Carbon capture and storage (CCS) – a technology that would capture carbon emissions at centralized sources like coal plants and store them underground – has become a new fault line in the climate movement. On one hand, CCS is firmly opposed by a large segment of the youth movement, including Energy Action Coalition. A recent report by Greenpeace, “False Hope,” concluded that “investment in CCS risks locking the world into an energy future that fails to save the climate.” And in a recent letter to Congress, 43 nonprofits declared their opposition to public support for CCS:
“On behalf of our members and supporters we are writing to express our opposition to any policies that promote or provide taxpayer subsidies for carbon capture and storage… We strongly urge you to oppose any policies that provide mandates or taxpayer funded incentives for CCS.”
On the other hand, a large number of climate experts including the IPCC have concluded that CCS is a critical tool for achieving emissions reduction targets. A literature review by the Clean Air Task Force found supporting analysis for CCS by environmental groups including the World Wildlife Fund and Friends of the Earth. NRDC has also been a large proponent. A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2007 concluded:
“Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) is a critical technology to significantly reduce CO2 emissions. In a global CO2 emissions stabilisation scenario, CCS in power generation, industry and fuel transformation could account for 20% of CO2 savings… CCS along with other mitigation measures could significantly reduce the costs of stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations and increase the flexibility to achieve that goal.”
What this argument isn’t about: cost and urgency. Concerns about cost and urgency are not the cause for disagreement. Both camps recognize that CCS is an early-stage technology with significant costs for full-scale deployment, but this can be used as an argument both for and against supporting CCS. The primary concern raised by the Congressional letter opposing CCS was that CCS is too underdeveloped and expensive: “CCS cannot deliver in time. The best-case scenario is that the technology would be ready by 2030.” The majority of groups promoting CCS agree, and as the IEA demonstrates, they see this as more reason to support its rapid development: “Accelerating investment in R&D and demonstration projects will be needed if CCS is to make a significant contribution.”
Read on for what this argument is really about…
What this argument is really about:
1. Energy Justice
Which is the greater injustice: entrenched global poverty and inequality, or mountaintop removal and its community impacts? How you answer this question may shape your opinion on CCS.
CCS raises important questions about justice. The environmental justice movement fervently opposes CCS because of the very real injustices of coal mining, mountaintop removal, and the associated impacts upon communities. Groups and communities battling the impacts of coal extraction are understandably skeptical, and often outright opposed, to any new technology that uses coal.
Coal mining can lay waste to ecosystems and communities. Here, the practice of mountain top removal coal mining has leveled this Appalachian mountain.
CCS is interpreted differently by those who focus on the injustices of global poverty and inequality. Jeffrey Sachs, for example, is a major supporter of CCS. This technology is seen as a potential way for developing countries to retain access to affordable electricity to lift their populations out of entrenched poverty. China, for example, has brought hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty with coal-powered development just in the last few decades.
China and the developing world’s energy access per person is miniscule compared to the developed world. Is this just?
Hundreds of millions of Chinese peasants spend their lives in the field.
One of the greatest sources of passion and dedication among today’s youth climate movement is its commitment to justice. “Clean and just energy future” – this has become our vision and rallying cry. But what is a just energy future? Which injustices are we addressing? How do we get there, and which of the many injustices do we tackle first? If you believe that global poverty is as great (or greater) of an injustice as mountaintop removal, are you justified in supporting CCS?
2. Energy Reality
Will China and the developing world continue to build coal plants? Will developing countries agree to shut down their existing coal plants? Can the United States achieve deep carbon emissions reductions (80% by 2050 or greater) solely with renewables and efficiency? Your answers to these questions may determine your view on CCS as well.
Opponents and proponents of CCS disagree on the world’s energy reality and the scale of our energy challenges. Opponents argue that affordable alternative energy technologies already exist and are close to becoming massively scalable. According to Greenpeace’s report, “False Hope”:
“The world already has the solutions to the climate crisis… Many nations have recognised the potential of these true climate solutions and are pressing ahead with ambitious plans for energy revolutions within their borders. New Zealand plans to achieve carbon neutrality by midcentury…”
Will China construct wind mills instead of coal plants? (Credit: Greenpeace)
Proponents of CCS are more skeptical, pointing out that a comparison of New Zealand to China, India, Brazil or other rapidly developing nations is a bit of a red herring. They point to projections that China and the developing world will construct an overwhelming number of new coal plants in the coming decades. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that global coal consumption will double by 2030. China accounts for a staggering 61% of this increase. The EIA projects that China’s total coal-related carbon emissions will grow by 232% between 2004 and 2030. Europe may also be following this trend – European countries were recently reported to be constructing 50 new coal plants.
A skeptical view of energy reality – or “realistic” as CCS proponents might say – may lead you to the conclusion that CCS is an imperfect but necessary technology. If developing countries continue to consume coal and construct new coal plants to build their economies and lift their populations out of poverty, CCS will be a critical technology to capture their emissions and avoid climate disaster. Coal mining and its impacts may be unacceptable, proponents would argue, but unless you can stop global coal development and shut down the world’s existing plants, CCS investment and development is crucial.
The famous “wedge” approach by Socolow & Pacala proposed 15 wedges of global emissions reductions, three of which were achieved by CCS. Recent analysis incorporating new data on coal growth has shown that at least 18 wedges of reduction will be necessary. (Credit: SciAm 2006)
CCS plays a large role in emissions reduction scenarios (CCS reductions in red)
Indeed, from a global perspective, the scale of the energy challenge makes many skeptical that renewables and efficiency alone can power the economic development of nations home to billions of currently impoverished human beings.
But what about our situation in the United States? Do we need CCS here? What is its role in America’s energy future as we strive to cut carbon emissions down to zero as quickly as possible? This question troubles youth activist, Breakthrough Generation Fellowship co-director and ItsGettingHotInHere editor, Jesse Jenkins. After working as a renewable energy advocate in the Pacific Northwest for the past two years and co-founding the Cascade Climate Network, Jesse wonders:
Regional projections right now show that even with renewable energy standards in place in three of four Northwest states (25% by 2025 in Oregon for example) and with some of the most aggressive energy efficiency programs in the nation, efficiency and renewables will only be enough to meet growing electricity demand over the next 20 years. To put it another way: ramping up renewables and efficiency as fast as our aggressive renewable energy and efficiency policies requires will only hold emissions steady at current levels. In order to cut emissions 15%, 30%, 80%, we’ll need to do something to replace and close down existing coal-fired power plants serving the Pacific Northwest. The question then, is what will we replace them with?
Keeping LNG away means limiting the role of natural gas plants. Nukes are pretty much off the table in Oregon (banned in state by a statewide ballot measure!). We may be able to push renewables and efficiency farther, faster, but how far will it get us? What are we going to replace the Boardman coal plant with?…
We must grapple with these difficult questions as we consider the role of CCS technology both home and abroad and press onward toward a clean and just energy future.
3. Risk Assessment
Which is the greater risk: thousands of coal plants worldwide with no way to capture and store their emissions, or a potential for periodic carbon leakage from underground carbon storage sites? Once again, your assessment of risk may influence your position on CCS.
Opponents of CCS argue that the risk of carbon leakage is too great to allow its use. According to Greenpeace:
“Storing carbon underground is risky. Safe and permanent storage of CO2 cannot be guaranteed. Even very low leakage rates could undermine any climate mitigation efforts.”
Their report also points to other public health and safety risks:
“Large-scale applications of CCS pose significant liability risks, including negative health effects and damage to ecosystems, groundwater contamination including pollution of drinking water, and increased greenhouse gas emissions resulting from leakage… CCS would not only worsen fuel security issues but intensify the major localised environmental problems...”
Proponents of CCS argue that the greater risk is a world with thousands of coal plants without a way to capture and store their emissions – a recipe for a complete collapse of our climate system. The best analysis, they argue, such as that performed by the IPCC, shows that geologic structures are capable of holding more carbon than total global emissions expected to be emitted throughout the entire the 21st century, at a 99 percent retention rate.
The dark gray areas represent “highly prospective sedimentary basins” for captured carbon deposits. Source: IPCC WGIII
Conclusion: You decide
Our collective decision on whether or not to make investments in CCS technology may have profound impacts on our generation and the future of the planet. The majority of the youth climate movement has been opposed to investments in CCS technology. Are you?
Teryn,
Why is electricity necessary to lift people out of poverty? Have you considered that people can live rich, fulfilling lives without electricity or with subsistence, agrarian lifestyles? This post doesn’t seem to consider that. The image of Chinese peasants with the caption suggests a clear anti-agrarian bias. But subsistence agriculture and simple living of people around the world who don’t have electricity, air conditioning, and cars can be fulfilling even though there may not be much money involved. That’s to say nothing of indigenous peoples who’d often rather be left alone rather than have their land “developed.” Are the American Suburbs and Cities the measure of true prosperity? This post seems to assume that, and I think that’s a dangerous assumption with imperialist implications.
from the forest,
kodama
How do you define a just lifestyle? you imply that the hundreds of millions of people around the world spending their lives in their fields are living in poverty. I’m sorry but working on the land does not equate with poverty. Some may argue that these millions have a closer connection to the land, there are necessary jobs in working in fields, while in a lot of developed countries thousands of people are no longer employed by jobs involving physical labor as technology supplants human activity. Sure, there is a correlation between access to energy and access to medical assistance; there is a connection between access to energy and access to “standard” education. But I agree with Kodama here, access to energy does not equal justice. It is dangerous to assume that everyone needs and wants the access to energy resources that the developed world has. In fact, I would say that the developed world doesn’t even need the level of access to energy that it currently does.
Let’s include decentralized renewable energy production (which can deliver local, rural electricity without depending on centralized coal facilities) in this conversation. When I studied in Mongolia, we stayed right next to people who still live the nomadic herding lifestyle of hundreds of years ago except with the major difference that they used solar panels to power their televisions and radios. They still had access to information, had local sources of assistance and still lead a lifestyle with very low energy consumption. They do not consider themselves to be in a state of poverty even though they live directly off the land. So, let’s expand the conversation of CCS to confront the assumption that providing access electricity equals lifting people out of poverty. After all, there are plenty of people with the United States who have access to energy and still live in poverty.
Yes, there are lots of coal plants being constructed around the world. They will not be retired over night, so it makes sense that people would want to be able to take intermediate steps to reduce emissions. However, CCS is not a long-term solution, given that we would still be extracting coal, destroying habitat and generating other pollutants. To address the issue of urgency, a lot of people see investments into CCS as money that continues to go to the fossil fuel industry which does not at the moment have the incentive to develop CCS technology very quickly and that this money removes investment from making lower-impact renewable energy technologies more efficient and reliable. So the question for me becomes not should we support CCS, but how can we shift the conditions to the point where CCS (and coal in general) are not necessary for “lifting people out of poverty”?
Teryn, great post. Lays out the arguments for and against well. But I do have some questions that I would love if you could answer.
1. The way I understand it, China, India, etc. are using coal in such enormous quantities for their electricity because it is cheap and in local abundance. Correct? If that holds true, would efforts to make renewable power as cheap and affordable not solve that problem? If these countries could get the ever increasing electricity they needed from cost competitive (with coal that is) renewables would there be a need for new coal plants? I ask this knowing full well renewable tech isn’t quite there yet, but neither is CCS. If the money from CCS (a single technology) research was instead devoted to making renewables affordable, is that not a better solution?
2. The costs associated with CCS are also enormous. Assuming that CCS is of importance for emerging countries because coal is there cheap energy of choice, are we also assuming that they will make the large investment in CCS if and when it is ready? And if they are willing to invest in new CCS tech, would they not also be prepared to invest in new renewable energy?
That’s all for now. I hope you get the chance to respond.
This stuff hurts my heart and my soul. That we are in a situation where we have to ask ourselves these questions is a tragedy. But here we sit, in a very deep hole (getting deeper each day), wondering how to climb out. The scale of the challenge requires us to look deeper than black or white snap judgements (which are all to easy to make), to look unflinchingly at what it will take to get from a world of ever increasing emissions and widespread energy injustice to the sustainable, just, and prosperous future we strive for. It will be a process, and we will likely need to accept temporary but necessary evils along the way. As I said, it pains me to say so, but there it is.
I’m clearly I’m no cheerleader for coal, and I strongly believe that to call CCS “clean coal” is nothing less than a despicable affront to those who live with (and fight) the impacts of coal extraction every day.
For me, it’s a question of priorities. Solving our climate and energy challenges is the overarching goal, but as we do so, we have a tremendous potential to solve a number of other challenges and end other injustices as well - from creating new green jobs to ending mountain top removal to strengthening our economy. We should be prioritizing those solutions that solve more than just our primary challenge and de-prioritizing those that create or perpetuate other problems. In this sense, efficiency, wind, solar, geothermal, etc. would be our priorities, while perhaps biomass and large-scale hydro lies in the middle and CCS, nuclear, etc. falls to the bottom.
However, given the overall scale of the challenge, which seems to deepen almost every day, I find myself unable to simply draw the line and stand staunchly opposed to any of those solutions on the list that do contribute to our primary challenge - stabilizing the climate. We may need all the tools in our toolbox, even the clumsy, ugly ones. It’s a big hole to climb out of, and we cannot fail. Look at the devastation in Burma to see what a world where we fail to solve the primary challenge looks like.
So, in my mind, should we prioritize CCS over renewables? No! Should investments in CCS keep us from investing in renewables or efficiency? No, if it comes down to a choice, renewables clearly trump CCS. Should we as the youth movement cheerlead CCS? No, the coal industry can do that just fine on their own. But should we oppose it at every turn? Should we take an unflinching and hardline stance, shout down even our allies who might see a role for CCS? If we’re serious about stabilizing the climate, shouldn’t we be ok with investments in the development of CCS technology, a temporary crutch we may need on the path to carbon neutrality? Until I’m confident we do not need CCS, I can’t bring myself to staunchly oppose it as many in our community here do.
Teryn, thank for such a thoughtful post. It would be really easy to start bashing, and i am sure people will start soon, but i think you have made a clear distinction. To speak of CCS in the context of the US, where business as usual means a totally unsustainable lifesytle, is very different that speaking of CCS in the many parts of the developing world, where business as usual means no access to electricity to make life better , say for a family in the slums to be able to refrigerate their food and thus avoid a diarrheal disease. If you associate electricity with air conditioning and cars, well, thats your world, but I, as a privileged kid sitting in front of a computer blogging, i do not feel i have the right to tell people who do not have access to energy to keep their houses dark at night. To me, that is a imperialist thought.
Of course i want my world powered by renewable energy, but until we have worked hard enough to make that a reality, lets be careful when we speak on behalf of an entire movement. In our movement, there is more than black or white. We have a common vision, a vision of stable climate, and we want to get there as soon as possible, with environmental justice as a guiding principle - for some parts of the world the struggle is get off their fossil fuels diet, for other parts of the world i means increasing energy supply in the most responsible way possible.
Teryn, thank for such a thoughtful post. It would be really easy to start bashing, and i am sure people will start soon, but i think you have made a clear distinction. To speak of CCS in the context of the US, where business as usual means an unsustainable lifesytle at the expense of vulnerable groups, is very different that speaking of CCS in the many parts of the developing world, where business as usual means no access to electricity to make life better , say for a family in the slums to be able to refrigerate their food and thus avoid a diarrheal disease. If you associate electricity with air conditioning and cars, well, thats your world, but I, as a privileged kid sitting in front of a computer blogging, i do not feel i have the right to tell people who do not have access to energy to keep their houses dark at night. To me, that is an imperialist thought.
Of course i want my world powered by renewable energy, but until we have worked hard enough to make that a reality, lets be careful when we speak on behalf of an entire movement. In our movement, there is more than black or white. We have a common vision, a vision of stable climate, and we want to get there as soon as possible, with environmental justice as a guiding principle - for some parts of the world the struggle is get off their fossil fuels diet, for other parts of the world i means increasing energy supply in the most responsible way possible.
I agree with Jesse in his statement that “this stuff hurts my head and my soul”. It is truly unfortunate that we - as a society - have placed ourselves in a position where we need to start discussing and comparing the magnitudes of injustice surrounding extraction versus combustion. Perhaps it is a choice that we’ll have to make. Though, I feel ill prepared considering I am fortunate enough to have electricity and an intact community isolated from MTR. For those reason, I am choosing to stay removed from this round of CCS discussions.
However, I will interject on the subject of access to energy in the developing world. A few weeks ago, I saw a presentation about the topic by an individual working for an international agency. He had on the ground experience growing up, living and working in such areas. One of the most interesting conclusions of his study was that the assumption that energy trajectories in the developing world will follow the same trajectories of the develop world is potentially false. Such assumptions overlook the role of renewable energy, call into question many of the conclusions drawn by the IEA and other bodies, and was even called an imperialistic view. I was reminded of how many developing nations embrace cell phone technology while leap-frogging over more traditional landlines. That all said, as we continue these difficult and often contentious conversations, lets make sure that we are keeping all potential scenarios on the table in the same way that some folks want to keep all technologies (including CCS) on the table.
“The majority of the youth climate movement has been opposed to investments in CCS technology. Are you?”
Yes I am. Much of the youth climate movement is opposed to CCS because they have been on tours of Larry Gibson’s home on Kayford Mountain or worked in Appalachian communities on listening projects. Or worked in solidarity with indigenous communities in the southwest fighting strip-ming.
I am in Harlan County Kentucky for Mountain Justice Summer camp this week. I really invite you to spend some time in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia (regions ravaged by coal) with the people most affected by coal extraction and on the front lines resisting it.
You don’t see a lot of people lifted out of poverty by coal in this region. I do think a lot of coal industry lobbyists might agree with you though. Hopefully you can come up with a better argument than Massey Energy and Arch Coal.
It’s interesting that many of the groups supporting CCS are also ones who are receiving financial incentives to support it. Clean Air Task Force, NRDC, Environmental Defense (and many more) have all received substantial amounts of money to actively promote “clean coal”, IGCC, and CCS.
1. ENERGY JUSTICE
It is simply preposterous to claim that “China…has brought hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty with coal-powered development….” If anything - the history of coal has kept people IN poverty - not lifted them out. Poverty is not simply a situation created/solved by technologies or access to a specific technology (least of all- coal!). In most societies, certainly in China - poverty exists not due to a lack of resources, but to an unjust distribution of resources. Take a trip to Appalachia - or look at overlay maps of poverty and mining - it’s not a coincidence coal regions are among the poorest in the world.
Coal is responsible for more direct job-related deaths in China than any other occupation (not to
mention the massive health costs and deaths related to air quality from coal) - and if anything coal is actually a driving MAINTAINER of poverty, sickness, disease, and death across the world. A recent National Geographic article framed it well - even millionaires in China acknowledged they are sacrificing health for wealth. And they are the ones with that wealth and access to health care - the majority of the population is simply sacrificing health while the rich get richer, and, well, you know the rest.
Famine, starvation, homelessness, poverty - these are not the result of any shortage of resources, but of economic systems that are concerned with the profit associated with how those resources are controlled rather than the potential societal impacts of how those resources could be used. For many people immersed in social/economic justice issues - there is broad consensus that maintaining such unequal resource distribution is an inherent aspect of our modern economy - and that any attempts to address poverty without addressing the underlying economic structures will never succeed.
2. ENERGY REALITY
The reality is that coal is a widely-used fuel because it is CHEAP on the market. if you take the position that coal is a necessary part of our energy future - the reasons for that usage is because it is cheap. By making coal account for the lifecycle impacts and externalized societal costs (air quality, pollution, health care, etc etc..), AND expect to implement CCS (again, assuming CCS works technologically, logistically, environmentally, politically) - then coal is no longer cheap.
Countries (including China) are using coal because it is cheap - so why on earth would you expect them to voluntarily implement ridiculously expensive technologies like CCS? By the time (and IF) CCS becomes a commercially available technology - we will have both missed the window to stabilize emissions, as well as watched the price of renewables become much cheaper than coal. However - we will have created a massive infrastructure, contracts, and industry that will keep us hooked on coal for another generation. Dollar-for-dollar - CCS is looking to be one of the most expensive ways to reduce emissions - if it works at all.
3. RISK ASSESSMENT
Again - you paint a future than has only two options - “…thousands of coal plants…or periodic carbon leakage…” I believe another future is possible - and in fact MUST be possible if we are to confront the climate crisis. What is a “risk assessment”? How many lives lost is an acceptable risk to you? Are the lives of middle-class Americans in Washington DC more valuable than the lives of people living next to coal mines and power plants?
You can’t provide a risk assessment of CCS- because it doesn’t exist. It’s an unproven technology, whose risks are widely speculated, but entirely unknown. What is known - is that BEST, HOPEFUL, OPTIMISTIC ESTIMATES - CCS will be too little, too late, for too much money. It won’t address the underlying economic causes of the climate crisis; it will overwhelmingly edge out other proven solutions, and will lock us in to another generation of unsustainable, dirty fossil fuels.
CONCLUSION: YOU DECIDE
You said “The majority of the youth climate movement is opposed to investments in CCS technology. Are you?”
HELL YES I AM OPPOSED TO INVESTMENTS IN CCS TECHNOLOGY!
-Matt
Matt, China has brought more people out of poverty — with an economy largely powered by coal — more rapidly than any other development project in the history of the world. Hundreds of millions of people are better off because of it. China accounts for around 75% of total poverty reduction in the developing world since 1980. From the United Nations Development Programme:
“China’s rapid economic development in the past two decades has generated the most rapid decline in absolute poverty ever witnessed.
Both national and international indicators show that China has already achieved the goal of halving the number of people in extreme poverty by 2015 set by the UN as one of eight Millennium Development Goals.”
Nobody is denying the serious public health issues related to coal, but to paint coal as completely and utterly evil is just simple-minded and wrong. If our movement doesn’t deal with complexity, Matt, then complexity will deal with us.
Teryn - whether or not you think China’s (or anyone else’s) industrialization is a good thing - attributing that to coal is just “simple-minded and wrong”. If anything, it is the rise of a globalized economy, increased international trade, and to be blunt - US demand for cheap consumer goods that has been the driver of that “development” in China.
While I’m not a scholar in Chinese development - what I do know is that the common benchmark for identifying poverty is incredibly simplistic and inadequate - it talks about daily income (US $1/day) rather than looking at quality of life, access to resources, education, health care etc.
Many of the Chinese poverty reduction policies have occurred as people have been driven from rural areas and pushed into cities and factories. Poverty is still rampant in much of rural China (not surprisingly - in many of the same regions and communities where coal mines and power plants are located) - and the gap between rich and poor is ever widening. Many of these policies have actually worsened quality of life for people, broken down traditional community infrastructure and social services (that were typically far more ecologically sustainable than industrial cities), and further stratified an already divided society.
You are right Teryn, these are complex issues. Poverty IS complex. But it isn’t just about numbers, gross domestic products, average per-capita incomes, or kilowatt hours. It’s about positive social relationships, well-being, health, self-determination, quality of life, and sustainability. That’s what our movement is dealing with - and maintaining our reliance on fossil fuels will continue to take us further and further away from those values.
I’m not willing to trade one injustice for another. As MLK so eloquently put it “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. That’s not denying complexity - it’s having some principles.
A couple questions:
- Wouldn’t a more direct and effective way to stop Mountain Top Removal and many of the other worst practices in coal mining be through legislation banning these practices, rather than anything having to do with CCS? There is probably no such thing as environment (or people) friendly coal mining, but there must be some better ways than MTR. This would, I am guessing, also raise coal prices, making it at least a little less attractive.
-Assuming that we cannot be sure about the safety issues surrounding CCS yet (I don’t know), and that it is not even a remote possibility to use this technology in the near future, shouldn’t the priorities regarding CCS be: 1. not allowing CCS propaganda from coal companies convince anyone to roll the dice on new coal plants BECAUSE of the remote chance that MAYBE it could be kind of clean some day; 2. making sure that CCS is researched, that this research is carried out by independent scientists rather than industry hacks, and that funding for this sort of research doesn’t come at the expense of R&D and implementation of renewables?
Exporting technology to China to solve all their problems sounds a lot like the neo-conservative argument that exporting U.S. style democracy will somehow end all the problems that have existed in the Middle East for centuries. We see how well that has worked on the news everyday.
I don’t buy this liberal capitalist idea that exporting western technology is what will save the Global South. It never has. Honestly, I feel like it’s a mechanism to make vast amounts of profits for the manufacturers of the technology and it doesn’t change that much. At the beginning of the last century John D. Rockefeller gave away free oil lamps to China in the name of development and progress, and then sold them the oil. He made millions, the Chinese remained underdeveloped.
Technological solutions won’t end poverty, just like privatization won’t. So now, millions are Chinese are out of extreme poverty and work in sweatshops powered by coal power.
Is that a better existence than living without lights.
One last thing-Spend some time with the Appalachian communities and those in solidarity with their resistance to coal. It sounds pretty patronizing to keep trying to justify their status as an environmental sacrifice zone (not to mention mining areas in China, the southwest U.S., the Gulf South and elsewhere).
Matt, it’s usually called the Human Development Index (HDI). According to Wikipedia:
“HDI is an index combining normalized measures of life expectancy, literacy, education, and GDP per capita for countries worldwide. It is claimed a standard means of measuring human development, a concept that, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) refers to the process of widening the options of persons, giving them greater opportunities for education, health care, income, employment, etc.”
So what happens when we look at China’s HDI? Believe it or not, the UN has done several rigorous studies. Here’s what the Human Development Report 2001 found:
“According to the Human Development Report 2001, commissioned by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and released in Beijing Wednesday, China’s Human Development Index value in 1999 was 0.718, slightly higher than that of the global average of 0.716…
In China, the index has rising sharply, reflecting tremendous economic and social growth in recent years.
Last year, China ranked 99th among 174 countries. In 1995, it was 106th.
The report employs the word “impressive” to describe China’s average per capita income growth rate.
The report also shows China as being on track to achieve a set of goals agreed upon by world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit held last September.
Among these goals are a two-thirds reduction in the deaths of people under five years old by 2015 and substantial improvements in education.
“China has done quite well in meeting these goals,” said Macleod Nyirongo, senior deputy resident representative of the UNDP.
Nyirongo said in terms of school enrollment, China is already ahead of its target while efforts to create gender equality in the schools are 70 percent of the way there.”
Indeed, China’s literacy rate has increased from around 65% in 1982 to over 90% today.
http://www.accu.or.jp/litdbase/policy/chn/index.htm
How much of China’s development has been powered by coal? (Obviously nobody would argue that “coal” is the only factor in China’s development, but it’s well understood how closely development and energy access are correlated.) Well, over 80 percent of China’s electricity comes from coal. And China nearly quadrupled its coal consumption between 1980 and 2006.
When I look at these numbers, Matt, I find it hard to support a principle of being 100%, no-questions-asked anti-coal. Again, that’s not to deny the grave pollution problems in China. But it’s a very important distinction from your apparent anti-coal absolutism.
“Technological solutions won’t end poverty, just like privatization won’t. So now, millions are Chinese are out of extreme poverty and work in sweatshops powered by coal power.
Is that a better existence than living without lights.”
Ask the folks working in those “sweatshops” Sparki? Seriously - ask them. Are you sure they want to go back to the fields?
I would honestly like to spend time in Appalachia, Sparki. Until meeting people at power shift who were campaigning against MTR, and reading these blogs, watching documentaries etc. that exposed me to MTR, I’d been oblivious, like many. Knowing the horror of it makes me sick and furious every time I hear someone - whether it’s Obama, Clinton, or anyone else - talk up “clean coal.” Since then, I’ve written pretty frequently about MTR, trying to use whatever influence I have as a blogger to highlight the issue and raise awareness.
But Sparki, you seem to think there’s a dichotomy here that doesn’t exist. We can vigorously fight MTR, as the anonymous hyphen poster pointed out, while staying silent (more or less) on CCS. We can vigorously call “bull shit!” when people talk about “clean coal.” I do. Investing an appropriate amount in CCS RD&D doesn’t have to come at the expense of investing as much as we need in renewables and efficiency and pushing smart growth, sustainable development, etc.
You are absolutely right: There IS no such thing as “clean” coal. But there is such a thing as CCS. And it may be a necessary evil, temporary crutch, etc.
three point:
1. The idea that keeps getting brought up - that “the people” in the developing world want fossil fuel based energy - is a huge assumption and gross and even offensive generalization…especially when in fact much evidence points to the exact opposite conclusion.
- The largest, best organized protests against the environmental impacts of fossil fuel extraction have happened not here in the US, but in the Global South (aka developing world). From Bangladesh to Venezuela, Nigeria, Ecuador, Columbia, Indonesia and the Phillipines protests against fossil fuel burning and extraction have been ongonig for years and even decades before most of us where thinking about these issues. Please don’t dishonor those who came before us by disregarding this and treating the Global South as some monolithic fossil fuel hungry hoarde. Is it too much to ask that we act in solidarity with our eco-allies in the Global South instead of the power-hungry goverments and (often US-based/backed) energy companies in the Global South?
- While china is a special case given the lack of free speech rights, there has been growing complaints about both coal mining and burning there as well and Indian has had an environmental movement for decades.
2. While there is no doubt that energy demands (not the same as fossil fuel demands) of the Global South will continue to grow if people there want a higher standard of living there is nothing that thethers this to CCS.
- Just like the US these countries have their own indigenous environmentalists who understand climate change and energy technology. If we can make renewables, public transit, etc. cheap and viable here, who is that say China, Indian, whoever would reject those technologies *IF* given the same options? We is it awesome to end our dependency on oil and coal here, but unimaginable that our environmentalist allies in the Global South could ever succeed in doing the same? Talk about colonialist assumptions!
- The Global North (aka the developed world) has enough resources and owes such a debt to the Global South for decades and even centuries of resource colonalism and environmental degradation that the case can (MUST!) be made that we owe it to the Global South to make just, clean, sustainable energy technology, practices, and efficiency technologies available for as close to free as humanely possible.
- If our world depends on people living on $1 or $2 / day getting cheap energy that doesn’t ruin the climate, then it’s high time countries where people averaging 20000-30000 TIMES that wealth start footing the bill and while were at it, how about not sticking the chinese people with same problems as appalachia? Maybe, if we offered better energy options, people just might want them? How about a “breakthrough” in genuinely cleaner energy solidarity, one that is free from deadly dangerous side effects? (which, I must add, reminds me more and more of the “collatoral damage” inflicted upon Iraqis the more I hear people talk about them).
3. Regardless of the above, the financial and logistical problems (beyond energy justice issues) of CCS apply to the global south as well. It’s just moronic to put eggs in “20+ years from now this might work, and oh yeah, btw, if not you are totally f*ck*d ’cause you just built 10,000 of these “clean” coal plants that don’t capture anything” technology — More than anything else, CCS is a dumb gamble of precious resources and scientific research. There’s plenty of scientific reports beyond Greenpeace’s saying this…we don’t need to focus our limited resources on an strikingly, outstandingly iffy technology.
[I must say / reiterate gaving met some and emailed with dozens more eco activists from Global South it is absolutely and completely infruriating how much people in US completely disregard these people and speak of the "third" or "developing" world as if there is no environmentally / climate conscious people there. How do you like it when right wing people talk about our country like that?!?]
Is CCS a theory or a practice? Is it in use? Where I’d like to know. Why are we wasting time on untested technology, when we could spend much more time and resources on tested technology like renewables and energy efficiency?
I am not sure if the conditions in the sweatshops are better than the fields, but the sweatshop conditions sound pretty horrendous.
From an UK Guardian article in Jan. 2006: “A three-year investigation into booming export factories for companies such as Marks & Spencer and Ikea discovered the human cost of China’s “economic miracle”. It found an army of powerless rural migrants toiling up to 14 hours a day, almost every day. Many were allowed just one day off a month and paid less than £50 a month for shifts that breached Chinese law and International Labour Organisation rules.”
My guess would be that China’s army of powerless rural migrants came from those sectors “uplifted” by coal-fired development and sent right into near slavery-like conditions for you and I to buy cheap plastic things.
The Open Door Policy of exporting technology and industry to the Global South to end global poverty and inequality didn’t work 100 years ago and isn’t working today. It only serves to drive up the profits of multi-nationals and create a greater wealth gap.
I heartily agree our movement must deal with complexity, but I’m afraid I don’t find the connection between coal and reduction of poverty very convincing. I know its not true in the US as I just finished a literature review on the matter. Appalachia is the worst off because they have historically and continue to be exploited for their resources and cheap labor (although many companies there for that reason fled overseas as neo-liberal trade policies made it more simple, see “Communities in Economic Crisis” John Gaventa ed.)
As far as China is concerned, things get further complicated. Their “market socialism” economy has simply become a euphemism for state-capitalism. While doubtless China has brought a large number of its people out of “absolute poverty” in recent history this has as much if not more to do with our with our release of economic sanctions as with coal fired power (Strange, considering our nation’s stance toward Cuba, who according the WWF is the only nation with a globally “high” standard of living AND a sustainable ecological footprint).
We know all about the environmental benefits of China’s coal boom from the NY Times high and mighty coverage. But let’s take a closer look at China’s coal-fired economic/poverty miracle from a recent article by University of Utah economist Minqi Li:
“In the 1990s, most of the state and collectively owned enterprises in China were privatized. Tens of millions of state and collective sector workers were laid off. The remaining state sector workers lost their traditional socialist rights symbolized by the “iron rice bowl” (a package of economic and social rights that included job security, medical care, child care, pensions, and subsidized housing) and were reduced to wage workers exploited by domestic and foreign capitalists. In the rural areas, with the dismantling of the people’s communes, public medical care and education systems have collapsed. More than a hundred million have become migrant workers, forming the world’s largest reserve army of cheap labor.”
…
But where are all these displaced and exploited workers in the UN poverty statistics you may ask. The key lies with the hundred million plus migrant workers (likely including a good number of coal miners):
“official wage statistics only cover the workers in the urban formal sector and do not include the migrant workers.”
I would go out on a limb and infer similarly about the poverty statistics.
Development is a very complex topic indeed. (I would suggest Gilbert Rist’s The History of Development: from Western Origins to Global Faith, for those seriously interested in the term’s evolution). For now I would simply say this: The people of Appalachia know its no consolation if you have the lights on and you’re are above the poverty line (which is the ludicrous 4X the price of a basket of goods not including rent etc.) if your water is killing you and your kids. What is required is more economic democracy (China, tragically seems to be on the path to less) to allow us to choose what sort of technological investments are. The largest portion of power consumption goes to industry which, particularly in China, are geared around producing disposable consumer good for the opulent global minority.
from Li again:
“Labor income (the sum of the urban residents’ wage incomes and the peasants’ net incomes) as a share of China’s GDP fell from 51–52 percent in the 1980s to 38 percent in the early 2000s. Similarly, household consumption as a share of GDP fell from 50–52 percent in the 1980s to 41 percent in the early 2000s. By contrast, the share of investment in GDP rose above 40 percent and the share of exports rose above 30 percent.”
There was a article in the Guardian a while back about thin-film solar that was supposed to be on par with coal in terms of price per kilowatt. I don’t know if this is true, but the article went on to say that the firm developing it was fiercely secretive about its technology and had already promised the next several years of its production capacity to a centralized generation plant in Germany. This is indicative of the problems we face when comparing renewables and CSS. Those panels would have been more efficient, but less profitable for utility monopolies, placed directly on homes and businesses. And for the love of god, if there is solar tech that cheap (and non-silicon it said) why not put it out every lab in the globe and start cranking them out? Because that would threaten their “market share”.
CSS on the other hand is an acknowledged risky investment which is why energy companies who are sitting on billions of profits (or investing them in financial speculation) are waiting for government guarantees. In this current climate of economic stagnation what could be better than an failsafe investment that lets you keep your dirty investments producing profits at the same time? Judging from the history of the industries backing CSS the hardest (I do not doubt many other groups have genuine intentions) we can guess that CSS would be transfered to peripheral nations- with the threat of sanctions if they do not purchase them. If they can’t afford them I’m sure the IMF and World Bank will be happy to arrange a loan and structural adjustment plan for them. There is no guarantee that renewables would not meet a similar fate, but that market is at least a bit less monopolized it would seem.
We must start with what is just and what is sustainable then ask what sort of social and economic changes are necessary and what we have to do to make them possible. Not the reverse. If distribution of energy and resources continue growing more and more unequal (which is a fact from fuel to food and back) we must produce and consume more and more as a whole to make sure those at the bottom have enough. This is not the strategy for poverty elimination any of us want. Unless we address the distribution (of goods and bads like MTR in Appalachia) problem simultaneously we will not be able to form a broad based movement for any kind of sustainability. Which I’m (and so is, to my great respect and admiration, the majority of the youth movement) convinced is the only way, we need real revolutionary change- “thought revolutions” ain’t gonna cut it on their own. The way things stand today with CSS- Count me out, now is the time for greater solidarity and commitment to justice, not compromise.
While my main points against CCS are above I just had to say some more…whew there is a lot in this article that is really messed up to me…..
1. I knew I was forgetting something. thanks Insurgent Sociologist…So much of China’s growth is just growth in production of goods for consumption in the global north. Indeed the “Human Development Index” Teryn mentioned seems to support this: how else could GDP expand so much while standard of living has gone up by only a tiny fraction?
2. Not that it’s a big deal since there is tons of people commenting, but I found this post pretty disingenous to readers of this blog: to write this article as a balanced “pros and cons” of CCS article when you are explictly in favor of it is kinda dishonest. Just refute us directly, it’s much more stylistically honest!
3. Case in point, and not to derail from the CCS issue, but I think it’s fair to say that it’s dishonest and insulting to the majority of the movement against global poverty to paint Jeffrey Sachs — an elitist US-based economist who is a stuanch advocate for some of the most oppressive and dubious neo-liberal development practices — as part of *their* movement.
I don’t hear any of the groups on the front lines of fighting global poverty pushing for CCS. Furthermore, I don’t hear a word about it from Oxfam, the World Development Movement, Focus on the Global South, etc.
Jeff Sachs belongs to a very specific school of development thought that many people living in the Global South are deeply opposed to.
4. It’s even more insulting, harmful — I’m inclined to say poisonous — to put out the idea that the environmental justice movement is somehow pitted against the global economic justice movement in some way. Jeff Sachs might feel that way, but I’m guessing most people suffering from poverty in the Global South would relate more to other people suffering from injustice and poverty in the US than they would a Colombia University academic who supports “shock” economics and the widely and deeply despised structural adjusment programs of the World Bank / IMF.
5. I’m sick of hearing about the 15 or 18 or however many wedges. It’s just one person’s vision / version of how to address climate. It’s a nice contribution, but it’s more than a bit disingenous to suggest it’s somehow THE roadmap to solving the climate crisis. If we scatch CCS for all the reasons mentioned elsewhere, we’ll make the other wedges bigger. The way CCS is looking that could very well be cheaper, easier, and faster.
Certainly increased energy (i.e., BTUs, kW-hrs, etc) has helped take countries out of poverty. The nice thing about electricity is that you can make it using any primary energy source. The not so nice thing about electricity is that it is not yet amenable to large-scale storage. Both CCS and energy storage technologies needed for an all-renewables economy are not yet tested on grid-scale. Both or neither may work. I would think that both should be tested to find out.
Cascadia Brian, Scott Parkin (Sparki), Insurgent Sociologist, and Matt Leonard: Your anti-capitalist ideology seems to be so blinding that you cannot attest to facts. I cited clear and specific evidence that suggests China’s Human Development Index — not just consumption and production, but a rigorous and standard metric for quality of life, education, health care, and employment — has gone up dramatically. And here’s how the three of you respond:
Scott Parkin:
“Hopefully you can come up with a better argument than Massey Energy and Arch Coal… sounds a lot like the neo-conservative argument… Technological solutions won’t end poverty… So now, millions are Chinese are out of extreme poverty and work in sweatshops powered by coal power. Is that a better existence than living without lights.”
Cascadia Brian:
“The idea that keeps getting brought up - that ‘the people’ in the developing world want fossil fuel based energy - is a huge assumption and gross and even offensive generalization…especially when in fact much evidence points to the exact opposite conclusion… So much of China’s growth is just growth in production of goods for consumption in the global north.”
Insurgent Sociologist:
“The key lies with the hundred million plus migrant workers (likely including a good number of coal miners)… I would go out on a limb and infer similarly about the poverty statistics…. The largest portion of power consumption goes to… producing disposable consumer good for the opulent global minority…. This is not the strategy for poverty elimination any of us want.”
Your level of disrespect for the United Nations and for international development work in general — even in the face of clear evidence — is simply unbelievable.
I’ve seen the four of you jump into almost every conversation about development on this blog and water it down with anti-capitalist rhetoric. As a result, it begins to look like the four of you (and a handful of others) represent the youth movement.
It’s time for this to stop. Make your contribution with a post that contains substance instead of rhetoric, and then move aside and let the rest of the IGHIH community have their chance to contribute.
Teryn,
perhaps you are not familiar with the idea of neocolonialism, but i think it’s important that you acquaint yourself. you can’t speak for the people of china or the global south. i can’t speak for indigenous people. it’s really troublesome that you keep pushing your assumptions onto people you haven’t spoken with. and what of the tibetan people? china’s a genocidal nation (so is the US, just ask the Western Shoeshone, the Hopi, the Navajo, the Inuit, and so on). is it really right to praise a nation that’s supposedly “lifting people out of poverty” with coal whilst that country is engaging in genocide? i seem to recall the Nazis loved coal, Coal-to-Liquids was their thing, right? why do you think we can separate industrialization and genocide? where on the minerals necessary for industrialization located?
also, it’s a bit insulting to say that we who oppose capitalism are acting with some kind of blindness that’s not allowing us to see things as they really are. where are we, those who oppose capitalism, working? where do we go to fight these battles, who do we talk to, better yet, who do we listen to? while you cite studies and big UN indices, others of us have been to coal fields, heard from people there and fought on the front lines for climate justice. it’s insulting to come here as some associate at a thinktank like you’re not blinded by the Breakthrough Institute’s “Capitalist ideology.” How could you not be, I presume you’re getting paid?
all i’m saying is, get out of the office and into the streets, get out of the streets and into the woods. listen.
from the forest,
kodama
kodama — this is exactly what I’m talking about. It’s simply outrageous to compare international development and coal power to the Nazis and genocide, and it shouldn’t be tolerated on this blog.
I find your entire front that you are “from the forest” — and that I just need to wake up and get out on the streets — to be ridiculous. As if you’re not incredibly privileged, enough to be sitting at your computer writing a post on a youth climate blog.
And for the record, I’m from the Appalachians. I’ve experienced the devastating impacts of mountaintop removal first-hand. But I’m very sensitive and concerned about the lives of billions of impoverished people around the world, not just a handful of the communities where I grew up.
Brian, this is what I mean about being clear about scale! You write: “I’m sick of hearing about the 15 or 18 or however many wedges. It’s just one person’s vision / version of how to address climate. It’s a nice contribution, but it’s more than a bit disingenous to suggest it’s somehow THE roadmap to solving the climate crisis. If we scatch CCS for all the reasons mentioned elsewhere, we’ll make the other wedges bigger.”
We’ll just make the other wedges bigger, eh? If only it were that easy! Do you have any sense of how freakin’ big a wedge is?! Please read Joe Romm’s blog here for a bit more on wedges and how large they are. Now we’ll look at CCS itself, which for scale reasons, probably can’t contribute more than one wedge alone (we need 12-18 wedges BTW, so it’s not like CCS will mean no renewables or efficiency) - from Romm:
“Why not more than 1 wedge of CCS? That one wedge represents a flow of CO2 into the ground equal to the current flow of oil out of the ground. It would require, by itself, re-creating the equivalent of the planet’s entire oil delivery infrastructure.”
So, getting a wedge out of CCS requires an infrastructure equivalent to the entire infrastructure devoted to oil extraction right now. Getting a wedge out of wind requires one million 2 megawatt wind turbines. Do you know how much steel that is? Getting a wedge out of nuclear would require 700 new nuclear plants, plus 10 Yucca Mountain-sized waste disposal facilities. Getting a wedge out of solar PV would require 2,000,000 MW of PV panels, enough panels to cover 500,000 square kilometers, an area almost as large as the state of Texas. Let me say that again: we could get a wedge out of solar PV if we paved the state of Texas in solar panels!
All of this isn’t to say getting one or more wedges from each of these technologies (and several others) isn’t possible. It’s to say a wedge is HUGE. And if we want to throw one or two out - nukes or CCS perhaps - it’s not exactly trivial, and when you say “we’ll just make the other wedges bigger,” I’m not sure you have a sense of what you’re saying. Anyone who wants to throw out a certain technology which has the potential to scale to an entire wedge (or most of one) had better be prepared to demonstrate how we replace it, and that’s not a small task. Check out Joe Romm’s series of posts here to get a sense of one (smart) person’s attempt at wrestling with this giant challenge and coming up with a solution. This isn’t THE solution, but you should wrestle with the scale that Romm grasps (mostly… even he might be underestimating the scale of the challenge!)
Like I said, we’re in a big Fing hole! To get out, we’ll probably need to throw everything and the kitchen sink at it.
Teryn, I don’t find your response substantive.
Am I skeptical of corporate sponsored solutions? yes.
Do most americans have a lot of distrust of corporations? yes
Are lots of other people both in and outside of the Global North also skeptical? yes.
You’re not so skeptical, fine.
Respond to the arguments and tell us what you think.
Anyhow, my point above about the human development index is not that the measure it’s bogus: it’s that that a rise of 7 in the ranks is not “dramatic”, it’s piddly proportional to China’s growth in GDP.
For all your frustration about lack of substance, you responded with nothing substantive to what I said, so I have nothing else I can respond.
Regardless, this thread seems to have pinched some nerve…maybe it’s time to cool it down…
Agreed it’s time to cool down. Brian, I hope that you ponder the substance in my response though. I know you will, because you are a thoughtful guy. Thanks for participating cooly and honestly in this discussion. This is clearly a hot button issue, one that we need to discuss openly, honestly, and as friends challenging each other to consider other perspectives, critique our own beliefs, and hopefully come out with a clearer sense of the path forward in the end.
Dear Teryn, you must love coal as your argument sounds exactly like the coal barons and their assorted coal association friends. Although is much slicker and more tuned to the youth.
I know what it sounds like because I listened to the lies and promises of the coal barons that said they came here to save and give us hillbillies prosperity. That was over 150 years ago and I still can’t find the prospeity. The coalfields of West Virginia are the poorest places in America.
Cheap coal fired electricity won’t bring people out of poverty, it will only COOK the planet. AS the CO2 goes in the ground—there is a place for it to leak out and it will leak out. I live in Appalachia and I must endure the effects. I really don’t mind being poor but I do mind being blasted by 3 1/2 millions pounds of explosives a day, I DO mind having my air and water poisoned.
What about the mercury from coal fired power plants that is poisoning the wombs of 1-6 females of child bearing age?
AS coal reserves are now in question–maybe 60 or 80 years left– then what will we do? Coal electricity will continue to rise even without the HUGE price tag of CO2 capture. Just like oil will rise as it is depleted.
AS coal goes up in price–then wind and solar will be as cheap so it really is better to power the poverty stricken places of the world with RENEWABLE ENERGY—give them solar and wind and they won’t ever have to pay for their power. They should be the first ones to get renewable energy and solar panels.
COAL IS NOT CHEAP—everyone is paying the price—
There are NO job on a dead planet
So your argument is really MOOT—
Sorry forgot to reply to jesse: yeah, the wedges are huge, I know.
But if other solutions besides CCS are potentially cheaper, safer, easier, then the viability of that wedge is thrown into question.
While I agree that a widespread approach is neccessary it is not a given “the wider you get the better you get”. An controversial / expensive / and probably unrealistic idea isn’t useful just because it’s something!
Brian, CCS not useful just because it’s something. It’s useful because it is one of just a handful of technologies that has the potential to scale to a full wedge. Seriously, there isn’t a long laundry list to chose from. We’re not walking down the isle of Whole Foods (or Whole Paycheck as Van Jones calls it) and picking from a plethora of tasty organic, locally-grown foods to make our meal with. We’re stuck in your boring old Safeway, you’ve got to eat, and there’s only a couple organic apples and some free-range, hormone free chicken on the menu at this point. We just might have to pick up a conventional head of lettuce to round out our meal. (Sorry if that analogy was lame, I’m not as clever as I’d like).
To be clear: Breakthrough Institute advocates a full-scale massive investment in the research, development, deployment and infrastructure support for clean energy technologies, from wind to solar to cellulosic ethanol to electrification of transport and yes, including an appropriate investment in CCS. There’s no silver bullet, and silver buckshot is our best approach. The policies we advocate will ensure America is doing it’s best to develop as many low-cost clean energy technologies as we can, to expand the number of sustainable items “on our menu” and scale them as fast as we can Hopefully we’ll have some amazing breakthrough in solar or ocean energy or offshore wind that’ll let us get another wedge or two or five from sustainable energy sources, but I’d rather not risk the biblically bad end of the IPCC climate projections (you know, the fire, flood and famine type stuff they predict if we don’t stay below climate tipping points) on enough of those breakthrough’s happening. They might, but for now, I think it wiser to keep CCS on the table, prove out it’s technology, and see if we can use it to replace existing coal plants and export to China, India, etc. for as cheap as we can afford (we’d probably be smart to give it away).
BTW, Julia, that was a lovely snarky comment. You don’t know Teryn. You don’t have much of a right to question his commitment to energy justice. Please keep it civil. There’s no need for that.
Julia made the first comment on here that I didn’t need a PhD to make sense of. She and Insurgent are both saying the coal industry does more harm than good in Appalachia, and that renewables are more sound than CCS. It seems like one group in the movement only thinks about the end-goal of “lowering emissions” on the macroeconomic scale, trying in vain to fix the entire world as if it were a machine on the blink. From this perspective, CCS seems like a sound investment, worth the far-off devastation. To them, injustice is just the “footprint” of the totality. But macroeconomic is the opposite of grassroots: it’s top-down policy coming down from on high rather than community solutions coming from a shared way of life.
The dilemma here is that this macroeconomic scale doesn’t represent the ongoing devastation and injustice in Appalachia. CCS may be good for the planet or the population, but it’s still bad for Appalachia. All the capture and sequestration you got isn’t gonna stop the explosions. Even if we reached 80 by 50 and met every scientist’s ceiling, I’d still be fighting against that devastation, I’d still be fighting against that injustice, and I’d still be fighting in, for, and with Appalachia. I’m not gonna let someone blast coal from Appalachia just to sanitize it in Asia. Solar and wind, on the other hand, are good for both the world and Appalachia. The only world-stage solution to the injustice in Appalachia is the international movement for renewable energy and environmental justice.
Teryn, you’ve been hoodwinked into working for a mineral appeasement lobby. kodama compared your strategy to Hitler, but I think it sounds more like Chamberlain.
“Mononoke,” (and everyone else), please lay off the personal attacks. This blog is a community, and we don’t need to descend to that level to discuss this issue, or any other.
Again, I’ll simply point out (as I have in the thread here) that we can focus on fighting mountain top removal and “stop[ing] the explosions” without fighting CCS. We can call the coal industry - or our presidential candidates - for their “clean” coal propaganda bullshit (and use it as an opportunity to educate the public about MTR), without immediately jumping to personal attacks leveled anyone who might suggest CCS has a role in our energy future. Many of the commenters here seem to believe there’s an essential link between MTR and CCS, as if MTR was the only form of coal mining, rather than the most devastating kind there is.
“Mononoke,” you seem to dismiss the global scale of this challenge, perhaps putting all your faith in community-scale solutions. I’m a firm believer in the power of community-scale, grassroots solutions. That’s why I helped proposed and secure the grant for the Northwest Institute for Community Energy, and why I helped found the Cascade Climate Network. But climate change is a global crisis of a scale never faced by the environmental movement (or anyone for that matter). It will require solutions at ALL scales, from the individual, to the community-scale, to the national and global scale. Simply because we look at solutions at the “macro” scale, doesn’t mean we’re blinded to the local, community-scale impacts. Please don’t assume we are. Are you blinded to the scale of this global challenge though? I hope not, but your comments make me think perhaps you are.
As I wrote on my other thread:
It’s the vehemence I’ve seen coming from members of our movement and targeted at anyone who might consider CCS a part of our energy future that prompted these posts. The insinuation that anyone who thinks CCS might be worth investing in “lacks principles” or doesn’t stand “in solidarity” with coal-state residents is simply a bit much for me to take. I’d love to live in a black and white world, but this shit is more complicated and nuanced than we’d like it to be. I’ve got my principles, and I’ve also got a clear view of the scale of our challenge, which may lead me [or Teryn] to different conclusions than some of our allies [and I do consider you all my allies, even if we differ here]. We’re not enemies here. Don’t try to make me, or Teryn, out as one.
Teryn,
“It’s simply outrageous to compare international development and coal power to the Nazis and genocide, and it shouldn’t be tolerated on this blog.”
It seems perfectly reasonable to me to call international “development” genocide. Industrialization requires minerals and petrol, things that are located underground. Now, with MTR and coal we see the effects of extraction firsthand in the usa. but this is hardly the first time peoples have been pushed off land and had their air and water polluted for mineral extraction. peoples the world over have suffered at the hands of “international development” so that big companies can get at the resources under their traditional lands. it’s happened across the globe for petrol, coal, uranium, copper, bauxite (for aluminum), etc. furthermore, international development agencies like the IMF and WorldBank are infamous agencies of economic colonialism, which seek to destroy traditional, subsistence economies (the very kind of thing you seem to equate with poverty) so that those peoples will then have to enter the Global Economic order by producing products for export (e.g. luxury cash crops like cocoa and coffee, sweatshops, etc.)
What this all amounts to is the destruction of peoples, turning humans with cultural identities into cogs in the global economic order. That’s akin to genocide. Yes, it’s not as directly sinister as ghettos and gas chambers, but the effects are very similar — the destruction of a people. it’s more subtle, and that’s part of why it’s so nefarious, because it suckers people with good intentions into playing roles of imperialism, colonialism, and, yes, genocide.
from the forest,
kodama
Even solar panels require materials processing and mining. Yes we need regulation and adequate controls, but these activities will still be required. As for subsistence agriculture, is there adequate soil and water for this option? Techniques such as drip irrigation or even hydroponics/aeroponics use less land and water to produce the same amount of food. Even if population were to freeze at 6.5 billion people, subsistence agriculture does not sound practical. Maybe I am too old and western in perspective, but people wanting to move to technologies that give them longer lives, lower infant mortality, etc. does not sound like colonialism.
I agree with Teryn and Jesse in that this is a BIG problem and that many solution paths may be needed to get resolution.
I have no doubts as to the sincerity of your opposition to MTR, but the reason it was not banned back in the 70s was because mainstream environmental groups sold out grassroots groups by compromising instead of mobilizing the opposition base which was not wavering. This was not their intention, but Montrie (2003) offers a pretty compelling case that it was so. When faced with an outright ban on steep slope mining, industry proposed a plan of limited regulation but as soon as members of the big groups agreed (feeling this was necessary to be seen as “reasonable” within the existing power structure) industry reversed position to their hard line that no federal regulation was necessary. We see the results today and so I am wary of our ability to say yes but only under these conditions (in addition to technical and economic reservations).
I also don’t think we are enemies but just like the clear air regulations for cities pushed the problem into the sludge dams of Appalachia (Fox 1999) the unintended (but of anticipatable) consequences of certain policies can make us opponents, which is tragic. But when think tanks start planning courses of action designed to tap into pathological political-economic structures rather than changing them and which have the EFFECT of trying to protect the human rights of one group by denying them to another we have a problem. Brulle and Jenkins (2006) critique of Schellenburger and Nordhaus is relevant here and worth quoting at length:
“The fourth, and most critical, problem is an implicit elitism that undermines the
very progressive values that S&N claim to champion. They do not explicitly
address how this change in worldviews will be organized or who will get to define
core progressive values, but it is evident that they assume it will be professional
experts such as themselves…
This approach contradicts the participatory ethos that S&N purport to champion.
In place of sustained dialogue and interaction between environmental leaders
and various publics, we get a progressive self-development frame sold by technocrats
through clever spin techniques. This strategy reinforces the
professionalization of political discourse that is one of the key liabilities of the
existing environmental movement. All the other effective social movements of the
20th century—labor, civil rights, women’s, consumerism, peace, and so on—prevailed
by grassroots organizing that entailed direct interaction between leaders,
activists, and the various publics. Professionalism was often useful, but it was
always harnessed to a broader movement energized by popular mobilization. In
place of this dialogue and grassroots mobilization, S&N propose enlisting
alternative spin-doctors with progressive values.
The fundamental problem with S&N’s proposal is its lack of democracy. Movements
are more effective if they engage citizens in a sustained dialogue rather than
treating them as mass opinion to be manipulated. There is considerable evidence
that the general public lacks a coherent understanding of environmental problems
and that proenvironmental attitudes lack depth (Guber, 2003). Is the cure to create
new spin-doctors who promote different unified progressive frames? Or is it better
to generate a genuine dialogue that creates value change and better understanding
of both self and public interest? S&N opt for the former, which is much easier but,
we think, ineffective.”
Teryn, I’m sorry if your spin on CSS hasn’t produced the response you were hoping for but as Ward says folks “are much more sophisticated than they were a few years back, and they’re not easily snowed by charts and graphs peppered with labels — “wedges” this and RPS that — purporting to show how emissions can go down without our power first going up.” If you didn’t want critical feedback you should have just posted it on Breakthrough’s blog instead were you have editorial censorship. See above passage
I am also disappointed in your selective definition of what constitutes evidence (and ideology for that matter). If you wanted citations of peer review scholarship you should have specified. I happen to think the UN is one of the best venues for international action we have at the moment, despite its widely recognized/debated problems. My point regarding was two-fold (written before your response regarding the index, by the way) 1. We need to be critical about sources of data and the way in which they are “sliced” or abstracted. To my knowledge, UN data comes primarily from nation’s own stats in which Li points to flaws, which is secondary the point Brian reiterates China’s increase in power consumption (in common fashion) is not in any way proportional to increases in standards of living- even by the crude measures available to us.
Projections should not be treated as facts. They are at their crudest simply the mathematical forward graphing of past trends. If they are more sophisticated they contain assumptions which must be unpacked (York and Clark 2007). For example, EIA projections claim the world will burn more coal than others believe is available: based on critical appraisal of questionable data. Furthermore the EIA has extensive ties to the coal industry and often parrots industry claims verbatim e.g. “The fill operations are environmentally controversial but the creation of relatively flat, developable land can be economically beneficial in steep mountainous areas.” I still use their data myself at times when it’s the best available but the point is the need to be critical and reflexive to avoid the kind tendency towards of naïve positivism all too common of economists. Once we accept they will be built things are framed in a way that might make (hopefully giving/selling to LDCs] CSS look reasonable instead of Ward’s equally technically feasible solution of using redistribution to lower energy demand and produce renewables at a faster rate than predicted feasible.
2. My anti-capitalist position is a product of studying the actual historical process of “development” for 3 years of grad-school, no one thinks its going away over night but, as one Breakthrough Senior Fellow quotes “What is to be done?” must be based on understanding the way things are. I put “development” in scare quotes because the meaning of the term is different depending on who you ask. For example, if you ask Lawrence Summers, Chief Economist of the World Bank- “Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]?” (quoted in The Economist Magazine) but you’ll get quite a different answer from the people of the movement of recovered factories in Argentina. For all your talk about complexity, reference to “international development work in general” demonstrates amazing naïveté about the subject (similar to disagreements I’ve had with Mr. Margolis). Development of certain areas has historically meant the underdevelopment of others (Rodney 1982;Bunker 1984;Bruno and Karliner 2002; Bunker and Ciccantell 2005; Moore 2003) Particularly in regard to its relationship to energy consumption (Clark and York 2005;Podobnik 2006; Roberts and Grimes 1997).
I’d like to engage in dialog as you are clearly dedicated; but absent a willingness on your part to deal with the “complexity” of uneven development I guess we’ll keep talking past one another. In that case, I’m more worried what will happen if other readers think you’re right because the synergy between your framing and the fossil fuel industries’.
Brian, good point about Sachs, but alas, if one considers Thomas Friedman a hero perhaps Sachs is a candidate for sainthood…
Works Cited (in case you want some “substance”
Bunker, S. G. 1984. “Modes of extraction, unequal exchange, and the progressive underdevelopment of an extreme periphery: the Brazilian Amazon, 1600-1980.” American Journal of Sociology 89:1017-1064.
Bunker, Stephen G. and Paul S.Ciccantell. 2005. Globalization and the Race for Resources. Baltimore, MD. The John Hopkins University Press
Brulle, Robert J. and J. Craig Jenkins “Spinning Our Way to Sustainability?” Organization Environment 2006; 19; 82
Bruno, Kenny, and Joshua Karliner. 2002. Earthsummit.biz: The Corporate Takeover of Sustainable Development. Oakland, CA. Food First Books
Clark, Brett and Richard York. 2005. “Carbon Metabolism: Global Capitalism, Climate Change, and the Biospheric Rift.” Theory & Society 34(4): 391-428
Fox, Julia. 1999. “Mountaintop Removal in West Virginia: An Environmental Sacrifice Zone” Organization and Environment 12(2): 163-183
Goldman, Michael. 2005. Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization. New Haven, Yale University Press
Moore, J. W. 2003. “The Modern World-System as Environmental History? Ecology and the Rise of Capitalism.” Theory & Society 32: 307-377
Podobnik, Bruce. 2006. Global Energy Shifts: Fostering Sustainibility in a Turbulent Age. Philadelphia, PA. Temple University Press.
Roberts, J. T. and P. E. Grimes. 1997. Carbon intensity and economic development 1962-91: a brief exploration of the environmental Kuznets curve. World Development 25(2): 191-198.
Rodney, Walter. 1982. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Washington, D.C. Howard University Press
York, Richard and Brett Clark. 2007. “The Problem with Prediction: Contingency, Emergence, and the Reification of Projections.” The Sociological Quarterly 48(4): 713-743.
thanks insurgent. you are much more thoughtful, method, and academic than i!
from the forest,
kodama
Actually I agree with Insurgent that development is uneven (i.e., someone must have the mine/factory/landfill in their neighborhood and developing countries have been unfairly bearing more of the brunt). Yes we need a more equitable way of distributing the production and disposal facilities of our planet (of course there will be some limitations considering that mines need to be where the minerals in question reside).
Still, you will need to mine and process some material from somewhere even if an all renewables economy is attained and all for-profit corporations were replaced with non-profit co-ops (i.e. over 6.5 billion folks would continue to need food, water, shelter, health care, etc).
Insurgent Sociologist - is “Brulle and Jenkins” available online - I can’t seem to find it. if you have a .pdf you could email it to me brian -AT- risingtidenorthamerica dot org
I am afraid that in slicing up my response to get past the auto-despammer the first part of my last response got lost:
I think Jesse is right that the