marklynas.orgA Green New Deal 18 July 08
A "war economy" social mobilisation harnessed, this time not towards fighting fascism, but towards heading off ecological crisis
If you thought a growing economy was bad, try living through a recession. Environmentalists routinely denounce the “mantra” of economic growth, pointing out – quite rationally and entirely correctly – that infinite growth on a finite planet does not make mathematical, let alone ecological, sense. But the idea of a no-growth, steady-state economy has always sounded like pie in the sky – and you have only to read the papers every day to be reminded why. The credit crunch and looming recession in the UK illustrate nicely how the economic system knows only two options: growth or collapse. During good times, it seems almost impossible to imagine how anything could ever go wrong. Hence the willingness of investors and banks to snap up mortgage-backed securities without worrying how “toxic” these might turn out to be. In bad times, the reverse is true.
It is tempting for environmentalists to welcome recessions: after all, if you believe that rampant consumerism is killing the planet, then a sudden decrease in consumption can only be a good thing. A falling property market means that the pressure to concrete over the countryside is lifted. With higher fuel costs, people drive less and buy smaller cars. My local allotments association, once rather neglected, now has a waiting list of several years. Talk of new car-share clubs abounds, and more and more people are breaking the driving habit and taking to the roads on their bikes.
What is particularly noteworthy about the present economic crisis is that it has not – so far, anyway – led to a drop in oil prices. With the world’s largest oil-consuming country, the United States, in full-scale recession, and other western countries beginning to follow suit, the ensuing drop in demand for oil ought to lead to downward pressure on crude prices. That it has not produced such pressure – and the price per barrel continues to hover just below $150 – suggests that fears about long-term supply, often aired by the so-called “peak-oilers”, are well founded.
Combined, the credit crunch and oil crunch have delivered a double shock to the world economy. And with climate change raising the risk of weather-related damage to crops, and so driving up food prices, one group of thinkers has begun to use the term “triple crunch” to describe the present situation.
This group, which launches a landmark report on 21 July calling for a “Green New Deal”, consists of two former directors of Friends of the Earth, the Guardian’s economics editor, Larry Elliott, the Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas and Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation, among other luminaries. The report is still under embargo at the time of writing, so I cannot delve into it too deeply, but what I find striking and novel about its content is the clear attempt to bridge the credibility gap between whimsical environmentalism and the harsh real world of everyday economics.
one group of thinkers has begun to use the term “triple crunch” to describe the present situation
The Green New Deal Group is not talking about incremental changes, however. It is calling for nothing less than a return to pre-war Keynesianism – complete with big increases in public investment spending and much tighter controls on international finance – with a “war economy” social mobilisation harnessed, this time not towards fighting fascism, but towards heading off ecological crisis. What is novel is that this call is directed not just at stabilising the climate, but also at stabilising the economy – lower interest rates and higher government spending are aimed at ending the credit crunch as much as tackling the oil and climate crunches.
Indeed, everywhere you look, environmental thinkers are embracing the market. All the various greenhouse-gas-regulating frameworks under serious discussion depend crucially for their success on high carbon prices sending a signal through the market rather than through direct government regulation. The recent Time for Plan B report from the US-based Earth Policy Institute calls for 80 per cent cuts in carbon emissions by 2020 – but sees this, crucially, not as a belt-tightening sacrifice, but as an opportunity for renewed growth.
For example, to achieve Plan B’s target of three million megawatts of new wind capacity in the next 12 years we’ll have to put up 1.5 million turbines. That seems an unfeasibly large number, until you consider that 65 million cars are produced worldwide each year. Indeed, the report suggests, some of the turbines could be produced “on idled automotive assembly lines, reinvigorating manufacturing capacity and creating jobs”.
Keynes would have been proud.
This article was first published in the New Statesman on 17 July 2008
Comments
Douglas Coker
July 18th, 2008 at 02:34 PM
I’ll be disappointed if this Green New Deal is not very good. The war analogy is increasingly referenced and, I think, is clearly very useful in a number of respects. “Dig for Victory”.
I hope there is due consideration given to agency. Whether we pursue C&C or carbon rationing (downstream or upstream) or this GND we need it implemented.
Ideally reason should prevail but I fear we may have to wait for events. Events which are climate change catastrophes, absolutely, undeniably linked with anthropogenic global warming, in which many (millions) of people suffer and which affect people in developed countries. And even then, with Katrina in mind, they need to be people who “count” and are not considered dispensable.
Oh dear.
Douglas Coker Enfield Green Party
Chris Cook
July 21st, 2008 at 02:00 AM
I find it extraordinary that the panel appears to see no alternative to leaving in place the existing financial system of “Money as Debt” which is – through the inexorable mathematics of compound interest – the driver of economic growth.
To make it worse there appears to be uncritical acceptance that the solution lies in the monetisation of the carbon in CO2 – which – like the IOU’s created as money by credit institutions – is intrinsically worthless, and achieves its value only from political “fiat”.
The fatuity of the current emissions trading approach is best explained by a quote overheard at a traders’ conference:
“If you want to keep a donkey healthy, you don’t regulate what comes out of it; you regulate what goes in…”
It is to Keynes we should look for the correct approach, and that is the “International Clearing Union” he proposed at Bretton Woods, but with the “value unit” (his “Bancor”) being a unit of energy – ie a “carbon dollar” redeemable in energy.
Rubbish
July 21st, 2008 at 07:50 PM
How on earth can you link Katrina with global warming when even the climate alarmists admit that hurricanes cannot be directly linked with global warming?
Shame on you for spreading false information, Douglas Coker, Enfield Green Party
John Brooks
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:32 AM
Shame on the lot of them! All this RUBBISH about fiddling at the margins and advocating zero economic growth / stability / stasis or whatever you care to call it, and not ONE WORD about the Elephant in the Corner: POPULATION!
Unless human beings can get it into their collective head that species success does NOT equate to covering the entire planet surface with human flesh and /or detritus, all other ‘Save the Planet from Climate Change’ measures are a complete waste of time.
Get real!
Carl Johnson
July 24th, 2008 at 10:08 AM
Douglas may be right, it would soon focus peoples minds if a major city in the UK were to be devasted in the way New Orleans was! Of course we all know that if that is the case it will already be too late and any action taken would merely be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic the afternoon before it hit the iceberg!! Let’s hope the world wakes up sooon. Nice to see the BBC making an attempt to balance the scales with “Burn Up”.
Tony
August 1st, 2008 at 10:57 PM
Well said Carl Johnson it would be great if a major city in the UK could be devasted by some sort of disasterous event like New Orleans. How can we organise this? It would be brilliant!!!!!!!!! Then those who govern us could see that we want to save the World and take us seriously. Maybe a major flood? Nah too obvious. Erm, how bout a wildfire that would get out of control? Damn, not enough timber framed buildings. Oh oh I know, we could hire a light aircraft and seed the clouds and make it rain moderately. God yes I can see it now-”Rain in London more proof of climate change”. I’m off to Kingsnorth to stand in the ranks of the great unwashed to say “No to climate change” or is it “No to global warming”. Golly I’m not sure what the current slogan is. Please please please someone tell me what is the latest slogan.
Douglas Coker
August 2nd, 2008 at 06:10 PM
Rubbish. Seems a bit strange addressing you as rubbish. Don’t be shy tell us who you are!
Yes my post can be read as an indication that I’m saying Katrina was caused by global warming. I think Carl understood better what I was getting at.
Check the work of Chris Mooney, in particular, his Storm World. There and elsewhwere in his writing he says correctly and emphatically that because weather is variable we cannot attribute any single weather event to global warming.
But of course if you go past that statement and explore frequency and intensity of, for instance, hurricanes then there is cause for concern.
Time will tell. More data will come in and at some point in the future when folk look back at Katrina it may well be considered one of a number of landmark events which indicated the new reality we are entering.
Get those emissions down!
Douglas Coker Enfield Green Party
herb gamberg
September 13th, 2008 at 09:15 PM
I agree about the necessity of a new New Deal implemented toward the reduction of greenhouse gasses. I have two questions about this program. 1. Were there specific historical reasons for the success of the earlier New Deal which are not present today? 2. Isn’t it much easier for our kind of system to implement a military Keynesianism, making a “war” against global warming very difficult? These questions lie at the heart of my dilemma. Since I think a wholesale socialist solution may be the only way to avoid catastrophe and since that solution is not on the foreseeable political agenda, we are left with the need for this Keynesian programme. Hence, the above questions.
elecguitblog
December 26th, 2008 at 02:03 AM
Get those emissions down! Katrina is a prove of global warming is happen.
Quincy
March 2nd, 2009 at 08:59 PM
IN OUR DAY, there is a growing awareness that world peace is threatened not only by the arms race, regional conflicts and continued injustices among peoples and nations, but also by a lack of DUE RESPECT FOR NATURE, by the plundering of natural resources and by an progressive decline in the quality of life. The sense of precariousness and insecurity that such a situation engenders is a seedbed for collective selfishness, disregard for others and dishonesty.
جيل
August 2nd, 2009 at 12:22 AM
How on earth can you link Katrina with global warming when even the climate alarmists admit that hurricanes cannot be directly linked with global warming?
Shame on you for spreading false information, Douglas Coker, Enfield Green Party
Kenny
November 16th, 2009 at 12:45 AM
Yeah seriously, hurricanes have been happening forever and what happened to New Orleans was largely a part of poor city planning than anything in nature. When you build a city below sea level you are asking for trouble. Ken