global climate change strategy
Jan 30 2007
A lot of evidence has accumulated that the operations of global capitalism are driving the human species towards catastrophic change to the climate system. Some of the major consequences:
* Devastating flooding that could force mass dislocation for coastal areas throughout the world. The Greenland ice sheet has become highly unstable and its melting would raise see levels by 7 meters. The West Antarctic ice sheet is also unstable and its collapse into the sea could have similar catastrophic consequences. For example, most of Bangladesh would disappear on this scenario, creating 120 million refugees.
* Huge damage to food and water security, probably driving regional wars over resources in the 3rd world, due to things like severe droughts and disruptions to food production.
* if the global temperature rises by more than 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), there is very good chance it could set off a self-reinforcing cycle through things like melting of Artic permafrost, leading to a huge explosion of methane into the atmosphere, further ratcheting up global warming.
Two recent pieces on this subject worth reading:
A fairly good summary in "Socialist Voice":
http://www.socialistvoice.com/Soc-Voice/Soc-Voice-110.htm
An essay "An Inconvenient Truth, Part II" by Tom Athanasiou:
http://www.ecoequity.org/docs/InconvenientTruth2.pdf
Athanasiou argues for a crash program in which the imperialist countries of the global north pay a "transition fund" to the global south so as to, essentially, enable them to continue to
develop away from poverty while moving towards a non-carbon-based form of development.
The argument for this is as follows: At the beginning of the industrial revolution, the world only had so much room for increase in global CO2 before it would touch off catastrophic consequences. The developed capitalist metropoles have, essentially, used this "carbon budget" up in the course of their
own development, even tho this was part of the global commons and not their private property. That being the case, the global north owes a debt to the global south. Moreover, he argues that it would be simply unrealistic to ask countries like China and India to forfet carbon-based development at this point because they won't go along, unless some other path of development is posed.
Athanasiou argues that time is very short and a crash program is needed. How then do we deal with this, from a left-libertarian point of view?
t.
Jan 30 2007
#2
Assuming you're serious, what do we say in that newsletter, MJ? i mean, we're talking about perhaps the greatest "market failure" in the entire history of capitalism.
t.
Jan 30 2007
#3
IMHO:
Climate change is too big a problem to be tackled by social movements at this stage. We don't have the power to deal with it.
Even as climate change gets worse, it won't (unlike the general trend of a wage-labour/capitalist economy) give power to those it hurts. It'll just hurt them, and leave them even less powerful.
Powerful social movements need to be built around everyday experience. But climate change doesn't create experiences you can organise round.
And though I think capital is more than capable of stopping climate change the instant it believes it will net-suffer from it (to put it in a very crude way), the way that climate change happens is very caught up with how capital operates.
So, I reckon, you have to build a movement around other things (like work), and make political education on climate change something which you do your best to insert into that movement. When your movement is very powerful, it can do other things apart from its initial issues.
I know this is a basic POV, but thought I'd spell it out so people can argue against it, or agree or whatever.
Jan 30 2007
#4
No, I'm not serious. It's a little hard not to feel bitter and powerless on this one. The idea was to have a revolution before things got to this point, and then reorganize production within that context to avoid it. That didn't happen, and while catastrophe provides an opportunity for the working class to take over, it also provides an opportunity for a real classically totalitarian, statist response to things like massive coastal submersion and collapse of the food supply.
Jan 30 2007
#5
posi wrote:
IMHO:
And though I think capital is more than capable of stopping climate change the instant it believes it will net-suffer from it (to put it in a very crude way),
I think the jury's still out on that one.
Jan 30 2007
#6
i can see posi's point. i think it does provide ammunition for the critique of capitalism, tho.
it is a very large-scale -- world-scale -- problem. Athanasiou points out that the program of the Waxman-Jeffords bill -- a climate change proposal in the US Congress -- would actually lower U.S. emissions by the amount required for a crash program. he says the problem is going to be convincing the third world countries to go along. since we're talking about inter-state relationships, this does appear hard to have an effect on, tho of course we try in regard to war and invasion, for example.
Whether the global capitalist class can begin to grasp its own doom and try to do something about it is, as MJ says, not yet certain. it's such an anarchic, greed-encouraging system. it seems capable of driving the human species off a cliff.
t.
Jan 30 2007
#7
MJ wrote:
I think the jury's still out on that one.
Yeah, fair enough. Impossible to say definitely at this stage. But I think the 'capitalism necessarily implies ecological collapse' position is way too simplistic. Similar things were said about apartheid, etc.
gatorojinegro wrote:
i can see posi's point. i think it does provide ammunition for the critique of capitalism, tho.
Yeah, definitely, which is why people involved in potentially powerful movements should have an understanding of it. It's a question of whether it provides ammunition for mass organising as well as critique.
Jan 30 2007
#8
another problem is that the capitalist elite and their technical allies tend to get stuck in their own ideology, so there are all these non-solutions about trading pollution credits -- it simply won't work. The Dag Hammerskjold Foundation in Sweden has published a good critique of this at:
http://www.dhf.uu.se/pdffiler/DD2006_48_carbon_trading/carbon_trading_web.pdf
t.
Jan 30 2007
#9
gatorojinegro wrote:
another problem is that the capitalist elite and their technical allies tend to get stuck in their own ideology, so there are all these non-solutions about trading pollution credits -- it simply won't work. The Dag Hammerskjold Foundation in Sweden has published a good critique of this at.
I doubt they're stuck in their own ideology in the case of carbon credit markets, I think they're just lieing, and the people really making the decisions know they're lieing.
In the case of apartheid, the ideology melted away in the face of the demands of the long term integrity of capital... it may well be too late for hundreds of thousands of people, but in time for the ruling class. People didn't believe it could happen, it seemed impossible. Could well be the same again.
Jan 30 2007
#10
Carbon trading is already becoming a market in itself - offsetting etc. it's fucking sickening.
Agree pretty much with Posi - the best thing we can do is try to develop defense around everyday issues that could then be applied to catastophic situations - climate change makes this more urgent, but I'm not sure it'll lead to that until it's too late.
Jan 31 2007
#11
"And though I think capital is more than capable of stopping climate change the instant it believes it will net-suffer from it (to put it in a very crude way), the way that climate change happens is very caught up with how capital operates."
- yeah but the problem is that this years' climate change isn't the product of last years' carbon emissions. As far as I know there is a time lag, so even if climate change was seriously addressed now it would still continue based on the emissions of the past.
Climate change has been well known about and 'official' for almost 20 years now - with essentially total inaction, so I wouldn't assume capitalism will solve it.
"Powerful social movements need to be built around everyday experience. But climate change doesn't create experiences you can organise round."
- resource extraction does as does sometimes developments which contribute to climate change, e.g. airport/motorway expansion.
You might say also extreme weather is or at least has been for some people an 'everyday experience' of sorts, and we are probably more likely to see more and more of that, than a sudden collapse.
Also apartheid and ecological limits are not really the same thing, they are only similar in that some people said similar things about them.
There are ecological limits, this has been seen before on a local scale e.g. the Dust Bowl in the U.S. in the 30s, the problem isn't so much with this or that technology but with the fact capital needs growth and factors like the future and the environment don't show up on balance sheets. It could get rid of fossil fuels, but just go down some other path of destruction if it did.
Jan 31 2007
#12
MJ wrote: "Put out a newsletter?"
My friends say I'm sarcastic. I reply, no, MJ is sarcastic.
I used to think capitalism was the fruit of evil genius. These (ever warmer) days, I see much evil, but little genius.
Now to figger out how to include a cute byline 'neath my name...
Jan 31 2007
#13
Yeah I pretty much agree with posi here. We wrote our thoughts on the environment here:
http://libcom.org/thought/environment
Randy wrote:
Now to figger out how to include a cute byline 'neath my name...
...as a goat?
Feb 4 2007
#14
John wrote: "...as a goat?"
Come again?
Feb 4 2007
#15
Randy wrote:
John wrote: "...as a goat?"Come again?
I think John was suggesting that putting "...as a goat" under your name would be cute. Check it out..
Randy
...as a goat
Now I don't think thats cute one bit, just plain offensive!!!
Feb 4 2007
#16
bozemananarchy wrote: "Now I don't think thats cute one bit, just plain offensive!!!"
Not at all. Just don't pronounce my full name, Randy Lowens, as "randy loins". (Yes, Atlanta comrades, my assumed monikers only get sillier, and more obscure.)
Okay, I think we are offically off topic...
Feb 7 2007
#17
John. wrote:
We wrote our thoughts on the environment here:
http://libcom.org/thought/environment
Im sure Im not the only one who feels that environmental catastrophe is now inevitable - its like a game of chicken with each nation state racing toward doomsday, and perhaps some might start pulling away before the crash, but it will be too little too late.
Much as I am convinced enivronmental meltdown is now inevitable I am also confident that this will be the greatest moment of opportunity for alternative systems to be introduced - although I might not quite be alive to see it, and although it has been thought before, I think that at least by a hundred years time capitalism will be over - more likely in fifty my crystal ball tells me. - Certainly this period of what I would call "high capitalism"...
Even if I'm half right I think this opportunity is one that can be planned for now - much of what will happen can be predicted, and already has been predicted by different enivornmental bodies. The political fall out can be preempted also - as things get dire governments will be forced into punitive action (whether this will be punitive to business is yet to be seen...). As movement/transport will become harder there will never have been a better time for people to act and organise themselves locally.
Quote:
From the LIbcom manifesto:A libertarian communist society will help the environment in three ways.
First, the capitalist/state system that was the main cause of environmental problems, a system oriented to profit and power, will be replaced by a society based on need-satisfaction and grassroots democracy.
Secondly, the excessive levels of consumption by the ultra-rich will be eliminated altogether, as will the idea that happiness can only be gained by buying more and more useless commodities.
Finally, the workers will be able to install (and further develop) the ecologically sustainable technologies that the bosses currently suppress.
I think the pressures of climate change will push towards these goals even without any effort from anarchists/mutualists etc., - the momentum will be on our side - all it needs is a good push.
Put out a newsletter?