Shell and its apologists are wriggling as usual in their attempts to pass off £3.2b nillion profit over the last three months as entirely reasonable. They deny that it is motorists in Britain who contribute, through previously unseen forecourt petrol prices, to this level of profits, insisting that half of their bonanza comes from extracting the oil, and selling it on the wholesale market. Maybe it does, but 25% of it comes from refining, distribution and retail, which is a not inconsiderable slice of the cake. In any case, the oil transnational companies' ploy of dividing up their operations into the various stages from exploration to the petrol pump is simply a means of obfuscating the obscene level of their profits. It is similar to the game played by the gas and electricity privateers, which blame the price that they are forced to charge on the upstream costs that they have to bear. They don't mention that each company has its own wholesale operation which maximises its profits by charging the ultimate price to the parent company's subsidiary further down the line. It's almost like value added tax, with every single transaction bringing an additional cost. But, whereas VAT ends up in the exchequer, the ratcheted-up costs of the gas, electricity and oil companies pour a profits stream of flood-like proportions into the pockets of shareholders.
Those who claim that energy markets are highly competitive are living in another world. These markets are dominated by an oligopoly, into which it is virtually impossible for new companies to break. Even if they give the impression of challenging each other for contracts, their commanding positions in the marketplace guarantee their continued, very profitable domination. Nor is it true that Shell and the other oil majors have to have this level of profits to either search for new oil fields or to diversify into renewables. Shell is, in fact, investing less in exploration than previously and it has retreated from its fine words on renewables of a decade ago to concentrate on environmentally damaging projects such as the exploitation of Canada's oil sands. Disregard the cuddly, nice-to-be-with sunshine adverts of the oil transnationals. They are all as single-minded as ever to control the globe's scarce hydrocarbon reserves, even if it takes invasions of sovereign states, as in Iraq, and their sole priority is the well-being of shareholders. As Unite joint general secretary Tony Woodley intimates, that should not be acceptable to the people of this country or to its government. New Labour has been too soft by half on big business, holding down its share of taxation, slashing corporation tax and refusing to increase income tax on the super-rich who benefit disproportionately from the profits bonanza. And this at a time when Gordon Brown and his cloned Chancellor Alistair Darling miss no opportunity to impose below-inflation pay settlements on public-service staff and to lecture low-paid workers on the need to rein in their demands. An immediate windfall tax on Shell's obscene profits could help to plug the yawning gap in the government's tax income, but the only long-term solution to this problem is to bring these oligopolies into public ownership.
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Friday, 30 April 2010
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Oil junkies take us to abyss
There is a moment in Malcolm Lowry's novel Under The Volcano that reminds me of climate change sceptics. Doomed alcoholic Geoffrey Firmin is on a journey towards death but he insists to his estranged wife Yvonne and brother that he can drink a beer or two because beer isn't really alcohol. For an alcoholic any excuse will do - even one as weak as the notion that alcohol isn't really alcoholic. For climate sceptics any excuse is enough to keep on the oil they are addicted to. The sceptics, like all addicts, resort to the lamest arguments to deny that there might be a problem. For the right, climate denial is increasingly a matter of faith. Listening to scientists could be an indication of dangerous socialist inclinations. Tory David Cameron likes to be seen cycling, albeit with the chauffeur carrying his bags, but climate denial is increasingly dominant in the Conservative Party. Thatcher's former chancellor Lord Lawson is perhaps the best-known sceptic, but many of the most prominent Tory bloggers, such as Iain Dale, also reject the science of global warming. I suspect that climate scepticism is virtually a membership requirement for UKIP. For the far-right, suspicion of scientists is nearly as popular as suspicion of Europeans and migrants. Yet the facts of climate change are in essence very simple.
C02 in the atmosphere traps heat and leads to warming, temperatures are rising and this correlates with the highest CO2 for thousands of years. Thousands of peer-reviewed papers from scientists have established this link. The arguments posed by the sceptics often lack logic. David Bellamy, who seems to be an estranged BBC nature correspondent but at least has a scientific background, argues that CO2 is vital to life and is not a pollutant. And? Water is vital to life and is not a pollutant but in large enough quantities it leads to drowning. CO2 in the atmosphere likewise alters the weather. I once listened to Tory rightwinger Lord Monckton argue that the climate in the past had changed, suggesting that this refuted the role of "man-made" global warming. It is true that temperatures in the past have changed and a range of factors have been responsible, but saying that there are other causes of climate change does not refute the role of CO2. The creation of huge stores of fossil fuel in the form of coal and oil has made our planet habitable for animal life. Millions of years of geological activity have taken CO2 from the atmosphere, making the atmosphere breathable for mammals and temperate. Yet in a matter of decades we are burning fossils that have taken millions of years to be laid down. This has potentially catastrophic results. The sceptics have been funded by the multibillion-dollar coal and oil companies. Indeed scientists have been under huge pressure to deny the reality of climate change, particularly in the US during the Bush years. It is important to follow the money trail, but listening to their arguments to see if they hold true is far more valuable when testing the relevance of climate sceptics. A close examination of the sceptics' argument is extremely instructive. It reveals not a theory backed by evidence, let alone peer-reviewed papers, but a set of paradoxical claims.
Any argument will apparently do - and the sceptics seem to disagree with each other more than with the scientific mainstream. Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, notes that sceptics can be divided into at least three different and largely contradictory species. Trend sceptics deny that temperatures are rising. They argue that climate data is collected in cities where human activity artificially raises temperatures, climate change is an artefact of flawed data collection. However weather balloons are just one control that prove this to be false. The fast-disappearing trend sceptics argue when presented with data that the scientists concerned are part of a conspiracy and lie. Then there are attribution sceptics, who argue that warming is occurring but isn't caused by emissions. Sunspots are a favourite theory, while Piers Corbyn, the meteorologist brother of left Labour MP Jeremy, has a magnetic theory of climate change. But such theories are contradicted by scientific data which provides both a model of the greenhouse effect and solid data showing that CO2 is rising with temperatures. Last are the impact sceptics, who don't deny rising temperatures or reject the link with C02 emissions but say that warmer temperatures are beneficial. The published statements of the sceptics are full of spin and internal contradiction. It is instructive to reflect that sceptics stole 10 years of emails from climate researchers at the University of East Anglia and dug out one or two suspect statements about tree-ring data.
Scientists are imperfect and science, especially the science of climate change, is uncertain. Science is rarely immune from social influences, but scientific revolutions are propelled by data and the construction of testable alternatives. The sceptics are certainly not using the data to construct an alternative theory. They are killing us with their words and slowing effective action on climate change. Now they are moving on to a new argument - that it is too late to act and humanity should do nothing. Ending the oil addiction requires that we introduce a green new deal to create clean energy and to take sensible steps to create an economy that works with rather than against nature. Sadly the current framework of global climate policy does not provide an alternative. Its model based on carbon trading has so far failed to cut emissions. The most destructive effect of the climate sceptics has been to throw a huge cloud of dust over the science of climate change. This has distracted us from the real debate that is required - how to replace the current global framework with policies that actually work to reduce emissions. In Lowry's cult masterpiece, the alcoholic Firmin ends up quite literally in the abyss. The oil-addicted sceptics are taking humanity in the same direction.
C02 in the atmosphere traps heat and leads to warming, temperatures are rising and this correlates with the highest CO2 for thousands of years. Thousands of peer-reviewed papers from scientists have established this link. The arguments posed by the sceptics often lack logic. David Bellamy, who seems to be an estranged BBC nature correspondent but at least has a scientific background, argues that CO2 is vital to life and is not a pollutant. And? Water is vital to life and is not a pollutant but in large enough quantities it leads to drowning. CO2 in the atmosphere likewise alters the weather. I once listened to Tory rightwinger Lord Monckton argue that the climate in the past had changed, suggesting that this refuted the role of "man-made" global warming. It is true that temperatures in the past have changed and a range of factors have been responsible, but saying that there are other causes of climate change does not refute the role of CO2. The creation of huge stores of fossil fuel in the form of coal and oil has made our planet habitable for animal life. Millions of years of geological activity have taken CO2 from the atmosphere, making the atmosphere breathable for mammals and temperate. Yet in a matter of decades we are burning fossils that have taken millions of years to be laid down. This has potentially catastrophic results. The sceptics have been funded by the multibillion-dollar coal and oil companies. Indeed scientists have been under huge pressure to deny the reality of climate change, particularly in the US during the Bush years. It is important to follow the money trail, but listening to their arguments to see if they hold true is far more valuable when testing the relevance of climate sceptics. A close examination of the sceptics' argument is extremely instructive. It reveals not a theory backed by evidence, let alone peer-reviewed papers, but a set of paradoxical claims.
Any argument will apparently do - and the sceptics seem to disagree with each other more than with the scientific mainstream. Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, notes that sceptics can be divided into at least three different and largely contradictory species. Trend sceptics deny that temperatures are rising. They argue that climate data is collected in cities where human activity artificially raises temperatures, climate change is an artefact of flawed data collection. However weather balloons are just one control that prove this to be false. The fast-disappearing trend sceptics argue when presented with data that the scientists concerned are part of a conspiracy and lie. Then there are attribution sceptics, who argue that warming is occurring but isn't caused by emissions. Sunspots are a favourite theory, while Piers Corbyn, the meteorologist brother of left Labour MP Jeremy, has a magnetic theory of climate change. But such theories are contradicted by scientific data which provides both a model of the greenhouse effect and solid data showing that CO2 is rising with temperatures. Last are the impact sceptics, who don't deny rising temperatures or reject the link with C02 emissions but say that warmer temperatures are beneficial. The published statements of the sceptics are full of spin and internal contradiction. It is instructive to reflect that sceptics stole 10 years of emails from climate researchers at the University of East Anglia and dug out one or two suspect statements about tree-ring data.
Scientists are imperfect and science, especially the science of climate change, is uncertain. Science is rarely immune from social influences, but scientific revolutions are propelled by data and the construction of testable alternatives. The sceptics are certainly not using the data to construct an alternative theory. They are killing us with their words and slowing effective action on climate change. Now they are moving on to a new argument - that it is too late to act and humanity should do nothing. Ending the oil addiction requires that we introduce a green new deal to create clean energy and to take sensible steps to create an economy that works with rather than against nature. Sadly the current framework of global climate policy does not provide an alternative. Its model based on carbon trading has so far failed to cut emissions. The most destructive effect of the climate sceptics has been to throw a huge cloud of dust over the science of climate change. This has distracted us from the real debate that is required - how to replace the current global framework with policies that actually work to reduce emissions. In Lowry's cult masterpiece, the alcoholic Firmin ends up quite literally in the abyss. The oil-addicted sceptics are taking humanity in the same direction.
Friday, 26 March 2010
We need new green economics
Whatever connects the controversy about how fast the glaciers are melting with the results of the latest British Social Attitudes Survey, it certainly isn't the latest Tory campaign poster "We can't go on like this" that links all three in confusion and insecurity. The British public have - rightly - become far more accepting of homosexuality and co-habitation rather than marriage. Caricatures that once presented these as a threat to the very fabric of society have largely melted away. We are beginning to see that what undermines society and relationships is a more complex set of social and economic forces. At the same time, however, more people in Britain identify themselves today as Conservative supporters rather than Labour. It is the first time this has happened in 20 years. Many Labour supporters will say that this is always where new Labour was going to take us - that by constantly putting itself close to Tory policy positions new Labour created the conditions in which the public would eventually feel safer identifying themselves with "the real thing." It is a tempting, but insufficient explanation. The greatest damage over the last 20 years is to be found in the destruction of our sense of common security.
Labour's great social transformations, post-1945, came out of the life and death interdependencies of wartime. The NHS, state pensions, universal education and the national insurance system all arose from this sense of social - and intergenerational - solidarity. The last 20 years have been obsessed with the individual and the immediate. Throw this into the middle of an economic crisis and no wonder we are confused. Society has lost faith in the notion that we can rely on each other or that the collective safety nets, constructed over decades, remain in place and are strong enough. If workers' pensions can be stolen, the state pension eroded, the NHS handed over to private finance and essential utilities delivering gas, electricity and water security all privatised, no wonder a "you're on your own" belief predominates. An obsession with means-tested welfare only accentuates this. New Labour's assertion that it was comfortable with the filthy rich sent damaging messages through the whole political system. Taxing the filthy rich has become taboo. As a result, middle England sees itself as carrying the costs of the welfare state. Britain now has a wider gap between rich and poor than at any time over the past 40 years.
It is the middle class that sees itself as taking the strain. This is what comes across in the Social Attitudes Survey. How does this connect to the glaciers? The answer is in a fear of the future and a predictable retreat into individual bunker mentalities. Those of us who campaign about the urgency of facing up to climate change should welcome the IPCC controversy. It is a really good example of the scientific community working as it should. Data was checked. Sources were chased up. An error of some magnitude was identified and the data corrected. It is how science should work. The comments by the head of the IPCC Rajendra Pachauri were, of course, unfortunate. But then we all have the ability to look daft on occasions. The key point is that the recalculation of figures changes nothing of the central IPCC case. Climate sceptics can never subject their claims to the same scrutiny, because the claims fall apart. This is a triumph of critical thinking, not a failure. So how do we apply this to what we do now? As Britain stumbles over questions about whether it is finally coming out of recession - and how anyone would know - the most significant piece of analysis has been quietly pushed to one side.
It is to be found in the New Economics Foundation report Growth Isn't Possible: Why Rich Nations Need A New Economic Direction. NEF discreetly points out that Britain and other industrial nations cannot come out of the current crisis chasing the same "growth" economics that took us into it. This has nothing to do with the world having been turned into a financial casino. Instead it takes climate stability as the central determinant of our survival. It is the point at which we have to treat the public as grown-ups. If the science is right, and climate stability can only be secured within a 2°C increase in global temperatures, tomorrow's economics cannot simply shop its way out of a crisis. We have to find an economics that is rooted in low-carbon living. This isn't a hair-shirt existence but one that combines better living with treading more lightly on the planet. Some of the most radical changes just come from thinking differently. When Britain used to be choked up with smog we introduced the Clean Air Acts. No-one talked of "tradable breathing permits" or a market price for soot. We simply gave industry notice that it had to meet new air quality standards. Some screamed that it would be the end of British industry - but it never was; these new rules simply took us into another era.
Such a change of thought today might mean keeping the car scrappage scheme but allowing it to be used only to acquire ultra-low-carbon vehicles. It would turn the boiler scrappage scheme into one that made CHP (combined heat and power) boilers the replacement of choice. We have to skip the generation of "what we already have in stock" in favour of where we want to be next. Cities in Germany are now considering alternatives to new power stations. One is a plan to install 100,000 CHP boilers in houses, offices, schools and factories in Hamburg and having them linked to a central control unit. This could deliver up to 2GW of electricity - enough to replace two power stations. The Germans describe this as an energy "swarm." As well as meeting individual energy needs, it would deliver energy security to the city as a whole. It is "power to the parlour," but on a collective rather than individual basis. Moreover, the city in question is looking to run the show on bio-methane, derived from processing its own domestic waste. It is an economics that joins up the dots of living holistically. People in Germany are no better than we are in understanding what a ton of carbon looks like. They just understand that you need a different set of ground rules if the market is to make less of a mess. Demand reduction will have to become the new economics of growth. We need markets that will sell non-consumption and job creation at the same time.
The obvious example is in how we could end fuel poverty. Half of Britain's current carbon emissions come from existing buildings. Over five million households live in fuel poverty. If we were to raise the energy efficiency of these properties, Britain could cut the carbon emission by 60 per cent in a period of six or seven years. It would, of course, create huge numbers of jobs in the process. This is the new mindset Britain needs to take us out of the era of insecurity and into one of low-carbon living. In doing so, it would reverse the rightward drift in social attitudes, re-instating a belief that common security rather than social fragmentation holds the key to our future. Grasp this and we may discover we can save something of the glaciers as well as ourselves.
Labour's great social transformations, post-1945, came out of the life and death interdependencies of wartime. The NHS, state pensions, universal education and the national insurance system all arose from this sense of social - and intergenerational - solidarity. The last 20 years have been obsessed with the individual and the immediate. Throw this into the middle of an economic crisis and no wonder we are confused. Society has lost faith in the notion that we can rely on each other or that the collective safety nets, constructed over decades, remain in place and are strong enough. If workers' pensions can be stolen, the state pension eroded, the NHS handed over to private finance and essential utilities delivering gas, electricity and water security all privatised, no wonder a "you're on your own" belief predominates. An obsession with means-tested welfare only accentuates this. New Labour's assertion that it was comfortable with the filthy rich sent damaging messages through the whole political system. Taxing the filthy rich has become taboo. As a result, middle England sees itself as carrying the costs of the welfare state. Britain now has a wider gap between rich and poor than at any time over the past 40 years.
It is the middle class that sees itself as taking the strain. This is what comes across in the Social Attitudes Survey. How does this connect to the glaciers? The answer is in a fear of the future and a predictable retreat into individual bunker mentalities. Those of us who campaign about the urgency of facing up to climate change should welcome the IPCC controversy. It is a really good example of the scientific community working as it should. Data was checked. Sources were chased up. An error of some magnitude was identified and the data corrected. It is how science should work. The comments by the head of the IPCC Rajendra Pachauri were, of course, unfortunate. But then we all have the ability to look daft on occasions. The key point is that the recalculation of figures changes nothing of the central IPCC case. Climate sceptics can never subject their claims to the same scrutiny, because the claims fall apart. This is a triumph of critical thinking, not a failure. So how do we apply this to what we do now? As Britain stumbles over questions about whether it is finally coming out of recession - and how anyone would know - the most significant piece of analysis has been quietly pushed to one side.
It is to be found in the New Economics Foundation report Growth Isn't Possible: Why Rich Nations Need A New Economic Direction. NEF discreetly points out that Britain and other industrial nations cannot come out of the current crisis chasing the same "growth" economics that took us into it. This has nothing to do with the world having been turned into a financial casino. Instead it takes climate stability as the central determinant of our survival. It is the point at which we have to treat the public as grown-ups. If the science is right, and climate stability can only be secured within a 2°C increase in global temperatures, tomorrow's economics cannot simply shop its way out of a crisis. We have to find an economics that is rooted in low-carbon living. This isn't a hair-shirt existence but one that combines better living with treading more lightly on the planet. Some of the most radical changes just come from thinking differently. When Britain used to be choked up with smog we introduced the Clean Air Acts. No-one talked of "tradable breathing permits" or a market price for soot. We simply gave industry notice that it had to meet new air quality standards. Some screamed that it would be the end of British industry - but it never was; these new rules simply took us into another era.
Such a change of thought today might mean keeping the car scrappage scheme but allowing it to be used only to acquire ultra-low-carbon vehicles. It would turn the boiler scrappage scheme into one that made CHP (combined heat and power) boilers the replacement of choice. We have to skip the generation of "what we already have in stock" in favour of where we want to be next. Cities in Germany are now considering alternatives to new power stations. One is a plan to install 100,000 CHP boilers in houses, offices, schools and factories in Hamburg and having them linked to a central control unit. This could deliver up to 2GW of electricity - enough to replace two power stations. The Germans describe this as an energy "swarm." As well as meeting individual energy needs, it would deliver energy security to the city as a whole. It is "power to the parlour," but on a collective rather than individual basis. Moreover, the city in question is looking to run the show on bio-methane, derived from processing its own domestic waste. It is an economics that joins up the dots of living holistically. People in Germany are no better than we are in understanding what a ton of carbon looks like. They just understand that you need a different set of ground rules if the market is to make less of a mess. Demand reduction will have to become the new economics of growth. We need markets that will sell non-consumption and job creation at the same time.
The obvious example is in how we could end fuel poverty. Half of Britain's current carbon emissions come from existing buildings. Over five million households live in fuel poverty. If we were to raise the energy efficiency of these properties, Britain could cut the carbon emission by 60 per cent in a period of six or seven years. It would, of course, create huge numbers of jobs in the process. This is the new mindset Britain needs to take us out of the era of insecurity and into one of low-carbon living. In doing so, it would reverse the rightward drift in social attitudes, re-instating a belief that common security rather than social fragmentation holds the key to our future. Grasp this and we may discover we can save something of the glaciers as well as ourselves.
Monday, 15 March 2010
Real agenda of climate change deniers
We are witnessing a frenzy of climate “scepticism”. Following the hacking of emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the right are arguing that the science of human-caused global warming is wrong. Their offensive has a clear purpose - to reverse the growing public belief that rising emissions of greenhouse gases are causing climate change. Concern about climate change has brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets worldwide. The real target of the climate sceptics is this movement and the demands it is raising. Climate sceptics claim the leaked emails show that scientists deliberately suppressed evidence contradicting their conclusions. They say that this makes the whole science of human-caused global warming flawed. US Republican Sarah Palin calls climate scientists a “politicised scientific elite” that “manipulated data” to “hide the decline in global temperatures”. Yet the leaked emails do not show this. Instead they show the defensive response of a small group of scientists to the pressure they felt from what they described as a “politically motivated climate disinformation machine”.
Many scientists involved had already had their research attacked by individuals motivated by an anti-global warming agenda, rather than genuine scientific debate. So they refused requests for data from individuals such as Steve McIntyre, editor of the climate sceptic website Climate Audit. And they used the peer review process to marginalise work dedicated to climate scepticism. Critically, the emails don’t undermine the science of human-caused global warming. The science of climate change is complicated. It relies upon understanding temperature and climate over thousands of years. For most of this time, evidence can only come from “proxy” data such as tree rings or ice cores, rather than recorded temperatures.
This can produce varying results, which is why climate scientists assess a balance of evidence to reach conclusions. The balance of evidence currently is that we are experiencing a prolonged period of warming which is observable. And this warming matches models of what would happen if the greenhouse effect caused warming—rather than natural events. The most recent evidence produced by the Met Office, based on 100 studies, confirms this. That’s why human activities such as burning fossil fuels are seen as central to the planet’s climate. The climate sceptics are not defending the interests of ordinary people or pursuing rigorous scientific debate. Rather, they have presided over 30 years of free market policies. Ex-Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson is a prominent climate sceptic, as is Lord Monkton, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher who runs the so called Global Warming Policy Foundation. They fear that public pressure to deal with climate change will raise demands that challenge the priorities of their system.
One of the reasons climate sceptics have made some headway is because politicians’ rhetoric over climate isn’t matched by radical policies aimed at solving the problem. Nearly all climate change policy has been based on market mechanisms that have failed to halt emission rises and have redistributed wealth from the poor to rich polluting companies. It’s no surprise that climate scepticism finds some resonance among ordinary people. They are already cynical towards politicians and find it easy to believe they may have been lied to again. But working class people have nothing to gain from the sceptics. If they win it will legitimise a lack of action on climate change. That may be alright for those such as Lawson, rich enough to buy himself protection from the impact of climate change. But it won’t be alright for the poor suffering the consequences of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, floods in Cumbria or drought in Africa. This is a class argument we need to take up and win.
Many scientists involved had already had their research attacked by individuals motivated by an anti-global warming agenda, rather than genuine scientific debate. So they refused requests for data from individuals such as Steve McIntyre, editor of the climate sceptic website Climate Audit. And they used the peer review process to marginalise work dedicated to climate scepticism. Critically, the emails don’t undermine the science of human-caused global warming. The science of climate change is complicated. It relies upon understanding temperature and climate over thousands of years. For most of this time, evidence can only come from “proxy” data such as tree rings or ice cores, rather than recorded temperatures.
This can produce varying results, which is why climate scientists assess a balance of evidence to reach conclusions. The balance of evidence currently is that we are experiencing a prolonged period of warming which is observable. And this warming matches models of what would happen if the greenhouse effect caused warming—rather than natural events. The most recent evidence produced by the Met Office, based on 100 studies, confirms this. That’s why human activities such as burning fossil fuels are seen as central to the planet’s climate. The climate sceptics are not defending the interests of ordinary people or pursuing rigorous scientific debate. Rather, they have presided over 30 years of free market policies. Ex-Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson is a prominent climate sceptic, as is Lord Monkton, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher who runs the so called Global Warming Policy Foundation. They fear that public pressure to deal with climate change will raise demands that challenge the priorities of their system.
One of the reasons climate sceptics have made some headway is because politicians’ rhetoric over climate isn’t matched by radical policies aimed at solving the problem. Nearly all climate change policy has been based on market mechanisms that have failed to halt emission rises and have redistributed wealth from the poor to rich polluting companies. It’s no surprise that climate scepticism finds some resonance among ordinary people. They are already cynical towards politicians and find it easy to believe they may have been lied to again. But working class people have nothing to gain from the sceptics. If they win it will legitimise a lack of action on climate change. That may be alright for those such as Lawson, rich enough to buy himself protection from the impact of climate change. But it won’t be alright for the poor suffering the consequences of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, floods in Cumbria or drought in Africa. This is a class argument we need to take up and win.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Why the green cause is a working-class cause
A couple of weeks ago there was an article in The Guardian titled "The climate crisis can be solved by courteous communication." Now, I'm all for good intentions but I'm fairly sure there's a limit to what decent manners can achieve. So while we wait for etiquette to work its planetary magic, it might be worth working on a plan B, just in case. As we see the first effects of climate change begin to kick in, there's a very clear and disturbing pattern. The front-line victims have all been the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. On the whole the countries most strongly affected are those which have contributed the least to creating the problem in the first place. Whether it's the flooding in Bangladesh, the drying in Africa or the heavy rainfalls in south America it is those who are least able to cope with disaster who have disasters visited upon them. Of course, as the fires in Australia or the disaster in New Orleans showed, even First World nations when confronted with extreme weather conditions find it profoundly difficult to cope.
That means there needs to be a twin-track approach on addressing climate change. First that we ensure that these poorer nations are given the assistance they need to cope with a changing climate and that we scrap the unjust international mechanisms that are keeping the poorest poor. That means addressing the climate crisis is also a question of addressing the havoc wreaked by the international economy. Far from lecturing those living in poverty to tighten their belts it has to be about putting their economies on a stronger footing so that these nations have a decent infrastructure, proper emergency services and economic justice - all things we should be fighting for even if these societies were not facing the brunt of global warming. The second issue is that we need to ensure the measures we take to reduce our carbon emissions at home simultaneously help to reduce other social problems. A recent edition of Radio Four's Woman's Hour discussed whether being green was anti-woman, although the discussion seemed, for whatever reason, to revolve around organic chickens; maybe they'd missed their breakfasts?
However, the key demands of the green movement are not about lifestyle but are about measures that would also help reduce inequality here in Britain. For example, Kirklees Council initiated a roll-out of free home insulation. Regardless of the effects on energy use, it has meant that those who could not afford to make their home a warm and comfortable place have benefited from a radical programme that shows efficiency is not the same thing as cuts. Taking a more general example, having a decent and cheap public transport system allows us to reduce car use, fuel use and increases air quality. However, on a day-to-day level improving our public transport has an immediate impact on everyone's quality of life, especially but not exclusively those on low incomes. Some demands can feel quite middle class, like protecting locally owned businesses over the encroachment from the likes of economic giants Tesco and Sainsbury's. This is an attempt to reduce the distances that our goods have to travel and reduce waste. However, this demand happens to be simultaneously an attack on the power of the largest capitalist enterprises.
The desire to live in a place with its own identity and where the local economy directly feeds into and is connected to the local community is one that is first and foremost about questioning what the economy is for, but it has also a profound impact on carbon emissions. The fight against climate change should also be a fight for fairness. And because of the nature of capitalism that means confronting the interests of capital and forcing it to do things it has no desire to do. When people talk about organic chickens, it's in the profoundly mistaken belief that the quality of the food we eat is not a working-class issue. The fact that the way our food industry is structured today means that eating healthy meals can be too expensive for many people is a disgrace. There's nothing noble in eating second-class, tasteless food. The focus on lifestyle by those who want to portray the green movement as anti-working-class also deliberately ignores the fact that greens call for political and economic change.
If we don't tackle how we produce energy, the inefficiency and priorities of our current economy, the inadequacies of our democracies and the social divisions in society then we won't be able to tackle the climate. That doesn't mean that there aren't a host of things individuals can do to help in that fight beyond using our votes wisely to send the clearest message that the main parties cannot just drop environmental issues. Household waste and energy use are responsible for a significant proportion of the country's emissions. There's no harm in remembering the things that were second nature to my grandparents. Turning off lights you're not using or recycling papers used to be the norm, but now some people seem to find the suggestion that making it easier to combat pointless waste is some kind of fundamental attack on their civil liberties.
If we're to create a mass movement that can truly reshape the economy and fights for climate justice, we'll need millions who are building these tiny daily routines into their lives, routines that help us live saner lives, not more difficult ones. When you're on a war footing it's what you have to do to bind people to the cause. Any movement that is made up of people who feel no personal commitment or responsibility for the future does not have the commitment to win its demands. The movement for a sustainable society is not about lifestyles and expensive chickens - it's about politics. It's about the economy. And it's about justice. It's a mistake to think that, just because many green activists are dedicated to local and personal change, that is at the expense of the bigger picture.
That means there needs to be a twin-track approach on addressing climate change. First that we ensure that these poorer nations are given the assistance they need to cope with a changing climate and that we scrap the unjust international mechanisms that are keeping the poorest poor. That means addressing the climate crisis is also a question of addressing the havoc wreaked by the international economy. Far from lecturing those living in poverty to tighten their belts it has to be about putting their economies on a stronger footing so that these nations have a decent infrastructure, proper emergency services and economic justice - all things we should be fighting for even if these societies were not facing the brunt of global warming. The second issue is that we need to ensure the measures we take to reduce our carbon emissions at home simultaneously help to reduce other social problems. A recent edition of Radio Four's Woman's Hour discussed whether being green was anti-woman, although the discussion seemed, for whatever reason, to revolve around organic chickens; maybe they'd missed their breakfasts?
However, the key demands of the green movement are not about lifestyle but are about measures that would also help reduce inequality here in Britain. For example, Kirklees Council initiated a roll-out of free home insulation. Regardless of the effects on energy use, it has meant that those who could not afford to make their home a warm and comfortable place have benefited from a radical programme that shows efficiency is not the same thing as cuts. Taking a more general example, having a decent and cheap public transport system allows us to reduce car use, fuel use and increases air quality. However, on a day-to-day level improving our public transport has an immediate impact on everyone's quality of life, especially but not exclusively those on low incomes. Some demands can feel quite middle class, like protecting locally owned businesses over the encroachment from the likes of economic giants Tesco and Sainsbury's. This is an attempt to reduce the distances that our goods have to travel and reduce waste. However, this demand happens to be simultaneously an attack on the power of the largest capitalist enterprises.
The desire to live in a place with its own identity and where the local economy directly feeds into and is connected to the local community is one that is first and foremost about questioning what the economy is for, but it has also a profound impact on carbon emissions. The fight against climate change should also be a fight for fairness. And because of the nature of capitalism that means confronting the interests of capital and forcing it to do things it has no desire to do. When people talk about organic chickens, it's in the profoundly mistaken belief that the quality of the food we eat is not a working-class issue. The fact that the way our food industry is structured today means that eating healthy meals can be too expensive for many people is a disgrace. There's nothing noble in eating second-class, tasteless food. The focus on lifestyle by those who want to portray the green movement as anti-working-class also deliberately ignores the fact that greens call for political and economic change.
If we don't tackle how we produce energy, the inefficiency and priorities of our current economy, the inadequacies of our democracies and the social divisions in society then we won't be able to tackle the climate. That doesn't mean that there aren't a host of things individuals can do to help in that fight beyond using our votes wisely to send the clearest message that the main parties cannot just drop environmental issues. Household waste and energy use are responsible for a significant proportion of the country's emissions. There's no harm in remembering the things that were second nature to my grandparents. Turning off lights you're not using or recycling papers used to be the norm, but now some people seem to find the suggestion that making it easier to combat pointless waste is some kind of fundamental attack on their civil liberties.
If we're to create a mass movement that can truly reshape the economy and fights for climate justice, we'll need millions who are building these tiny daily routines into their lives, routines that help us live saner lives, not more difficult ones. When you're on a war footing it's what you have to do to bind people to the cause. Any movement that is made up of people who feel no personal commitment or responsibility for the future does not have the commitment to win its demands. The movement for a sustainable society is not about lifestyles and expensive chickens - it's about politics. It's about the economy. And it's about justice. It's a mistake to think that, just because many green activists are dedicated to local and personal change, that is at the expense of the bigger picture.
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