It’s Getting Hot In Here

29 Responses to “Thomas Friedman: Neo-liberal war monger.”

1. 1 Teryn Norris Apr 25th, 2008 at 3:53 am

   Matt, nobody on this blog is trying to defend all of Friedman’s views, current or previous. If you’d like to debate his contribution to the clean energy and climate movement, then let’s have that discussion.

   In response to your previous comment, I asked you to elaborate on four points:

   1. In your view, what are the “root causes” of the climate crisis?
   2. Can you provide compelling evidence for your (incredibly) strong accusation that “Friedman champions clean energy as a way to maintain U.S. dominance”?
   3. What are the “fundamental systems of domination” that created the climate crisis?
   4. How do you define “global justice”?

   Here’s what I’ve gathered from your post. Correct me if I’m wrong:

   1. You believe that “war, racism, imperialism, economic inequality, and many other forms of domination are the root causes of the ecological crisis.”

   That’s strange. For some reason I thought global warming was driven largely by our dirty energy sources and deforestation, but apparently the root cause is “war, racism, imperialism, inequality, and other forms of domination” by the American empire.

   2. You’ve given us a bunch of random quotations from Friedman on the Iraq war. But I still don’t understand how Friedman (or anyone) could possibly see championing clean energy as a way to “maintain global dominance.” Certainly we can revitalize the American and global economy with clean energy investments (Friedman has written extensively about how clean energy can help the Chinese and Indian economies), so perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining why you believe the reason for Friedman’s views on clean energy is to promote American domination.

   3. You’ve stated that “war, racism, imperialism, economic inequality, and many other forms of domination are the root causes of the ecological crisis,” but without any explanation.

   4. You’ve given no answer. What bothers me most about this, Matt, is your apparent presumption that the developing world — let’s focus on China, since it’s the largest country in the world and now the largest contributor to global emissions — is just being manipulated by the United States to take its current path of development. Do you honestly believe that China is industrializing because of U.S. domination, or that China should be condemned to energy poverty?

   Thanks for your clarification.

2. 2 sparki (Scott Parkin, if you can't click a link) Apr 25th, 2008 at 4:00 am

   Boo-yah! Great piece on who Friedman really is. He’s indicative of the corporate media culture today. Greenwash, sanitize, cheerlead, sell the corporation’s and governments bullshit propaganda. They are one of the roots of the problem in today’s system. Bush wouldn’t never have been able to go to war if we hadn’t had a complicit unquestioning media.

   And if we’re not careful, they will greenwash, sanitize and cheerlead the false solutions to climate change (CCS, clean coal, nuclear, biofuels, etc.).

   Great way to focus on the content of what Friedman says and does.

3. 3 kevin Apr 25th, 2008 at 6:51 am

   From Walden Bello’s (professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines, as well as executive director of Focus on the Global South and winner of the 2003 Right-Livelihood award) essay “Will capitalism survive climate change?”

   “The central problem, it is becoming increasingly clear, is a mode of production whose main dynamic is the transformation of living nature into dead commodities, creating tremendous waste in the process.

   The driver of this process is consumption - or more appropriately overconsumption - and the motivation is profit or capital accumulation: capitalism, in short.

   It has been the generalisation of this mode of production in the North and its spread from the North to the South over the last 300 years that has caused the accelerated burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil and rapid deforestation, two of the key man-made processes behind global warming…

   In contrast to the Northern elite’s strategy of trying to decouple growth from energy use, a progressive comprehensive climate strategy in both the North and the South must be to reduce growth and energy use while raising the quality of life of the broad masses of people.

   Among other things, this will mean placing economic justice and equality at the centre of the new paradigm.

   The transition must be one not only from a fossil-fuel based economy but also from an overconsumption-driven economy.

   The end-goal must be adoption of a low-consumption, low-growth, high-equity development model that results in an improvement in people’s welfare, a better quality of life for all, and greater democratic control of production.

   It is unlikely that the elite of the North and the South will agree to such a comprehensive response. The farthest they are likely to go is for techno-fixes and a market-based cap-and-trade system. Growth will be sacrosanct, as will the system of global capitalism.”

   Read the full essay here

   http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=18103&username=guest@tni.org&password=9999&publish=Y

4. 4 TheGreenMiles Apr 25th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

   This would’ve been a great debate to have. But you’ve lost us. By throwing pies (or making pie throwers out to be heroes), you give the moral high ground to the very person you want to discredit (in this case, Friedman).

   This is why we don’t throw pies. Lesson learned. Let’s move on.

5. 5 S Apr 25th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

   Great Post Matt,

   Thanks for not letting the oppurtunity to have these conversations escape us.

6. 6 Sustainable Development Apr 25th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

   “This would’ve been a great debate to have”…

   We can’t talk about the relationship between globalization, war and climate change because this issue was brought up by a tactic you disagree with? That is absurd.

   Engaging in critiques of imperialism while we search for and employ responses to climate change is imperative for any hope of movement for justice.

   Over and over I hear “sustainable development” as the response to climate change. And this, is fundamentally something that needs to be examined from an historical perspective.

   Sustainable Development?
   1. this places more obligation to change on the communities in the “Global South” (a.k.a. third world, ‘underdeveloped countries’, etc.) when we all know that the “Global North” (U.S./U.K./etc.) has contributed the most to climate change via benefiting off of and facilitating environmentally destructive industry.

   2. Sustainable development is based on the assumption that communities want, and need to develop, into the global economic system and replicate “our way of life”.
   - this is counterintuitive given that people in “undeveloped” communities live way less carbon-intensive lives than we do - I am interested in looking to these people as leaders.
   - how dare we assume that other communities want what we have

   3. The term sustainable development is often simply a phrase employed as corporate public relations to silence environmental and socially unjust practices.

   Example:

   Companies such as Shell in Nigeria have been greenwashing their image as “sustainable” for a while now. Meanwhile, they continue to work in a region that has been organizing for over 30 years to call-out the injustices of Shell’s operations there.

   “Egi women are farmers, fisherwomen and hunters. With all the flaming and pumping oil into our swamp areas they have denied us every living thing. Today we have no hope while they are making billions of naira with our gifts from God. They dont care or hear our cry. When we cry the oil companies will only throw tear gas on us and beat us and drive us out of our land.” Egi Woman.

   Now, because resistance has grown and actually decreased the amount of crude oil coming from the area, the US military is increasing operations there to protect “our interests”. In the February 2007 speech by Bush announcing plans for AFRICOM (a military command center in Africa), he said that by 2015 25% of our natural resources will be coming from west Africa. = militarization of an area to facilitate corporate resource appropriation under the guise of sustainable development.

   How can Shell call their resource extraction sustainable development you ask?

   While tapping oil reserves, Shell has engaged in the act of “gas flaring” - burning off methane gas associated with natural oil reserves. Gas flaring is very harmful to surrounding community members and to the atmosphere. Gas flaring has been found illegal by Nigerian courts in 2006 and shell has been required to cease flaring.

   Shell oil company has now built the West African Pipeline (natural gas pipeline from Nigeria to Ghana, funded by the World Bank) and has developed the infrastructure for Liquefied Natural Gas export terminal (Nigeria LNG) to send natural gas to the UK and east coast of the US.

   Because using the gas as a fuel instead of flaring it decreased the “on-site” carbon emissions of the flaring, this is “clean development”.

   Want an example of climate change leadership I look to?
   Check out these women: http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/111/Women.html

7. 7 Jesse Jenkins Apr 25th, 2008 at 4:15 pm

   Matt and Teryn, thanks for taking this debate beyond pie-throwing antics and into a realm of substance. I think this is a valuable back and forth, one that I’m curious to see play out. The “Greenwash Guerrillas” may have been clever enough to foresee that their actions would prompt such a debate here, but my guess is they didn’t think things that far.

   For the record, as one of two who referenced Gandhi in comments on the last post on the pie incident, I can’t see how the non-violent philosophy of Gandhi’s resistance would validate the kind of assault on someone’s dignity, enemy or otherwise, that was so apparent from watching Friedman’s face after he was hit by the pies. Watch the video again and tell me if that looks like a man who’s human dignity is being respected by the GWGs…

   Now the GWGs have accused Friedman of tolerating, even advocating human rights abuses that are clearly much worse degradations of a human’s dignity than an “all in good fun” pieing, but I fail to see how, even if you believe those accusations, that warrants violating someone else’s dignity. The hole in that logic seems large enough to drive a truck through. I wouldn’t be too concerned really if we were just talking about pieing - after all, if this is as radical as our movement gets in our tactics, that wouldn’t be so bad. But what concerns me about the reasoning - Friedman doesn’t respect others’ dignity, therefore we don’t have to respect his - is that it is dangerously close to the kind of reasoning that tolerates and justifies violent tactics, something I do have deep problems with. That’s why I reacted to strongly against this pie-throwing tactic.

   Anyway, back to the debate about Friedman and enough about tactics and non/violent protest. We can continue that on the other post’s thread if we haven’t beat it to death yet.

8. 8 jessejenkins Apr 25th, 2008 at 4:57 pm

   “a progressive comprehensive climate strategy in both the North and the South must be to reduce growth and energy use while raising the quality of life of the broad masses of people.”

   Kevin, how do you propose we reduce growth while lifting a couple billion people - “the broad masses of people” - out of poverty? Do you simply mean reduce growth in the global North, while growth continues in the global South? Are you arguing for a massive redistribution of wealth and an equalization of standards of living between North and South, such that the average standard of living is far below current European or North American standards but higher than those in Africa, rural China, etc.? I’d like a fuller description of your philosophy for how to bring billions of people out of poverty across the planet this century.

   I think we both share common goals (do we?) - stabilize the climate, help the most vulnerable adapt and recover from the climate change already underway, bring the global economy in sync with a planet of finite limits and recognize the critical importance of the ecosystems that support us, and help lift billions of out poverty over the next century. The question then is how we go about doing that.

9. 9 amyo Apr 25th, 2008 at 5:39 pm

   Teryn,

   I’d like to answer your questions:

   “1. You believe that “war, racism, imperialism, economic inequality, and many other forms of domination are the root causes of the ecological crisis.”

   That’s strange. For some reason I thought global warming was driven largely by our dirty energy sources and deforestation, but apparently the root cause is “war, racism, imperialism, inequality, and other forms of domination” by the American empire.”

   You’re obviously right that global warming is driven by dirty energy sources and deforestation. But stopping there fails to reveal the root causes of the climate crisis. I see the climate crisis as a fundamental example of the failure of capitalism, and capitalism is linked to inequality, war, racism and imperialism. When you look at who is impacted by our dirty energy sources it is clear that those on the bottom of the political food chain bear the worst brunts (people in Nigeria, poor folk in Appalachia, ect). Just as with climate change, a few rich, white men profit at the expense of the rest of the planet, so systems of domination like imperialism, racism and war profit the same handful of elites.

   To me, there is no way we will ever get out of the climate crisis without understanding how these systems of oppression are interlinked. Domination of the planet and people are of course parts of the same beast. Men like Thomas Friedman writing about climate change fail to grasp the fact that we must see a radical shift in the way that we relate to each other and the earth. That capitalism will NEVER be green. That folks like him need to stop dominating the discourse and allow truly visionary leaders and thinkers who see how the system isn’t working to guide the debate.

   At this point, only the most foolish are attempting to deny that climate change is occurring. Instead, the strategy has shifted to co-opting the public outcry against climate change and pushing false solutions that will increase inequity, racism, inequality, imperialism and whatever other systems of destruction you can think of. The same thinking that has caused us to ravage this planet to this point and caused climate change will never fix it.

10. 10 jessejenkins Apr 25th, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    Matt, I’m not sure that I understand how Friedman is really advocating clean energy as a way to maintain US imperialism or global domination. I think you’ll have to elaborate on that, and/or provide some citations of Friedman’s writings that make that case.

    I do however share your concerns that a politics that promotes or harbors racism, sexism, imperialism, rampant nationalism or any other forms of domination and exploitation will have a hard time reconciling that kind of larger politics with an ecological way of living that truly recognizes our interconnectedness and interdependence with the web of human and non-human life and ecosystems on this planet. While I think it’s a little confusing to say that “that war, racism, imperialism, economic inequality, and many other forms of domination are the root causes of the ecological and social crisis we all face,” it is clear to me at least that a world view rooted in systems of dominance and exploitation will always support tendencies towards environmental exploitation as well.

    I do however disagree with the statement that capitalism will never be “green” (whatever that means). Capitalism and markets are tools. Despite a myth of the “free market,” markets have always been influenced and effected by social and political factors and can be (and are routinely) bent to our will. Our current form of capitalism is clearly horribly flawed, and has much to do with global warming. I’d say it’s really rampant consumerism more than capitalism that is the problem though, and I think you’re being pretty essentialist if you think that’s the only kind of capitalism there is. Like “democracy,” “socialism” or “communism,” when you say “capitalism,” I’ve gotta ask you which kind of capitalism?!

    From a practical, strategic standpoint, I also have serious concerns that given the urgency and rapidly unfolding nature of our energy and climate crisis, we quite simply lack the time necessary to foment the kind of massive social revolution that’d overthrow market capitalism (and replace it with what, I’m not exactly sure!) in time to be a major component of our solutions to climate change. That may be our ultimate goal, but I think it’d be foolish not to get to work with the tools we have now, given that we should have started a decade ago!

    I’d challenge folks who think capitalism will never be part of the solution to outline a scenario by which global emissions peak by 2015 and begin to decline to 50-80% below 1990 levels by mid-century that involved overthrowing capitalism worldwide and replacing it with something else stable, all while lifting a couple billion more people out of poverty…

    [Full disclosure time: I just accepted a position with Breakthrough Institute working with Teryn as associate director of their youth fellowship program, Breakthrough Generation. Our fellows crew can be seen here, just scroll down past those geezer "senior" fellows!]

11. 11 insurgent sociologist Apr 25th, 2008 at 7:33 pm

    Part of the issue here is how do you define capitalism. Its often defined as markets, but a better historical definition is the private ownership of the means of production (land, water, machines, information) which allows the owners (at the aggregate level) of those means to compel those without them to sell their labor for survival. You can’t turn a person into a commodity (labor-power) without first turning land into a commodity. You’re right about there being different kinds of capitalism (today we have monopoly-finance capitalism characterized by reduced competition , economic stagnation, and exploding inequality) but they all have inherent contradictions as a result of the social productive relations common to them all.

12. 12 insurgent sociologist Apr 25th, 2008 at 7:46 pm

    It is good to see this conversation taking place. I think the greenwash guerrillas tactics are a legitimate issue of debate, but more important is what sort of world we want to have and what are the obstacles to it. Thomas Friedman’s status as a “hero” is disturbs me greatly. Ernst Haeckel coined the term “ecology” but I would not call the father of Nazi eugenics an environmental hero.
    Friedman’s calls for renewable energy are not progressive, but reactionary. The economists at the World Bank, IMF, and elsewhere in charge of making up arguments to support neo-liberalism shifted from claiming human rights and sustainability crises created by their policies were not their problem to claiming that their policies were the only solution. They also indoctrinate officials in the developing world in this ideology and work to propel those who accept it into power. See for example Sociologist Michael Goldman’s “Imperial Nature”. They have changed their argument due to exploding popular resistance but the substance is as empty as ever. Capitalists in the US want the same thing as capitalists in China, as high of a profit as possible, and they are only interested in renewable, clean energy to the extent it delivers that. Individuals may feel differently but the little competition that does occur enforces this logic.
    Nuclear energy is an example of “clean energy” being used to perpetuate us imperial power. It is currently being promoted the energy source of the future even as the US seeks to dictate who can have a nuclear program of their own and who must purchase the implements from US corporation. It is not a solution to climate change .
    I think Friedman’s quotes on the fate of Nuclear Waste and clean coal speak plainly to his application of imperialism to environmental justice issues. To those who agree with him, do you also support “environmentalist” Garrett Hardin’s “lifeboat ethics”. The pentagon is pushing coal the coal to liquids he is fond of to ensure that they will have fuel for their bombers to continue to drop payloads of “freedom and democracy” across the globe. The people whose water is destroyed by this process, in Friedman’s words, will have to “suck it up”. It is foolish to try and separate Friedman’s stance on the war its implication for the climate. .

13. 13 insurgent sociologist Apr 25th, 2008 at 7:51 pm

    The war is responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon
    dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) since March 2003.3 To put this in
    perspective:
    • CO2 released by the war to date equals the emissions from
    putting 25 million more cars on the road in the US this year.
    • If the war was ranked as a country in terms of emissions, it would
    emit more CO2 each year than 139 of the world’s nations do
    annually. Falling between New Zealand and Cuba, the war each
    year emits more than 60% of all countries.
    •Emissions from the Iraq War to date are nearly two and a half
    times greater than what would be avoided between 2009 and 2016
    were California to implement the auto emission regulations it has
    proposed, but that the Bush Administration has struck down.

    The question the developing world and of what kinds of development are possible, and more likely, under capitalism is the topic of a post I’m workin on so I’ll just suggest a few sources.

    An Age of Transition The United States, China, Peak Oil, and the Demise of Neoliberalism

    A number of professional associations have made position statements that there is a fundamental contradiction between sustainability and social justice with continued “economic growth” as defined under capitalism. The American Sociological Association is currently considering such a statement (which engages Jesse’s question).
    http://calvin.linfield.edu/~rgardne/ET/ETSNewsletter/Winter08.pdf
    http://www2.asanet.org/sectionpews/pn08-1.pdf

    Finally, for clearing up Teryn’s confusion and an introduction into the scholarly work on the social and ecological contradictions inherent in capitalism, I would particularly suggest two books by John Bellamy Foster “The Vulnerable Planet” (a quick read) and “Ecology against Capitalism” (more complicated essays)

14. 14 Teryn Norris Apr 25th, 2008 at 8:45 pm

    I find the idea that a “worldview” or “philosophy” of domination is at the root of ecological crises to be very inadequate. The truth is that ever since humans left behind nomadic hunting and gathering, practically everything we have done — and nearly everything we do today in our daily lives — can be considered an act of “domination over nature.” Our most basic way of life fundamentally depends on it, as do the aspirations of billions of people around the planet.

    The greatest oppression and injustice taking place in the world today is that which leaves billions of people in destitute poverty. The solution for these people isn’t to decry their ability to organize and control nature. Such a view screams privilege and elitism, and it reflects a profound misunderstanding of the challenges facing the people that many here claim to represent. It’s not “capitalism” or “domination” that’s at the heart of the challenge — it’s the aspirations of billions of people.

    What’s needed today is a movement that embraces our collective power and ingenuity to solve ecological crisis and global poverty. This applies to human power in general and American ingenuity in particular. The question is not, “should we have this power?” We do — guilt and denial won’t do anything about it. Rather, the question is how we use that power.

    We believe that one of the best ways the United States can use its power and prosperity today is to launch a massive effort, in collaboration with other developed and developing countries, to develop clean energy technology and infrastructure and distribute these to countries like China and India in a way that simultaneously confronts climate and poverty. We would like to hear some of your perspectives on whether a New Apollo Project is something you would support.

    If we’re going to overcome these challenges and create a better world, we’re going to need real strategic vision and clarity about what’s important and who our allies might be. All of us come at this effort from different backgrounds and perspectives; Thomas Friedman is only one supporter in a growing movement. Demonizing him gets us nowhere.

15. 15 jessejenkins Apr 26th, 2008 at 2:44 am

    Insurgent Sociologist (Ryan, right?) writes: “A number of professional associations have made position statements that there is a fundamental contradiction between sustainability and social justice with continued “economic growth” as defined under capitalism. The American Sociological Association is currently considering such a statement (which engages Jesse’s question).”

    I’m well aware of these statements. I’ve read some of Foster’s work, including essays from “Ecology Against Capitalism” (I went to the UofO remember). Didn’t find it compelling at all. Sorry. Guess I’m more of a Paul Hawken kind of guy.

    I agree that there are fundamental contradictions between unlimited “economic growth” as our current form of neo-liberal capitalism defines it. We live on a finite planet after all. But capitalism and markets are simply a system (a highly efficient one often) to monetize what we value, incentivizing individual actions. The values that underly it are human values, defined by human societies and power structures. Our current values are pretty well F-ed up, for sure. But if we structure the system to properly value true human well being, and not simply material consumption, to internalize the externalities that constitute fundamental market failures in our current system (global warming emissions and other pollutants, destruction of natural capitalism, etc.), it can be a tool to further our ends.

    Watch the Story of Stuff. This kind of capitalism - modern consumerism lets call it - was very deliberately created. We can very deliberately create something else. Might be a stretch to hope (and work for) that kind of change … but then again, so is hoping for a massive societal revolution that entirely overthrows our dominant global economic system (and replaces it with?)…

16. 16 willie Apr 26th, 2008 at 3:52 am

    I like it. and it’s not because i’m angsty or juvenile. i think it was a well thought out and well-played action to expose friedman’s brand of fake-environmentalism. It’s predictable that so many folks are against the action because it’s so confrontational. but at the end of the day, we’re all talking tactics and we’re all talking about capitalism’s role (read “root cause”) in climate change and we all know a whole lot more about friedman’s many crimes than we did this time last week.

    I think it’s a pipe dream that if only we could have a civil dialouge with people like friedman, then maybe we could advance the cause. friedman and assorted other capitalists gain and retain their power at the expense of the rest of us. there’s very little convincing these people. it’s unfortunate, but sometimes you just have to focus on confronting them head-on and stopping them from what they’re doing as best you can. gaining credibility in their eyes won’t get us anything. i’m not even sure what that means. - in the public’s eyes yes, sometimes activists have to engage more accessible tactics in the interest of engaging the public, but sometimes you gotta push directly back against the oppressors too. and these more confrontational tactics are also exciting and empowering to some of us who’ve been in this a while and know that utlimatley it’s going to take a lot more than civil dialouge and corporate reform to win.

    thanks greenwash guerillas for the great action. thanks everyone for the great discussion. i hope more capitalists get pies in the face. i don’t think i’m much of a pie-thrower myself but i’ve been actually thinking about hatching some kind of protest against NRDC for poising as environmental leaders but advocating coal and capitalism. what do y’all think?

    one last point - we do have a movement. a unified agenda isn’t what makes a movement. a whole ton of organic grassroots action is what makes a movement. everyone don’t always agree. we need to be sure to understan the rols of organizations, coalition and the movement. we can’t stifle eachother tactics and philosophies expecting us all to get on the exact same page. we can’t all be in one organization so we have a coalition. we can’t all fit into the coalition all the times so we have a movement.

17. 17 Morgan Apr 26th, 2008 at 10:40 am

    I enthusiastically second Willie’s last point. “one last point - we do have a movement. a unified agenda isn’t what makes a movement. a whole ton of organic grassroots action is what makes a movement.”

    This conversation makes us stronger, this conflict shows us more about how we’re perceived and what different measures of effectiveness are. I’m gonna save more thoughts for my next post.

18. 18 kaibosworth Apr 26th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

    I also think that’s a very important point to make - especially since the Greenwash Guerrillas claimed to be speaking “On behalf of the earth and all true environmentalists.”

19. 19 insurgent sociologist Apr 26th, 2008 at 1:54 pm

    Yes, this is Ryan at UO (the screenname comes from a journal formerly run here), I’m glad Jesse and I are agreed, to extent we are, on the social structural nature of current ecological and social problems. Teryn is right that it is not PRIMARILY a worldview or philosophy which our problems stem from. I started studying political economy because of frustration with inability of research on peoples knowledge about environmental problems and their attitudes towards them to explain behaviors. Materially, we can see how structures of economic and political power work to propagate or suppress different worldviews.

    I like the story of stuff very much and use it with my students. However, there is one primary criticism I would make of it regarding the golden arrow of consumption in that it is also the arrow of production. Consumers can decided what not to by (for example, if they are affluent enough to afford organic produce) but they can’t decide what will be produced instead- which is a fundamental problem. This brings me back to the definition of capitalism as a regime of property rights and productive relations stemming from them (I have heard some folks argue for “reforms” of capitalism which would fundamentally change these, in which case we may be arguing semantics, though I can’t say I’m convinced Hawken is one of them). So how to overcome this problem? Through privatization of the earths atmosphere and the hope that the power elites who then own it are driven by their self interest to protect it or through more direct democratic control over what gets produced and how?

    It appears we both agree that what markets are currently and historically more “efficient” at is not producing sustainability or justice. Part of this problem is that markets do not allow us to “deliberately decide” anything but rather allocate decision making power based on wealth and access to capital which we seem agreed are very badly distributed at the moment. So it would appear to a certain extent what is required for the existence of the kind of markets you would like to see is in line with more democratic power and redistribution of resources advocated by socialists. (I think the ecological economics literature has pretty well exposed the failures of “contingent valuation approaches”)

    Jesse writes: “Might be a stretch to hope (and work for) that kind of change … but then again, so is hoping for a massive societal revolution that entirely overthrows our dominant global economic system (and replaces it with?)… ”
    I am worried that “and replace it with…” invokes Marget Thatcher’s tired argument “There Is No Alternative” which apologists for capitalism increasing use as evidence of its problems grow. It is in principle the same argument that those who say there is no alternative to fossil fuels. Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, and Martin Luther King Jr. all believed that an alternative was both possible and absolutely necessary. Across Latin America we see grassroots democratic movements struggling to build alternatives, and working to undermine and overturn the global economic system. I think its possible to argue that compromises are desirable due to the little time we have to stop climate change. The question remains as to which aspects of current economic system (if any) it is possible to compromise with and be able to make the changes we need to do that.

20. 20 jessejenkins Apr 26th, 2008 at 6:05 pm

    Ryan, I think you sum it up well here: “I think its possible to argue that compromises are desirable due to the little time we have to stop climate change. The question remains as to which aspects of current economic system (if any) it is possible to compromise with and be able to make the changes we need to do that.”

    I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on that question. Given that scientists warn global emissions of greenhouse gases must peak and begin to fall by around 2015, what should be our top priorities for reform/change such that we can accomplish the changes we need to do that, and what do we need to compromise with or tolerate for the time being? In short, what are our priorities?

    There’s a lot of injustice in the world, and we can only do so much at one time. I’m sorry if that sounds callous, but it’s also true. Tackling the climate crisis will require - and enable - transformational changes, but I’m not sure we can afford to hold out for a perfect silver-bullet revolution to sweep across the globe.

    Ryan, you write “Part of this problem is that markets do not allow us to “deliberately decide” anything but rather allocate decision making power based on wealth and access to capital.” While this may be true to the extent that there is (or ever was) a real “free” market, my point above is that such a free market never really exists. Governmental regulation/taxes and the broader societal norms they are generally reflective of constantly shape and create the rules under which markets function. Just look at how different “capitalism” looks in the United States, or Sweden, or France or China. That’s why I said when you say “capitalism,” I’ve gotta ask what kind of capitalism.

    To the extent that we do live in a (more or less!) democratic society, we have a chance to set up the market’s rules such that it can properly function. If natural and human capital is properly valued, externalities are closed, labor can organize, government agencies regulate, etc., markets can function such that doing well by the market means doing well by people and the planet.

    I recognize that’s a bit of an optimistic reach. But as I said above, it’s not any more (and probably quite a bit less) of a reach than assuming we’ll overthrow capitalism entirely. I advocate reforms to capitalism not out of some reverence for capitalism, but out of a shear pragmatic belief it offers our best and most likely chance at solving climate change and creating a more just and sustainable future.

21. 21 jessejenkins Apr 26th, 2008 at 6:06 pm

    And to clarify, I asked “and replace it with?” not to imply there are no alternatives, but to prompt you, or others, to describe what your alternative would be. We’ve been talking a lot about the evils of capitalism, and the need to overthrow it, and that of course begs the question “and replace it with what?”

22. 22 willie Apr 26th, 2008 at 6:28 pm

    teryn,

    on what study, or better yet firsthand experience, are you basing your claim that “billions of people worldwide” in not-so-industrialized areas are aspiring for… what? coal plants? wal-marts? friedman would argue mcdonalds i guess.

    I live in Harrisonburg virginia. We have a large working class immigrant population here, mostly from Mexico and Central America. Did these folks leave their homes and in many cases families and travel thousands of miles away to live in virginia, subject to racist government policies and cultural behaviors; do these folks in my town and many others choose to live in the U.S. without legal documentation of citizenship, constantly in fear of being outed and deported because they aspire to exist in a more industrialized world? no. they have come here because NAFTA and other products of the U.S.-led, Friedman-endorsed global capitalist economy have removed them from their land with U.S. trained and resourced military violence or by making it too hard for small farms to operate south of the border facing the competition of subsidized north american crops. so they must enter into sweatshops or risk it in the U.S. to support themselves and their families. I quite suspect that these folks would prefer to be at home farming in traditional ways than in Harrisonburg working in Cargil’s industrial poultry operations.

    the not-so-industrialized world only aspires to exist within industrial systems of production and consumption when global capitalism destroys (or privatizes) the natural alternatives always with the help of industrialisms best friend, guns.

23. 23 Cascadia Brian Apr 26th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

    yikes, I have SO surpassed my quota for blog reading and writing and commenting this week on these events!

    How some folks find time to post so much on here is beyond me…while obviously it’s your prerogative, I kindly ask continued patience and understanding for the rest of us who don’t have as much time and my apologies in advance if someone insists upon my response to this and I don’t have time. Don’t get me wrong: it’s been a great discussion and I thank everyone who has taken time for it!

    While I think there is MUCH to say about the roots of climate change and the relationship between fossil fuels, climate change, globalization, corporate power, it might be worth narrowing the discussion for the sake of simplicity.

    Regardless of how problematic it is it is a given that capitalism will not be disappearing from the Global North within the next decade or so. So the question is really “can we hope to avoid really bad climate change scenarios (ie, tipping points) without SERIOUSLY checking corporate power and moving toward a less and less corporate controlled society?” and equally importantly “does the market tend to help promote “climate justice”"?

    My firm belief (since none of us can know for certain) is a strong NO on both accounts. Bottomline (pardon the pun) there is simply too much influence of corporate profit in politics, resource consumption, *strategies* for co2 reduction, deployment of technologies, etc., etc.

    If we want to survive, we need to have MUCH more power (and ideally all power) to direct things in a way the prioritizes the needs of communities and the planet’s climatic systems and not be distracted by big businesses influence.

    Witness our experience — just in the past few years! – ethanol instead of electric cars, carbon trading (eg, the tree plantation offsets, the over allocation and give-a-way of permits), the pre-imminence of nuclear power and clean coal over wind and solar, the focus on Priuses instead of public transit, on lightblubs instead of high-effiency houses, of green products instead of reducing wasteful consumption, on individual consumers instead of supply-side or system-wide waste.

    Time and again, the prominent “solutions” taking the MUCH longer route to addressing the problems, and even backtracking in some cases, despite the gravity of the crisis. We cannot ignore this as background noise, or just keep doing the right thing and hope it will go away.

    Further: I think it’s all but impossible to argue this stuff is just mistakes, bumps along the road because in EVERY case people have been vocally opposing these mistakes from the blogs to the science magazines to the halls of congress. What are the “root causes” of these problems?

    I think there is a mountain of evidence that solutions (and “solutions”) that involve high profits get FAR and away more prominence and attention then solutions that work but don’t make (as much) money.

    Simply put, people and the planet must come over profits.

    I understand the argument that one solution proposed for this pickle is to get “breakthrough” technologies that are both maximally profitable and minimally damaging. I just have no faith that a process toward that can be immune to these corrupting influences. Furthermore I think most of the changes we need — public transit, localization of food, energy efficient less consumeristic communities, an end to deforestation – aren’t going to be effected much one way or another by technology. Moreover, they require serious social changes that are likely be opposed by much of the business world because they will decrease profits (“Who Killed the Electric Car” is just the tip of the iceberg – at least there is still something to sell!).

    Regardless, the likelihood of an amazing technological breakthrough is much higher if we have science and concern for humanity (not profit) as the sole, undistracted, drivers for the innovation,

    The good news is more and more people are waking up to this all around the world…surveys — even in this country — find that 75% or more americans agree that corporations have gained too much power over American life. Notably, that’s a higher percentage than believe global warming is a crisis.

24. 24 jessejenkins Apr 26th, 2008 at 8:05 pm

    “How some folks find time to post so much on here is beyond me”

    Yah, I’m on family vacation this weekend! Spending way to much time on here…

25. 25 jessejenkins Apr 26th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

    BTW, just so we keep in mind what we’re looking at if we fail to stabilize the climate below tipping points, Joe Romm has a good summary of what living, or more accurately, suffering under 1000 ppm carbon future will look like. Not a lot of hope for a just and sustainable society in that future…

26. 26 Eric Apr 29th, 2008 at 6:38 pm

    All this talk about toppling the American Empire and the Evils of Capitalism makes me want to point out a fundamental flaw in this argument that Jesse brushed against, but did not explore fully. First, it is important to acknowledge that consumption and capitalism (in the broadest sense) are the tools we as a society used to create the global warming conundrum that we currently face. Think back to your Econ 101 tragedy of the commons. This has led many posters on this blog to condemn capitalism as evil. It’s not, because, as Jesse mentioned, it is a tool more than a force. We can wield capitalism (instead of it wielding us), with enough forethought.

    Capitalism has created the global warming issue by undervaluing climate and overvaluing profit. This can be altered. Carbon taxes or carbon caps, assuming they appropriately value carbon emissions, will incentivize markets to find replacements, increase efficiency, or reduce consumption of fossil fuels. Everyone on this blog knows this.

    What some fail to recognize is that markets are the most effective tools in the world to create change. Individuals, such as the president, or groups, such as congress, do not have the intelligence or foresight to induce the massive changes that global warming requires. They can allow markets to make the most efficient changes possible by internalizing the externality of global warming.

    Let me repeat: Markets are the most effective tools in the world to create change. By change, I mean change for the better. Look at communism, in the attempt to make everyone wealthy, it makes everyone poor. This happens not because people want other people to be poor, but because people want to be wealthy and there is no incentive to make an individual wealthy in communism.

    China is the prime example, of course, and many will point to the massive environmental devastation and inexcusable emission of greenhouse gases that have resulted. This pollution has happened not because China got rich, but because it made a choice between quality of life and quality of environment. I disagree with their choice, but I maintain that allowing 500 million people to rise from the deepest poverty is a human rights MIRACLE. (Did I just call China a human rights miracle? Yikes. You know what I mean.)

    Unfortunately, capitalism necessarily creates winners and losers. In our form of capitalism, we have created unbelievably wealthy winners at the expense of some unbelievably poor losers. This too is a human rights issue. However, I maintain that capitalism can be tweaked to create a more, though not completely, just society, just as it can be tweaked to reduce and eventually eliminate greenhouse gases.

    Jesse has appropriately asked how the posters on this blog would replace capitalism, with nary a coherent answer. That is because individuals will never be able to plan an economy with any sort of effectiveness. We can only hope to inform our markets to make the best choices possible.

    Capitalism: get behind it.

27. 27 greenwashguerrilla Apr 30th, 2008 at 1:47 am

    April 28th, 2008

    For Immediate Release:

    Contact: Colonel Custard (aka the corporate criminal creamer)

    Greenwash Guerillas: contact@GreenwashGuerrillas.org

    Footage available: http://www.GreenwashGuerrillas.org

    Greenwash Guerrillas Pie Thomas Friedman at Brown University

    YouTube Censors Video; Pie Thrower Faces University Disciplinary Procedures

    Providence, RI - New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman was pied by the Greenwash Guerillas while giving an Earth Day Lecture at Brown University. The Greenwash Guerillas targeted Thomas Friedman because of his support for U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, neo-liberal economic policies that harm the world’s poor, and especially for promoting bogus solutions to the global climate crisis.

    “We sought to expose the hypocrisy of allowing Friedman, who is known for his influential support of U.S. wars for oil in the Middle East, to call himself an environmentalist,” explained Greenwash Guerrilla Margaree Little. “He has blood on his hands that no amount of ‘green’ can wash away.”

    Little, a Brown University student identified as one of the pie throwers, faces University disciplinary hearings, potentially including expulsion. Colonel Custard, the second pie thrower, remains at large.

    Little and Custard jumped on stage as Friedman began his talk, entitled “Green is the new Red, White & Blue.” The talk focused on how green technology and corporate environmentalism can restore the United States to its “natural place in the global order.”

    They tossed two green-colored cream pies at Friedman and dashed off as leaflets denouncing Friedman were thrown to the crowd. According to the pamphlets, “On behalf of the earth and all true environmentalists – we, the Greenwash Guerillas, declare Thomas Friedman’s ‘Green’ as fake . . . as the cool-whip covering his face.”

    The Greenwash Guerillas object to Friedman’s support for nuclear power, coal power, industrial biofuels, and carbon trading markets. “These false solutions are smokescreens, intended to generate massive corporate profits while creating global humanitarian and environmental disasters,” said Colonel Custard.

    Video of the pie throwing incident was posted on YouTube, and received close to 70,000 views in 36 hours, making it one of the most popular videos on the site. Without notice, YouTube abruptly censored the video, removing it from the website. Hundreds of news outlets, blogs, and websites had linked to the video. The Greenwash Guerillas have reposted the clip at: http://www.GreenwashGuerrillas.org

    “Given the many other pieings on YouTube(1), the removal of the video can only be understood as an act of political censorship,” said Little. “One has to wonder whether Friedman, a billionaire with a lot of connections, has more influence than “you” on YouTube.”

    “The Greenwash Guerillas chose the harmless and humorous tactic of pie-throwing because our goal was to take this perpetual charlatan off his new green pedestal,” said Colonel Custard. “Friedman’s support for coal and nuclear power is as misguided as his counsel on Iraq.”

    This is the second time Friedman has been hit by a pie. In October 2002, he received a banana pie to his face while promoting his writings on free-market globalization in Boston.

    Footnote:

    (1) e.g., http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/webscout/2008/04/thomas-friedman.html

28. 28 okiepo Apr 30th, 2008 at 1:02 pm

    pie throwers hall of fame:

    clowns, sports mascots, Yippies, anarchists, and now climate activists…great company

    standing ovation for friedman after he cleaned up and spoke for an hour, VICTORY!

    A culture changing climate movement shouldn’t just be those of us on the blog, Powershift attendees, etc. it’s gotta be EVERYBODY and yep, Friedman’s in too. Yes, we may have fundamental differences with him but throwing dessert leaves an “us vs. them” dynamic and most likely leaves us out of the conversation. We always compare this climate movement to the civil rights movement right…so, WWMLKP?

29. 29 Patrick Apr 30th, 2008 at 5:04 pm

    Eric,

    We can wield capitalism? Who’s the “we” you’re talking about? Unless I’m *greatly* underestimating the net worth of folks blogging here, I don’t think that includes us. And until economic power is in the hands of those who work it (instead of those who own it, or those who “regulate” it), we’re going to run into these problems. Until the legal and economic imperative of ever-increasing profit over all else is gotten rid of, we’re going to run into these problems. Think of the kind of literal disaster it took for politicians to pass the New Deal; should we pine for something like that, to get politicians off their butts? As Naomi Klein argues so well in her book The Shock Doctrine, elites (on both sides of the aisle) are now using catastrophes to push even more reactionary changes through.

    One of Murray Bookchin’s most important insights was the realization that the way we treat the environment around us mirrors the way we treat each other, and that to truly stop the institutionalized domination of people over the planet, we need to stop the institutionalized domination of people over other people. That’s why seemingly disparate social issues are actually deeply connected to things like ecological issues, and why simply tackling them separately and one at a time won’t get us anywhere.

    I think that, as Insurgent Sociologist alluded to, there are great examples of alternatives being experimented with, particularly in places like Argentina and Venezuela. We’ve also seen very specific, adoptable economic models put forth like Albert’s Parecon and Schweickart’s Economic Democracy. If we feel that (all or parts of) those models represent the kind of values we hold dear, and will create a better world, then we should adopt them and keep them in mind when engaging in fights today.

    “We can only hope to inform our markets to make the best choices possible.”

    Wow, I’m glad there are people out there more hopeful than you. And it’s unnerving to read you talking as if “the market” was an actual “thing,” that makes decisions for itself, that has agency.

    I think you don’t realize just how much planning by people goes on in this economy - though I doubt it’s covered in that Econ 101 class. Looking at the extreme amount of both vertical and horizontal integration in pretty much all sectors of the global economy, many multinationals could easily be viewed as individual, self-contained command economies. There are CFOs out there directing, top-down, more economic activity than most nations even see. Because megaconglomerates generally function outside the constraints of what economists call “market discipline,” simply tweaking those rules will do very little to affect their operations, and if somehow the inclusion of some externality were to threaten their profitability, all they’d have to do is swing through Congress and tell them to make Company X exempt.

    Governments literally cannot afford to allow their biggest corporations to go out of business, or even have their profitability reduced - so the status quo continues with impunity.

    If history teaches us anything, it’s that our current economic situation is not inevitable, it has been (like you’ve said) intentionally constructed by people, and as a result people can intentionally construct alternatives: alternatives that promise a better world.

    Capitalism: get beyond it.

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