Naomi Klein has a new book, This Changes Everything, which I have not yet read – but which has gotten a lot of ink, in particular for its supposed theme that capitalism is somehow incompatible with a healthy climate. I’m told that this is not a fair reading of the book, and in the interview above, Klein seems to target a particularly virulent, Koch Brothers, John Birch Society version of capitalism in which any regulations or limits on corporate power are considered violations of “freedom”.
That said, the book trailer, below, seems designed to play into the worst fears and stereotypes of the Fox News crowd, with lots of scary non-caucasions doing scary things, like walking around, talking, linking arms, dancing and drumming and stuff.
In other words, the root of the carbon problem is capitalism, says Klein. Or at least the kind of unfettered, absolutist “disaster capitalism” that was the target of her previous effort, “The Shock Doctrine.” In that sense, the aptly titled “This Changes Everything” might be seen as the third volume in Klein’s controversial and thoroughly researched challenge to neoliberal ideology.
The essence of her argument is that taking on climate change is a fleeting opportunity to right structural wrongs in political and socioeconomic systems that have stood largely unchallenged for decades. Given the problem’s size, Klein says, the only way forward is radical change. So the political right’s willingness to sow doubt about long-settled science and denounce climate moderates as nefarious communists belies not a willful ignorance so much as a recognition of the issue’s real scope.
–Klein’s very premise will elicit scoffs from some modern environmentalists, many of whom see in capitalism history’s most efficient engine of social change. Indeed there has been massive growth in renewable energy investment and deployment in the past two decades, and — perhaps tellingly — Klein does not take down clean tech capitalists and entrepreneurs the way she so skillfully dissects big green groups and celebrity billionaires championing their cause du jour. That’s a notable exception in a book that in its subtitle pits “capitalism vs. the climate.”
But clearly something is impeding the movement’s progress. Implicit in this book’s thesis is a battle for the future of environmentalism: Is it in basically good hands, or is the status quo broken beyond repair?
Meanwhile, the reliably right wing Daily Caller points out that among the groups who will be part of this weekends big climate demo in New York, are a number of communist, socialist, and lefty types – making this demonstration exactly like every other civil rights, women’s rights, workers rights, environmental, gay rights, anti-war, or any other kind of remotely lib-to-left demonstration of the last 80 years. A penetrating and astute observation, indeed.
The upcoming “People’s Climate March” intended to show massive support for a global warming treaty to world leaders at the United Nations climate summit later this month is not only being supported by environmentalists, but also communist and socialist groups.
Among the literally hundreds of groups participating in the march are environmentalists and labor unions, as well as social justice groups, Islamic groups and other religious organizations.
But supporters of the “People’s Climate March” also include Communist Party USA, Socialist Party USA and a hodgepodge of other socialist organizations.
Socialist organizations supporting the climate march include the Democratic Socialists of America, Ecosocialist Horizons, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Freedom Socialist Party, the International Socialist Organization, Socialist Action and the Socialist Alternative.
For the “regulation is communism” crowd, any kind of proposal for allowing human beings to live more, well, humanely with one another, evokes a “you are not the boss of me” response, that seems to have more to do with faulty toilet training than economics. In fact, as I’ve reported before, corporations around the world, for the most part, get it that climate change is a real problem, and are preparing for inevitable limits on carbon emissions. The New York Times has reported that “…at least 29 companies, some with close ties to Republicans, including ExxonMobil, Walmart and American Electric Power, are incorporating a price on carbon into their long-term financial plans.”
An increasing number of big corporations expect governments worldwide to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions to help tackle climate change and some are already factoring in the cost to guide future investment decisions, a report found on Monday.
Some 150 large listed companies – including 29 in the United States such as Dow Chemical Company, banking group Goldman Sachs and oil firm ExxonMobil – now incorporate an internal carbon price ranging from $6-80 per tonne, according to a report by CDP, which gathers environmental information from companies worldwide on behalf of investors.
CDP said the report was the first global analysis of corporate views explicitly mentioning carbon pricing among the 6,000 company disclosures the group gathers annually.
Around 40 nations and over 20 states, regions or cities have either set up or are planning to set up carbon pricing via taxes on emissions or by setting up emissions trading systems that cap emissions and allow companies to buy and sell permits to emit.
In contrast, U.S. federal lawmakers have repeatedly blocked efforts to price carbon emissions at the national level, amid fears over costs and job losses, but California and a group of northeast states have introduced their own policies.
For electric utilities, the time of reckoning is now. With renewable energy either already competitive, or soon to be in large areas of the US, informed observers are warning of a “death spiral” for electric generators that cling to the business models of the last century. At a conference last week in Traverse City, MI, I spoke to Doug Jester, a well informed consultant on energy issues for the firm 5 Lakes Energy. Jester observed that the current situation has parallels to the experience of the media industry at the advent of the internet, the music industry to file sharing, and landline phone networks as cell phones become the standard. In the utility space, he argues, as in the cell phone example, successful companies will transition by becoming more competitive, less dependent on regulation and monopoly, more capitalist, one might say.
I love the “guilt by association” meme of the political right, about those “Commies” in the environmental movement. Of course we could turn the tables on them showing the Neo-Nazi support for some of their positions.
My older brother sent me an anti-Obama screed from Newsweek in their final issue. Outside of some incredibly sloppy fact checking in the article, one big supporter of the piece is none other than guess who?
https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t918531/
And another article about the sloppy fact checking on the part of Conservative talkers at Newsweek:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/a-full-fact-check-of-niall-fergusons-very-bad-argument-against-obama/261306/
This doesn’t mean that Obama should get a pass. It does indicate that right wing opinion is more often based on sloppy thinking and argumentation than well thought out reasoning.
” Jester observed that the current situation has parallels to the experience of the media industry at the advent of the internet, the music industry to file sharing, and landline phone networks as cell phones become the standard. In the utility space, he argues, as in the cell phone example, successful companies will transition by becoming more competitive, less dependent on regulation and monopoly, more capitalist, one might say.”
What a tragedy it will be for the American family if this fellow gets his way. More capitalistic?!?
Capitalism means extracting profits. But the sources of renewable energy are free – the sun, wind, tide. Jester wants the American family to pay through the nose, and pay through the nose forever, for electricity that should cost next to nothing.
Jester’s vision of privatizing the energy sector, and squeezing even more profit out of the pockets of American families is disgusting.
It is the argument of the capitalistic motherfuckers who bought up municipal water districts and squeeze blood from some of the poorest people in the world for a necessity – water.
It is the argument of Dick Cheney and Halliburton, who privatized the functions of the military and charged hundreds of dollars for a gallon of truck fuel.
This is the argument of economic fascism.
Getting our energy from renewables is a social justice issue. Our energy can and should cost much much less in future than it does right now. Don’t let the Jesters and the Kochs and the Musks of this world persuade you that our energy future should be anything but a public commodity.
A significant amount of hope lies in European socialist democracies. But what did we see during the last economic downturn? We saw banksters taking opportunities, where governments had gotten a bit too greedy relative to their peers, to showcase them as examples of why socialist democracies ‘didn’t work’, then using their position of power to try their best to dismantle the social democratic model (union busting, large haircuts for government salaries, increased retirement age, etc.). Ironically it was the banksters that caused the downturn to begin with.
I imagine these Euro social democracies would work a lot better if all nation states adopted their model. It’s hard to compete against a nation whose prerogative is to exploit their workers to the fullest capacity for profit, which unfortunately puts them at a market advantage relative to non-exploitive states.
Klein actually doesn’t go far enough in her call for change. While her proposition is partly summarized as “…the political right’s willingness to sow doubt about long-settled science and denounce climate moderates as nefarious communists belies not a willful ignorance so much as a recognition of the issue’s real scope.” in fact the issue’s REAL SCOPE goes far beyond the extractive economic system. What needs radical change is human nature itself, with its innate, indelible propensity to grow and, unfortunately, that’s not possible given, you know, evolution and all. So she’s selling books flogging the 1% as though capitalism is responsible when capitalism is not the cause of growth, it is a highly developed system in response to growth. The anti-capitalists conveniently forget that the Aztecs and the ancient Chinese had their 1%, too, along with a lot of more primitive tribes around the world, and many ancient civilizations did stellar jobs in destroying their environment, and their climate conducive to growing food. Humanity is a cycle of overshoot and collapse. This time, it’s global, and probably permanent.
Right – capitalism is a response to the historical trends of rapid territory expansion (the New World) and rapid energy increase (fossil fuels) and technological increase (which has a symbiotic relationship with energy). Capitalism is a maximizing agent to these more important trends. It’s a driver for environmental destruction in that it maximizes its speed and reach, but there are deeper, underlying issues driving capitalism itself. (And underneath all of the above are the basic biological and social drives of the human species.)
When someone talks about the necessity of ending capitalism or limiting it (by heavy regulation), they are addressing only a part of the issue – unfortunately. The socialists address legitimate equality concerns, but in the end they are piggybacking on environmental destruction as a political tool for grabbing influence, if not power. We could have a system where 1% consume 50% of natural resources (not personally, but in business and financial concerns) and the remaining 99% percent consume the other half – a system we have now – or we could have a system where 100% of the resources are shared equitably. The end results are roughly the same.
Capitalism is far more efficient than socialism at consuming natural capital, so the process moves faster – but the destination is roughly the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plan_for_the_Transformation_of_Nature
Of course, conservatives have their heads so far up their backsides that they might actually believe the hyperbole that regulation equals communism – which is much like saying Protestantism equals atheism.
So you just delete comments with which you don’t agree? Does not sound very sciency. I guess your “science” is settled.
I only delete comments that are book-length and not on point, obscene, and/or offensive.
I do ask that anyone making an assertion support it with a source generally regarded as reliable.
Welcome.
What about the 17 year pause? Where did all of the heat go? 54 explanations and counting. Which one is correct? http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/09/12/there-are-now-52-explanations-for-pause-in-global-warming/
well, the short answer, there is no pause.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geS6mtY0XsQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=047vmL6Q_4g
Climate denier hero George Bush famously said, “I don’t do nuance”. We saw how that perspective worked out.
Climate deniers would do well to understand that climate science is nothing if not nuanced and complex. Complex, it turns out, just like the climate.