Global Warming and the Great Recession

Global warming directly threatens virtually every individual, group, and nation.  Climate protection represents the great common necessity for humanity.  It is a concern for labor, its allies, and the globalization from below movement.

Paradoxically, the slowing economy is reducing the production of greenhouse gases.  But it is also leading to cuts in already inadequate plans to move the global economy to a sustainable basis.

World leaders are using the “Great Recession” as an excuse to continue business as usual -- the destruction of the earth by global warming.  Corporations and governments are already reneging on already inadequate commitments. Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, says,

“European industry is saying we can’t deal with financial crisis and reduce emissions at the same time.  Heads of government have other things on their minds.”   The December meeting of world leaders in Poznan reveals the quiet retreat from already inadequate plans and standards.

But this retreat may have unintended consequences.  The “Great Recession” has already delegitimated global leadership and neoliberal ideology and policy.  Failure to take effective measures to halt global warming provides a further self-delegitimation of global leadership and neoliberal ideology.

Why establishment remedies aren’t working

The “Great Recession” is part of a cycle that has repeated itself dozens of times in the history of capitalism.  The destruction of the earth’s climate by human activity is so far unique in human history.  Yet both share the same root: the failure to shape human activity to meet human need.  And each can only be solved through a global democratization that places human activity under shared human control.

Establishment remedies for global warming and for the Great Recession are already failing.  The reason, at bottom, is the same.  As the economists say, you can’t push on a string.  When powerful private interests control humanity’s resources and decision making, efforts to entice them to do the right thing are unlikely to override their own calculation of their interests.  As long as production is driven exclusively by the search for profits, not by human need, nobody should be surprised that it doesn’t always assort very well with human need.

In the case of the Great Recession, governments have attempted to give incentives for financial institutions to resume lending and investing by providing them trillions of dollars in investment and cheap and even free credit.  But those institutions have continued refusing to lend and invest because they consider hoarding to be more in their interest. 

In the case of global warming, the Kyoto treaty and the EU have tried to get corporations and other institutions to produce less carbon emissions by a “cap-and-trade” system that essentially charges a fee for a permit to pollute and then allows the permits to be bought and sold.  So far this has completely failed to reduce carbon emissions, which have not decreased even in the countries where the system is most developed. 

One reason is that profitability is composed of many factors and can be pursued in many ways.  Expensive investments to reduce carbon pollution are often more difficult, riskier, and less likely to pay off than relocating, bribing officials, buying pollution permits, and other available alternatives.  As long as decision making is in private hands and the decision makers’ goal is to make money, not to reduce carbon emissions, private corporations are likely to find ways to make money without reducing carbon emissions.  It’s hard to find even a single company or other polluter that has reduced its carbon emissions as a direct result of the cap-and-trade program. 

Another reason is that “price signals” are too variable and inconsistent to provide stable guidance for systemic change.  The price of EU cap-and-trade permits has fallen by half compared with a year ago.  That makes it more profitable to burn coal than use wind power even after paying for permits.  Falling fossil fuel prices similarly show that “price signals” can’t provide the way to transition to a low-carbon economy.  For example, T. Boone Pickens has delayed his giant wind farm project because the fall in fuel prices has made wind power noncompetitive with fossil fuels.

What’s the alternative?

Humanity needs to focus on actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions year by year at the rate climate scientists say is necessary.  Instead, emissions have continued to rise in spite of every effort that has been made under the Kyoto protocol and other initiatives.  U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses were fifteen percent above 1990s levels, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The solution is to create a rapidly growing “green” sector in which production is for use – specifically, for climate protection -- not just for profit.  We must reconstruct society on a low-carbon basis regardless of whether or not it is profitable to do so.

This doesn’t necessarily mean a classic “command economy.”  Markets and systems of decentralized cooperatives can be part of the mix.  It’s not an ideological question:  We can use price mechanisms as a technical device for efficient allocation once basic social priorities have been set.  But the price mechanisms must not override the basic social decision to reconstruct society on a low-carbon emission basis.

Wartime mobilization provides an analogy.  We don’t expect an army to make a profit.  It has other responsibilities and other means of support.  During World War II, for example, public policy mandated the production that was necessary: tanks and airplanes.  At the same time it forbade much production that was unnecessary; as a popular song about wartime mobilization put it, “put those plans for homes and pleasure cars away.”   Today’s equivalent would be mandated annual reductions in carbon-emitting production and consumption – mandating the “cap” part of “cap-and-trade.”

In short, climate protection requires planning and social decision making.

Openings

President-elect Barack Obama has legitimated the necessity for climate protection and the opportunity for green jobs.  He has promised to fight global warming by building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies.  The Great Recession provides a political climate favorable to job creation and economic stimulus. 

Even within the Obama administration, however, there is opposition to effective action to counter global warming.  A recent article in the New York Times details how Lawrence Summers, head of Obama’s economic team, “is wary of moving very quickly on a carbon cap, because doing so could raise energy costs, kill jobs and deepen the current recession.”  He foresees “a phase-in of several years for any carbon restraint regime, particularly if the economy continues to be sluggish.”  And he wants provisions that will nullify carbon limits if the cost of pollution permits gets too high.  

In any case, it’s not enough to “stimulate the economy” and “get the country moving again.”  Both climate security and livelihood security require not “recovery” but reconstruction of the economy on new foundations.  Obama’s program provides an opening to seize – and move beyond.

Obama’s program is likely to meet at least two forms of backlash.  First, once the immediate economic crisis subsides, the believers in the unimpeded market are bound to launch a counter-attack.  That will have to be answered by an explicit defense of a global social economy.

Second, if “cap-and-trade” and other climate control efforts lead to the loss of jobs, even in limited sectors, it will cause a backlash among working people.  Climate protection has a chance of succeeding only if it is combined with effective provisions for human security.  A human safety net must be part of an effective safety net for the planet.

The convergence of the Great Recession and global warming presents an opportunity for moving the global economy and society in a new direction.  The promises of Obama and other world leaders for climate protection through millions of “green jobs” provides a context for demanding that they not only talk the talk but actually walk the walk.  In the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate conference in December, the movement for globalization from below can capture the imagination of the world’s people with the demand for massive public works to reduce carbon production in every country and sector of the world.

What is needed is investment on the scale of the many trillions of dollars that have just been used for financial bailouts.  If we can bail out the banks, why not the planet?

[The next post in this series will present IMF “special drawing rights” (“SDRs”) or “green paper gold” as one way resources could be allocated to the public purpose of climate protection on a global scale.]

 

Comments

[Philosopheer]

Governments advocate spending our way out of recession. IE Magnify your "carbon footprint" by consumerism. The world has gone mad.

[Hirotomo Nii]

T
he world crisis of affordability, stability, and ecology can contribute to the issues in trading, resolution, and livable habitat as a starting point in traffic and foot-traffic, retirement, and civilization.
*
AFFORDABILITY: Zero Appointment Zone Sales Connect Areas as newly reformed tourist initiative enactments adds to our urban master planned zoned economic communities that with Sleep Bench Permit Pre-Fab Cabins and Basement Pay Showers and Lockers welcomes new travelers ergo bus revenue and rail additions. Station use in Kinko’s, Postcard Documents, and Western Union supports the included datum of those who can’t afford five $80 lunches before maybe a sales pitch time. Along-with, in this affordability, new potential increases in visitor count at urban core sites may sway new investments in Jet Airline travel infrastructure and the car as a town-to-town option.
STABILITY: Our recourse services and deployments may see restaurant truck civil engineering stalls and pushcart store easements along-with repair and splice-it used wholesale with retail space allocations as items within an investors’ prospectus list. These and other expansions can result in conservative risk variables to contribute to a stable and confident future output in our economy.
ECOLOGY: Polluted Rivers and smog heavy air does not statistically impact citizens there in a technically academic way (or is not excusable); and it does play in cancer and other receives. Our laws in rights and justice (goals)… does not exclude those who can’t speak-out or are in silence. As such, we live here on Earth with many species and kingdom ways (migration, hibernation, etc.). There should be pollution control mechanical units; how about a dehumidifier pole etc that connects to each other to respond to ‘NYC’ summer heats?; Cooling Towers (Hodges); and Green Belts (ESCO, Tokyo) in planning with Urban Cores (another cost effective artificial land idea to reduce heat core and heat pollution). Additionally, a realization of habitats outside of human occupancy should also be a value to our planet.
OPNION: An Education Bill with Job Placement in tourist row security (Kung Fu Academies) and affordable housing by Camper Live/Work Stalls with utility hook-ups in our civil engineering can, by volume and ergo price-break, support middlemen in their quota meets. Also, the aforementioned hereinabove may make attractive Timeshare real estate sales and expanded gated community real estate risks (golf course, merchant row with horizontal pay escalators, jet ski ocean engineering (asphalt makes speedy a car not on unpaved road), and other possible site features).
CLOSE: For a presentation on new City Development and Ecology, please visit www.unsprawl.net and I thank you for your time.
Hirotomo Nii
Contact: KP Nii: 1080 23rd Avenue, Suite 105, Oakland, Ca 94606; t (510) 533-7270 f (510) 533-4214

[Mariya Strauss]

Hey, I work for the International Labor Communications Association. (Tim, I met you when you were organizing temps in Boston in the late 90s).
Call me if you guys want to talk further about connecting with other labor bloggers/editors, and how ILCA might support your work more generally.

Mariya Strauss 202-637-5015

[Dash RipRock III]

Al Gore has really stepped in it this time. He could have spent the rest of his global warming career collecting money by spreading fear over events that were a century or at least half century in the future. Oh, but that wasn’t good enough for Big Al. He’s now told the biggest global warming whopper of his alarmist career:

AL GORE HAS PREDICTED THAT THE NORTHERN POLAR ICE CAP WILL BE COMPLETELY GONE IN FIVE YEARS!!!

When I heard this I assumed it was a rumor started by skeptics to make Gore look bad. It wasn’t until I viewed the video that I realized what Gore had done. Gore has started a five year credibility countdown timer ticking and it’s up to all of us to make sure that he is held accountable and proven to be a fraud when his dire prediction aimed at drumming up support doesn’t come true.

The mainstream media isn’t going to let this video see the light of day because they, unlike Al, understand the precarious position in which he has placed himself.

It is therefore up to us to spread the word about Big Al’s prediction. He must be exposed for the fear mongering opportunist that he has become.

To view the video, please visit the following site and click on the picture of Big Al holding up five fingers.

http://www.hootervillegazette.com

While visiting this site, you might want to watch a preview of the film “Not Evil, Just wrong” or watch “The Great Global Warming Swindle” which is found in the video section. Happy Viewing!!!