Climate change

The politics of doomsterism

Climate change, Economy, Green politics
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Over at Monuments Are for Pigeons, “Victor Serge” is talking about the politics of doomsterism:

And this is where the Doomsters show their class privilege. They can only posit a horrible future because they’ve enjoyed the benefits of living in a rich, capitalist country. For the majority of humanity, barbarism exists today, something socialists have been pointing out for over a century. The megalopolises of the poor, imperialist wars, climate change-induced droughts – these are happening now. A couple of years ago I saw Time of the Wolf, about an unnamed disaster that hits France, reducing survivors to internal refugees fighting for food and water. The only difference between that scenario, and a dozen stories on the news, was that the survivors were white. I was incensed: when it happens to the world’s majority, it barely merits a glance. When it happens to white people i.e. ‘us’: the horror, the horror. (And I reference that deliberately: Conrad and Coppola’s Kurtz got to see first-hand the barbarism that imperialism created, and didn’t handle it very well.)

Doomsters are animated by this ahistoric sense that the world has gone wrong and, unlike the previous 400 years of slavery, imperialism and colonialism, this time it will affect us. But if you want to see barbarism, go to Gaza, where there’s precious little water or food, and Israeli jets murder with impunity from the skies. Go to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where factions linked to resource capitalists have battled each other for years, killing millions. Try Iraq, Afghanistan or any of the other places ‘our’ troops have been slaughtering civilians and resistance movements. Yet faced with real, existing barbarism, the most the Doomsters can find to worry about is the eventual slackening off of oil supply. I’d argue this is myopic at best, and racist at worst.

Part two:

If you believe catastrophe is inevitable from industrialism, technology and size, then the answer is to keep people from pursuing those things. Local communities for local people. Self-described left-winger Lyle Estill has this to say of people who come from far away: “People who live in a community have a vested interest in strengthening that community. Those are the ones who accept and receive local currency. People who live far away take their expertise, and their spending power, home with them each night.” (173) Why not make it simpler and just say, “Immigrants take our jobs.” Because that’s the racist, anti-immigrant argument Doomsterism boils down to. If you think that people can choose their own role in capitalist economy, then they are at fault for choosing to move – for being too greedy and wanting to consume more. Workers don’t have a right to travel where capital does: they should stay put and starve.

The Doomsters live in a comfortable bubble inside the imperialist world. They don’t see the barbarism that envelopes the poor everywhere and can posit their fears of collapse as something unique. They substitute industrialism, technology or people’s stupidity for the inherent drive of capitalism to expand. If you can’t see the cause, then you can’t see the solution – ergo, there is none, and catastrophe is the inevitable result. None of those things can be changed by collective action: on the contrary, the mass of people are to blame. All we can do is wait for the collapse. The misanthropy close to the surface of every Doomster’s heart quickly turns to racism.

From Survivors To Complete Wusses, In Only 4 Centuries

Climate change, Culture, UK politics
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[Image by Tim Ackroyd]

If you’re stuck indoors this weekend, fed up of the cold and snow, the New Scientist has a fascinating article up that puts the country’s latest inconvenience into some perspective:

1709: The year that Europe froze

[…]

On the night of 5 January, the temperature fell dramatically and kept on falling. On 10 January, Derham logged -12 °C, the lowest temperature he had ever measured. In France, the temperature dipped lower still. In Paris, it sank to -15 °C on 14 January and stayed there for 11 days. After a brief thaw at the end of that month the cold returned with a vengeance and stayed until mid-March.

[…]

Fish froze in the rivers, game lay down in the fields and died, and small birds perished by the million. The loss of tender herbs and exotic fruit trees was no surprise, but even hardy native oaks and ash trees succumbed. The loss of the wheat crop was “a general calamity”. England’s troubles were trifling, however, compared to the suffering across the English Channel.

[…]

There was worse to come. Everywhere, fruit, nut and olive trees died. The winter wheat crop was destroyed. When spring finally arrived, the cold was replaced by worsening food shortages. In Paris, many survived only because the authorities, fearing an uprising, forced the rich to provide soup kitchens. With no grain to make bread, some country people made “flour” by grinding ferns, bulking out their loaves with nettles and thistles. By the summer, there were reports of starving people in the fields “eating grass like sheep”. Before the year was out more than a million had died from cold or starvation.

More…

Now that’s what I call weather.

Reluctant as I am to agree with the Loathsome Hoon on anything at all, I do think those delicate flowers who’re complaining because they have to get out and dig their own driveways need to get a bit of gumption, a shovel, and start digging.

On the other hand, I do understand that the snow and the days of enforced idleness (not to mention the childcare chaos caused by stoppages and closures) are yet more burdens to be borne by a population weighed down by worry about their jobs and whether they can afford to pay the heating bill or the mortgage. People are understandably boilingly angry at the government for any number of malfeasances and disasters, but feel powerless to do anything about it. They need a target for rage.

Hence the recent massive increase in BBC complaints, the kerfuffle over Carol Thatcher and now the whinging about the weather. All that anxiety and anger has to blow off at something or it’ll explode.

Howver it’s been barely a week of cold and snow; nobody’s starving, as yet, no significant numbers have died from cold, most people have heating, lighting, food and power. Given those advantages I’m sure we can cope with a bit of snow. They did in 1709, and they had none of those things.

Snow Justice

Climate change, Comment of the Day, Funny
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Comment of the day, from the Grauniad’s otherwise dull snow coverage:

A dog jobby of elephantine proportions was on the path outside my house. I covered it with snow.Back inside I watched in disbelief then hysteria as the local smart ass school kid picked up the snow to throw it at his pal then just walked away looking at his hands.

Its the wee things that cheer you up.

B

Some good environmental news

Climate change, US politics
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The EPA’s Appeal Board has ruled that no new coal-fired powerplants can be built without CO2 limiting technology, or at least, that’s the message implied in the Sierra Club press release on the matter:

In a move that signals the start of the our clean energy future, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) ruled today EPA had no valid reason for refusing to limit from new coal-fired power plants the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. The decision means that all new and proposed coal plants nationwide must go back and address their carbon dioxide emissions.

“Today’s decision opens the way for meaningful action to fight global warming and is a major step in bringing about a clean energy economy,” said Joanne Spalding, Sierra Club Senior Attorney who argued the case. “This is one more sign that we must begin repowering, refueling and rebuilding America.”

“The EAB rejected every Bush Administration excuse for failing to regulate the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States. This decision gives the Obama Administration a clean slate to begin building our clean energy economy for the 21st century,” continued Spalding

The decision follows a 2007 Supreme Court ruling recognizing carbon dioxide, the principle source of global warming, is a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.

Looking at the ruling itself (PDF), it seems the truth is sligthly more complicated. The Sierra Club brought this appeal as part of its ogoing battle against a specific new coal-fired power plant in Utah. What the appeals board has decided is not that this plant cannot be built without the “best available control technology” for minimising CO2 output, but instead that the EPA Region responsible for giving a building permit for this plant was wrong not to consider whether or not to require the plant to have this “best available control technology”.

It’s not so much then that every coal-fired powerplant now must have this technology, but rather that, like with various other pollutants, every permit for such a plant needs to consider whether or not this technology must be fitted, depending on circumstances. Additionally, if such technology is to be fitted, it still needs to be determined what this “best available control technology” actually is.

Because of this ruling the permit for this particular project is no longer valid and needs to be reconsidered, which can take one to two years. Even better, every other permit for such a project is back to square one as well, unless they’ve already considered this question. It doesn’t mean the end of coal power in the US, but at the very least it buys time for Obama to get its environmental legislation in order. With pressure from the Sierra Club and other enviromental organisations, the hope is for the new administration to require all coal-fired powerplants to be fitted with CO2 limiting technology.