Thursday, February 28, 2019
Climate Leviathon
If emissions continue unabated throughout the 21st century, the climate of North American urban areas will become, on average, most like the contemporary climate of locations about 500 miles away and mainly to the south.
The original New Deal of the 1930s was not a single program or piece of legislation – it was a whole era of turmoil in which contesting forces tried to meet a devastating crisis and shape the future of American society.
Jeremy Brecher Labor for Sustainability
Lots of policy wonks out there trying to put meat on the bones of the Green New Deal. After wandering in the wilderness for so long, focusing on the COP gatherings, going to TED talks by Al Gore, dragging through divestment campaigns and forming climate non-profits, they finally get a spark of tangible activity to glom on to. An actual Resolution put forward by actual elected officials. A charismatic champion gaining celebrity status. And so a thousand proposals bloom explaining how the government "should" create new agencies, "should" fund massive projects, "should" employ everyone with high paying jobs. However, one senses a bit of irrational exuberance considering the actual "political" landscape.
This government everyone is suddenly so confident about, how is it imagined into being? Lots of people voting for the good guys? There is just a sudden, willful, collective historical amnesia infecting "progressives"; write a position paper and will it into existence. Hope for Change and start fundraising.
Or techno-engineering optimism like this from Albert Bates, a scientist: "In this moment of crisis, we are blessed with emerging technologies, cognitive sciences and holistic management practices that open previously undisturbed system dynamics to our thoughtful, meticulous, deliberate consideration."
Thoughtful consideration? Really? Is he talking about human governance or the thing scientists do (research and writing)? Where we find the most interesting, nervous analysis is the business press. This is an example from The Economist:
"But recurrent droughts, floods, heatwaves and storms can all hurt—particularly in a world of complex, just-in-time supply chains readily thrown out of whack."
Friday, February 22, 2019
Bern or Burn
As expected, the old war horse Bernie Sanders has jumped into the fray, lifting the spirits of the left with a promise of big change. There is also a sigh of relief, because a "political revolution" against "the billionaire class" is a lot less frightening than a social revolution against Capital and the State. Nothing too risky involved here; just debate and fundraising and canvassing etc..election campaigning made to sound radical but pretty standard fare. Yes, the rhetoric will be heated, a good thing. The issues brought up and positions taken will no doubt cause some controversy and a lot of young people will be mobilized. The question is: to what end?
Bernie is labeled a socialist and so he can either try to diffuse the meaning or expound on it. His primary opponents will take all kinds of "progressive" positions to separate themselves from "the radical fringe" and a rare, actual choice will be presented. Especially when it comes to climate policy, there will be an opportunity to spell out the REAL difference between democratic, just and sustainable solutions backed by science or solutions designed to appease investors and The Market. And conservatives will be forced into accepting science as a discipline or rejecting it.
Glen Corp., the global mega mining firm, is reading tea leaves and making a predictable move by capping its coal production at 150 million metric tons per year. This brings accolades from environmentalists and higher profits in the kind of win-win we will be seeing much more of as things "heat up". As everybody sends Bernie 27 dollars, they tend to forget the Fossil Capital is also strategizing and they have trillions of dollars and a huge megaphone to work with.
Let's imagine Bernie wins and the Dems also gain a majority in the Senate; what now? If the left pushes too hard, Capital will threaten to go on strike. The stock market will slump, the US credit rating will drop, unemployment could start to rise... You think we have "polarization" now? So what happens to all that rage in the streets? Under what slogans are people mobilized? What other events are creating their own narratives, for instance extreme weather, Brexit and the global economy, oil markets, mass migration, terrorism, who knows what kind of crazy shit is headed our way? We can count on hurricanes and fires, mass civil disobedience and right-wing reaction, scandal and corruption, high crimes and misdemeanors.
But to get the ball rolling, Bernie has to make one crucial decision: green capitalism or big time State intervention. Carbon taxes or bans on production. Public utilities or private. GDP growth or carbon budget?
Bernie is labeled a socialist and so he can either try to diffuse the meaning or expound on it. His primary opponents will take all kinds of "progressive" positions to separate themselves from "the radical fringe" and a rare, actual choice will be presented. Especially when it comes to climate policy, there will be an opportunity to spell out the REAL difference between democratic, just and sustainable solutions backed by science or solutions designed to appease investors and The Market. And conservatives will be forced into accepting science as a discipline or rejecting it.
Glen Corp., the global mega mining firm, is reading tea leaves and making a predictable move by capping its coal production at 150 million metric tons per year. This brings accolades from environmentalists and higher profits in the kind of win-win we will be seeing much more of as things "heat up". As everybody sends Bernie 27 dollars, they tend to forget the Fossil Capital is also strategizing and they have trillions of dollars and a huge megaphone to work with.
Let's imagine Bernie wins and the Dems also gain a majority in the Senate; what now? If the left pushes too hard, Capital will threaten to go on strike. The stock market will slump, the US credit rating will drop, unemployment could start to rise... You think we have "polarization" now? So what happens to all that rage in the streets? Under what slogans are people mobilized? What other events are creating their own narratives, for instance extreme weather, Brexit and the global economy, oil markets, mass migration, terrorism, who knows what kind of crazy shit is headed our way? We can count on hurricanes and fires, mass civil disobedience and right-wing reaction, scandal and corruption, high crimes and misdemeanors.
But to get the ball rolling, Bernie has to make one crucial decision: green capitalism or big time State intervention. Carbon taxes or bans on production. Public utilities or private. GDP growth or carbon budget?
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Rumblings
In an unexpected twist, Senate Leader Mitch Mc Connel, the very smirking face of cynical capitalist realism, has called for a vote on the GND. His calculation is that the vote forces Democrats to choose between socialism and capitalism. Which could actually be true. And be amazing. At the most Spectacular level, the Repubs have been busy painting the GND as a subversive plot to undermine Free Enterprise ( I only wish) and many centrist Dems are no doubt sensing a trap being laid. Progressive Dems will try to minimize the re-distributive aspects of the resolution and pooh pooh the crazy talk about socialism. Which puts a self-avowed socialist like AOC in a strange position as well.She can't settle for solar powered sweatshops and yet she has to navigate a corrupt system of patronage and power.
So there's a lot of moving parts here but it is as close to a moment of political rupture as we've seen in some time. Young people are pissed and want action. Puts me in a spot as well; could I support an effort to get the resolution passed, with all the electoralism and voting shit it implies? Is it too reformist, putting too much faith in party politics? I kind of feel like old Eugene Debs:
“There was a time in my life, before I became a Socialist, when I permitted myself as a member of the Democratic party to be elected to a state legislature,” he later said. “I have been trying to live it down. I am as much ashamed of that as I am proud of having gone to jail.”
On the one hand, if all the Dems just called Mitch's bluff and said yeah, we want to re-structure the economy and finance it with the wealth of the plutocrats, well, I just gotta join the Party. If every kid in America went on strike and shamed their parents into going on strike and the GND just kept getting more and more radical, I would have no choice. However, if they win the vote by making it sound like a capitalist stimulus plan and then start squashing the more progressive elements, we are back to square one.
We have to wait to see how this plays out. Much depends on what kind of tactics and messaging Sunrise goes with in this decisive moment. If they go conciliatory and start talking about markets and incentives and investment bullshit, they lose that important, militant energy from the Left. And if they lose the Senate vote as well, they are toast. If they stick to the science and the imperative of structural change they could still lose the vote but battle lines will have been drawn; as stark as they have ever been. The legislative process will be de-legitimated and the grassroots energized. Then we have a real fight. AOC can call for worker ownership of the means of production. Bernie can call for a general strike.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Green Dream Spectre
Now that I have a Medicare gym membership, besides eavesdropping, I get to listen to FOX News while treadmilling my way to fitness. This week they are giddy over the Dems being invaded by socialists and Trump's red-baiting in his State of the Union. They see a big split coming, much like the Tea Party did the Repubs. As I have long argued, the issue that animates the right, their "master signifier", is capitalism. All the guns and abortion and immigration stuff is click-bait for the rubes; real conservatives know the battle is over private ownership of the means of production. And having had zero ideological challenge for sixty years, their only response to a resurgent Left-left is amusement. So that when the guillotines start being sharpened there is going to be some real bewilderment.
Unfortunately, the democratic socialists are a little ambivalent about capitalism as well. The newest high profile "spokesperson",DSA member and newly elected Congresswoman AOC has expressed the notion they can co-exist, that rather than taking power it means workers having more say. Like a big union. Bernie has always hedged when it comes to long-term goals. But this issue which AOC has chosen to highlight, global warming, forces the question front and center. As Naomi Klein perceptively pointed out, the Right understands that it is capitalism itself that is threatened because it has finally found a barrier it cannot overcome. Their plan, Thelma and Louise style ecocide on a global scale, is obvious. From a piece by Carolyn Kormann in the New Yorker:
If emissions are an accelerator on the climate, Schmidt said during his presentation, “We still collectively have our foot on that accelerator. While there are some indications in some parts of the world that people are working quite hard to reduce those emissions, collectively, we are not doing so.”
Or this from an article in The Economist:
"ExxonMobil, the giant that rivals admire and green activists love to hate. As our briefing explains, it plans to pump 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than in 2017. If the rest of the industry pursues even modest growth, the consequence for the climate could be disastrous."
The trepidation is there but the dots can't be connected. The most any mainstream pundit can propose, is that the US somehow achieve "the goals of the Paris Accord", which in themselves are a terrifying example of global inertia. Voluntary reduction targets, right?. Our Montana legislature is considering a bill to put a $10 a ton tax on emissions, so much worse than a joke and it stands no chance whatsoever. All of it a huge waste of time and effort, designed to be such. The only way the shit will be left in the ground is if the machine is dismantled.
Unfortunately, the democratic socialists are a little ambivalent about capitalism as well. The newest high profile "spokesperson",DSA member and newly elected Congresswoman AOC has expressed the notion they can co-exist, that rather than taking power it means workers having more say. Like a big union. Bernie has always hedged when it comes to long-term goals. But this issue which AOC has chosen to highlight, global warming, forces the question front and center. As Naomi Klein perceptively pointed out, the Right understands that it is capitalism itself that is threatened because it has finally found a barrier it cannot overcome. Their plan, Thelma and Louise style ecocide on a global scale, is obvious. From a piece by Carolyn Kormann in the New Yorker:
If emissions are an accelerator on the climate, Schmidt said during his presentation, “We still collectively have our foot on that accelerator. While there are some indications in some parts of the world that people are working quite hard to reduce those emissions, collectively, we are not doing so.”
Or this from an article in The Economist:
"ExxonMobil, the giant that rivals admire and green activists love to hate. As our briefing explains, it plans to pump 25% more oil and gas in 2025 than in 2017. If the rest of the industry pursues even modest growth, the consequence for the climate could be disastrous."
The trepidation is there but the dots can't be connected. The most any mainstream pundit can propose, is that the US somehow achieve "the goals of the Paris Accord", which in themselves are a terrifying example of global inertia. Voluntary reduction targets, right?. Our Montana legislature is considering a bill to put a $10 a ton tax on emissions, so much worse than a joke and it stands no chance whatsoever. All of it a huge waste of time and effort, designed to be such. The only way the shit will be left in the ground is if the machine is dismantled.
Sunday, February 3, 2019
New Strategy
From Politico.com:
"Leading climate scientists and meteorologists are banking on a new strategy for talking about climate change: Take the politics out of it.
That means avoiding the phrase “climate change,” so loaded with partisan connotations as it is. Stop talking about who or what is most responsible."
Yeah, this is real. It is sort of the George Lakoff approach to language; only use bullshit that skirts the real issue. It is both condescending (those people can't understand what we understand do to THEIR bias)and counterproductive. Oh, and not a "new strategy" at all. "Leading scientists and meteorologists" have been avoiding the subject for decades, at least the hard discussion about what needs to be done.
Then there is the recent article in the NYTimes where the author wonders why skiers, being rich elites and all, aren't more "political" when it comes to global warming.And why resort owners aren't more active. But of course the whole frame for "politically active" is legislative, lobbying your representative to pass climate/environment friendly bills. The owners mostly say they don't want to sound too strident and scare off investors, wealthy clients etc..as if passing some bill will slow the economy.
The truly perverse part is the photo towards the end showing a bunch of coal miners standing around listening to some guy talk about "clean energy". Apparently they trap some methane from the coal mine to power the chairlifts. What the Davos. Fortune 500 crowd calls a win-win. Doing good while doing well. Crush with one hand while pretending to help with the other. The Times journalist was impressed.
"Leading climate scientists and meteorologists are banking on a new strategy for talking about climate change: Take the politics out of it.
That means avoiding the phrase “climate change,” so loaded with partisan connotations as it is. Stop talking about who or what is most responsible."
Yeah, this is real. It is sort of the George Lakoff approach to language; only use bullshit that skirts the real issue. It is both condescending (those people can't understand what we understand do to THEIR bias)and counterproductive. Oh, and not a "new strategy" at all. "Leading scientists and meteorologists" have been avoiding the subject for decades, at least the hard discussion about what needs to be done.
Then there is the recent article in the NYTimes where the author wonders why skiers, being rich elites and all, aren't more "political" when it comes to global warming.And why resort owners aren't more active. But of course the whole frame for "politically active" is legislative, lobbying your representative to pass climate/environment friendly bills. The owners mostly say they don't want to sound too strident and scare off investors, wealthy clients etc..as if passing some bill will slow the economy.
The truly perverse part is the photo towards the end showing a bunch of coal miners standing around listening to some guy talk about "clean energy". Apparently they trap some methane from the coal mine to power the chairlifts. What the Davos. Fortune 500 crowd calls a win-win. Doing good while doing well. Crush with one hand while pretending to help with the other. The Times journalist was impressed.
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