Capitalism vs. the Climate

[lehman scott]

This is an excellent (albeit lengthy) article by Naomi Klein. It is about a whole lot more than just climate change. Usually I try to preface my posts with an excerpt, but there is so much good and important content here I found it impossible to settle on any one portion, so here it just is:

http://www.thenation.com/article/164497 ... ?page=full

[MaxFF]

Great article unfortunately some of the comments are pretty depressing.

Seriously, who cares?

Is the author really so arrogant to think WE, Mankind, are causing the change? Definitively?

THAT is the hubris of the AGW crowd. The Earth is warming ... for now. CO2 is probably part of that -- probably, because nobody knows. NOBODY.

So ... what? The best response, economically, is to DO NOTHING, rather than spend trillions on "maybe's"...

[lehman scott]

Great article unfortunately some of the comments are pretty depressing.

Seriously, who cares?

Is the author really so arrogant to think WE, Mankind, are causing the change? Definitively?

THAT is the hubris of the AGW crowd. The Earth is warming ... for now. CO2 is probably part of that -- probably, because nobody knows. NOBODY.

So ... what? The best response, economically, is to DO NOTHING, rather than spend trillions on "maybe's"...

Yeah, I think a lot of those negative comments came from your typical climate-change deniers who didn't even bother to read the entire article. Klein discussed AGW within the context of much larger and more immediate problems whose solutions are going to require systemic-scale changes. As she pointed out, this is something that, ironically, the folks at the right-wing Heartland Institute fully understand and appreciate, a reality that most AGW voices on the left have yet to fully grasp. As I opined in a reply to Vagon's post on the passing of the carbon tax in Australia, cap-and-trade programs, while a worthwhile initial step, really have no tangible impact on the more pressing challenges of the rapid depletion on non-renewable resources and the transition to a renewable-based energy economy.

I am very pleased that Naomi Klein went to the Heartland Conference and reported on it; I have been curious as to what they've been thinking lately. When I worked at GM Corporate HQ as an environmental regulatory analyst I had need to work with the policy wonks at Heartland, as GM was a big donor to them, and part of my job was to analyze market-based regulatory approaches as opposed to the typical command-and-control mechanisms. At the time I was an ex-radical environmentalist wolf in a sheep's pin-stripe suit, and I was surprised at how well educated they were about the more problematic implications of the economic strategies being discussed and debated by environmental economists. And they are, indeed, problematic, to say the least. That is something the public voices on the right understand very well and those on the left, for the most part at least, do not (or perhaps more likely, if they do, choose not to discuss it publicly.).

[Quasar]

Wow. She's right: I'm an environmentalist and I love the occupy movement, but I've been thinking of them as entirely seperate issues, touching against each other but never truly interconnected.

It's a shame this article is so massively long. It needs to be read by a lot of people interested in climate science and/or progressive reform of unregulated capitalism.

I was going to snark the comments, but after reading the article... it's just too good to ruin with stupid.

(EDIT)

Also, it’s news to me that OWS is spearheading certain initiatives which actually have proper potential to cause change beyond the protests, like moving your money to Credit Unions (anyone who hasn’t, please look into it! Credit Unions are basically customer-owned, not-for-profit banks). Also this, from the article:

“Already a group at OWS is cooking up plans to launch the movement’s first green workers’ co-op (a printing press); local food activists have made the call to “Occupy the Food System!”; and November 20 is “Occupy Rooftops”—a coordinated effort to use crowd-sourcing to buy solar panels for community buildings.”

Hell yes Occupy Movement! We are the 99%!

[Vagon]

I have a lot to say on this issue, but I'm going to distill it because I doubt a rant would be appreciated.

I think climate change and economics are very much intertwined, but only in so much as that the climate change legislation presents an added cost to production. If climate change could be exploited (or offer a new opportunity) then it would be welcomed. This is why carbon trading schemes seem plausible as a driver. It lets the major multinational, multiindustry giants take a slice of the enviro cake while affording a veneer of social responsibility. So I disagree with Lehman there.

What I take exception to is the notion that somehow more regulation is going to solve the issue. It is the bizarre ability for corporate lobbys and arcane institutions like the "City of London Corporation" that drive the regulations. Less regulation is the only way that a truly free and open playing field is possible. Taxing in progressive or new deal or whatever else you want to label it will definitely drive money offshore. This is not a maybe. So I disagree with Quasar there.

Instead removing the obscure taxation system and implementing a higher GST or federal sales tax is in my mind the way to go. When you remove the myriad of bizarre taxation principles you remove the mechanism by which tax avoidance occurs. You also remove the incentive for corporations to legally promote the channels for tax avoidance. The consequences of remove those mechanisms and channels is so far reaching its hard to state.

[lehman scott]

Here are Bill McKibbon's thoughts on the Keystone XL pipeline:

Is global warming an election issue after all?
by Bill McKibben

Conventional wisdom has it that the next election will be fought exclusively on the topic of jobs. But President Obama’s announcement last week that he would postpone a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline until after the 2012 election, which may effectively kill the project, makes it clear that other issues will weigh in -- and that, oddly enough, one of them might even be climate change.

The pipeline decision was a true upset. Everyone -- and I mean everyone who "knew" how these things work -- seemed certain that the president would approve it. The National Journal runs a weekly poll of “energy insiders” -- that is, all the key players in Washington. A month to the day before the Keystone XL postponement, this large cast of characters was “virtually unanimous” in guaranteeing that it would be approved by year’s end.

Read the rest at http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2 ... -after-all

EDIT: and a view from the other side: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opi ... le2236077/