Presented on The Old Mole Variety Hour, December 3, 2018
The report
of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released last
month seems to have tasked the governments of the world, or more broadly, the
human species with an impossible task: to reduce and eliminate the use of
fossil fuels, by the end of the next decade. Doing so could prevent the most
serious climate catastrophes that will otherwise occur within the lifetimes of
most of the world’s population. We have the knowledge and tools we need to make
the changes in the production and use of energy necessary to avoid the
destruction from floods, fires, heat waves, droughts, rising sea levels, and
crop failures. What has been lacking is a concrete, actionable proposal, put before the US Congress, that is equal to
the task. There is now such a proposal before Congress.
But first, consider how enormous
that task before us is: .
Every item produced, transported,
and used or consumed by the earth’s seven billion people involves the use of
energy at every stage, from the mining, growing and transporting of raw
materials, the manufacturing process, the transportation of the products, to
the use of products, especially those that use power like stoves, computers, cars,
and jet planes including fighter jets and bombers. How could all this energy be
either eliminated or else produced without burning carbon? If we fail, if we go
on adding CO2 to the atmosphere, thereby increasing the temperatures of the
ocean, the air, and the earth, and ramping up a cascade of snowballing effects
leading ultimately to the end of life as we know it, or indeed of all life, then what kind of crime would
we be guilty of?[1]
Of course it is not really “we” –
all of humanity, that is engaged in committing the crime of destroying the thin
layer of water, soil, and air on which life depends but rather the masters of
capital whose profits and power depend on the continuing expropriation and
burning of buried carbon to fuel their industries. Any direct attack on their
access to oil, coal, and natural gas is an attack on the foundations of their
life blood – the flow of profits and the ever expanding growth of capital. The
flow of capital from profits to investment to production to sale and thus to
more profits, profits that must in turn be invested – this flow underlies and
saturates life in capitalist society, which is why, as someone has written, it
is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of
capitalism.[2] But if we see that it is
capitalism that will lead to the end of the world, we had better learn to imagine and to implement the
end of capitalism.
Here's where the proposal of newly elected congressperson Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortea for a Select Committee For a Green New Deal comes in. “The select
committee,” according to proposal, “shall have authority to develop a detailed
national, industrial, economic mobilization plan … for the transition of the
United States economy to become carbon neutral and to significantly draw down
and capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and oceans and to promote
economic and environmental justice and equality.”
Like the original New Deal, this calls for more
than a legislative proposal or even a package of bills. It has to be, like the
original New Deal of the 1930s, quoting from Mike
Carr, “a fundamental shift in approach that is
relentless and comprehensive.” The breadth and depth of this shift is obvious in the list of goals for the Select
Committee, all to achieved in the next ten years:
- 100% of national power generation from renewable
sources;
- building a national, energy-efficient, “smart” grid;”[3]
- upgrading every residential and industrial building
for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety;
- decarbonizing the manufacturing, agricultural and
other industries;
- decarbonizing, repairing and improving transportation
and other infrastructure;
- funding massive investment in the drawdown and
capture of greenhouse gases;
- making “green” technology, industry, expertise,
products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of
becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries
transition to completely carbon neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal.
The proposal for a Green New Deal
adds that “a national, industrial, economic mobilization of this scope and
scale is a historic opportunity to virtually eliminate poverty in the United
States and to make prosperity, wealth and economic security available to
everyone participating in the transformation.” Accordingly, it calls for
guaranteed employment for everyone who wants to work (and obviously the plan
calls for a lot of work), for a national universal health plan, and some form
of guaranteed income.
The Green New Deal does not rely on
the private sector to pull all this off. Rather, quoting from the proposal, “the
majority of financing of the Plan shall be accomplished by the federal
government, using a combination of the Federal Reserve, a new public bank or
system of regional and specialized public banks, and [public] venture funds… in
order to ensure that interest and other investment returns generated from
public investments made in connection with the Plan will be returned to the
treasury, reduce taxpayer burden and allow for more investment.”
It is unlikely that Ocasio-Cortez’s
proposal for a select committee will be agreed to by the Democratic leadership
with their ties to big energy companies. Even if it were, its proposals could
not survive the Republican Senate or the current President. But the proposal is
something that can, and must, be at the center of a political movement that is
fully and openly aware that the claims of the very rich to own and control the
productive wealth of our nation are bogus. That wealth must now be devoted, not
to the profits of a few, but to the survival and the flourishing of the many – and not just the many humans,
but all the creatures of our living planet.
[1] Perhaps crimes of this
magnitude can be named only after they have been committed, but if there is no
one around after this crime, it will be nameless, though no less real, for all
eternity. Is something a crime (or ugly or beautiful, or good or evil) if there
is no one to call it by names of that kind?
[2] Mike Shaughnessy writes on
The
London Green Blog: “The problem is, that burning fossil fuels to
provide the energy for our economic system of productivism, is what drives
economic growth, and therefore provides wealth, is not compatible with reaching
climate change goals. Yes, we should be moving to renewable sources of energy
much faster than we are, but if growth keeps rising, as it must within the
logic of the system, it is unlikely to ever be enough.
We need a great transformation of our societies and
global economy, to use less resources, and to focus away from increasing GDP,
if we are to have a realistic chance of stopping catastrophic climate change.
[3] Local or regional grids
might give people more democratic control over how power is generated and distributed.
Bill Resnick and Jeremy Brecher discuss this in a recent interview.
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