Synopsisof!Naomi!Klein’sbook! … 5!...
Transcript of Synopsisof!Naomi!Klein’sbook! … 5!...
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Synopsis of Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything: The Climate vs. Capitalism Summary prepared by Georgia Kelly for Praxis Peace Institute members Introduction Naomi introduces two main ideas at the beginning of her book: 1) A Marshall Plan for the Earth. 2) Public ownership of energy and water. We need a coherent narrative of economics and sustainability that includes: 1) A Vision and Strategy for how to transition to that Vision. 2) A new worldview. 3) A new social and political context in which shifts can take place. Things to oppose and stop: 1) The market for betting on weather derivatives 2) Private militias 3) Collusion between big polluters and “environmental” organizations – Green washing 4) Stop the “fetish of centrism.” The International Energy Agency (IEA) says we are on track for a 6 degree Celsius rise in temperature (10.8 F.). We have a Climate State of Emergency. We live in a self-‐centered culture. The 3 Pillars of what has happened in this Era: 1) Privatization of the public sphere 2) Deregulation of the corporate sector 3) Lower of no taxation for corporations. Chapter One – The Right is Right Changes Needed: -‐ Basic income for all -‐ Rights of Nature acknowledged -‐ Rights of Indigenous people respected. The right-‐wing Heartland Institute works tirelessly to deny climate change. Climate deniers are usually white, male, and conservative. They will use drought and famine to push Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
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The fact is that only big government can mobilize quickly enough in a natural disaster. Fire Departments, police, FEMA, etc. Greenwashing is system-‐sanctioned change – e.g., the Breakthrough Institute. Moderates are constantly trying to reframe climate action as something more palatable to the people responsible for the climate crisis. They ask how do you reassure members of a panicked elite that they are still masters of the universe? The Answer is: You don’t. You make sure you have enough people on your side to change the balance of power. “It is always easier to deny reality than to allow one’s worldview to be shattered.” The actions required directly challenge our reigning economic paradigm (which is deregulated capitalism combined with public austerity). Chapter Two – Hot Money The US and China have had counter lawsuits claiming protectionism as a result of the WTO. The US challenged one of China’s wind power subsidy programs on the grounds that it supported local industry, which it considered protectionist. China countersued in 2012 targeting various renewable energy programs in the EU on the same grounds. The biggest polluters in the world are rushing to the WTO to knock down each other’s windmills. Trade trumps climate, where the favoring of local industry constitutes illegal “discrimination.” Fossil fuel companies receive annual global subsidies from $775 billion to $1 trillion and pay nothing for polluting the atmosphere. An oil company in 2012 tried to use NAFTA to challenge Quebec’s hard-‐won fracking moratorium. As more activist’s victories are won, more such legal challenges should be expected. Global warming warnings began in the 1950s but were firmly established with James Hansen, director of NASA at a congressional hearing on June 23, 1988. In 1988, Time Magazine named the Earth as “man” of the year. In 1980, the backlash began. The “end of history” proclaimed by right wing ideologues, including Francis Fukuyama, would promote the extreme, pro-‐corporate ideology that persists right up to the present. The globalization of agricultural systems over recent decades is likely to have been one of the most important causes of overall increases in green house gas emissions. All the container ships increased traffic by nearly 400% in recent years. The emissions caused from bringing TVs from China are not entered into anyone’s account books. As the workshop of the world, China became the primary coal-‐spewing country in the world. The most basic rule of trade law is you can’t privilege domestic over foreign.
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“A destabilized climate is the cost of deregulated global capitalism.” But many so-‐called environmental organizations decided to cave and support NAFTA. They included the World Wildlife Fund, the Environmental Defense Fund, and Conservation International, the Audubon Society, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Those that opposed NAFTA: the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace. A Vision is required for the Great Transition. The boosters of green capitalism have tried to gloss over the clashes between market logic and ecological limits by touting “green” tech and separating environmental impacts from economic activity. Wealthy countries need to consume less immediately. Consuming Green just means substituting one power source for another. Ideas: Selective degrowth, luxury taxes, fewer work hours with a basic annual income. See Tim Jackson’s Prosperity Without Growth. Chapter 3 – Public and Paid For Goods that everyone requires should be owned by the public – e.g., water and energy. 25% of Germany’s energy came from renewables in 2013. Only 4% of energy in the US came from renewables in 2013. Sonoma and Marin Counties, as of 2015, have 33% renewables. Frankfurt and Munich never sold their energy grids and plan to be 100% renewable by 2050. Sacramento will be 90% by 2050. Cities need to buy back their energy grids. Mark Z. Jacobson (climate scientist, Stanford University) said the entire world’s energy supply could be in renewables by as early as 2030, if we had the political will. NY State could meet all its energy needs in renewables by 2030. Occupy Sandy was the volunteer activist group that went door-‐to-‐door to help people from the storm that devastated so many people. The poor were last to be helped by the Red Cross and other agencies. This disaster proved how dangerous it is to be dependent on centralized forms of energy that can be knocked out in one blow. Also of note: during disasters nearly everyone looses their “free Market” religion because government is organized to help. A publically traded insurance company in the face of climate change is not a sustainable business model. Companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, etc., are rich because they have dumped the cost of cleaning up their messes onto regular people around the world. The Exxon CEO makes more than $100,000 per day. A steep carbon tax should be a no-‐brainer. The U.S. military is the largest user of petroleum products in the world. How to Raise Money for Renewables: 1) A low-‐rate financial transaction tax 2) Closing tax havens. 3) A 1% billionaires’ tax
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4) Slashing the military budget by 25%. 5) A carbon tax 6) Phasing out fossil fuel subsidies globally. All these measures taken together would raise more than $2 trillion annually! Recommended book: A Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch We have been suffering under a corporate liberation project sine 1980. Chapter 4 – Planning and Banning For a moment, the banks, the auto companies and the stimulus bill were in the hands of Obama. They could have been nationalized or made into cooperatives in the case of auto companies, but they were bailed out instead. Making this opportunity into a win for all would have required a government that was not afraid of bold long-‐term economic planning. The potential of the moment slipped away. See: the documentary film “The Take” about workers taking over factories in Argentina and setting them up as cooperatives. It is clear that a core battle of ideas must be fought about the right of citizens to democratically determine what kind of economy they need, and it’s NOT the power of the market. Renewable Energy could create jobs in the following fields: construction, manufacturing, installations, maintenance, operation, public transportation, small-‐scale sustainable farming, and ecosystem restoration. Privatization has diminished services, increased prices, and limited our choices. About half of Germany’s renewable energy facilities are in the hands of farmers, citizen groups, and almost 900 energy cooperatives. This relationship between power decentralization and successful climate action points to how the planning required by this movement differs markedly from the more centralized versions of the past. Agroecology – is small-‐scale farmers using sustainable methods based on a combination of modern science and local knowledge. It is a solution to the climate crisis. Hunger is not about the amount of food available; it’s about being able to afford and control that food. For example, the US has more food than it uses, but 50 million people are food insecure. It’s not supply; it’s distribution, it’s subsidies, it’s punitive trade agreements. Mark Z. Jacobson: “Nuclear energy is not carbon free. Vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and enrich uranium, and it takes between 10 and 19 years to build the nuclear power plant. Currently, about 12% of the world’s energy is supplied by nuclear. Germany’s anti-‐nuclear movement paved the way for renewables there.
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Fracking, the semisolid form of unconventional oil known as bitumen, is so difficult and energy-‐intensive to extract that the process is roughly three to four times as greenhouse-‐ gas intensive as extracting conventional oil. James Hansen of NASA said that if all the bitumen was dug up from tar sands it would be game over for the climate. Methane emissions linked to fracked natural gas are at least 30% higher than the emissions linked to conventional gas. That is because of methane leaks at every stage of production. Chevron is spending $54 billion on a gas development on Barrow Island, a nature reserve off the coast of Australia. It is expected to keep producing gas for the next 30 years. These long-‐term projects of oil companies prove that they expect to control governments by putting the clamp on them for more extraction over the next 30 to 40 years. An oil company’s reserve replacement ratio must be at least 100% for the company to stay in business long-‐term; otherwise, it will run out of oil. It is this structural imperative that is pushing the industry into the most extreme forms of dirty energy. This means that every victory won against big oil companies will be temporary. In essence, the oil industry is promising shareholders that they are determined to burn 5 times more fossil fuel than the planet’s atmosphere can absorb. In 2013, the oil and gas industry spent just under $400,000 a day lobbying Congress and government officials. This is why the oil industry is so unconcerned about the nonbinding commitments made by politicians at the UN climate summits to keep temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius. Politicians must be prohibited from receiving donations from the industries they regulate. Ideally, elections would be publically funded. What is missing from most progressive movements are the following: 1) Strategy 2) Clear deadlines 3) Determined focus Success will require the broadest possible spectrum of allies. Also clear is that the fetish for structurelessness, the rebellion against any kind of institutionalization, is not a luxury today’s transformative movements can afford. Policies that deregulate and privatize have given corporations and banks the right to steal. The cultural narrative that we must transform is the one that leads us to believe that humanity’s duty is to dominate the world. Chapter 5 – Beyond Extractivism The island of Nauru has been exploited to almost complete destruction for the removal of phosphate. It is viewed as a disposable country that the Australian government and extractive companies are allowed to destroy. Several of Nauru’s leaders have held up their country as a kind of warning to a warming world. The world is headed down a similar path with the relentless burning of coal and oil, which is altering the planet’s climate.
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The conundrum: Why would an economic model based on endless growth ever seem viable in the first place? Extractivism has a nonreciprocal and dominance-‐based relationship with the Earth. Extractionism is connected to the idea of sacrifice zones. The colonial mind nurtures the belief that there is always somewhere else to go and exploit once the current site is used up. If the modern day extractionist has a patron saint it should be Francis Bacon. In De Augments Scientiarum (1623), he urges man to fully exploit Nature: “Neither ought a man to make scruple of entering and penetrating into these holes and corners, when the inquisition of truth is his sole object.” (Very telling language indeed!) Patriarchy’s dual war against women and nature are connected. Thoreau was the repudiation of Bacon, Locke, and their ilk. Riane Eisler (author of The Chalice and the Blade) says that patriarchy underlies all this economic philosophy. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” awakened the current environmental movement. In 1972, the Club of Rome published “Limits of Growth,” a best seller warning of the continued depleting of natural resources. James Watt’s steam engine began the era of coal. The market economy and the fossil fuel economy emerged at the same time. Coal is the black ink in which the story of modern capitalism was written. Where the Left has been complicit: in fighting over the spoils of capitalist extractionism and exploited labor – rather than overturning the economic system. Communists, socialists, and trade unionists have also fought over the spoils. They have not created an alternate vision or revolution. Socialist states have acted equally extractive, even though they are not using the Old Testament as a directive. Authoritarian socialism and capitalism share strong tendencies toward centralizing: one in the hands of the state; the other in the hands of the corporation. Even Norway’s Statoil is tearing up the Alberta tar sands and gearing up to tap massive reserves in the Arctic. We should seek a regenerative economy instead of an extractionist economy. Keynes, like John Stuart Mill, advocated a transition to a post-‐growth economy. South America Bolivia – large dependence on natural gas Ecuador -‐ growing oil dependency and selling off large portions of the Amazon forest Argentina – supports open-‐pit mining and green deserts of GMO soy and other crops. Since 2007, Correa’s Ecuador has been the most extractive government in the history of the country. In assessing their environmental positions, Hugo Chavez’s 21st century socialism is not enough. (How does this square with Ecuador being the first government in the world to recognize the Rights of Nature?) On the positive side, the poverty rate in Ecuador has dropped 32 percent.
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Some parts of the environmental movement tried to prove that saving the planet could be a great new business opportunity, but that was just more Old paradigm thinking – extractionism for a “good” cause. We are up against the power of an established cultural narrative. This story needs to change. PART TWO – MAGICAL THINKING Chapter 6 – Fruits, Not Roots The Nature Conservancy began extracting fossil fuels on the preserve it was supposed to protect. In 1999, they commissioned an oil and gas operator to sink a new gas well in the preserve. This was exposed by the L.A. Times. Their extraction was still going on when Naomi Klein was writing her book, and has been going on for at least 15 years. The prairie chickens that were supposed to be saved by the NC are now almost extinct. The Nature Conservancy counts BP American, Chevron, and Shell members of its business council. The World Wildlife Fund has had a long relationship with Shell. Conservation International (CI) has partnerships with Monsanto, Wal-‐Mart, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil McDonald’s, etc. The organizations at the forefront of the environmental movement: Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Greenepeace, Friends of the Earth, Sierra Club, 350.org, Food and Water Watch, have not sold out in any way. Much more methane is released through fracking, which makes natural gas a hazardous fuel, especially since much of it is being fracked today. The “market-‐based” climate solutions favored by so many large foundations and adopted by many greens have provided an invaluable service to the fossil fuel sector as a whole. Since emissions are up by about 57% since the UN climate conventions were signed in 1992, the failure of the Polite Strategy is beyond debate. The UN climate summit held in Warsaw was sponsored by a panoply of fossil fuel companies, including a coal company. When they are the “partners,” there is little hope for a serious discussion of solutions. The Environmental Defense Fund filed the original lawsuit that led to the banning of DDT in the US. Following that and the publication of Silent Spring, there was a wave of environmental legislation. At this point, DDT is no longer found in body fat. Strontium 90 is no longer found in cow’s or mother’s milk. Mark Dowie say this is a result of outright bans on the substances in question. But, almost overnight, banning and tightly regulating harmful industrial practices went from being bipartisan political practice to a symptom of “command and control environmentalism.” Gus Speth, who co-‐founded Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), served as a top environmental advisor to Jimmy Carter. He described the problem in the years that
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followed “we kept working within the system when we should have tried to change the system and root causes.” The conciliatory “environmentalists” defined themselves as having a collaborative approach rather than one of confrontation. “We are creative, entrepreneurial, and partnership-‐driven. We don’t litigate.” Indeed, the pro-‐corporate conversion of large parts of the green movement in the 1980s led to deep schisms inside the environmental movement. Real environmental groups are disgusted with the corporate buyout of Earth Day. One of the green groups that underwent a corporate makeover was the Environmental Defense fund (EDF). Under Fred Krupp’s leadership, the new goal became “creating markets for the bastards,” as a former colleague would say. EDF now forms partnerships with polluters, trying to persuade them of the cost savings in going green. EDF prided itself on putting results above ideology, but they are very ideological. It is the ideology of the private, market-‐based “solutions.” Sam Walton (Wal-‐Mart) sits on the board of Environmental Defense Fund! The Walton family foundation gave about half of the $71 million in grants for environmental causes to EDF, Conservation International, and Marine Stewardship Council. Such a group is very unlikely to be critical of Wal-‐Mart and whatever they support. Wal-‐Mart, FedEx, GM were pushing hard for the global deregulatory framework that has done so much to send emissions soaring. “The alignment of economic interests – combined with the ever powerful desire to be seen as “serious” in circles where seriousness is equated with toeing the pro-‐market line – fundamentally shaped how these green groups conceived of the climate challenge from the start. Climate change was presented as a narrow technical problem with no end of profitable solutions within the market system. With all the fanfare about environmentalism – Vanity Fair covers, TED talks, hybrids, etc. – there is virtually no discernible movement. The greenwashing movement is like this imagined punch line: “ It’s easy to be healthy – smoke one less cigarette a month.” Fracking The vast majority of new gas projects in North America rely on fracking, not conventional drilling. From a Cornell study in NY Times: “The gas extracted from shale deposits is not a bridge to a renewable future -‐-‐-‐ it’s a gangplank to more warming and away from clean energy investments.” Mark Z. Jacobson says, “We don’t need unconventional fuels to produce the infrastructure to convert to entirely clean and renewable wind, water, and solar power for all purposes. Conventional fossil fuels can power the transition.” The Environmental Defense Fund and the Nature Conservancy have responded to revelations about the huge risks associated with natural gas by undertaking a series of initiatives that give the distinct impression that fracking is on the cusp of becoming clean and safe. The Conservancy has a high-‐profile partnership with BP and Wyoming’s Jonah Field, a huge fracking-‐for-‐gas operation in an area of vulnerable wildlife.
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The EDF has received a $6 million grant from Michael Bloomberg’s foundation involved in creating regulations that make fracking “safe.” Again, a reminder about Methane releases from fracking. Like the well-‐understood strategy of sowing doubts about the science of climate change, this confusion effectively undermines the momentum away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. We are squandering the greatest political will that we’ve ever had towards getting off of fossil fuels. (See Film: Gasland) Kyoto Protocol When the Clinton administration came to the negotiations, it proposed an alternate route: create a system of international carbon trading modeled on the cap-‐and-‐trade system used to address acid rain. The EDF worked closely on that campaign with Al Gore’s office. Rather than straightforwardly requiring all industrialized countries to lower their greenhouse gas emissions by a fixed amount, the scheme would issue pollution permits, which they could use, sell if they didn’t need them, or purchase so that they could pollute more!. Europe viewed the US and our creation of a global carbon market as tantamount to abandoning the climate crisis to “the law of the jungle.” The European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) was launched in 2005 and would go on to become closely integrated with the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which was written into the Kyoto Protocol. It didn’t take long for the flaws in this system to appear. All kinds of dodgy industrial projects can generate lucrative credits. Oil companies operating in the Niger Delta that practiced “flaring” – setting fire to the natural gas released in the oil drilling process because capturing and using the potent greenhouse gas is more expensive than burning it -‐-‐-‐ have argued that they should be paid if they don’t burn the fuel. And, some are already receiving carbon credits for this slight-‐of-‐hand practice. Even a highly polluting factory that installs a piece of equipment that keeps a greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere can qualify as “green development” in UN rules. Selling carbon credits constituted a jaw-‐dropping 93.4% of one Indian firm’s revenues in 2012! At this point, there is overwhelming evidence that manufacturers are gaming the system by profiting in the production of even more greenhouse gases (called carbon cowboys). The EU has banned credits from these factories in its carbon market. One type of scam turns over large tracks of land to conservation groups and indigenous groups, on the promise of money for nothing. All this points to a broader problem with offsets. Example: In Paraná, Brazil, at a project providing offsets for Chevron, GM, and American Electric Power, and administered by The Nature Conservancy and a Brazilian NGO, the Indigenous Guarani were not allowed to forage for wood or hunt in the places they had always occupied, or even to fish in nearby waterways. The offset market has created a new class of “green” human rights abuses. In Brazil, locals have reported being shot at by park rangers while they searched the forest for food. The land is overseen by the Nature Conservancy. As of 2013, over 100 local farmers and their advocates have been killed, making it a crime to be a farmer there. In order for
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multinational corporations to protect their freedom to pollute the atmosphere, peasants, farmers, and indigenous people are losing their freedom to live and sustain themselves. Why aren’t we ordering companies to stop putting our future at risk, instead of bribing and cajoling them? Offset projects have resulted in an increase of emissions worldwide. The Cap and trade laws that, fortunately, did not pass the House and Senate after Obama was elected, would have repeated all the same mistakes of the UN emission trading system. Both proposals were based on the EDF’s Fred Krupp design, which had brought together large polluters – Dow Chemical, Alcoa, ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell Duke Energy, DuPont, etc. – with the big environmental groups, which included NRDC, World Wildlife Federation, and the Nature Conservancy. The coalition was known as the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). The free allowances to burn and trade carbon were bribes and would have allowed the polluters to keep on polluting and pay no price for it. And, worse yet, the Waxman-‐Markey plan, which was based on the coalition’s blueprint, specifically banned the EPA from regulating carbon from many major pollution sources, including coal plants. After the 2008 economic meltdown and the rise of the Tea Party, corporate members of USCAP realized that they now had a solid chance of scuttling climate legislation altogether. Caterpillar, ConocoPhillips, and BP dropped out of the coalition. ConocoPhillips said on their website, “ Climate change legislation will result in higher direct energy costs for the typical American family.” EDF’s Krupp thought he was playing a savvy game, but Big Green was outmaneuvered -‐-‐ and used -‐-‐ on a grand scale this time. Chapter 7 – No Messiahs – The Green Billionaires Won’t Save Us At the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in NY City, Richard Branson pledged to spend roughly $3 billion over the next decade to develop biofuels as an alternative to oil and gas and on other technologies to battle climate change. He would divert funds from profits generated by Virgin’s fossil fuel-‐burning transportation lines. He offered a $25 million prize to the first inventor to figure out how to sequester one billion tons of carbon a year from the air without countervailing harmful effects. Indeed, the idea that we can solve the climate crisis without having to change our lifestyles seemed to be the underlying assumption of all of Branson’s various climate initiatives. This is in line with what the EDF has been saying in answer to why they work with the polluters. Jeremy Grantham, who contributes to the green movement, says, “Capitalism, by ignoring the finite nature of resources and by neglecting the long-‐term well-‐being of the planet and its potentially crucial biodiversity, threatens our existence.” Warren Buffet owns several huge coal-‐burning utilities and holds large stakes of ExxonMobil and the tar sands giant Suncot. His investments bet on coal and are behind the efforts to export coal to China. He is also a major player in the reinsurance business, the part of the insurance sector that stands to profit most from climate disruption. Berkshire
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Hathaway insures against all types of disasters, knowing it will never have to pay to all clients. Tom Steyer, on the other hand, has left the business that made so much money for him because he can no longer in conscience be involved in making money from polluting. Michael Bloomberg is actively snapping up fossil fuel assets even as he funds reports warning that climate change makes for “risky business.” Bill Gates is invested with BP and ExxonMobil but also talks about the importance of addressing climate change. He talks about miracles like nuclear reactors that have yet to be invented or a machine to suck carbon out of the atmosphere – or direct climate manipulation. Again, not addressing the need for serious economic and lifestyles changes. When Carl Pope was the head of the Sierra Club – thank God they replaced him with Michael Brune (former Exec. Dir. of Rainforest Acton Network) – he joined T. Boone Pickens on his private jet to help sell his mega plan to reporters. Pickens went from advocating solar to pushing for more gas extraction no matter what the cost. He extolled the virtues of the tar sands and the Keystone XL pipeline. (Ed. note: this is why aligning with libertarians can be treacherous. Profit and individual rights will always take precedence over the greater good.) Back to Branson’s green investment plans, they acknowledge that a breakthrough plan has not emerged and they have not invested the money promised to find them. When Branson made his pledge, he said he would pledge 100% of all future proceeds of the virgin Group into tackling global warming for an estimated value of $2 billion by 2016. Not even close to $2 billion has been spent. Branson now plays down the original commitment, calling it a gesture rather than a pledge. In the meantime, he is putting far more planes in the air. Going from 40 flights a day in 2010, Virgin now has 177 flights a day. His rock-‐bottom prices have boosted flights and are poaching passengers from United and American. At least 160 planes have been added to his fleet. So much for cutting emissions. Virgin’s greenhouse gas emissions have soared more than 40% since he claimed to have been enlightened by Al Gore. Shell and Statoil (Norway) are two of the biggest players in the Alberta tar sands. Branson’s sustainability advisor, Alan Knight, suggested that Branson adopt a narrative about how their “awesome” technology can be used not just to extract dirty oil but also to solve the environmental problems of tomorrow. Enhanced Oil Recovery techniques (EOR) are estimated to be almost 3 times as greenhouse-‐gas intensive as conventional extraction. Any technology that can quadruple proven reserves in the US alone is a climate menace, not a climate solution. And, Branson has gone from promising to help get us off oil to championing technologies aimed at extracting and burning much more of it. Some prize! Branson quote: “ If you hold industry back, we will not, as a nation, have the resources to come up with the new clean-‐energy solutions we need.” Branson set out to harness the profit motive to solve the climate crisis – but the temptation to profit from practices worsening the crisis proved too great to resist and the climate crisis suffers.
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The idea that capitalism and only capitalism can save the world from a crisis created by capitalism is no longer an abstract theory; it’s a hypothesis that has been tested over and over again. We have tried it Branson’s way and the soaring emissions speak for themselves. Virgin Trains has received more than £3 billion in subsidies since British railways were privatized in the late 1990s. Today, 66% of British residents say they support renationalizing the railway companies. The most intoxicating narrative: the belief that technology is going to save us from the effects of our actions. This belief, along with waiting for the Superhero, make up the myths that could lead to our own devastation. Chapter 8 – Dimming the Sun The Royal Society, Britain’s prestigious science academy, held a conference in England to discuss technological “fixes” to global warming, specifically geoengineering. Naomi writes about a retreat she attended in England with the Royal Society, the World Academy of Sciences, and the Environmental Defense fund. From “fertilizing” oceans with iron to pull out carbon from the atmosphere to covering deserts with vast white sheets in order to reflect sunlight back into space, and from building machines that will suck the carbon out of the air, to the one being considered most seriously, spraying sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, all of their plans assumed the need for “fix-‐it” schemes because nothing or very little would be done to change the economic imperatives for endless growth and continued extraction of fossil fuels. The meeting was convened, not to decide which “fix-‐it” schemes to use but to decide how to manage the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth, or Solar Radiation Management (SRM). Discussed was something called the Pinatubo option, based on the volcano that erupted in 1991 in the Philippines and which cased a drop in temperature when aerosols stayed suspended in the stratosphere for nearly two years. Simulating this condition, but on a permanent bases, would mean blue skies would be a thing of the past. But, the biggest problem with this “solution” is that it never addresses the underlying causes of climate change, treating only the most obvious symptom. Once such a process begins, it is unlikely that it could stop easily because a much greater warming could take place when business as usual continues polluting the planet while the shields are used. The worst part of this story is that in 1965 President Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee issued a report warning the president about climate change. We have had so much time to deal with this! Nathan Myhrvoid is a former Microsoft chief technology officer who now heads Intellectual Ventures, a company that specializes in high-‐tech inventions and is described as a vehicle for patent trolling. The authors of SuperFreakonomics, think the Pinatubo Option is preferable to getting off of fossil fuels. This kind of vested interest is a recurring theme: many of the most aggressive advocates of geoengineering research are associated with planet-‐hacking start-‐ups.
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Most scientists see sun-‐blocking as a last resort, these entrepreneurs see it as the next thing to sell and make a fortune from it. Ref. 20 Reasons Why Geoengineering May Be a Bad Idea” by Alan Robock. One participant at this meeting refused to take part in an exercise that avoided the obvious questions that needed to be asked and wrote the following on a large piece of paper he posted in the room: * Is the human that gave us the climate crisis capable of properly and safely regulating Solar Radiation Management (SRM)? * In considering SRM regulation, are we not in danger of perpetuating the view that the earth can be manipulated in our interests? * Don’t we have to engage with these questions before we place ourselves in the triangle (the three choices were: promote, prohibit, or Regulate SRMs)? His questions were never even acknowledged. Succumbing to the logic of geoengineering does not require any change from us; it just requires that we keep doing what we have done for centuries, only much more so. Naomi refers to Francis Bacon’s view of Nature as a prone woman. Sallie Chisholm, scientist at MIT, says geoengineering simply ignores the fact that the biosphere is also a player. Instead, this clique of science-‐entrepreneurs is crammed with overconfident men prone to complimenting each other on their fearsome brainpower. The ancients call this hubris. Wendell Berry calls it “arrogant ignorance.” Also to be considered is the ethical problem of geoengineering. Sulfur dioxide injections would disrupt the Asian and African summer monsoons, reducing precipitation to the food supply for billions of people. SRM would create significant losses of rainfall. There could be a complete crop collapse in these areas. There is compelling evidence now that what Pinatubo sent in to the stratosphere can account for the severity of the drop in rainfall that followed the eruption. (National Center for Atmospheric Research, CO). So, how with all the evidence to the contrary, are those who promote geoengineering projects invoking the historical record for “proof of harmlessness”? AND, it’s critical to note that it wouldn't be scientists deciding how to use these technologies – it would be politicians! We are left with a question less about technology and more about politics. The solution to global warming is not to fix the world, it is to fix ourselves. “Building a livable world is not rocket science; it’s far more complex than that.” Ed Ayres, in God’s Last Offer. The African delegates at UN climate summits have begun using words like “genocide” to describe the collective failure to lower emissions. By waiting until it’s too late for sensible solutions, the shock doctrine kicks in. In the desperation of a true crisis, high-‐risk behaviors seem temporarily acceptable. It is only outside of a crisis atmosphere that we can rationally evaluate the future ethics and risks of deploying geoengineering. International treaties to ban certain types of science are already in effect, which means that geoengineering could be banned. Some of the former include, the UN Environmental Modification Convention that bans the use of weather modification as a weapon; 168
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nations agreed to a treaty banning the development of biological weapons. Such international agreements are doable. The most outlandish ideas for techno-‐fixes are promoted by industry billionaires. Robert Frosch, a VP at General Motors said, “I don't know why anybody should feel obligated to reduce carbon dioxide if there are better ways to do it (meaning geoengineering). The American Enterprise Institute took millions of dollars in donations from ExxonMobil and launched a department called the Geoengineering Project. There is URGENT need for a Plan A that is based on emissions reduction, however economically radical it may be. Rather than focus on geoengineering for the future, we need to stop taking fossil fuels out of the ground today. A related plan is to reverse energy privatizations to regain control over our grids. When they argue that some of these Plan A solutions would break all the free market rules, we can counter with: so did bailing out the banks and the auto companies. The chronic forgetfulness is the thread that unites so many fateful policy errors – e.g., fracking as a bridge fuel, cap-‐and-‐trade, and carbon offsets, while ignoring the people and environment that are destroyed in the process. Stewart Brand has been a big proponent of nuclear power and geoengineering. Watch Mark Z. Jacobson (speaker at Praxis 2014 conference) debate Brand on nuclear power on YouTube: https://www.google.com/#q=stewart+brand+mark+jacobson This debate took place about six month before Fukushima. You can also view Mark’s Praxis presentation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh-‐xnnbq7SY&list=PLKeloccnAfWN1mGUpfW3CZ_hoBmouhyeQ&index=1 Many key figures in the geoengineering scene share a strong interest in a planetary exodus. Settling colonies on Mars, for instance. However, not all Mars settlers approve of geoengineering and are working for sustainability on our planet (e.g., Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity). That said, we know this escape story all too well, from Noah’s ark to the Rapture. We need a story that honors our home, not seeks to destroy it and then escape. One of the cultural myths that persists is that -‐-‐ at the very last minute -‐-‐ some of us are going to be saved. Or, some savior will suddenly appear. Chapter 9 -‐ Blockadia “The first step towards reimagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination – an imagination that is outside of capitalism as well as communism. An imagination which has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfillment. “ ~ Arundhati Roy Blockadia is not a specific location on a map but a roving transnational conflict zone that is cropping up with increasing frequency and intensity wherever extractive projects are attempting to dig and drill, whether for open-‐pit mines, gas fracking, or tar sands/oil pipelines. Blockadia is about stopping climate crisis crime in progress.
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“People are hungry for climate action that does more than ask you to send e-‐mails to your climate-‐denying congressperson. Places where ordinary citizens, especially young people, have taken to the streets and barricades against mining, fracking and other types of destructive extraction, are the front lines of Blockadia. These places include: 1) The Skouries forest in Greece 2) The village of Pungesti, Romania 3) New Brunswick, Canada 4) Inner Mongolia 5) Balcombe, West Sussex, England 6) A coalmine in New South Wales, Australia 7) Quebec, Canada Details of these struggles are detailed on pages 295 – 301 in Naomi’s book. Opposition to the Keystone pipeline brought together the unexpected alliance of Indigenous tribes and ranchers (known as “the Cowboy and Indian alliance),” along the pipeline route that crossed on or near their lands. The companies at the center of these battles are still trying to figure out what hit them. TransCanada was so sure it would be able to push through the Keystone XL pipeline without a hitch that it went ahead and bought over $1 billion worth of pipe. Instead of the rubberstamp TransCanada was expecting, the project sparked a movement so large it revived U.S. environmentalism. What we are seeing in the above resistance movements is a transnational narrative about resistance to a common ecological crisis. Ref. See documentary film, Gasland. One of the most egregious examples of exploitation of land and people has taken place in the Niger Delta. For the past 50 years, an Exxon Valdez-‐worth of oil has spilled in the Delta every year, poisoning fish, animals, and humans. Since the 1970s, Nigerians living in this area have been demanding redress for the damage done to them by multinational oil giants. They organized the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), led by Ken Saro-‐Wiwa famed human rights activist. Eventually, they forced Shell Oil out of the area with grassroots environmental activism that has persisted to this day. In another area, the Ijaw people organized their own offensive, Operation Climate Change. They understood the link between crude oil that impoverished them and the environment. The youth took to the streets, marching peacefully. The Nigerian government responded by deploying soldiers in village after village. They opened fire on unarmed civilians, killing as many as 200 people. In at least one case, soldiers were flown into the area on a helicopter taken from a Chevron operation. Chevron did not issue any public protest of the killings, nor has it stated that it will take any steps to avoid similar incidents in the future. Because of these brutal events, young people in the Niger Delta have lost faith in non-‐violence, and in 2006, there was a full-‐blown armed insurgency, complete with bombings of oil infrastructure as well as government targets and pipeline vandalism. After the killing of Ken Saro-‐Wiwa, activists from Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria formed an alliance with Acción Ecológica in Ecuador, both organizations fighting Chevron. These two groups formed Oilwatch International, which has been at the forefront of the global movement to “leave the oil in the soil.”
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Fracking Fracking now covers so much territory that, according to a 2013 Wall Street Journal investigation, “more than 15 million Americans live within a mile of a well that has been drilled and fracked since 2000.” So far, Quebec residents have managed to fend off the gas companies with a moratorium on fracking. Fracking opponents could only laugh when in February 2014, it emerged that none other than Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson had quietly joined a lawsuit opposing fracking-‐related activities near his $5 million Texas home, claiming it would lower property values! Fossil Fuel companies treat politicians as their unofficial PR wings and the judiciaries as their own personal legal departments. Even the South of France has not been spared the possible exploration for fracking. When residents learned of the plans, town hall meetings were packed, one of the largest citizens’ mobilization efforts in the history of the area. In 2011, France became the first country to adopt a nationwide fracking ban! In the Pacific Northwest, oil and coal industries have confronted a powerful combination of Indigenous Nations, farmers, and fishers whose livelihoods depend on clean water and soil. Since the coal industry has all but collapsed in the US, the industry still wants to exploit our resources here but export them to areas that do not have such stringent regulations, like China. “We are the last place on Earth that should settle for a tired old retread of the false choice between jobs and the environment. Coal export is fundamentally inconsistent with our vision and values.” Richmond, CA – See Praxis newsletters for more details on the extraordinary and successful effort to rein in the plans of Chevron in their city and to recoup millions of dollars from Chevron fires that endangered the health of the community, which caused hundreds to flood the emergency room at local hospitals. The progressive city council blocked Chevron’s expansion plans and won again when Chevron appealed. Then Mayor and current city council member, Gayle McLaughlin, was a speaker at the 2014 Praxis conference as well as at other Praxis events. (Praxis is the fiscal sponsor for Gayle’s forthcoming book on their experiences of building a successful progressive community in Richmond.) Being part of a continent-‐wide, even global, movement that has the industry surrounded is a potent way to generate success. There are huge gaps in our knowledge about how spilled tar sands oil behaves in water. And, there has been virtually no formal research at all on the particular risks of transporting tar sands oil via truck or rail. The Alberta Energy Regulator recently found a “marked reluctance to speak out” in the medical community about the health impact of the tar sands. Physicians are afraid to diagnose health conditions linked to the oil and gas industry. This is a result of the smears and misconduct charges brought against a doctor who was vocal about the alarming number of cancers found in the area where this extraction was taking place (Fort Chipewyan, Alberta).
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“For years, the US gas industry responded to reports of contaminated water wells by insisting that there was no scientific proof of any connection between fracking and the fact that residents living near gas drilling suddenly found they could set their tap water on fire. (Echoes of Erin Brockovich?) The reason there was no evidence was because the industry had won an unprecedented exemption from federal monitoring and regulation – the so-‐called Halliburton Loophole, ushered in under George W. Bush. Researches from Duke University found that the level of contamination from methane, ethane, and propane closely correlated with proximity to wells for shale gas. A later Presidential Oil Spill Commission found, “Whether purposeful or not, many of the decisions that BP and its contractors Halliburton and Transocean made increased the risk of spills and saved them money. The Enbridge pipeline burst in Michigan was the largest onshore oil spill in US history. Enbridge had also put profits before basic safety, while regulators slept at the switch. In 2012, there were more than 6,000 spills and other mishaps at onshore oil and gas sites in the US. A 2013 Harris poll found that a paltry 4% of US respondents believe oil companies are “honest and trustworthy.” No industry was more disliked than the oil and gas sector. When human health and the environment are significantly at risk, perfect scientific certainty is NOT required before taking action. Moreover the burden of proving that a practice is safe should not be placed on the public that could be harmed. The fossil fuel companies are no longer dealing with those Big Green groups that can be silenced with a generous donation or a conscience-‐clearing carbon offset program. We are asking for No New Carbon Frontiers! The climate movement has found its non-‐negotiables. Chapter 10 – Love Will Save This Place The proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline: Students in Bella Bella, British Columbia prepared for months for the hearings to decide on the fate of a pipeline that would go through waters, impacting their land and livelihoods. The students contemplated on what a spill would mean for this region. It’s the salmon that connect the streams to the rivers, the river to the sea, the sea back to the forests. Endanger the salmon and you endanger the entire ecosystem that depends on them. Teachers in Bella Bella said that no other issue had ever so engaged the community’s young people as this one. The outside business interests and politicians promoting the pipeline did not realize that there is no compromise point in the issue – that there is nothing companies can offer as a bargaining chip. No safety pledge will assuage; no bribe will be big enough. What will save this and many places like it is not hatred of the oil companies but love of place, the land. What has emerged in the movement against extreme extraction is less an anti-‐fossil fuels movement than a pro-‐water movement. Fear of contaminated drinking water is what kick-‐started the anti-‐fracking movement.
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Water Use: It takes 2.3 barrels of water to produce a single barrel of oil from tar sands mining, much more that conventional crude (0.1 to 0.3 barrels of water needed). According to 2012 study, fracking uses an average of 5 million gallons of water in the process of extraction. The tribes issued a pledge that was signed by 130 First Nations: “We will not allow the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines, or similar Tar Sands projects to cross our lands, territories, and watershed, or the ocean migration routes of Fraser River salmon.” As the natives say, a broken bank is a crisis we can fix; a broken Arctic we cannot. Other countries with bans on fracking include France, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. States with bans include Vermont, Quebec, Newfoundland, and Labrador. Costa Rica has banned open-‐pit mining projects everywhere in the country. The World Bank will no longer finance coal projects. The Sierra Club’s hugely successful “Beyond Coal” campaign has succeeded in retiring 170 coal plants in the US and prevented over 180 proposed plants since 2002. Even delays in approving pipelines will buy time for clean energy sources to increase their market share and be more possible. China and pollution – the World Health Organization sets guidelines for safe presence of fine particles of dangerous air pollutants (PM2.5) at 25 micrograms or less per cubic meter; 250 is considered hazardous by the US government. In January 2014, Beijing levels of these carcinogens hit 671! Pollution is now the single greatest cause of social unrest in China. The Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement Discussions are underway to turn the “no new fossil frontiers” principle behind these campaigns into international law. Proposals include a Europe-‐wide ban on fracking. Activists are also pushing for a global moratorium on tar sands extraction anywhere in the world. The Divestment movement has been joined by 350.org and has motivated students in universities across the country. This is an industry that has declared War on the future. 13 universities have announced their intention to divest from fossil fuel stocks and bonds, and more than 25 cities, including San Francisco and Seattle, have made similar commitments. Divestment is the first stage in the delegitimization process. Boycotts, court cases, and more militant direct action are moving this along. Greenwashing – Groups like the Environmental Defense Fund have not joined the divestment movement and have positioned themselves as brokers, offering up “best practices” developed with industry groups. Groups leading the way: Rainforest Action Network, 350.org, Food & Water Watch, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and, since Michael Brune took over as Director of the Sierra Club, it has been a major player working toward systemic sustainability.
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An interesting aside: Shell Oil’s 4th quarter profits in late 2013 dropped a jarring 48%. Many factors are playing into such a loss. The Democracy Crisis As the anti-‐fossil fuel forces gain strength, extractive companies are beginning to fight back using investor protection provisions in free trade agreements. After Quebec successfully banned fracking, the US incorporated oil and gas company, Lone Pine Resources announced plans to sue Canada for at least $230 million under NAFTA. When the Keystone XL Pipeline was delayed again in April 2014, Canadian and TransCanada officials began hinting of a possible challenge to the US government under NAFTA. Other trade agreements – like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) provide legal grounds for foreign corporations to fight any attempt by governments to restrict the exploitation of fossil fuels. For a thorough explanation of the TPP: http://www.citizen.org/TPP The real problem is not that trade agreements allow fossil fuel companies to challenge governments, it’s that governments are not fighting back against these corporate challenges. The profoundly corrupt state of our political system is the real problem. Pennsylvania’s Office of Homeland Security hired a private contractor to gather intelligence on anti-‐fracking groups and share it with major shale gas companies. The collusion between corporations and the state has become more and more entrenched as it erodes any semblance of democracy. As Venezuelan political scientist Edgardo Lander said, “The total failure of climate negotiation serves to highlight the extent to which we now live in a post-‐democratic society.” Cities are leading the way on climate action around the world, from Bogotá to Vancouver. Local alliances, neighborhood groups, First Nations, etc., are making inroads and need to strengthen them. Another interesting aside: As oil and gas companies try to frack, mine, and dig for pipelines on native land, they are in serious trouble. The federal cabinet needs First Nations’ approval and social license in British Columbia (where they have been approved by the Canadian government to frack), but they have neither. First Nations have formally banned pipelines and tankers from their territories. Chapter 11 – You and What Army? Land has been used for extracting purposes on Native Indian lands since 1846. Arthur Maneul, a Native leader presented The Okanagan writ of summons, explaining that similar writs had been filed by many other First Nations. These simple documents, asserting land title to large swaths of territory, put the Canadian government on notice that these bands had every intention of taking legal action to get the economic benefits of lands being used by resource companies without their consent. Manuel stated, “We are subsidizing the wealth of Canada and British Columbia with our impoverishment.”
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Indigenous land and treaty rights have proved a major barrier for the extractive industries in many of the key Blockadia struggles. However, many North American treaties with First Nations contain resource-‐sharing provisions. Gary Simon of the Elsipogtog First Nation explained, “I believe our treaties are the last line of defense to save the clean water for future generations.” No one has more legal power to halt the reckless expansion of the tar sands than the First Nations living downstream from fracking. As the Indigenous rights movement gains strength globally, huge advances are being made in recognizing the legitimacy of these claims. Most significant was the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the General Assembly in Sept. 2007, with 143 members states voting in favor of it. What is changing now is that non-‐Native people are starting to realize that Indigenous rights – if aggressively backed by court challenges, direct action, and mass movements demanding that they be respected – may now represent the most powerful barriers protecting all of us from a future of climate chaos. In reaction to the industry-‐friendly Harper government in Canada, the First Nations launched the Idle No More movement from coast to coast. This movement sought to attract non-‐Native peoples to the movement as well as more of their own people. In June 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada issued what may be its most significant indigenous rights ruling to date when it granted the Tsilhoqot’in Nation a declaration of Aboriginal title to 1,750 square kilometers of land in British Columbia. One continuing problem for native peoples is the high unemployment rate, which can exceed 65%. When Shell comes to town offering jobs, many are swayed because of poverty and see this as their only option. Greenland Currently, Greenland’s largest industry is fishing, which could be devastated by any oil spills or pipeline breaks. One of the companies selected to begin developing Greenland’s estimated 50 billion barrels of offshore oil and gas is BP. Families are being torn apart over whether to accept industry deals or to uphold traditional teachings. But the traditionalists feel they have nothing to offer their people if there are no jobs. (This is where building cooperative businesses that help the community could be a vital lifeline.) So, though Natives have land rights, they are often impoverished and see no other way than to work for extracting industries that promise jobs. Chapter 12 – Sharing the Sky “The elites have cast a mythology of ‘debt crisis’ and ‘bitter medicine’ and ‘austerity’ over all claims to the commonwealth.” Sivan Kartha, Tom Athanasiouu, and Paul Baer, climate researchers. Fossil fuel wars in northern Montana are pitting the industry against Natives. The Northern Cheyenne and Crow Reservations were ripe for exploitation from oil companies and coal mining.
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In 1977, the EPA granted the Northern Cheyenne Reservation the highest possible classification for its air quality, called Class 1 under the Clean Air Act. It allows the tribes to argue in court that polluting projects as far away as Wyoming were a violation to its treaty rights because the pollutants could travel to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. One problem is that the tribe had elected a former coal miner as tribal president, who was determined to open up the lands to the extractive industries. With tribal unemployment up to 65%, anyone coming into town promising good paying jobs and the ability to fund social and educational programs is going to be hard to resist for the native population. Solutions: One NGO came to the reservation a few years back and built straw bale homes for some of the population. Their energy bills went from $400 a month (from poorly insulated dwellings) to $19 a month. If tribal members could be trained to build straw bale homes and get funding to do it across the reservation, this would provide employment and cheaper energy bills. For instance, a builders’ co-‐op could for formed. The Cheyenne were able to get funding from the EPA to build and install solar heaters in their reservation homes. This further cuts their heating bills in winter. There is no doubt that moving to renewables represents more than just a shift in power sources but also a fundamental shift in power relations between humanity and the natural world. It requires that we unlearn the myth that we are Masters of the universe and embrace the fact that we are in partnership with the natural world. Developing a partnership ethic. The Black Mesa Water Coalition (Exec. Dir., Jihan Gearon spoke at Praxis 2014 conference) won a pivotal battle in 2005 when it helped shut down the notoriously polluting Mohave Generating Station as well as the Black Mesa Mine. But coal mining and coal-‐power generation continue on Navajo territory. The mining puts the water supply at risk but the Black Mesa activists know that there is no hope of shutting it all down until they are able to provide alternatives to their people, including work alternatives. Part of the job of the climate movement is to make the moral case that the communities that have suffered most from unjust resource relationships should be first to be supported in their efforts to build the next, life-‐based economy. The shift from one power system to another must be accompanied by a power correction in which the old injustices that plague our societies are righted once and for all. The solution, as the more visionary sectors of the labor movement understand, is to fight for policies that do not force workers to make choices that provide work but destroys their land and health. Green investments could provide 34 times the jobs being created by building a pipeline. Governments should invest in this infrastructure. In Canada a minimal national carbon tax of $10 a ton would raise $5 billion a year for this investment. If policy options like that were on the table, the jobs vs. environment dichotomy would disappear, as would the divide and conquer strategy that has conquered many environmental campaigns.
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Don’t Just Divest, Reinvest! Diverting funds from fossil fuels to green is where divested funds from coal and oil should be routed. An example, Duke University has invested $8 million in the Self-‐Help Credit Union, in part to fund affordable green housing. Miami University is directing investment funds into renewable energy funds. The Black Mesa Water Coalition has plans for a municipal-‐scale solar utility, possibly a solar co-‐op. In Nebraska, farmers built a barn, powered by wind and solar, in the proposed pipeline’s path. They pointed out that the power generated from just that one barn would bring more energy to the region than the oil in the pipeline that was headed for the export terminal in Texas. From the British village of Balcombe, a new power company formed from the anti-‐fracking movement. The new power company is called REPOWERBalcombe. Its goal is to supply the equivalent of 100% of Balcombe’s electricity demand through community owned, locally generated renewable energy – with financing coming from the residents buying shares in the energy cooperative. In the 1970s, we had the option of dropping out and going back to the land. Today, we do not have that luxury. Resistance and Alternatives are the twin strands of the DNA of social change. Both are necessary. We are working toward a non-‐extractive sustainable economy, one that rekindles the values of land stewardship and intergenerational responsibility that has deep roots in rural life. Countries like Ecuador and Bolivia and states like the First Nations should be compensated for keeping their oil in the ground, for not extracting resources. It is a way for richer nations that have exploited these countries and areas to pay back their climate debt. It’s the Marshall Plan for the Earth. When Ecuador’s President Correa offered to keep oil in the ground and not cut more of the Amazon forest if the richer countries would compensate them for leaving the oil in the ground, the wealthier countries did not come up with the necessary funds, so drilling is now allowed again. The Western powers owe an Ecological Debt for centuries of colonial land grabs and resource extraction. Tipping the Balance Fighting the pipelines and export terminals that would send fossil fuels (including coal) to Asia is one piece of the puzzle. So is battling new free-‐trade deals like the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) and reining in our own overconsumption, and relocalizing our economies. One proposal receiving attention is for a “global feed-‐in tariff,” which would create an internationally administered fund to support clean energy transitions throughout the developing world. The goal of reparations is to break the chains of dependency once and for all. Ending subsidies for oil companies could free up more funding for renewables and for payment of our climate debt. Chapter 13 – The Right to Regenerate In April 2014, researchers with the Colorado School of Public Health and Brown University published a peer-‐reviewed study looking at birth outcomes in rural Colorado, where a lot of
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fracking is underway. It found that mothers living in the areas with the most natural gas development were 30% more likely to have babies with congenital heart defects than those who lived in areas with no gas well near their homes. Hormone disrupting chemicals have proven to be a factor in the disproportionate number of girls born on the Aamjiwnaang First Nation territory. Just 35% of the births between 1993 and 2003 were boys. We have a global agricultural model that has succeeded in making it illegal for farmers to engage in the age-‐old practice of saving seeds, the building blocks of life, so that new seeds have to be repurchased each year. And, we have a global energy model that values fossil fuels over water, where all life begins and without which no life can survive. One of the most lasting legacies of the BP spill may well be an aquatic infertility crisis, one that in some parts of the Gulf could reverberate for decades. In April 2014, 235 dolphins had been discovered dead along the Gulf Coast, a staggering number since it represents only about 2% of the actual die-‐off. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned that dolphins would likely face reduced survival and ability to reproduce. Coral is also dying all over the planet. When temperatures rise above 93 degrees F., egg fertilization stops. For oysters in the Pacific Northwest, the water is acidifying so that larvae are unable to form their tiny shells in the earliest days of life, leading to mass die-‐off. The way industrial agriculture deals with fertility problems is to keep going – irrigate heavily to make up for the fact that annual plants do a poor job of retaining moisture. Rather than solving fertility problems in the soil, we have simply moved it, transforming a land-‐based crisis into an ocean-‐based one. Healthy soil also sequesters carbon. The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas and its founder, Wes Jackson, have started selling the flour that is made from perennial wheatgrass that his team began cultivating and growing. In one year, even though there was a severe drought on in Texas where some of this wheat was growing, their crops were seemingly not affected by it. Salmon One can’t ask for a better symbol of the tenacity of life than the Pacific salmon. To reach their spawning grounds, cohos will leap up massive waterfalls and expend their last life force to complete their mission. Their strength can be defeated by overfishing, by fish farming operations that spread sea life that kill young salmon in droves, by warming waters and by oil spills. Salmon has disappeared to about 40% of their historical range in the Pacific Northwest. * “Our natural systems are designed to promote more life.” ~ Leanne Simpson, Mississauga Nishnaaberg native. We should be looking at the reproductive rights of the whole planet and promoting the right of ecosystems not only to exist but to “regenerate.” In 2010, the Pittsburgh City * For an in-‐depth look at the relationship between salmon and sustainability, Andrew Kimbrell’s Salmon Economics is a must read. It is available from Praxis Peace Institute.
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Council passed a law explicitly banning all natural gas extraction and stating that nature has “inalienable and fundamental rights to exist and flourish.” A similar effort in Europe is attempting to make ecocide a crime under international law. The “young” countries like Canada, the US, New Zealand, Australia tend to have myths rather than memories. For descendants of settlers and newer immigrants, it begins with learning the true histories of where we live. Indigenous people have the history of the environment. An alliance of indigenous and non-‐indigenous peoples can reawaken a worldview that contains the whole history. Living non-‐extractively does not mean that we do not extract at all. It means the end of the extractivist mindset – of taking without caretaking. Renewal and regeneration needs to be part of the equation. Naomi prefers the word, “Regenerative” to resilience because regeneration is Active. We become full participants in the process of maximizing life’s creativity. It’s about our aggressively applying our labor toward restoration. Conclusion – The Leap Years “Developed countries have created a global crisis and on a flawed system of values. There is no reason we should be forced to accept a solution informed by that same system.” ~ Marlene Moses, Ambassador to the US for Nauru, 2009 Global capitalism has made the depletion of resources so rapid, convenient, and barrier-‐free that “earth-‐human systems are becoming dangerously unstable in response. Brad Werner, a complex systems researcher, says, “Resistance movements are people who adopt a certain set of dynamics that does not fit within the capitalist culture. This includes environmental direct action, blockades, sabotage, etc., along the lines of the abolition movement. Only mass social movements can save us now,” he warns. Meeting science-‐based targets will mean forcing some of the most profitable companies on the planet to forfeit trillions of dollars of future earnings by leaving the vast majority of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground. But, let’s move democratically. Violent, vanguardist resolutions don’t have much to offer in the way of road maps. In the West, the most common precedents showed that social movements can be a disruptive historical force as are celebrated in the human rights movements, the civil rights movement, women’s and gay rights. These movements transformed the face and texture of the dominant culture. But, given that the challenge for the climate movement hinges on purling off a profound and radical economic transformation, it MUST be noted that for the above-‐mentioned movements, the legal and cultural battles were always more successful than the economic ones. Sharing legal status is one thing; sharing economic resources quite another. We need to make massive investments in public infrastructure – utilities, transportation systems, housing, and more – on a scale compatible with what the climate crisis calls for today.
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What we need to remember: Since the 1950s, several democratically elected socialist governments nationalized large parts of their extractive sectors and began to redistribute to the wealth that had previously hemorrhaged into foreign bank accounts. They redirected some of this wealth to the poor and middle class. These governments included Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran), Salvador Allende (Chile) and Jacobo Arbenz (Guatemala), all overthrown by the CIA! Their efforts were constantly undermined through political assassinations, foreign interference, and the chains of debt-‐driven structural adjustment programs. Economic Parallels According to historian Eric Foner, at the start of the Civil War, “slaves as property were worth more than all the banks, factories, and railroads in the country put together.” Strengthening the parallel with fossil fuels, Chris Hayes points out that “in 1860, slaves represented about 16% of total household assets – that is all the wealth – in the entire US, which in today’s terms is a stunning $10 trillion”! That figure is roughly similar to the value of the carbon reserves that must be left in the ground worldwide if we are to have a good change of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius. The Unfinished Business of Liberation We return to The Marshall Plan for the Earth. The fact that our most heroic social justice movements won on the legal front but suffered big losses on the economic front is precisely why our world is as fundamentally unequal and unfair as it remains. Franz Fanon wrote in The Wretched of the Earth, “What matters today, the issue which blocks the horizon, is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity will have to address this question, no matter how devastating the consequences may be.” Climate change is our chance to right those festering wrongs at last -‐-‐-‐ the unfinished business of liberation. When major shifts in the economic balance of power take place, they are invariably the result of extraordinary levels of social mobilization. Any attempt to rise to the climate challenge will be fruitless unless it is understood as part of a much broader battle of worldviews, a process of rebuilding and reinventing the very idea of the collective, the communal, the commons, the civil, and the civic after so many decades of attack and neglect. If the dominant worldview is delegitimized, all the rules within it become much weaker and more vulnerable. So, how do we change worldviews? Part of it is choosing the right early policy battles – game changing ones that don’t merely aim to change laws but change patterns of thought. This would be an alternative worldview that rivals the one at the heart of the ecological crisis – embedded in interdependence rather than hyper-‐individualism, reciprocity rather than dominance, and cooperation rather than hierarchy.
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(This is where cooperatives have such an important role to play and why Praxis Peace Institute continues to educate people about this model for today and the future.) Our aim is to alter public opinion. The abolition of slavery depended in large measure on a major transformation in moral perception. The understanding about the need to assert the intrinsic value of life is at the heart of all major progressive victories. We will not win the battle for a stable climate by trying to beat the bean counters at their game (e.g., cap and trade). We will win by asserting that such calculations are morally monstrous, since they imply that there is an acceptable price for allowing entire countries to disappear or leaving people to die on parched land. The climate movement has yet to find its full moral voice on the world stage. Free market ideology has been discredited by decades of deepening inequality and corruption, stripping it of much of its persuasive power. And, the various forms of magical thinking that have diverted precious energy – from blind faith in technological miracles to the worship of benevolent billionaires – are fast losing their grip. It is slowly dawning on a great many of us that no one is going to step in and fix this crisis; that if change is to take place it will come only because leadership bubbled up from below. Praxis Notes Summary completed by Georgia Kelly for Praxis Peace Institute members. For follow-‐up to this material, watch the presentations from the Praxis conference, The Economics of Sustainability, that took place in San Francisco, October 2014. All presentations are available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKeloccnAfWN1mGUpfW3CZ_hoBmouhyeQ The conference speakers, many of whom are cited in Naomi Klein’s book, offer excellent follow-‐up to Klein’s opus on economics and sustainability. DVDs and CDs are also available of all presentations for viewing with family and friends. Your feedback on this summary would be most helpful in our plans to provide other summaries. Please send your thoughts. Please consider making a tax-‐deductible contribution to Praxis Peace Institute so that we can continue to offer this kind of education to more and more people. www.praxispeace.org/donate Praxis Peace Institute, P.O. Box 523, Sonoma, CA 95476 Phone: 707-‐939-‐2973