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The Clean Energy Revolution Won't Be About Clean Energy
The uprisings in the Middle East and the growing austerity-induced unrest among workers in the US and Europe have provided new hope for environmental movement leaders who for years have struggled to mobilize the public to confront the looming catastrophes of growth-capitalism.
A good example is climate leader and 350.org founder, Bill McKibben. In February, McKibben authored a short blog post celebrating Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's decision to step down. He wrote of the revolution as a teachable moment for the climate movement, suggesting that if "a real people's movement" could bring down an apparently immovable tyrant like Mubarak a similar movement could bring down the fossil fuel giants.
McKibben is right. As the overlords of the current world order, fossil fuel companies do have a lot to fear from a powerful popular uprising. However, the Egyptian case also shows us that when such an uprising comes, it won't be fundamentally about the climate. The revolution against the fossil-fuel barons won't be a clean energy revolution. It will simply be a revolution.
This is the first major lesson for environmental movement organizers: when people rise up they rise up because of unbearable socio-economic circumstances -- oppressive, corrupt regimes, austerity measures, and aggressive assaults upon their economic and civil rights. They never have and very likely never will rise up en masse over bad environmental policies.
Still, this image of a popular climate uprising is something that a lot of us in the movement envision as an inevitability. Indeed, my boss, Chesapeake Climate Action Network director Mike Tidwell, recently wrote an article for the Washington Post describing steps he's taking to prepare for the unrest brought on by coming weather-related climate disasters. While he's still hopeful that we can find climate policy solutions, as a pragmatist he's already preparing for the worst: taking target practice, replacing locks on his home, buying back-up generators and learning to grow his own food.
Like Tidwell, I'm personally convinced that climate-related unrest, and hardships are indeed waiting for us not too far down the road and I've also started preparing. But when the unrest comes, in the public mind it won't be seen as a "climate rising." It will simply be seen as civil unrest. And like most historical examples of civil unrest, its focus won't be on climate problems, but on economic and political problems: the failure of the economy and the government to provide fundamental services, like food, water and energy.
In other words, when people start rioting about climate-induced food shortages - the first thing on their mind won't be "I demand the government do something about climate change," but, "I demand the government figure out a way to provide us with food security again." Of course, policies to facilitate a rapid switch away from fossil fuels and reduce other climate-change drivers will be part of the government response, but they'll hardly be the main focus. When people are starving they won't be placated by legislation to cap or tax carbon emissions. Such measures might even take a back seat to more immediate solutions.
In short, when things fall apart, what the public will demand first and foremost are answers from leaders and experts about how to create an economy that will solve the problems that the old one brought on.
If left-wing political leaders don't have clear answers for how to build a new economy that provides for human needs, people will do what they've always done: Put their faith in right-wing demagogues -- men who will prey on public fears and misery, and channel them into persecution of the Other -- i.e. of some imagined internal or external scapegoat. Without a credible systemic alternative we'll revert to fascism, tribalism and violence.
And so for those of us who have dedicated our lives to creating a more humane, livable world, the greatest, most pressing challenge of our time is not to stop climate change, or deforestation, or bio-diversity loss, or even to stop poverty, or war, or disease. The current global order has already put many of those individual problems beyond the reform efforts we've been diligently pushing for so long. A second lesson from Egypt is that you can't organize the kind of anger and widespread discontent that creates revolutions. Life has to become intolerable and push things to breaking point for that to happen.
Meanwhile, all you can really do is make incremental gains and create the organizational power and credibility necessary to emerge as leaders once the unrest begins. Clean-energy advocacy is a key part of that power building, but it's not enough.
Promoting a livable and humane world requires a much broader program focused on the economy. It requires recognizing and addressing the true overarching challenge of our time: providing a buffer against global fascism by helping the pubic understand how a new more humane economy beyond growth-capitalism could work. We have to position ideas like the steady-state economy as the answers that the public will turn to when the current world order collapses. Fortunately, the recent economic crisis has provided an opening, creating fissures in the public dogma of growth capitalism into which we can inject new economic memes.
Getting those memes out there and getting them to gain popular currency certainly won't be an easy goal to achieve. But there are many plausible, as yet untried strategies to pursue it, and we might even take a few pointers from the climate movement. In 2008 climate organizers with the group Focus the Nation helped spread national awareness of the crisis by organizing a series of widely-attended teach-ins at universities and institutions across the country. We need a similar effort to focus the nation on alternatives to growth capital -- alternatives like the steady-state economy. If done right such an effort might inform and inspire new wave of economics students to challenge the dogma of growth capital and loosen its grip on their schools' curricula.
However we approach this issue one thing is for certain: we don't have a second to lose. The problems of peak oil, climate change and crisis-capitalism aren't getting any better. Before we reach the precipice we've got a lot of work to do if we want the revolution to go our way.
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50 Comments so far
Show AllI don't think that we will have to wait for climate induced collapse, our corporate overlords are far on there way to destroying the US economy.
Currency collapse will be here long before climate induced catastrophe.
they are both already happening simultaneously
But economic collapse looks like it will occur very soon, in perhaps the next year or three.
yep, the next few years are going to be very interesting to say the least....!
What will Tidwell's back-up generators run on?
Hot air.
ha ha, I was thinking the same thing. but I do think this is a very good article and that the author does an excellent job of addressing the global breadth of our challenges and the obvious inevitable failure of capitalism. A good read for people starting to get it. I often read articles from the perspective of all those folks who just don't quite get it yet. Rather than insult these struggling to be progressives that are the majority of any kind of left in this country, as many CD posters do, and I understand why, and feel that way a lot of the time too, I instead hope and pray that at some point the reality of our situation will crystalize in their awareness. Readers of Huffington Post may fall in to this category, and I'm glad they are reading Keith's article.
The assumption that "these struggling to be progressives" are important, or need to be won over is suspect. There is no evidence that they are any easier or more important to win over than the people in the right wing think tanks.
People cannot be "the majority of any kind of left in this country" when they are not left wing at all.
"Left" means identifying with and fighting for the working class. It does not mean having progressive positions on various issues, it does not mean trying to get the system to "work" in various ways.
2A: I responded to your post of last Wednesday. I would appreciate it if you would reply to mine.
Thanks, Tom
Find it here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/23-3
Tom Larsen wrote [Mar 23 2011 - 10:13pm]:
“Libya Intervention Threatens the Arab Spring”
www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/23-3
“I often agree with your positions, but your posts are full of ad hominems directed at everybody whether they agree with you or not. You don't post to have dialog with other posters, you post to belittle them with your self-anointed superiority. What you do sows discord (divide and rule). It does not generate solidarity - the only thing that will save us.
* * * * *
My Question:
Tom Larsen, can you tell me who you were describing in this comment that you posted to another article?
Regards.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
ad hominem
1 : Appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect.
2 : Marked by or being an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made.
URL: www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ad%20hominem
Also, for a good discussion see URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
RE: Tom Larsen, can you tell me who you were describing in this comment that you posted to another article?
To answer your question, by another: can't you guess? The poster in question is, of course, "readbetweenthelines".
Read the whole thread if you want to understand the context. Btw, the Wiki definition of ad hominem is the one I use.
Actually, I had already read enough of the thread to know that "readbetweenthelines" was the person who you were describing.
I was suggesting here that you consider reading between the lines and look further both on that thread and here on this thread to consider everyone who you might have actually been describing coincidentally, consciously or not.
I alreadly knew that the wikileaks definition and discussion of "ad hominem" is the one you use.
Much of what is said there is worth reading. I have used it before myself and I included it in my previous post here because you had cited it.
This observation from wikileaks is worth mentioning in defense of anyone of us who is engaged in criticism of another based upon character, including Two Americas.
"The ad hominem is a classic logical fallacy,but it is not always fallacious; in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue."
The relevence of character to the issue in question is key, of course. But not every critical reference to a person's character satisfies that criterion.
Either way buttressing one's argument by directly addressing the actual issue in question in an even handed manner is still critically important to making an argument that is not simply an ad hominem attack.
Eleanor Roosevelt is supposed to have said:
"No one can make you feel inferior without your permission."
For most of us the point of vulnerability is when we in some way or another however small agree with, perhaps even admire, our critics.
Patient compassion for ourselves as well as for the harm that has been experiened by others is the best answer to that vulnerability, and to our own anger and frustration that results from the unwarranted attacks we experience.
This will not change the fact, however, that there are some pretty awful people in the world.
I will suggest, but I do expect that Two Americas might disagree, that Keith Harrington the author of "The Clean Energy Revolution Won't Be About Clean Energy" is increasingly identifying with and fighting for the working class at least at this stage of things, even if perhaps he didn't quite so much before.
That may not be good enough for some people, who feel no solidarity with working class people who labor in different sectors of the economy than their own, or who seem to have concluded long ago that working class people whose own sense of solidarity is just emerging are completely unimportant if they have different ideas about what is important to the working class.
But, "left" actually does NOT mean NOT having progressive positions on various issues.
And, "left" actually does NOT mean NOT trying to get the system to "work" in various ways.
And "left" actually does NOT mean agreeing with every utterance and every pronouncement made by every other working class person, even if those utterances or pronoucements are right wing dogma, or just because those utterances or pronouncements are left wing dogma.
As Two Americas said, "left' means identifying with and fighting for the working class, I agree with Two Americas about that.
But I would add that "left" means identifying with everyone in the working class, at least in some way, because you know that even if they don't know it they are essentially working class like yourself.
If fact when it comes to the working class this might just be the most important difference between the "left" and the "right"
Casting suspicion on other working class people simply because they have progressive or liberal positions on various issues without providing a substantial critique of those positions, much less actually participating in substantial discussion about the critique of those positions, is simply divisive and the sort of right wing approach to working class solidarity that has repeatedly resulted in the failure of the left.
The right in America doesn't really need to work at taking down the left. We're too busy forming circular firing squads and taking down ourselves ... Or at least those who don't toe the 'correct' party line.
Which is why, four years from today, the left will still be irrelevant in US politics. Unfortunately.
Donny-Don wrote (Mar 29 2011 - 10:26am] with respect to the ecological crisis:
““I would love to be able to blame it all on the Koch Brothers, or Obama, or the Pope, or some easy target. But I'm afraid the problem is us.”
* * * * *
The right suffers from internecine infighting as well. But the most powerful right-wing manipulators of the right tend to effectively unite the “useful idiots” on the right through oodles of money and money funded propaganda.
Just one case in point: the Tea Party "movement".
Whereas, manipulators on the left tend to divide us “useful idiots” on the left usually either in the service of their own left wing ideological dogma, or as in the case of many of those in positions of actual power who pose as being on the left in service to those who have the most power.
As you say we can't "blame it all on the Koch Brothers, or Obama, or the Pope, or some easy target", but whatever their motives happen to be such people are dividing the working class, including working class people with conservative points of view from working class people with progressive points of view.
Two Americas is right to be suspicious. But Two Americas is wrong to let suspicion and possibly left wing dogma undermine working class solidarity by engaging in intolerance toward other working class people with different points of view from Two Americas' own.
Two Americas wrote [Two Americas, Mar 26 2011 - 9:48pm]:
"On the Anti-Cuts Protest in London, 500,000 Say No to the Coalition Government’s Arrogant, Ideological Butchery of the British State"
www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/26-5
"As always, you take it down. There is no other alternative. All of the fantasies about 'constitutional alternatives' and 'elections' and 'representative democracy' and 'lawful remedies' are delusional - and dangerous."
* * * * *
My reply:
Would you care to be more specific Two Americas?
When you state, "As always, you take it down", what do you mean?
And after "it" is taken down then what?
Yes, 'constitutional alternatives' and 'elections' and 'representative democracy' and 'lawful remedies' will not alone enable the working class to remove people from positions of economic and political power who already have the economic and political power to control the government.
The working class must find other powerful countervailing forces for that.
Whether a regime falls violently or non-violently, the use and abuse of political and economic power within society will not disappear.
Even the obliteration of civilization as we know it will not cause the use and abuse of political and economic power in human society to disappear.
The purpose of genuine political democracy, including political democracy in the economic workplace, is to enable the people as a whole to sufficiently control the use of political and economic power in society, in order that they so much as is possible will be able to prevent its abuse.
Your repeated failure to be specific about just how power will be controlled after the implied "it" has been taken down, suggests that you expect us to join together with you in your own personal, unspecified, seemingly dangerous, delusional fantasy.
But I expect that you can do better, than say Horace who comments here on Common Dreams, both in putting forth a critique and in articulating what you are actually proposing.
In the absence of something more forthcoming about "it" and about what comes after, a matter of fact seemingly no nonsense way of expressing oneself simply cannot hide empty and potentially dangerous rhetoric.
Is Two Americas a Leninist or a Trotskyite?
Or maybe a Dangerous Radical with insane visions of Working Class Revolution!
Quick honey! Hide the silver!
Heavens to Murgatroyd, I think he might be an edjumacted communist agent of the Illuminaughty. He he he...
Where RU TA?
Sht ths sht dwn
On related note, I've been shouting "No Nukes" for decades. Educated (read successfullt indoctrinated) engineers and scientists have called me an idiot over the years but I knew that they were wrong.
Nuclear Power Generation is an abomination. Say it one more time brothers and sisters.
In the US, the 1st step is to close down Indian Point and Vermont Yankee. But then what to do with the hundreds of tons of concentrated death at each of these palnts in the form of "spent" fuel rods.
Yeah they're spent alright. Spent our future.
Fuck Obama and his pro-nuke agenda.
No $$$ for nukes!!!
Working class revolution is what we need, preferably non-violent in my opinion.
If we are still talking about the rhetoric of Two Americas, then the question from my perspective is how does Two Americas expect that revolution might come about; and just as important and of particular interest to me how does Two Americas expect that abuse of power will be controlled in society after the revolution has occurred?
What label Two Americans may wish or may not wish to use to describe Two Americas is really of no importance to me, but was introduced here as a possible concern of mine by you.
Two Americas does seem to find the ideas of progressives and liberals more dangerous than I do. In a previous post here Two Americas makes plain that "Left" means identifying with and fighting for the working class [an idea I agree with]. It does not mean having progressive positions on various issues, it does not mean trying to get the system to 'work' in various ways." as if these two characteristics were mutually exclusive with identifying with and fighting for the working class.
In another post cited here by me Two Americas introduced the idea into a previous conversation that any belief in political democracy as part of the remedy is "delusional - and dangerous" echoing Two Americas apparent hostility mentioned just above to trying to get the system to "work" in various ways.
Quote: "As always, you take it down. There is no other alternative. All of the fantasies about 'constitutional alternatives' and 'elections' and 'representative democracy' and 'lawful remedies' are delusional - and dangerous." - Two Americas
I then picked up on the theme of "delusional" and "dangerous" behavior.questioning Two Americas largely unarticulated (at least in my experience) position on revolution and the problem of the abuse of power after the revolution.
This non-conversation has gone no where and is clearly accomplishing nothing other than generating confusion.
I expect that I may figure out for myself after considerable time here what Two Americas thinks about these two questions. But it probably would have been more interesting and certainly less time consuming to argue them out with Two Americas. In any case it doesn't really matter.
Regarding your related note:
I expect that all these years you have been shouting "No Nukes" there have also been scientists and engineers who knew you were right and told you so. I certainly hope so.
Okay, those are legit ?'s, I think I misunderstood your POV. Stalinsim and and to a lesser extent Maoism certainly demonstrated that the dictatorship of the proletariat
could be quite barbaric.
Still, other revolutions (Germany-1918 comes to mind) failed utterly because in their allegiance to democratic procedure, they did not eliminate the power of virulent counter-revolutionaries.
I am not as pessimistic about electoral democracy in general, but have no faith in the American version. Among the industrilaized nations in the 19th & 20th centuries, the USA was particularly prone to beating and shooting down strikers. It was also the most extreme in its purging of leftists in the 20's and the 50's.
This ahs led to a situation in which working people have very few institutions that they can really call their own. This disempowerment makess elections rather futile, as does the corrupt plutocratic campaign finance system.
No real solutions will occur unless workers gain much more non -electoral power in the form of powerful and militant local and national organizations.
camelrocker: Good post. But did you notice that the one word that unites global warming, continuous war, food shortages, a fossil fuels and an economy that doesn't work for over 90% of humanity? CAPITALISM. Obviously you understand that for Keith's vision to come true would necessitate a global revolution to overthrow capitalism. But neither he nor McKibbon are yet willing to let go of their liberalism and say that clearly and unequivocally.
@Tom Larsen. In fact I have disavowed "liberalism". And I do state clearly and unequivocally that we need a revolution to overthrow capitalism. But just stating that isn't saying much. The question is: How is it going to happen? As I pointed out in my article, the only thing that's going to bring about that revolution is a self-induced collapse of the global capitalist system. The question for the left is what do we do between now and the collapse, which will come soon enough. There are those of the "Invisible Committee" persuasion who think we should try to precipitate it. I think that would be a massive strategic error, because when the collapse came we could be easily blamed for it, and the public would turn on us. My strategy, as explained in the post is to work in the meantime to carry out a very smart and vigorous public education campaign on alternatives to capitalism, and the catastrophic problems of capitalism, so that when the collapse comes we'll be a very credible voice that the public will turn to to lead the way to a new paradigm.
I agree with your comment.
The collapse is the time for revolutionaries bring all of their resources to bear in order to claim the State for the people. The French, Russian, German (1918) and Chinese Revolutions all resulted from massive military losses whose attendant hardships radicalized millions.
Between now and the collapse we Educate, Agitate, Organize.
"we need a revolution to overthrow capitalism. But just stating that isn't saying much.' That one put a smile on my face, and reminded me of lines from the Ginsberg poem, America:
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
dreamjoehill wrote:
"The collapse is the time for revolutionaries [to] bring all of their resources to bear in order to claim the State for the people."
* * * * *
My Reply:
I would say that the collapse is the time for the people to claim the State and for revolutionaries to work with the people and do their best to make sure those people who hold the most power after the collapse give the State to the people, and if those in power won't give the State to the people, then the people need to take it.
Now that would be a revolution!
In the mean time it would be better for the people if revolutionaries did their best to make sure those people who now hold the most power give the State to the people before the collapse.
But maybe revolutionaries just don't have the vision or the will or the power to do that.
Sheesh!
When there are revolutionaries who want to claim the State for the people, who needs counter-revolutionaries?
:>(
When I state that the collapse is the opportunity to claim the state for the people, I'm simply referring to the major socio-economic revolutions of the last 3 centuries. And I don't include the American Revolution in that category. It was a successful anti-imperialist revolt but the incipient class based revolution was squashed by Washington, Hamilton and Adams. Shay's Rebellion, The Rent Wars in Upstate NY, even the Whiskey Rebellion were ultimately unsuccessful against the mercantalists and plantation owners.
It's not easy overthrowing the ruling class.
I was okay with your comment except for two parts:
1. If the revolutionaries don't sieze state power, how do you prevent a descent into warlordism?
2." In the mean time it would be better for the people if revolutionaries did their best to make sure those people who now hold the most power give the State to the people before the collapse." The upper classes don't give up power short of a revolutionary struggle*; so I'm definitely backing your plan B - All Power To the People Baby!
*see Frederick Douglas
dreamjoehill,
Thank you for your reply.
By "give the State to the people" in other words give up power, I did not mean to imply I thought that could happen even partially without considerable pressure applied by the working class including revolutionaries through the exercise of whatever power the working class could muster short of violent revolution, possibly in the context of a ruling class severely weakened by a collapse. In this sense "Plan A" refers to non-violent revolutionary struggle.
By "taking the State" in other words taking power, I was referring to something more violent that would need to happen after a collapse amidst violent chaos which I expect would include a weakend but facist state and possibly warlordism as well. In this sense "Plan B: refers to violent revolutionary struggle.
When people talk about collapse including myself it is not always clear what kind of collapse we are referring to: simply a major economic collapse more severe than the one we experienced starting with the bursting of the mortgage bubble and culminating in the financial meltdown in the fall of 2008 or a more widespread collapse including even more intense unraveling of ecosystems and violent changes in the environment?
I expect we will experience a series of collapses, rather than a single one. I will also say that I am not looking forward to these developments with optimism.
I am not as familiar with the life of Frederick Douglas as I would like to be, but I certainly would never argue with this statement:
"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters."
Frederick Douglas
kharrington wrote:
“In fact I have disavowed "liberalism".
My Reply:
Well, good for you!
But you do seem to have that spirit of fanaticism that is often typical of converts.
* * * * *
kharrington wrote:
“There are those of the "Invisible Committee" persuasion who think we should try to precipitate it. I think that would be a massive strategic error, because when the collapse came we could be easily blamed for it, and the public would turn on us.”
My Reply:
Yes. Yes. And well they should!
* * * * *
kharrington wrote:
“And I do state clearly and unequivocally that we need a revolution to overthrow capitalism. But just stating that isn't saying much. The question is: How is it going to happen?”
My Reply:
Yes. I agree.
And yes. That is the big question. Isn’t it?
Non-violently as possible I hope.
* * * * *
kharrington wrote:
My strategy, as explained in the post is to work in the meantime to carry out a very smart and vigorous public education campaign on alternatives to capitalism, and the catastrophic problems of capitalism, . . . .”
My Reply:
Now, this sounds like it might be a good idea. But keep it honest.
It is true that people don’t like to hear difficult, or how does that horrible “liberal” Democrat Al Gore put it, inconvenient truths. But people don’t like to be manipulated and used either. Hell, isn’t that what is going on now!
* * * * *
kharrington wrote:
“. . . so that when the collapse comes we'll be a very credible voice that the public will turn to to lead the way to a new paradigm.”
My Reply:
If you are looking for credibility, don’t wait for the collapse to happen to seriously work for meaningful change that actually makes a difference in the lives of the working class.
Also, make sure that what you do is actually in the best interests of the working class and not simply in what you believe are your own best interests. That means actually listening to and learning from the working class, not just “carrying out a vigorous education campaign on alternatives to capitalism.”
And about that new paradigm?
I have already asked in this thread for Tom Larsen to explain what he means by democracy.
Perhaps you can explain to me and to the rest of the working class what you mean by democracy and how that fits into your idea of the new paradigm?
Thanks.
>< >< >< >< ><
P.S. Oh, by the way! Are you related in any way to the author of the article, "The Clean Energy Revolution Won't Be About Clean Energy?" You know that guy named Keith Harrington? Yeah, right. My thanks to whoever initiated this little ruse. Was it dreamjoehill? Gee, I don't know. I don't know him very well.
I appreciate that you responded to my post.
RE: And I do state clearly and unequivocally that we need a revolution to overthrow capitalism.
Great! Next time say it in your article, not days later in response to a comment.
RE: ...we need a revolution to overthrow capitalism. But just stating that isn't saying much. The question is: How is it going to happen?
You organize. You work to build a mass movement. That's what we don't have now and what we did have in the 1930's. At the head of most of the militant union activity that resulted in, for example, the 8-hour day, Social Security and the New Deal, were radicals: socialists, communists and anarchist revolutionaries that had been organizing for years. But they were also workers, who shared the struggle, the sweat and blood with their fellow workers. They were NOT some revolutionary managers that moved in to front a movement that they had nothing to do with creating. Having those radicals there in the mist of and part of working people, meant that they were able to use their understanding to argue against actions, decisions that were dead ends, that were traps for working people, traps that would in the end dis-empower working people.
Historically the environmental movement has treated working people (the majority of the population) with disdain. Environmentalists have had too cozy a relationship with liberals and their corporate backers. This needs to change.
RE: ...the only thing that's going to bring about that revolution is a self-induced collapse of the global capitalist system.
I am not sure I know what that means, "self-induced"? Why would would the captains of capital do that? Where do you get the idea that capitalism is going to collapse? The capitalist class has never been more powerful than now. Yes, there is a crisis in capitalism in parts of world, what's different is that it is happening to us. We tend to think that if it's happening to us, it's happening to everybody. China, for example is doing fine right now. Crises are due to the "internal contradictions of capitalism" (Marx) and are endemic to capitalism. Now, crises in the capitalist system can lead to revolutionary conditions, but even that doesn't mean revolutionary actively, let alone successful revolution.
RE: There are those of the "Invisible Committee" persuasion who think we should try to precipitate it.
"Precipitate"? In other words use terrorism. These people tend to be of the self-described "anarchist" persuasion. "Invisible Committee[s]" or secret societies are highly undemocratic and unaccountable, therefore, they represent an AUTHORITARIAN strain incompatible with a democratic (mass based), that is, REAL revolution. This will result in replacing one authoritarian structure with another (with an anti-authoritarian mask). I agree that it would result in "a massive strategic error".
RE: My strategy, ... to carry out a very smart and vigorous public education campaign on alternatives to capitalism, and the catastrophic problems of capitalism, so that when the collapse comes we'll be a very credible voice that the public will turn to to lead the way to a new paradigm.
This is a fine thing to do. I also think that you should be joining and participating in an anti-capitalist organization among your other pursuits.
I recommend the work of Chris Williams* whose recent book "Ecology and Socialism" spells out many things that you allude to in your article in great detail and gives a way forward. Also, don't reinvent the wheel. Learn your radical history. Start with Marx (or related to the environment you could read "Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature" and/or "The Ecological Revolution" both by John Bellamy Foster.)
*(Chris is a revolutionary socialist and a member of the International Socialist Organization.)
>>Tom Larsen wrote: "Historically the environmental movement has treated working people (the majority of the population) with disdain. Environmentalists have had too cozy a relationship with liberals and their corporate backers"<<
There are environmental groups that accept funding from corporations and some of them do appear somewhat compromised in the positions they take on certain issues. But to paint the entire environmental movement with one broad brush unfortunately reveals some ideological bias and historical revisionism. Such as the kind of contrived revisionism that some ideologues are indulging in, to prove that their book contains everything. Or something like the Catholic church tries to do from time to time to show that they weren't so anti-science after all.
I have no problem with - in fact, I welcome - the fact that more people are finally waking up to the ecological crisis. Your citing of a few exceptions here and there will not change the fact that certain ideologies were sorely lacking in their awareness of and explicit acknowledgement of ecological limits, consumed as they were by class-based thinking and conditioned by the same unquestioning exuberance about all modern technology as the capitalists were.
What you say about environmentalists can very easily be said about the labor movement, for example. Their primary focus clearly was on their rights and livelihoods and not on sustainability. They may not have been opposed to ecological sustainability as such, but it was not at the top of their agenda. You could make the argument that it is capitalism that does all the damage. But history shows even the communist regimes were not much better when it came to trashing the environment and exploiting the resources, and even annexing territory and all that. There's no doubt that capitalism makes the destruction that much faster and bigger, but any ideology that does not explicitly or at least implicitly acknowledge nature's limits as paramount and when sought to be imposed on or prescribed for the whole world, even with the best of intentions, needs to be updated. It's not "reinventing the wheel" so much as filling in some critical gaps.
Talking about the system as something "out there" is convenient and does not involve much change at the personal level. Or, maybe there's this belief that any required personal change can be enforced after the revolution. But how would this avoid a whole lot of hypocrisy and exploitation and what's the guarantee that party apparatchiks would not get extra rations, secretly or otherwise?
Strong attachment to and a smug belief in the infallibility of any ideology is not very different from religious fanaticism, and both are ego-driven with nearly identical consequences. Just as in religion, some well-thought-out, well-intentioned set of ideas and vision could be usurped by power-hungry "leaders" while using genuine "believers" as cannon fodder. But ideologues do not want to acknowledge that their best-laid plans could run into this thing called human ego and therefore that any attempt to bring about lasting change cannot ignore that big factor. And putting ecological sustainability at the top of everything else - yes, even above taking down capitalism - is not some Utopian idea, but just plain common sense. But some would rather come to it at a later point, maybe. And so it goes, round and round.
I appreciate the post. In your post you are not saying anything I don't know already very well, fyi. It has been only recently that (last ten years) that some more well known (and influential) environmentalist have made the connection that capitalism is THE problem. Paul Hawken's "Natural Capitalism" concluded that capitalism was the problem driving global warming, but the solution of his book was to reform capitalism (i.e. liberalism), which radicals would say is not possible. Keith Harrington agrees that reform won't work. Bill McKibben has still not been able to say this clearly and unequivocally. My brush may be over-broad, but it is - in the main - correct. I am writing a comment not an essay.
RE: Strong attachment to and a smug belief in the infallibility of any ideology is not very different from religious fanaticism...
Of course. None of the "actually existing socialism/communisms" (USSR, China, Cuba etc.) meet the basic foundational definitions of socialism as defined by Marx and Engels: 1) the revolution is the "self-emancipation of the working class", that is, not lead by a guerrilla or peasant army (Cuba and China) but by the working class. 2) socialism means worker control of the means of production (true only briefly during the Bolshevik Revolution, never true in China or Cuba). Very few socialists consider the USSR, China, Cuba etc to have been socialist at all. This is not "revisionism". They were "socialist" in name only.
When your argument is used today. It takes the "communism" of Soviet Union as proof that socialism is fundamentally flawed. The people who makes these arguments either have not seriously read any Marx or only know of Marx's ideas through his enemies. A common refrain today is that Marx and Engels failed to anticipate the environmental costs caused by capitalism (or the "communism of the USSR, but in fact, it wasn't communist at all; it was state capitalism). It is true that Marx never dedicated a work to the environment, but his environmentalism is buried throughout his oeuvre. There has been much scholarship on this very subject in the last 20 years (Foster's "Marx's Ecology" is only one).
The critics of Marx have built a straw man version based on the evils of Stalin and Chairman Mao and retroactively they have blamed Marx for their crimes. They can easily knock this Marx down. Very, very, few who criticize Marx and Engels actually know what they are talking about (that includes people like Michael Albert (who uses a straw man version of Marx. He doesn't really know much about Marx's work. See the debates at Znet between him and various socialists).
Indeed, the clean energy revolution will not be about clean energy; it will be about legalizing marijuana.
http://home.roadrunner.com/~markwrede/NonFic/BrightFuture.html
Beat me to it. "plant it everywhere"- George Washington
I seem to be in a different world.
I happen to be good at inventing. My tasks are to invent products that inhibit and that someday end (I'm good!) climate change, to get these products to market, to find potential collaborators and to turn them on.
I don't think that the government is doing anything about the problems of climate change other than sitting on us. We still have to build community.
I never said that I liked making money. However, I see money as a useful tool for building community. We need to own our jobs or else we will be hired out to creeps all the time. We need to own our food production, our energy production, our charity, our personal right to research and develop new and useful things for our communities, and our ability to ward off the crooks and creeps who would rob our communities.
We are talking of uprising from the anthropocentric perspective . Capitalism thrives on growth, and the most primitive form is human population growth. If the population were in decline, no uprising would be necessary. As long as it is increasing, confronting capitalism will be an uphill slog. With a biocentric view, we recognize that humanity desperately needs to shrink in number. Along with that shrinking follows the decline of capitalism as we know it, and the flourishing of the natural environment.
A new twist on Malthus, huh? The areas of the world that contribute most to global warming are the parts of the planet that consume the most resources. In other words, the first world countries: Europe, and especially the US. However, most of these countries' populations are already at stasis or declining. The targets of the "overpopulation" argument are always in the Third World. So, the "population" argument is divorced from the reality of what is causing the environmental problem.
For example, the average American uses 50 times the energy as compared to the average person from Bangladesh. If we could bring the consumption level the average Bangladeshi to the US and if we were to keep total energy use constant, we could replace the American population with (50 x 300 million) or, 15 billion Bangladeshi’s and consume no more energy than before.
A closer look at at consumption would show that it is deeply connected to class, wealthy people consume far more than their modest-income fellow citizens. The biggest contributor of all to carbon footprints is, of course, provided free (via pollution) by our fellow "corporate citizens".
Great comment. The population control movement has always contained an element of racism and classism. After all, it was and is a Rockefeller funded movement and emerged from the eugenics movement after WWII.
It's not just a question of energy consumption and global warming.
It's also a question of rapidly disappearing biodiversity to make way for growing populations, over-harvested tropical forests (typically, to grow more soybeans and cattle), over-fished and collapsing ocean resources, increasing numbers of endangered and extinct species, unsustainable groundwater pumping, and the loss of soil productivity in almost every part of the world through erosion, salinization, and desertification.
You are absolutely correct that the "developed" world, and in particular the United States consumer, is disproportionately responsible for those global problems.
But ... if the U.S. and its 300 million citizens disappeared tomorrow, the world's march toward a population of 9 billion by mid-century would continue, and those problems would continue.
And that doesn't even touch the issue of global warming, which of course would also continue as China and India and other developing countries continue to build coal plants to try to raise their "standards of living" closer to Western levels.
I've traveled to many places around the world, and sadly I have yet to encounter one country in which population growth and the associated impact on the local and global environment over recent decades isn't anything less than, well, heartbreaking to witness. The earth is hurting. It's scary to watch this all play out before our eyes.
I would love to be able to blame it all on the Koch Brothers, or Obama, or the Pope, or some easy target. But I'm afraid the problem is us.
Thank you Donny-Don well said.
I agree. Ultimately we are all the part of the problem until we can figure out how to live more gently on the planet. It look's like only by working together do we have any chance at all of preventing the worst from happening.
In the famous words of Walt Kelly's Pogo, "We have meet the enemy and he is us".
Donny-Don and PuffinThrush
Neither one of you were able to grasp the meaning of my post. Global warming and the concomitant issues of pollution, species die-off, ecosystem collapse, food shortages etc etc etc, are caused by the consumption of rich countries (or to put a finer point on it - the RICH). Poor people are not driving the extraction, exploitation (of people too) and consumption that has brought us to the brink of environmental collapse. Capitalism is driving it; and the global hegemons of capital are all centered in the first world - and yes the US is #1.
Yes, poor people consume, but like the example of energy above (only one index of consumption but it gives you the general idea), there are vast differences in the consumption levels between rich and poor (nations and people). If I can replace the US population with Bangladeshi consumption levels with 15 BILLION people and use no more energy than before, should have shown you conclusively that population IS NOT THE ISSUE!
The relationship between consumption and population is weak at best. By focusing on population you are focusing on a distraction, a distraction promoted by the apologists of capitalism (like Malthus 175 years ago) to get us to look away from the real source of the problem. It is a blame-the-victim strategy and it works all too often, as your posts indicate.
If your are interested in learning more about these issues Chris Williams has a very good essay, see: http://www.isreview.org/issues/68/feat-overpopulation.shtml
Donny-Don wrote addressed to Tom Larsen (I believe):
"You are absolutely correct that the "developed" world, and in particular the United States consumer, is disproportionately responsible for those global problems.
But ... if the U.S. and its 300 million citizens disappeared tomorrow, the world's march toward a population of 9 billion by mid-century would continue, and those problems would continue.
And that doesn't even touch the issue of global warming, which of course would also continue as China and India and other developing countries continue to build coal plants to try to raise their "standards of living" closer to Western levels."
* * * * *
My Reply to Tom Larsen:
The rich and powerful drive the consumption patterns in both the developed and developing countries for purposes of maintaining and increasing their power and wealth.
Wherever we live it is difficult for working class and poor people to make effective choices that reduce their carbon footprint, because so many of the important choices are essentially made for us.
I have a cousin who likes to say that "complicity is the hallmark of our times." But I suspect that those of us who are making an effort at least to curtail our pollution including our carbon foot print must know somewhere in ours hearts that we are oppressed. For now at least in the United States that is still a velvet gloved oppression rather than an iron fist.
Having said that I have heard from several sources estimates that without the use of fossil fuels and absent the dramatic transformation of our economies the earth has a carrying capacity of about 1.5 billion people.
If that estimate is reasonably accurate, we will need to repair at least some of the damage done and make up the difference of providing for some 4.5 billion "additional" people with innovation, creativity, and compassion.
In that sense at least and maybe in other ways too, I do think that we are part of the problem.
I will take a look at the essay by Chris Williams you linked from the International Socialist Review.
www.isreview.org/issues/68/feat-overpopulation.shtml
Regards
Tom Larsen,
Despite the late hour I have looked at Chris Williams essay, "Are there too many people?" in the International Socialist Review, and I can see that there is much to recommend in it..
www.isreview.org/issues/68/feat-overpopulation.shtml
I do agree, with the assertion that population growth itself is not driving hunger and starvation or ecological collapse, although a finite planet clearly cannot support infinite population growth.
For thousands of years after humans had evolved in such a way that enabled us to used sophisticated technology and arrange our social relations in ways that permitted the human population to substantially grow in numbers beyond that permited by the natural contraints of the various ecological niches we had once occuppied, human population growth itself did not bring about ecological collapse, certainly not on a planet-wide scale.
The destruction of the ecological integrity of the planet which has occurred wih particular intensity over the past 150 years or so is a result of the destructiveness of the technology we use and the intensity which with we use that technology. These two factors in turn are a result of the power relationships within society and the population growth permited by the power of our technology and the power reationships within society.
High population numbers are a problem not just in high consumption societies, but across the planet because the technology we use and the social relations which determine how the technology is used has through our use of that technology rapidly destroyed the ecological systems upon which we depend for survival.
The problem has moved beyond how can we fairly provide for the human population and restrain the increase in our numbers and consumption so as to moderate the harm we cause to the planet, to how are we going to do that given that both the economic systems and the ecologoical systems upon which the economic systems depend and which currently support some 6 billion people on the planet are rapidly coming apart.
In that context the human population size is a problem.
>>fwheel wrote: "If the population were in decline, no uprising would be necessary."<<
Wrong premise, fwheel. Uprisings took place in the 17th, 18th and 19th and early 20th centuries in various parts of the world when the population was much less. The main grievance then, as it is now, is extreme inequality. Only now it's much worse. So, it's the human psyche that's causing the problem, it would seem - the ego and the thirst for power that drives accumulation of property by any means possible, ethics be damned!
You are right to some extent - that a growth in population does make the problem of inequality ***much, much worse***. The colonization of the "New World" absorbed vast numbers of what the elite in the "Old World" considered as "excess population" who were being pushed out of their lands using various means such as the Enclosure Act. Food was being exported from Ireland to Britain even during the Great Famine and British bankers were rounding up farmland for throwaway prices even as the Irish were fleeing on the "coffin ships". Now there are no more frontiers to conquer or escape to. However, a decrease in population by itself will do nothing to promote more equitable distribution of wealth. That is a separate battle to be fought, separate issue to be addressed, altogether.
So you're right again when you point to what's happening to the natural environment, and I agree that the human population needs to go down. But again, ultimately what matters is not simply human population, but (human population) x (average consumption).
And guess what? Consumption can be decreased by the rich - and that includes the average westerner, by global standards - ***in short order***, allowing some room for the very poor to attain some basic comforts. On the other hand, I do not know of any acceptable means by which a decrease in human population can be achieved in a short enough period of time.
I repeat: Ultimately, what matters is the total consumption, and hence, total destruction. If the people living in the rich countries, as well as the rich people living in developing countries and everywhere can find it in their hearts to take a good, hard look at their own lifestyles, their own ecological footprint and see how it compares to global average, AND push for major simplification of their lifestyles and consumption levels, that would yield much faster results with much less pain for everyone.
Good post 'till the last paragraph. Textbook liberalism.
RE: If the people living in the rich countries, as well as the rich people living in developing countries ... can find it in their hearts to take a good, hard look at their own lifestyles, their own ecological footprint ..., AND push for major simplification of their lifestyles and consumption levels, that would yield much faster results with much less pain for everyone.
Right. The rich will save us. NO. That's a destructive liberal meme (as is Nader's "Only the Super Rich Will Save Us") because it keeps us from mobilizing. We don't need a savior, or a "leader". Environmental degradation, war, poverty, inequality, etc, all are the result of hierarchical, class divided, patriarchal society, where the few parasitically exploit and dominate the many. It is time we had democracy for the first time in history. Only we, "average" people can save ourselves. The Egyptians have already started. I guess for the most indoctrinated people on the planet, it will take longer.
Tom Larsen, I did not say that the rich would have to save us. The reason I used the words "if people can find it in their hearts" is to appeal to average folks living in rich countries. Even the average person in a rich country is "rich" by global standards, and the average person must first realize that there are limits to consumption levels so as to stay within nature's limits.
The rich obviously consume more, per capita. This is true in all countries. But targeting the rich alone is not enough - not in the present situation, given the multiple crises of global warming, large human population, peak oil, etc.
Targeting the rich and doing something about the capitalist system will produce some level of equitable distribution, but not necessarily sustainability. Not by itself. For that to happen, average consumption has to be kept within nature's limits, and it's not hard to obtain numbers for these limits, starting with CO2 emissions, freshwater availability, etc. Numbers can also be obtained for an individual's or a family's ecological footprint, as well as for a country. The atmosphere is a common resource for all of humanity and other living beings. Carbon emissions per capita will have to be within some equitable limit, and this will necessitate major lifestyle changes - including the kind of food that people choose to eat. I can see that you are already aware of this since you compare the consumption levels of the people of Bangladesh with those in western countries. But can you find agreement on this point from the average American or the average Canadian? Or Australian? British?
This is the point that most people would rather gloss over, including socialists. I know it would rankle some socialists when attention is drawn to their general disregard for sustainability until recent years, but it is still the reality on the ground. It's not that they are opposed to sustainability, but it was not their number one priority.
Why is it difficult to put sustainability at the top and anything else to do with wealth distribution as subordinate to that requirement? I don't mean to make this a point of contention, but I sense a distinct difference in emphasis and priorities of various schools of thought. My own thought is that sustainability as the primary criterion will necessarily include an equitable system, whereas a primary focus on equitable distribution of wealth may or may not result in ecological sustainability. History shows this. My guess is that early socialist thought adopted or heavily borrowed some of the capitalist exuberance over what modern technology can achieve, without much regard to nature's limits and ecological consequences, and therefore environmentalism had to evolve as a separate fight. The melding of these two groups and ideas has not happened to any noticeable extent. I could be wrong.
Ok. Let me give an example of why your 'if people can find it in their hearts" is a false path.
Waste in the US.
Household waste, the kind of waste that an individual American family can "find it in their hearts" to make a difference about, represents only 2.5% of all waste generated in the US. The rest of that waste (97.5%) is represented by industrial, construction and "special" (e.g. mining waste) waste. So even if every American household were to reduce its waste to zero (not likely) it would only represent a drop in the bucket to the scale of the problem. This example of waste is largely true across the board (that is, other areas of economic activity or production). This waste is part and parcel of how the capitalist economy works.The problem doesn't lie with average people (whether they live in the first or third world). The problem is generated from capitalist political economy.
For a better explanation that I can provide in this forum, see: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/foster270410.html
Ok.
Tom Larsen wrote:
"It is time we had democracy for the first time in history. Only we, "average" people can save ourselves. The Egyptians have already started. I guess for the most indoctrinated people on the planet, it will take longer."
My Comment:
I assume by "we" you mean people living in the United States.
What passes for genuine democracy in the United States and other countries around the world is really a form of proto-democracy at best.
I don't know whether you are familiar with my thoughts on what constitutes genuine democracy and what is needed to get there. Nevertheless, I am interested in what you mean by genuine democracy and what you think is needed to get there.
Tom Larsen wrote:
"Only we, 'average' people can save ourselves. The Egyptians have already started. I guess for the most indoctrinated people on the planet, it will take longer."
* * * * *
My Comment:
Seems like people in the United States have gotten started too. Albeit a little later. These things do take some time you know.
It is still not clear how either civil war or non-violent revolution will turn out in countries across the Arab world.
I wouldn't exclude most of "the people living in the rich countries (e.g. probably you and certainly me) from that "Only we 'average people' can save ourselves."
And I wouldn't attempt to block any genuinely positive and constructive actions that might be taken by richer people living in the rich countries or richer people living in the developing countries.
The problem that lies before us is huge. So, what's the point in that?
I think that the working class around the world as well as in the United States is getting a clearer and clearer idea of what we need to do wherever we happen to live, and that includes taking control of the societies we live in.
"And I wouldn't attempt to block any genuinely positive and constructive actions that might be taken by richer people living in the rich countries or richer people living in the developing countries.
The problem that lies before us is huge. So, what's the point in that?"
Jack Reed was a born a rich boy, but he he became revolutionary. His actions proved his loyalty to the working class revolution of his time.
This system that benefits the rich and kills the poor must develop rapidly towards equality and sustainability on an international level. The rich will be an obstacle, and working class people cannot allow elite liberal "givers" to buy control of our organizations.
It is a well established fact that the CIA clandestinely used foundations to fund "alternatives" to radical workers political and cultural organizations from the 50's through the early seventies.
-See The Cultural Cold War by Francis Saunders for the documented history, a rather interesting tale involving
It's also well established that the FBI has launched many murderous campaigns against radical organizations like the Black Panthers and the Communist Party.
Thye CIA has at its historic roots an organization of rich and well educated Yale lawyers and stockbrokers. Do you think the CIA can, ya know, do some good in the world also?
Or how about that Al Gore, the biggest loser of the new millennia. His class biases and heavy elite background and connections prevented him from leading a populist campaign in the Florida post election debacle.
Wealthy "old family" boys from Virginia don't rouse the rabble. No instead they preside over the Senate and hand over the reins to a sadistic frat boy from Yale.
When our popular organizations are corrupted and transformed into mechanisms for the enrichment of the criminal political classes and their unscrupulous cronies, then they are less than nothing and they wither and die.
The next step must be the re-radicaliztion of the labor movement in the USA. Health care and a living wage for all workers! End the Wars! Feed the Poor!
I wrote and was quoted by dreamjoehill:
."And I wouldn't attempt to block any genuinely positive and constructive actions that might be taken by richer people living in the rich countries or richer people living in the developing countries.
The problem that lies before us is huge. So, what's the point in that?"
* * * * *
My Reply To dreamjoehill:
As I expect you know I know, nothing you have described falls into the category of actions I was referring to with the possible exception of the actions of Jack Reed.
I certainly am not holding my breath expecting a lot of help from the wealthy, and certainly oppose any initiative on their part that gives them significant leadership and control about such things. But no matter how hard they try to hold onto power ultimately many wealthy people are going to suffer greatly too. And some of them just might want to do something positive and constructive about that.
Actually, when you referred to Al Gore with the Virginia / Senate / frat boy from Yale reference. as I understand it Al Gore was born in Washington, D.C. where he spent his childhood during the school year, with summers spent in Tennesee, not Virginia. Not that this particular detail is important.
Thanks for the reference.
"See The Cultural Cold War by Francis Saunders for the documented history"
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