Boomtown Redux

The NPR commentary bordered on ecstatic as they reported on the level of economic growth (measured in GDP) the US is currently experiencing and the projections for its continuation. Highest numbers since 1984.In his speech to Congress, Biden crowed about the surge and framed it as an existential race with China, a match between the inscrutable commies and American know-how. The man knows how to fire up re-blooded Americans, no doubt, but not one word about emissions. And Americans can always be counted on to spend and consume, with no thought of emissions. It is how we have been programmed. In my distant youth, my mission in life was to flee growth and development, to escape from the San Francisco Bay Area and find refuge in the great Northwest. I had witnessed environmental destruction on a scale that would be hard to describe and I thought I could settle in a place far enough removed that the Promethian forces could be kept at bay. Alas. The little mountain valley I escaped to is now being over-run by the wealth that was made through that destruction. The all-white, conservative lovers of capitalism are flocking to the "great readout", buying up land, building huge rachettes, buying brand new mega-trucks with the stimulus they got from the government they hate. So they can carry hay bales for their thoroughbred horses. If you think you are going to make a left turn onto the highway at 5:00 you can forget about it. I have seen this movie and it's not pretty...but I'm too old to move again.

More Worries

Pretty good prediction in my Apr.13 post that "big insurance"is getting the jitters. From NYTImes: "Swiss Re also modeled the economic impacts of a 3.2-degree increase by 2050, which it described as the “severe case” for temperature gains. If that happened, levels of wealth in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand would drop almost by half compared with a world with no climate change. The economy of Indonesia would be 40 percent smaller. India’s would be 35 percent smaller. The growing financial exposure of insurance companies to climate change is already having an effect on places at high risk. The United States government implemented a new pricing structure this month for flood insurance, which will mean higher costs for the most flood-prone homes. In California, homeowners in areas that are especially exposed to wildfires increasingly struggle to get insurance, prompting efforts by state officials to intervene. The Biden administration is expected to issue an executive order directing insurance regulators to assess the climate-related risks facing insurance companies." From the NYTimes April 20: — Under growing pressure from investors to address climate change, Exxon Mobil on Monday proposed a $100 billion project to capture the carbon emissions of big industrial plants in the Houston area and bury them deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Exxon, the largest U.S. oil company, wants to create a profit-making business out of the capture of carbon emitted by petrochemical plants and other industries. But its plan would require significant government support and intervention, including the introduction of a price or tax on carbon dioxide emissions, an idea that has failed to attract enough support in Congress in the past. These are contraditions that can only grow stronger and each week we will see the scramble for position get more and more frantic. The words "stranded assets" haven't cropped up yet but write-downs are inevitable as is a slump in the stock market. Then it gets interesting.

Boom Town

Capitalist logic insists the solution to every problem is more growth. All economic indicators point to a huge post-pandemic surge and of course that's what all the Biden stimulus is about. Locally, folks are definitely spending like there's no tomorrow- and if the economy booms there literally won't be. Everyone, including ecosocialists, are celebrating the "millions of new jobs" that go along with high growth and of course the Democrats will have lots to crow about when people have lots of disposable income to throw around. Entertainment, vacations, a new pick-up truck perhaps? All of which creates emissions. Despite Obama's assurance that "growth and emissions can be de-coupled.They can't. And that's the contradiction we are living and must heighten, though you won't win popularity contests. Which brings me to DSA and the big push to pass the PRO Act. I am worried that these young, mostly white, educated socialists are conflating the BLM uprising with a newly energized working class, of which I see little evidence. Apples and oranges. And my worry is that this young cadre doesn't know the dampening effect a loss (or string of losses) has on movement building capacity. The Amazon union campaign is a case in point, as was the Bernie campaign. Back to the local scene, the DSA chapter wants to support workers who were fired at the airport for walking out. But we already have a dozen under-staffed campaigns in the works, the workers are totally unorganized and a legal battle for re-instatement is pissing in the wind. Which brings me to my last complaint: our local 350 branch insists on arguing that we should abandon fossil fuels "because renewables are cheaper". And so they continue to reinforce capitalist/market logic despite the fact it is totally irrational. "Cheaper" by whose accounting? But they believe deeply that this argument and this logic is the only way to appeal to "the masses". Despite over a decade of watching emissions rise as a sclerotic movement flounders around Green Capitalism.

NOW They Get Worried

The measurement at Mana Loa hits 420 ppm for the first time in 3.6 million years and suddenly our Corporate Masters/ "ruling class"/ ie..Capital get concerned. The NYTimes reports that chief executives from more than 300 major companies including Google, Mc Donalds and Walmart signed a letter calling for the US to double its Paris Accord targets for emission cuts. This comes on the heels of some major investor groups such as Blackrock deciding to disinvest from fossil fuels. It is possible they are finally realizing that the science is correct and not just their business models, but the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. And now they want to be responsible and do the right thing (inadequate as it might be). It's possible. Or it is possible they saw Andreas Malm's latest book - "How To Blow Up A Pipeline" - and decided it was time for some slick public relations posturing. One can imagine the Zoom calls that initiated this letter; the COP meeting in Glasgow this fall, Biden nixing Keystone and wanting a corporate tax hike, it was getting harder and harder to straddle the fence and keep everybody happy. My intuition is that the big Re-Insurance companies, being the weakest, most vulnerable link, are demanding action. But having stalled and denied and prevaricated for the last thirty years they are not going to like the price tag. Neither will Biden when somebody finally has the courage to give him the real low-down. The trick for movement activists is not to get thrown off balance but to leverage the moment and force some real concessions. Start with Line 3 and DAPL. Stop talking about "the environment" (water, etc..) and FOCUS on emissions.

Old Mole

Revolutionary spirit, burrowing throughout history, pops its head up like an old mole. This metaphor, borrowed from the play Hamlet, was used by Marx in the Eighteenth Brumaire. I remain convinced that the contradiction of CO2 pollution will provide the occasion for the old mole to re-emmerge in the not-too-distant future. On the one hnd we have re-invigorated progressives hyping massive infrastructure spending as economic stimulus creating millions of good paying jobs. They would have us believe that the problem of economic growth can be solved by economic growth. Of course they don't use the words "carbon budget" as they promote this re-build because a budget suggests limits and capitalists ( the private investors the progressives hope to enlist) don't like talk of limits. Instead of a "chicken in every pot", these New Dealers are hoping to put an electric car (or two) in every garage. The conservative position was expressed by Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois in an interview with PBS. Having backed away from climate denial, he now warns against "climate hysteria" and "doom and gloom" rhetoric. He says a sensible mixture of nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration technology will solve our problems without a tyrannical nanny state eliminating all our American entrepreneurial spirit. He claimed America is leading the world in emission reductions and we will always need "baseload" fossil fuel energy. Not that Rep.Rod listens to Chomsky, but it is statements like this from Noam that he pooh poohs: "It's this generation that will decide whether human society continues in any organized form or whether we reach tipping points that are irreversible and we spin off into total catastrophe." I would argue the capitalist "democracy" that brought us Rep. Rod and Jeff Bezos is already total catastrophe but when the hurricanes start slamming the Gulf and the fires erupt out west, the mole will pop his head up in the form of insurance and real estate.