Capitalism vs the climate

Better late than never! -  I'm posting my video of the climate march in Manchester on 21st September, which I attended with friends from the Green Party. The Green Party had a really good turnout on a demo which was disappointingly small in numbers. The march, which was part of a global protest, coincided with the publication of one of the most important books of the year, if not the century so far. "This Changes Everything" by Naomi Klein puts across a powerful but simple message - it's turbo-charged, deregulated capitalism which is driving global warming and if we're going to prevent catastrophic climate change we have to stop extractivism - end of. And that means moving to a new, post-capitalist economy which will inevitably be more locally based with de-centralised energy production.



This is a message which a lot of people don't want to hear, and strangely, as Naomi Klein points out, many of those people are on the left of politics and in the green movement. What's more, those on the right, the capitalists and their cheerleaders, have a much better grasp of the connection between dangerous climate change and the economic activities which they promote, which is why they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars funding climate change denial, something which Naomi Klein documents very well in her book.

I've posted about the climate change deniers before, and although its easy to understand their motives its harder to understand why so many who want to fight climate change are reluctant to point the finger at capitalism. It could be something to do with the fact that in our western culture the idea that mankind has the right to dominate and control nature runs very deep, coming as it does from a Judeo-Christian tradition which pre-dates capitalism by a thousand years and more. That means we can cut down forests, extract all the ores and fossil fuels on the planet, and empty the seas of fish if we want to. Add to that the fact that we are addicted to consumption, and that the mainstream left has been weak on real economic alternatives and you may go some way towards explaining this conundrum.

I started this blog around the time of the Great Economic Crash of 2008. Much of the reason behind it was to try and understand what was happening, and to talk about it. Blogging as therapy for me, but also as a way of finding solutions to the ongoing economic and environmental crises we are in. In many of the posts on this blog I've written about ideas which point the way towards dealing with capitalism and climate change, from Transition to the growth of renewable energy, to the Green New Deal, to the growth of locally owned and controlled co-operatives, we do have the means of living and building prosperity in ways that are much less destructive environmentally, economically, and socially than capitalism. 

There is much cause for hope, we can still keep warming below 2C, but we need to engage and energise the majority who can't see an alternative to capitalism and the endless 'growth' we hear about every time politicians talk about the economy in the media. We need to convince that majority that a socially just, collective response to climate change is viable and can provide the jobs, houses, education and healthcare that they need. People want change but they have yet to be persuaded that its possible. That is a huge task but its one which we can carry through successfully if we continue to campaign and push for political change through the Green Party.

The 'free' market right continue their attack on renewable energy

I've posted recently about how the 'free' market right have been at the forefront of the climate change denial movement through shadowy groups like the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), and are actively undermining the fight against climate change. Now we hear from the Telegraph that more than 100 Tory MPs have written to the PM asking him to end subsidies for windfarms. Not only are these subsidies, which help the renewable energy sector to grow and compete, under attack, but there are also increasing objections to windfarms in the UK.

Lets deal with the subsidies first; because relatively cheap coal and gas are still available and the renewables energy sector is still developing, subsidies are needed to enable the widespread installation of energy derived from wind and solar. The solar industry recently created 25,000 much needed jobs in the UK, which are now under threat because the government has attempted to reduce subsidies. The irony is that none of those on the 'free' market right seem to have any objection to subsidies for nuclear power, which is not only uneconomic and produces a toxic waste problem, but has needed subsidies in the UK from day one. Research in the USA shows that all energy sources have received energy subsidies in the past hundred years with oil and gas receiving the highest subsidy of all. Wind power provides the cheapest form of renewable energy. Its critics claim it is intermittent and unreliable but these myths have been debunked according to this post by Damian Carrington in the Guardian. Furthermore, it has been calculated that;

"The best wind farms in the world already produce power as economically as coal, gas and nuclear generators; the average wind farm will be fully competitive by 2016".

And in the UK the costs of switching to low carbon energy will be no greater than continuing with business as usual.

I accept that people have a perfect right to object to wind farms being built in their locality, and there are some legitimate concerns about windfarms being built too close to dwellings, and the possible health risks form being subjected to noise. But we need to embrace this new cleaner technology for the sake of the future. I wonder how many people objected when the railways were being built in Britain?

Finally, you have to ask - why is it that climate change has become a left vs right issue over the past decade or so? Why do right-wingers like Nigel Lawson, of the GWPF, Tory MPs, and Ruth Lea seem to think that all environmentalists are lefties and climate change is a left-wing plot to bring about an eco-socialist world? Why do they object so strongly? The answer is simple - capitalism and corporate profits. The 'free' market right have recognised that climate change is a potential threat to established big businesses and capitalist accumulation, which relies on compound growth. They fear that adaptation to climate change and a low carbon, lower energy, lower consumption future will kill capitalist expansion, and they are probably right. If you want to find out more read Naomi Klein's excellent article on Capitalism vs the Climate. I'll just finish with this quote which sums up why this battle is being fought so fiercely:

"The bottom line is that an ecological crisis that has its roots in the overconsumption of natural resources must be addressed not just by improving the efficiency of our economies but by reducing the amount of material stuff we produce and consume. Yet that idea is anathema to the large corporations that dominate the global economy, which are controlled by footloose investors who demand ever greater profits year after year. We are therefore caught in the untenable bind of, as Jackson puts it, "trash the system or crash the planet."