe and North America. Centuries after the dwindling of sporadic Viking trade with Markland, a regular and lasting transatlantic trade route was established in 1566 with the Spanish West Indies fleets, following the voyages of Christopher Columbus.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: Prior to the 19th century, transatlantic crossings were undertaken in sailing ships, and the journeys were time-consuming and often perilous. The first trade route across the Atlantic was inaugurated by Spain a few decades after the European Discovery of the Americas, with the establishment of the West Indies fleets in 1566, a convoy system that regularly linked its territories in the Americas with Spain for over two centuries. Portugal created a similar maritime route between its ports in Brazil and the Portuguese mainland. Other colonial powers followed, such as Britain, France and the Netherlands, as they colonized the New World.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: "Guinness Book of World Records" has awarded world records to vessels of various classes such as luxury liners, sail boats, and rowing boats. Because of the shape of the continents and the assistance (or resistance) of ocean currents, the Eastbound crossing is quicker than the Westbound crossing.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: Transatlantic passenger crossings became faster, safer, and more reliable with the advent of steamships in the 19th century. The wooden-hulled, paddle-wheel "SS Great Western" built in 1838 is recognized as the first purpose-built transatlantic steamship, on a scheduled run back and forth from Bristol to New York City. The design by British civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a breakthrough in its size, unprecedented passenger capacity, and for Brunel leveraging the fuel efficiency of a larger ship. It became the prototype for a generation of similar ships.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: The British & North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company started its year-round Liverpool-Halifax-Boston service in 1840, using four new Britannia-class steamships and a mail contract from the British government. The company later evolved into the Cunard Line, with Cunard's dominance drawing the attention of the U.S. government, which had its own mail contract to offer to an American firm willing to compete. In 1850 the contract was awarded to the New York and Liverpool United States Steamship Company, which became the Collins Line, and which answered Cunard with its own four ships, which were newer, larger, faster, and more luxurious.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: Competition developed among the industrial powers of the time—the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States—to competitively build grand ocean liners as symbols of national technical skill and expressions of power, not just transport businesses. The competition was for speed. An award called the Blue Riband has been tracked since 1838, for the fastest average speed of a steamship in regular service across the Atlantic. This record became so critical to international prestige that the RMS "Mauretania" was commissioned by the British government specifically to take the Blue Riband back from the Germans and their SS "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse", which it did in 1907. The government also required it be convertible into a troop carrier if needed. In 1935 shipping magnate Harold Hales formalized the prize by commissioning and donating the four-foot, solid silver Hales Trophy.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: Examples of other famous transatlantic liners are , , RMS "Titanic", , , , , , , , "Queen Elizabeth 2", , and the . The "United States" is the current holder of the Hales Trophy. In July 1952 that ship made the crossing in 3 days, 10 hours, 40 minutes. Cunard Line's RMS Queen Mary 2 is the only ship currently making regular transatlantic crossings throughout the year, usually between Southampton and New York. For this reason it has been designed as a proper ocean liner, not as a cruise ship.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: During World War II the transatlantic crossing was very important for the United Kingdom as much of Europe had been taken over by Germany and its allies preventing trade and supplies; the struggle is known as the Battle of the Atlantic.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: Two brothers, Ralph and Robert Brown, managed to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a flats boat – a special boat designed to operate in extremely shallow water. This flats boat was designed and built by Ralph Brown. The voyage was called the "I Am Second Wounded Hero Voyage" in honor of the men who were killed in Operation Eagle Claw; Ralph Brown had been in the USMC at the time of the Operation and was told he was going to Iran. Though he did not go, other servicemen who did perished in the failed military operation.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: In 1956, Henri Beaudout crossed the Atlantic from West to East, from Halifax to Falmouth, on a raft of wood and rope, , in 88 days.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: In 1970, Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Atlantic in "Ra II", a papyrus raft built to an Ancient Egyptian design. This voyage followed an unsuccessful attempt the previous year in his first raft, "Ra I".


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: On 13 June 2003, French rower Maud Fontenoy started an eastward crossing of the Atlantic from Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. She reached A Coruña in Spain on 10 October, becoming the first woman to accomplish this feat.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: In 2005, the Vivaldi Atlantic 4 broke the previous rowing record of 55 days and setting a new record of 39 days.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: On 26 October 2010, Polish sexagenarian Aleksander Doba was the first recorded individual to complete a non-stop transatlantic crossing by kayak. He departed Dakar, Senegal and arrived in Brazil 99 days later.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: In 1997, the first East–West Atlantic Rowing Race took place, running from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. It now runs roughly once every two years.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: In 2006, the first West–East North Atlantic Rowing Race took place, running from New York City to Falmouth, Cornwall in the UK.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: In 1775, the 62-ton schooner "Quero", sailed by John Derby from Salem, Massachusetts to the Isle of Wight in 28 days (April 28 to May 25).


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: In 1866, the lifeboat "Red, White and Blue" sailed from New York City to Margate, England, in 38 days. In 1870 and 1871, The 20-ft yawl City of Ragusa sailed from Queenstown, Ireland, to New York and back, crewed by two men (and a dog) each way.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: Transatlantic flight surpassed ocean liners as the predominant mode of crossing the Atlantic in the mid 20th century. In 1919, the American NC-4 became the first airplane to cross the Atlantic (but in multiple stages). Later that year, a British Vickers Vimy piloted by Alcock and Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to Ireland. Also in 1919, the British were the first to cross the Atlantic in an airship when the R34 captained by Major George Herbert Scott of the Royal Air Force with his crew and passengers flew from East Fortune, Scotland to Mineola, Long Island, covering a distance of about in about four and a half days; he then made a return trip to England, thus also completing the first double crossing of the Atlantic (east–west–east). The first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic was made by the Portuguese naval aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral in 1922. Coutinho and Cabral flew from Lisbon, Portugal, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in stages, using three different Fairey III biplanes, and they covered a distance of between 30 March and 17 June. The first night-time crossing of the Atlantic was accomplished during 16–17 April 1927 by the Portuguese aviators Sarmento de Beires, Jorge de Castilho and Manuel Gouveia, flying from the Bijagós Archipelago, Portuguese Guinea, to Fernando de Noronha, Brazil in the "Argos", a Dornier Wal flying boat. In May 1927, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight in an airplane (between New York City and Paris). The second solo piloting, and the first to carry a passenger, was Clarence Duncan Chamberlin on 6 June 1927. Edward R. Armstrong proposed a string of anchored "seadromes" to refuel planes in a crossing.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: The first serious attempt to take a share of the transatlantic passenger market away from the ocean liners was undertaken by Germany. In the 1930s, Germany crossed the Atlantic with Zeppelins that could carry about 60 passengers in a similar luxurious style to the ocean liners. However, the "Hindenburg" disaster in 1937 put an end to transatlantic Zeppelin flights.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: On 1 June 1944, two K-class blimps from Blimp Squadron ZP-14 of the United States Navy (USN) completed the first transatlantic crossing by non-rigid airships. The two K-ships (K-123 and K-130) left South Weymouth, MA on 28 May 1944 and flew approximately 16 hours to Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland. From Argentia, the blimps flew approximately 22 hours to Lajes Field on Terceira Island in the Azores. The final leg of the first transatlantic crossing was about a 20-hour flight from the Azores to Craw Field in Port Lyautey (Kenitra), French Morocco.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: Beginning in the 1950s, the predominance of ocean liners began to wane when larger, jet-powered airplanes began carrying passengers across the ocean in less and less time. The speed of crossing the ocean therefore became more important than the style of crossing it. The maturing passenger Jet Age starting with the Boeing 707 reduced the typical crossing time between London and New York City to between 6.5 and 8 hours, depending on weather conditions. By the 1970s, supersonic Concorde airplanes could connect the two cities in less than 4 hours, and only one ocean liner, "Queen Elizabeth 2" remained on the transatlantic route for those who favored the slower style of travel.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: The economics of commercial transatlantic flying have evolved markedly since the 1950s; the introduction of widebody airliners (such as the Boeing 747 and Douglas DC-10) in the early 1970s made affordable transatlantic travel to the masses a reality. Since the 1990s, the high reliability of modern jet engines has meant that twin engine jet aircraft such as the Boeing 767, Boeing 777 and Airbus A330 have largely taken over on transatlantic routes from quad-engine jets, whilst the supersonic Concorde was ultimately doomed by its high running costs, leading to its retirement in 2003. Since the late 1990s, single aisle, narrow body jet airliners (starting with the Boeing 757, and more recently the latest versions of both the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320) have been used for transatlantic service, meaning that city pairs between major North American hubs and secondary European cities can now be connected directly without the need for larger widebody jets, which were uneconomic on routes with lower passenger demand.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: Transatlantic cables are cables that have been laid along the ocean floor to connect North America and Europe. Before the advent of radio, the only means of communication across the Atlantic Ocean was to physically connect the continents with a transatlantic telegraph cable, the first of which was installed from Valentia, Ireland to Heart's Content, Newfoundland in 1858. It worked for a month.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: The first pair of eastbound and westbound transatlantic telephone cables, TAT-1, were laid in 1955 and 1956 by the cable ship HMTS "Monarch". The first transatlantic fiber optic cable, TAT-8, was installed in 1988.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: The exchange rate between the United States dollar and British pound is still colloquially known as "cable" by financial marketeers, from the early use of the transatlantic cable for this purpose.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: A transatlantic tunnel is a theoretical structure proposed several times since the late 19th century. It would be a tunnel spanning the Atlantic Ocean between New York City and the United Kingdom or France.


title: Transatlantic crossing

text: The introduction of various technologies facilitated progressively faster transatlantic crossings. The duration to travel westbound from Europe to North America when a new transport innovation was introduced for commercial use is listed below:


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Testosterone (T) is a medication and naturally occurring steroid hormone. It is used to treat male hypogonadism, gender dysphoria, and certain types of breast cancer. It may also be used to increase athletic ability in the form of doping. It is unclear if the use of testosterone for low levels due to aging is beneficial or harmful. Testosterone can be used as a gel or patch that is applied to the skin, injection into a muscle, tablet that is placed in the cheek, or tablet that is taken by mouth.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Common side effects of testosterone include acne, swelling, and breast enlargement in men. Serious side effects may include liver toxicity, heart disease, and behavioral changes. Women and children who are exposed may develop masculinization. It is recommended that individuals with prostate cancer not use the medication. It can cause harm to the baby if used during pregnancy or breastfeeding. Testosterone is in the androgen family of medications.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Testosterone was first isolated in 1935, and approved for medical use in 1939. Rates of use have increased three times in the United States between 2001 and 2011. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 172nd most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 3million prescriptions.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: The primary use of testosterone is the treatment of males with too little or no natural testosterone production, also termed hypogonadism or hypoandrogenism (androgen deficiency). This treatment is referred to as hormone replacement therapy (HRT), or alternatively, and more specifically, as testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) or androgen replacement therapy (ART). It is used to maintain serum testosterone levels in the normal male range. Decline of testosterone production with age has led to interest in testosterone supplementation.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: A 2020 guidelines from the American College of Physicians support the discussion of testosterone in adult men with age-related low levels of testosterone who have sexual dysfunction. They recommend yearly evaluation regarding possible improvement and, if none, to discontinue testosterone; physicians should consider intramuscular treatments, rather than transdermal treatments, due to costs and since the effectiveness and harm of either method is similar. Testosterone treatment for reasons other than possible improvement of sexual dysfunction may not be recommended.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Testosterone deficiency (also termed hypotestosteronism or hypotestosteronemia) is an abnormally low testosterone production. It may occur because of testicular dysfunction (primary hypogonadism) or hypothalamic–pituitary dysfunction (secondary hypogonadism) and may be congenital or acquired.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Testosterone levels may decline gradually with age. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated in 2015 that neither the benefits nor the safety of testosterone supplement have been established for low testosterone levels due to aging. The FDA has required that labels on testosterone include warnings about increased risk of heart attacks and stroke.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: To take advantage of its virilizing effects, testosterone is administered to transgender men and other transmasculine individuals as part of masculinizing hormone therapy, titrated to clinical effect with a "target level" of the average male's testosterone level.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Testosterone therapy is effective in the short-term for the treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in women. However, its long-term safety is unclear. Because of a lack data to support its efficacy and safety, the Endocrine Society recommends against the routine use of testosterone in women to treat low androgen levels due to hypopituitarism, adrenal insufficiency, surgical removal of the ovaries, high-dose corticosteroid therapy, or other causes. Similarly, because of a lack of data to support its efficacy and safety, the Endocrine Society recommends against the use of testosterone in women to improve general well-being, to treat infertility, sexual dysfunction due to causes other than HSDD, or to improve cognitive, cardiovascular, metabolic, and/or bone health.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: A 2014 systematic review and meta-analysis of 35 studies consisting of over 5,000 postmenopausal women with normal adrenal gland function found that testosterone therapy was associated with significant improvement in a variety of domains of sexual function. These domains included frequency of sexual activity, orgasm, arousal, and sexual satisfaction, among others. Women who were menopausal due to ovariectomy showed significantly greater improvement in sexual function with testosterone relative to those who had normal menopause. In addition to beneficial effects on sexual function, testosterone was associated with unfavorable changes in blood lipids. These included decreased levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and increased levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. However, the changes were small in magnitude, and the long-term significance in relation to cardiovascular outcomes is uncertain. The changes were more pronounced with oral testosterone undecanoate than with parenteral routes, such as transdermal testosterone. Testosterone showed no significant effect on depressed mood anxiety, bone mineral density (BMD), or anthropomorphic measures like body weight or body mass index. Conversely, it was associated with a significant incidence of androgenic side effects, including acne and hirsutism (excessive facial/body hair growth). Other androgenic side effects, such as weight gain, pattern hair loss, and voice deepening, were also reported in some trials, but were excluded from analyses due to insufficient data. The overall quality of the evidence was rated as low and was considered to be inconclusive in certain areas, for instance on long-term safety.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: A subsequent 2017 systematic review and meta-analysis of studies including over 3,000 postmenopausal women with HSDD similarly found that short-term transdermal testosterone therapy was effective in improving multiple domains of sexual function. Androgenic adverse effects such as acne and hirsutism were significantly greater in incidence with testosterone therapy, whereas no significant differences in "increase in facial hair, alopecia, voice deepening, urinary symptoms, breast pain, headache, site reaction to the patch, total adverse events, serious adverse events, reasons for withdrawal from the study, and the number of women who completed the study" were seen relative to controls.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Although testosterone has been found to be effective at improving sexual function in postmenopausal women, the doses employed have been supraphysiological. In contrast to these high doses, there is little support for the notion that testosterone is a critical hormone for sexual desire and function in women under normal physiological circumstances. Low doses of testosterone resulting in physiological levels of testosterone (<50 ng/dL) have not been found to significantly increase sexual desire or function in women in most studies. Similarly, there appears to be little or no relationship between total or free testosterone levels in the normal physiological range and sexual desire in premenopausal women. Only high doses of testosterone resulting in supraphysiological levels of testosterone (>50 ng/dL) significantly increase sexual desire in women, with levels of testosterone of 80 to 150 ng/dL "slightly" increasing sex drive. In accordance, men experience sexual dysfunction at testosterone levels of below 300 ng/dL, and men that have levels of testosterone of approximately 200 ng/dL frequently experience such problems. The high doses of testosterone required to increase sexual desire in women may have a significant risk of masculinization with long-term therapy. For this reason, and due to the unknown health effects and safety of testosterone therapy, its use may be inappropriate. In 2003, the FDA rejected Intrinsa, a 300 µg/day testosterone patch for the treatment of sexual dysfunction in postmenopausal women. The reasons cited were limited efficacy (about one additional sexually satisfying event per month), concerns about safety and potential adverse effects with long-term therapy, and concerns about inappropriate off-label use. It appears that in women, rather than testosterone, estradiol may be the most important hormone involved in sexual desire, although data on the clinical use of estradiol to increase sexual desire in women is limited.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: There are no testosterone products approved for use in women in the United States and many other countries. There are approved testosterone products for women in Australia (where it is considered a drug of dependence, medicines that are subject to misuse and trafficking.) and some European countries. Testosterone pellet implants are approved for use in postmenopausal women in the United Kingdom. Testosterone products for men can be used off-label in women in the United States. Alternatively, testosterone products for women are available from compounding pharmacies in the United States, although such products are unregulated and manufacturing quality is not ensured.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Testosterone has been marketed for use by oral, sublingual, buccal, intranasal, transdermal (patches), topical (gels), intramuscular (injection), and subcutaneous (implant administration. It is provided unmodified and as a testosterone ester such as testosterone cypionate, testosterone enanthate, testosterone propionate, or testosterone undecanoate, which act as prodrugs of testosterone. The most common route of administration for testosterone is by intramuscular injection. However, it has been reported that AndroGel, a transdermal gel formulation of testosterone, has become the most popular form of testosterone in androgen replacement therapy for hypogonadism in the United States.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Testosterone is used as a form of doping among athletes in order to improve performance. Testosterone is classified as an anabolic agent and is on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) List of Prohibited Substances and Methods. Hormone supplements cause the endocrine system to adjust its production and lower the natural production of the hormone, so when supplements are discontinued, natural hormone production is lower than it was originally.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Anabolic–androgenic steroids (AAS), including testosterone and its esters, have also been taken to enhance muscle development, strength, or endurance. They do so directly by increasing the muscles' protein synthesis. As a result, muscle fibers become larger and repair faster than the average person's.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: After a series of scandals and publicity in the 1980s (such as Ben Johnson's improved performance at the 1988 Summer Olympics), prohibitions of AAS use were renewed or strengthened by many sports organizations. Testosterone and other AAS were designated a "controlled substance" by the United States Congress in 1990, with the "Anabolic Steroid Control Act". Their use is seen as an issue in modern sport, particularly given the lengths to which athletes and professional laboratories go to in trying to conceal such use from sports regulators. Steroid use once again came into the spotlight as a result of Canadian professional wrestler Chris Benoit's double murder-suicide in 2007; however, there is no evidence implicating steroid use as a factor in the incident.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Some female athletes may have naturally higher levels of testosterone than others, and may be asked to consent to sex verification and either surgery or drugs to decrease testosterone levels. This has proven contentious, with the Court of Arbitration for Sport suspending the IAAF policy due to insufficient evidence of a link between high androgen levels and improved athletic performance.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: A number of methods for detecting testosterone use by athletes have been employed, most based on a urine test. These include the testosterone/epitestosterone ratio (normally less than 6), the testosterone/luteinizing hormone ratio and the carbon-13/carbon-12 ratio (pharmaceutical testosterone contains less carbon-13 than endogenous testosterone). In some testing programs, an individual's own historical results may serve as a reference interval for interpretation of a suspicious finding. Another approach being investigated is the detection of the administered form of testosterone, usually an ester, in hair.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Absolute contraindications of testosterone include prostate cancer, elevated hematocrit (>54%), uncontrolled congestive heart failure, various other cardiovascular diseases, and uncontrolled obstructive sleep apnea. Breast cancer is said by some sources to be an absolute contraindication of testosterone therapy, but androgens including testosterone have also actually been used to treat breast cancer. Relative contraindications of testosterone include elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in men with a high risk of prostate cancer due to ethnicity or family history, severe lower urinary tract symptoms, and elevated hematocrit (>50%).


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Adverse effects may also include minor side effects such as oily skin, acne, and seborrhea, as well as loss of scalp hair, which may be prevented or reduced with 5α-reductase inhibitors. In women, testosterone can produce hirsutism (excessive facial/body hair growth), deepening of the voice, and other signs of virilization. Exogenous testosterone may cause suppression of spermatogenesis in men, leading to, in some cases, reversible infertility. Gynecomastia and breast tenderness may occur with high dosages of testosterone due to peripheral conversion of testosterone by aromatase into excessive amounts of the estrogen estradiol. Testosterone treatment, particularly in high dosages, can also be associated with mood changes, increased aggression, increased sex drive, spontaneous erections, and nocturnal emissions.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Other side effects include increased hematocrit, which can require venipuncture in order to treat, and exacerbation of sleep apnea.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: The FDA stated in 2015 that neither the benefits nor the safety of testosterone have been established for low testosterone levels due to aging. The FDA has required that testosterone pharmaceutical labels include warning information about the possibility of an increased risk of heart attacks and stroke. They have also required the label include concerns about abuse and dependence.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Injectable forms of testosterone can cause a lung problem called pulmonary oil microembolism (POME). Symptoms of POME include cough, shortness of breath, tightening of the throat, chest pain, sweating, dizziness, and fainting. A postmarketing analysis by the manufacturer of Aveed (testosterone undeconate injection) found that POME occurred at a rate of less than 1% per injection per year for Aveed.


title: Testosterone (medication)

text: Adverse effects of testosterone supplementation may include increased cardiovascular events (including strokes and heart attacks) and deaths based on three peer-reviewed studies involving men taking testosterone replacement. In addition, an increase of 30% in deaths and heart attacks in older men has been reported. Due to an increased incidence of adverse cardiovascular events compared to a placebo group, a Testosterone in Older Men with Mobility Limitations (TOM) trial (a National Institute of Aging randomized trial) was halted early by the Data Safety and Monitoring Committee. On January 31, 2014, reports of strokes, heart attacks, and deaths in men taking FDA-approved testosterone-replacement led the FDA to announce that it would be investigating the issue. Later, in September 2014, the FDA announced, as a result of the "potential for adverse cardiovascular outcomes", a review of the appropriateness and safety of Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT). The FDA now requires warnings in the drug labeling of all approved testosterone products regarding deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism.