It’s Not About the Climate
Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus argue that social justice has to synonymous with access to modern amenities in: The Great Progressive Reversal: Part One
Over the last few decades, humans achieved one of the most remarkable victories for social justice in the history of the species. The percentage of people who live in extreme poverty — under $1.25 per day — was halved between 1990 and 2010. Average life expectancy globally rose from 56 to 68 years since 1970. And hundreds of millions of desperately poor people went from burning dung and wood for fuel (whose smoke takes two million souls a year) to using electricity, allowing them to enjoy refrigerators, washing machines, and smoke-free stoves.
Of course, all of this new development puts big pressures on the environment. While the transition from wood to coal is overwhelmingly positive for forests, coal-burning is now a major contributor to global warming. The challenge for the twenty-first century is thus to triple global energy demand, so that the world’s poorest can enjoy modern living standards, while reducing our carbon emissions from energy production to zero.
For the last 20 years, most everyone who cared about global warming hoped for a binding international treaty abroad, and some combination of carbon pricing, pollution regulations, and renewable energy mandates at home. That approach is now in ruins. In 2010, UN negotiations failed to create a successor to the failed Kyoto treaty. A few months later cap and trade died in the Senate. And two weeks ago, the slow motion collapse of the European Emissions Trading Scheme reached its nadir, with carbon prices, already at historic lows, collapsing after EU leaders refused to tighten the cap on emissions.
What rushed into the vacuum was “climate justice,” a movement headed by left-leaning groups like 350.org, the Sierra Club, and Greenpeace. These groups invoke the vulnerability of the poor to climate change, but elide the reality that more energy makes them more resilient. “Huge swaths of the world have been developing over the last three decades at an unprecedented pace and scale,” writes political scientist Christopher Foreman in “On Justice Movements,” a new article for Breakthrough Journal. “Contemporary demands for climate justice have been, at best, indifferent to these rather remarkable developments and, at worst, openly hostile.”
For the climate justice movement, global warming is not to be dealt with by switching to cleaner forms of energy, but rather by returning to a pastoral, renewable-powered, and low-energy society. “Real climate solutions,” writes Klein, “are ones that steer these interventions to systematically disperse and devolve power and control to the community level, whether through community-controlled renewable energy, local organic agriculture, or transit systems genuinely accountable to their users…”
Climate change can only be solved by “fixing everything,” says McKibben, from how we eat, travel, produce, reproduce, consume, and live. “It’s not an engineering problem,” McKibben argued recently in Rolling Stone. “It’s a greed problem.” Fixing it will require a “new civilizational paradigm,” says Klein, “grounded not in dominance over nature, but in respect for natural cycles of renewal.”
Climate skeptics are right, Klein cheerily concludes: the Left is using climate change to advance policies they have long wanted. “In short,” says Klein, “climate change supercharges the pre-existing case for virtually every progressive demand on the books, binding them into a coherent agenda based on a clear scientific imperative.”
As such, global warming is our most wicked problem. The end of our world is heralded by ideologues with specific solutions already in mind: de-growth, rural living, low-energy consumption, and renewable energies that will supposedly harmonize us with Nature. The response from the Right was all-too predictable. If climate change “supercharges the pre-existing case for virtually every progressive demand,” as conservatives decided long ago, then climate change is either not happening or is not much to worry about.
Wicked problems can only be solved if the ideological discourses that give rise to them are disrupted, and that’s what political scientist Foreman does brilliantly in “On Justice Movements.” If climate justice activists truly cared about poverty and climate change, Foreman notes, they would advocate things like better cook stoves and helping poor nations accelerate the transition from dirtier to cleaner fuels. Instead they make demands that range from the preposterous (eg, de-growth) to the picayune (eg, organic farming).
Once upon a time, social justice was synonymous with equal access to modern amenities — electric lighting so poor children could read at night, refrigerators so milk could be kept on hand, and washing machines to save the hands and backs of women. Malthus was rightly denounced by generations of socialists as a cruel aristocrat who cloaked his elitism in pseudo-science, and claimed that Nature couldn’t possibly feed any more hungry months.
Now, at the very moment modern energy arrives for global poor — something a prior generation of socialists would have celebrated and, indeed, demanded — today’s leading left-wing leaders advocate a return to energy penury. The loudest advocates of cheap energy for the poor are on the libertarian Right, while The Nation dresses up neo-Malthusianism as revolutionary socialism.
Left-wing politics was once about destabilizing power relations between the West and the Rest. Now, under the sign of climate justice, it’s about sustaining them.
21 comments
21 responses to “It’s Not About the Climate”
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I’m all in favour of the Left Unity website having more coverage of environmental issues but what on earth is this about? As far as I can tell this outfit, the Breakthough Institute, are anti-environmentalist dressed up as “post-environmentalist”. About as useful for getting coherent arguments on climate change and green issues as the Institute of Ideas.
These people are pro-nuclear, anti-fracktivist and call for an emphasis on energy security rather than tackling climate change. Pro-business and anti-green.
Can’t we do better than this?
Pro nuclear pro fracking pro wealth creation is actually good and a lot more socialist than calling for poverty for all which is what ‘ sustainability ‘ really refers to …..
That’s a false opposition since no socialists ‘call for poverty’ and the choice isn’t between that and what you say.
I don’t entirely disagree with what you say about the attitude of well-off greens living in the UK, but let’s not confuse high technology clean energy with fracking and nuclear, both of which are as dirty as hell and no good for future generations.
We need local energy generation because it is possible and it will break up the dirty energy monopolies. Two birds with one stone – democracy and wealth shift.
In the UK we need to reduce usage by conservation and switch production to green energy. We are well placed to do it. We could become a mass exporter of green energy from wind and wave power.
Let’s focus on what we can do, not on constructing straw men to back up a weak argument for dirty energy.
Our aim should be free energy for citizens, coming from free renewable natural resources.
These people and their fake institute are the American equivalents of our own dear LM/Spiked contrarians, up for hire to whatever business interest wants a bit of smoke put up. Life is too short to take any notice of their distortions, half truths and mendacity.
At last a sensible article on the anti human reactionary nutcases that are the greens / environmentalists
Have to agree with Dave Parks. What is this denialist RCP shit doing on here? Malthus fear of population growth was fear of revolution not concern for the environment. It was capitalisms inability to cope with population growth that exorcised his bourgeois brain not the environments. Different thing. Clearly serious environmentalists will recognise the drive of capitalism to unsustainably consume everything it can get its hands on to make profit and prevent revolution even if it costs the earth.
This may not be the most coherent article in the world but I think it is vital to recognise that Humankind, over history, has always broken through the so-called ‘limits to growth’. This has happened because sufficient resources and education and support have existed to promote the creativity needed to allow huge technological inventions to transform our worlds for the better ( electricity!)allowing a higher population density to live well and make further creations. This creativity means that ‘resources’ are not the same for ever and ever, but WE constantly recreate new resources that would not have been able to be named by past generations or even by isolated tribes of today ( explain what is ‘iron-ore’ to, say, an aborigine who has never left his ancient domain). Socialists should be the first to promote the optimism and know-how which will allow our class ( the working class) to access a world which frees then from the drudgery of wage labour… a world where many new Leonardos will feel at home.
Katherine You write”Socialists should be the first to promote the optimism and know-how which will allow our class ( the working class) to access a world which frees then from the drudgery of wage labour… a world where many new Leonardos will feel at home.”
That is exactly right but we face enemies who have clear objectives otherwise and whose aim is money making even at the expense of pauperisation. They fund think tanks and academics. This article is written by people clearly linked to our enemies neo liberal project and to the power companies.
There is a very different discussion to be had on how we could harness the skills of working people to protect our planet and our living standards.
That said a building in London can melt metal by its reflected rays…we cannot be too far from being able to build better technologies. Such technologies will do us no good unless we also tackle climate change and extreme weather disruptions.
Humankind, over history, has always broken through the so-called ‘limits to growth’.”
Just not true! Read about societal collapse – Tainter and Diamond for instance. Also, even if human population *could* in practical terms expand indefinitely (which they can’t) then some of the fundamental questions to be asked include: why would you would that?; what would the consequences be for quality of life for humans and other species?;and what makes you think that relief from ‘drudgery of wage labour’ would create a world of many ‘new Leonardos? What a philistine theory of art!
There’s no knowledge of and respect for wilderness, other species right to exist, our place in an ecological whole, the importance of balance. The majority of self-professed leftists commenting on this site have a very long way to go before they become environmentally conscious. And, on top of that many of them are blithely unaware of the inherent contradictions between their high-tech, high-energy utopia and social justice, equality and freedom.
Personally I think the reason the socialist left cannot create an alternative societal vision is that the mainstream does not want to accept it can’t have both: if it wants high-tech, high-energy then it has to essentially accept the status quo and try put an ameliorative gloss on it to salve their consciences; if it wants freedom and equality then it has to accept degrowth and moderated technology. Until they accept this the socialist left will be restricted and outflanked on the left by greens and anarchists.
In response to Micky D.
I do not consider myself to be a Green or an environmentalist but a socialist. However, the science is very clear that we face an enormous problem with Climate Change which threatens humanity with catastrophe. Even these reactionaries accept climate change is a problem, they call themselves the Breakthrough Institute because they have an almost mystical faith that unfettered growth of capitalism will solve these problems and that it is inevitable that there will be a technological breakthrough which will magically fix things. So chill out and let the capitalist class do their magic for us – as they make money they will lead us to the promised land where capitalism overcomes its contradicationas and poverty is eradicated and climate change dissapears as a problem.
The degree to how reactionary they are comes across in the first paragraph. Not only is capitalism great for the environment but it will do away with all poverty as well! As long as we leave capitalism alone to innovate then growth will eradicate poverty and we will have a capitalist utopia. Every citizen on Earth will have a rich lifestyle with their own futuristic jet-packs and there will be no shortages of anything and problems of pollution and resource shortages will go away. Capitalism doesn’t cause poverty or environmental issues – it is only a benevolent force.
I’m no great fan of George Monbiot’s politics but I do thoroughly recommend that all socialists read his book 2006 book “Heat” (probably stocked in most libraries). Monbiot with clarity outlines the enormous scale of the problem and the enormous obstacles and vested interests that have to be tackled to deal with the issue of climate change. He starts by briefly outlining the “back to the stone age” perspective and rightly concludes that we should aim for solutions that actually improve our quality life. The sheer scale of what is needed to reduce CO2 emissions is truly frightening and the problem I have with Monbiot is that he thinks this can be done within capitalism. It is clear that much of what needs doing requires planning and international cooperation on an unprecedented scale. IT certainly means a massive challenge to the power and wealth of the oild and gas industries who have in large part financial orchestrated the whole denial industry. The bulk of those climate denial people on the media were getting money from Exxon.
These people are perhaps less malicious than the climate change deniers but they are no less dangerous. They are dogmatically opposed to the use of renewables and they devote a lot of their time and resources attacking the German solar program – no doubt because it isn’t nuclear. The use of gas from faracking results in huge CO2 emissions but less emissions that from coal so they are huge supporters of fracking. The big multinationals have our best interests at heart – obviously!
For those interested I would suggest some reading on the Breakthough Institute – most of it is from critical environmentalists.
Breaking the technology breakthrough myth — Debunking Shellenberger & Nordhaus again
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/04/09/202521/breaking-the-technology-breakthrough-myth-debunking-shellenberger-nordhaus-again/
Climate change and the soothing message of luke-warmism
http://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-the-soothing-message-of-luke-warmism-8445
The Denialism of Progressive Environmentalists
http://monthlyreview.org/2012/06/01/the-denialism-of-progressive-environmentalists
Debunking Shellenberger and Nordhaus
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/debunking_shellenberger_and_nordhaus/
The Breakthrough Institute – Why The Hot Air?
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/06/17/the-breakthrough-institute-why-the-hot-air/
We need more energy and that means nuclear , fracking , renewables ( where they are economic ) and coal , oil etc … To suggest otherwise is to suggest that we go backwards …The science on climate change is not settled and indeed apocalyptic pronouncements about the himilayas being devoid of snow , the world ending next tuesday etc are just so much crap. Mankind has always advanced by utilising wealth and scientific development in order to make peoples lives better and even Marx would tell you that capitalism has provided economic growth that has beneifited people around the world … He would also say we need to advance beyond that and prepare for even more growth and scientific advance , all in the name od making peoples lives better and easier … He would not advocate going backwards into some green utopia
Micky D wrote:
“The science on climate change is not settled”.
The science on this has been crystal clear in its fundamentals for over 20 years: increased levels of greenhouse gases such CO2 in the atmosphere are causing global warming. Rises of over 2 degrees C on pre-inductrial levels will be dangerous. This is what the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been saying. They say it means a minimum cut in CO2 emissions of 30-50% by 2050 and a move towards zero emissions afterwards.
There is no dispute on this within the science and most of the governments of the world accept it. Even a large chunk of the denial industry now conceded this is the case. Of course if your approach to science is reading a blog on the internet you will still see the deniers spouting their nonsense. There are people who still deny the moon landings took place – there is no reason to take them seriously on a scientific basis. We have to base ourselves on the science.
The only real scientific disputes are over how bad it is. Many scientists are saying 1.5 degrees increase is the highest we should allow. We have just passed 400ppm of CO2, a few decades ago it was 350ppm (pre-1750 it was 280ppm), in a few decades time it looks set to be in the range of 450-500ppm and possibly greater. If it reaches those levels and keeps climbing then run-away climate change is thought to be almost certain e.g. melting permafrost releasing huge quantities of methane which is an even worse greenhouse gas.
Many are arguing that to prevent serious problems we need cuts of CO2 emissions of around 90% by 2030. Monbiot’s book Heat suggests this is possible with some considerable effort – requiring an almost wartime scale of effort of planning. This is not an argument about going backwards – it is an argument about going forwards without enormous problems.
Whoever is right we need massive cuts of CO2 emissions and that is not going to be easy.
Below is a link to an article from last year, which has some useful figures on global warming (note article has several pages through links at bottom). To keep below a 2 degree C temperature rise we can allow another 565 gigatons of CO2 emissions. The stocks of oil and gas already identify that currently remains underground is 2795 gigatons a factor of five times larger than can be released. It is estimated these reserves are worth $27 trillion to the oil companies. If we are to stick to CO2 emissions permitted then these companies will have to leave $20 trillion of their assets in the ground. Clearly they have a vested interest in defeating any serious measures to tackle climate change.
Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – and that make clear who the real enemy is
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719
That’s a really good reply, Dave. I have one comment to make of fracking, which is that it is not certain that it has lower carbon emissions than coal, due to the continuing problem of methane leakage. Of course, it is a “technical problem”, which results from capitalist corner cutting and “cost saving” that could in theory be overcome, but by the time it has been dealt with, if it ever is, the damage will have been done. Furthermore, fracking leads to greater locking-in to the fossil fuel economy.
If the authors of this article are so pro-nuclear and they see a tripling of energy demand, they should consider this the following:
Currently, nuclear provides about 4% of energy demand, with just over 400 reactors operating. Let’s be optimistic and say our authors find a way of supplying 50% of their tripled energy demand using some other fuel that does not contribute to global warming and the rest is nuclear. Then, to achieve their aims, the amount of nuclear would have to increase 37.5 times by the end of the century, to 15,000 reactors. This would require building 200 reactors a year for forty years, then 400 a year for ever after that (as the reactors last 40 years), plus, of course, decommissioning 200 per year in forty years’ time and 400 per year for ever, starting forty years later. So far, less than 100 commercial nuclear reactors have even been taken off line, let alone fully decommissioned.
We have made one step forward and one back. We are in mass extinction of species that will certainly rebound on us all. We are devastating our soils, oceans, forests and ice-caps in a cataclysmic way. I am not at all sure that our loss of knowledge of the land and sense of the more than human is any total progress. We need to go beyond productivist socialism and no holds barred capitalism – two sides of a coin that put human progress so far beyond holistic and broad development that we a re staring our own demise in the face and hardly blinking
We are not in a disaster anything … Stop the doom mongering read some Bjorn Lomborg A V Mountford and Matt Ridley … Years ago it used to be the right that bemoaned modern society and technological advance …these days unfortunately its large parts of the left who also seem to have an intrinsic dislike of people being well off and having a decent lifestyle …
Bjorn Lomborg has never denied that CO2 emissions cause climate change. “The Skeptical Environmentalist” (wrongly) argued that the IPCC was being alarmist and that nothing should be done to mitigate climate change: adaptation would be cheaper. He now argues that something should be done about climate change. Matt Ridley (chairman of Northern Rock until it went under) has a different from from both of Lomborg’s, as he thinks that climate change will be beneficial.
I’ve never heard of A V Mountford in connection to climate change. Google mentions a “Rev A V Mountford” (1912-2003), but there is no indication of his views on climate change. This is strange: even my view on the issues can be found using google!
So, which of these three very different people, (none of them climate scientists), with, presumably, four views on climate change, are we to look to for guidance on the issue? Both of the known people who you recommend we get our views from are right wing.
There a difference between “being well off” (by which I presume you mean being rich) and “having a decent lifestyle”. Most of the rich make the lives of everyone else a misery. They control the economy and are thereby responsible for climate change.
Is there no established process for deciding what can or cannot be published on the LU website? This article is just a particularly detailed attempt at trolling as the authors are clearly in opposition to the founding principles of Left Unity. It should be removed.
So , you are saying only opinions you agree with should be allowed ? Specify how and why the article goes against everything LU stands for …..
There is plenty of this trash in the corporate media already – why on earth is it relevant to LU? Or are we trying to be ‘balanced’ like the BBC?
Why dont you try engaging with their arguments ?
Well, actually quite a few postings have done just that.
However, I welcome pieces such as this. It has brought Left Uniters (or whatever we call ourselves) together in a way you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else on this website!