Green New Deal

[mspohr]

What Kind of Rebellion will it Take to Save Humanity from Extinction? - Resilience
Why, despite the sorts of technological advances that mean we can send people to the Moon and robots to Mars, are so many governments refusing to act?

To answer those questions, you have to understand how the fossil fuel age is tied up with capitalism and class rule.

Activists in the global School Strike 4 Climate movement have adopted as their own the slogan “change the system, not the climate”. Many in the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement agree, even if the movement does not include system change in its platform.

As 350.org founder Bill McKibbon put it, we are “in a fight, not a discourse” and “like most fights, it [is] about power and money. Another book or symposium [is] unlikely to move the needle.”

The climate movement needs to champion real measures that will deliver jobs and decent livelihoods. This means more than abstract promises of new jobs in renewable industries. It needs to push for an expansion of public investment in housing, health and education, and reject the privatisation madness that has made life more miserable for most workers.

In the long run, “we have to have a full ecological and social revolution, transcending existing capitalist relations of production”.

In other words, the very urgency of the analysis rules out “market solutions” within a system that has created this crisis.

 

[SDRick]

If power, money and the market are the villains what will replace them?

 

[JRP3]

Less power, less money, and a more regulated market.

 

[nwdiver]

If power, money and the market are the villains what will replace them?

We don't need to replace the market. We just need to fix it with a carbon tariff.

 

[mspohr]

We don't need to replace the market. We just need to fix it with a carbon tariff.

I think the point of the article was the the current capitalist system is incapable of responding to the climate disaster because entrenched money and power will pursue climate destruction for profit without regard to the future. A carbon tax is a nice idea but, alone, is insufficient to keep us from going over the cliff. The article posits that a complete change in the way we are governed is necessary to avoid disaster. This will require a revolution (probably violent since entrenched power does not give up easily).
Interesting book: Post-Capitalism by Paul Mason
From a review:
The problem is that any contradictions at the heart of capitalism have always generated contradictory political responses from its opponents. Should a fatally flawed system be allowed to destroy itself or should it be overthrown by force? Can its failings be corrected by taking it over or should socialists opt out altogether and create their own alternative communities? You will get very different answers depending on whether you start with Fourier or Marx, Chartism or Leninism. By touching base with all these approaches and more, Mason seems to indicate that anything goes. He wants more cooperative schemes of free exchange – a “sharing” economy to replace a predatory one – and more collective ownership as well. He wants the state to do more to tame private finance and individuals to do more to bypass it. The eclecticism of Mason’s approach to economics only produces confusion when it comes to politics.
PostCapitalism by Paul Mason review – a worthy successor to Marx?

 

[TheTalkingMule]

If power, money and the market are the villains what will replace them?

Decentralized incorruptible blockchain markets and ubiquitous cheap reliable supply.

 

[juliusa]

I think the point of the article was the the current capitalist system is incapable of responding to the climate disaster because entrenched money and power will pursue climate destruction for profit without regard to the future.

I think capitalism, socialism, or any other ism would be just fine - that is not the problem. The problem is entrenched money, and power.

Socialists address the entrenched money by taking it all away, but give themselves power, and ultimately entrenched money.
Capitalists address (government) power by limiting it, but retain entrenched money.

Choose your poison - many all powerful companies duking it out, or a single all-powerful government.

 

[SDRick]

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

 

[jerry33]

I think capitalism, socialism, or any other ism would be just fine - that is not the problem. The problem is entrenched money, and power.

Socialists address the entrenched money by taking it all away, but give themselves power, and ultimately entrenched money.
Capitalists address (government) power by limiting it, but retain entrenched money.

Choose your poison - many all powerful companies duking it out, or a single all-powerful government.

You are thinking of communists, not democratic socialists.

 

[nwdiver]

Socialists address the entrenched money by taking it all away, but give t̶h̶e̶m̶s̶e̶l̶v̶e̶s̶ ourselves,

Fixed it for you

 

[mspohr]

Naomi Klein has a new book coming out about the climate and social disaster and the Green New Deal

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P56CC82/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

With reports spanning from the ghostly Great Barrier Reef, to the annual smoke-choked skies of the Pacific Northwest, to post-hurricane Puerto Rico, to a Vatican attempting an unprecedented “ecological conversion,” Klein makes the case that we will rise to the existential challenge of climate change only if we are willing to transform the systems that produced this crisis.

An expansive, far-ranging exploration that sees the battle for a greener world as indistinguishable from the fight for our lives, On Fire captures the burning urgency of the climate crisis, as well as the fiery energy of a rising political movement demanding a catalytic Green New Deal.

No Logo at 20: have we lost the battle against the total branding of our lives?

No Logo at 20: have we lost the battle against the total branding of our lives?

But it was never as simple as merely boycotting brands you vaguely disapproved of; the thrust of the book, and the global justice movement in general, was not about making more tasteful shopping decisions, but understanding how corporations shape our lives and culture and using that knowledge to try to, at least, stop them from running riot. The stakes are higher now than they were in the 1990s and this time, thanks to books such as No Logo, we can’t say that we didn’t know

 

[juliusa]

There is no free lunch.

Opinion | If You Want ‘Renewable Energy,’ Get Ready to Dig

Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic. Solar power requires even more cement, steel and glass—not to mention other metals. Global silver and indium mining will jump 250% and 1,200% respectively over the next couple of decades to provide the materials necessary to build the number of solar panels, the International Energy Agency forecasts. World demand for rare-earth elements—which aren’t rare but are rarely mined in America—will rise 300% to 1,000% by 2050 to meet the Paris green goals. If electric vehicles replace conventional cars, demand for cobalt and lithium, will rise more than 20-fold. That doesn’t count batteries to back up wind and solar grids.

The Sydney-based Institute for a Sustainable Future cautions that a global “gold” rush for minerals could take miners into “some remote wilderness areas [that] have maintained high biodiversity because they haven’t yet been disturbed.”

 

[mspohr]

Coal miners support Green New Deal

'Coal is over': the miners rooting for the Green New Deal

The coal industry in Appalachia is dying – something that people there know better than anyone. Some in this region are pinning their hopes on alternative solutions, including rising Democratic star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.

“A lot of guys thought they were going to bring back coal jobs, and Trump stuck it to them,” said 69-year-old Bennie Massey, who worked for 30 years as a coal miner in Lynch, Kentucky.


“If it was called the Red New Deal, it would be approved by now,” said Sturgill. “What you’re doing with the Green New Deal is you’re opening the door to infringe on the Republicans’ money and that’s what they’re afraid of. Republicans laugh and say you can’t pay for it. But if you tax everybody what they should be taxed, and I’m talking about the wealthy, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

Sturgill cited the coal companies that receive billions of dollars in annual government subsidies and tax breaks, while hiring expensive lawyers to fight paying black lung benefits to coal miners. “I fought seven years before I got my black lung benefits, and they were hoping I died before getting paid,” added Sturgill.

 

[ohmman]

There is no free lunch.

Opinion | If You Want ‘Renewable Energy,’ Get Ready to Dig

Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic. Solar power requires even more cement, steel and glass—not to mention other metals. Global silver and indium mining will jump 250% and 1,200% respectively over the next couple of decades to provide the materials necessary to build the number of solar panels, the International Energy Agency forecasts. World demand for rare-earth elements—which aren’t rare but are rarely mined in America—will rise 300% to 1,000% by 2050 to meet the Paris green goals. If electric vehicles replace conventional cars, demand for cobalt and lithium, will rise more than 20-fold. That doesn’t count batteries to back up wind and solar grids.

The Sydney-based Institute for a Sustainable Future cautions that a global “gold” rush for minerals could take miners into “some remote wilderness areas [that] have maintained high biodiversity because they haven’t yet been disturbed.”

There is no free lunch. There are significantly cheaper lunches, though. The opinion piece you posted leaves out that the carbon and energy payback on most wind turbines is 5-6 months. It also chooses to omit the fact that the steel is fully recyclable, as are the rarer metals. The thing about opinion pieces is that they cherry pick data to build a narrative around the opinion of the author. And opinions can only exist in the absence of fact, so I find this piece disingenuous. I say that with the caveat that I can't read the entire paywalled piece, only your excerpt and the free bit.

You clearly got something out of it. Would you mind sharing what that might have been? The only thing I get from the piece is that there are natural resource and energy investments into sustainable power. I can't think of a single participant in this thread that things that wind turbines grow from a seed without any inputs.

Is the implication that the perfect should be the enemy of the really, really good, and in rejecting it, we should continue with the really, really bad?

 

[juliusa]

The only thing I get from the piece is that there are natural resource and energy investments into sustainable power.

That was part of it.

My main takeaway was to make sure we have proper oversight as developing countries are exploited for their resources and untouched habitat is destroyed - ensure the laborers' safety and work environment meet our standards, mining is done in an environmentally-acceptable way, and species and habitat are protected.

Let's not destroy the planet to save it.

 

[ohmman]

That was part of it.

My main takeaway was to make sure we have proper oversight as developing countries are exploited for their resources and untouched habitat is destroyed - ensure the laborers' safety and work environment meet our standards, mining is done in an environmentally-acceptable way, and species and habitat are protected.

I definitely agree with you on that. There is an opportunity to create a framework before the demand skyrockets. We should probably put the same restrictions in place on all resource extraction, though, including fossil fuels and ornamental stone.

Do you think that was the narrative of the author? Because it seemed to me that important details were selectively omitted from the piece. Again - I didn't see the whole thing so maybe the conclusion was that wind power is great, but we need to be careful.

 

[Mader Levap]

Nope. Some people just have blind faith in so-called "free market"

Not blind faith. Just reality.

I was not aware any country actually implemented free market economic system without any gov intervention so far. I will admit some corrupted hellholes are pretty close, though.

The problem is people that have blind faith in the government.

Some do, some doesn't. You seem to have blind faith in "free market" and that government cannot do anything whatsoever. This kind of worldview is, of course, at odds with reality, like opposite (that government can do anything and market does not work at all).

How is the war on drugs working out? DUI? Economics is what kept Obama from killing coal, and Trump from bringing it back. It is what is keeping Trump from stopping illegal immigration. People pretty much do what they want, and are more guided by economics than the law.

So you are one of those people that think market is always right, huh. Delusional doesn't even begin to describe this kind of worldview.

DUI?

I had to highlight it here. Seriously? Driving under influence? This is your example? People break laws so laws are useless? Are you ancap or something?

I once heard Chuck Grassley talk about taxes - he said we can make whatever tax laws we want, but people will only give us about 18% of GDP.

You buy civilisation with taxes, otherwise you are just parasite. Sure, one can discuss what level is too high, how to reduce waste etc, but that's very different topic from "taxes are theft reee".

Yep. “The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends.”. ― Ludwig von Mises

I am not socialist, though I am certainly way more on left than you. Capitalism works... as long as it has boot on it's face.

Oh, and that "If You Want ‘Renewable Energy,’ Get Ready to Dig" article was debunked somewhere in main investor thread few days ago. I freely admit I am too lazy to search for it.

 

[juliusa]

You seem to have blind faith in "free market" and that government cannot do anything whatsoever.

Free market and free will. There is very little government can do to counteract market forces, and the will of the people.

Obama's war on coal. Trump's bringing coal back.
Neither amounted to much - it is controlled by the market, not government.

Look at the yellow vests in France over carbon taxes (mostly). Protests in Hong Kong over freedom (mostly).

Oh, and that "If You Want ‘Renewable Energy,’ Get Ready to Dig" article was debunked somewhere in main investor thread few days ago. I freely admit I am too lazy to search for it.

Of course it was. The premise of the GND (the world will end in 10 years) has also been debunked. Do you think rare earths, lithium, steel, plastics, and other materials needed to build turbines, batteries, motors, and solar panels will simply appear on the loading dock?

I found the reference, but don't see it bebunked. Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the 2019 Investors' Roundtable

 

[ohmman]

Free market and free will. There is very little government can do to counteract market forces, and the will of the people.

Obama's war on coal. Trump's bringing coal back.
Neither amounted to much - it is controlled by the market, not government.

Look at the yellow vests in France over carbon taxes (mostly). Protests in Hong Kong over freedom (mostly).

I’m so glad the market pushed women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement forward.

 

[juliusa]

I’m so glad the market pushed women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement forward.

Government institutionalized and perpetuated both until the will of the people forced change.

Add supression of marijuana and electric vehicles to the list. Government supports status quo and entrenched industry until the people finally demand change.