Re: [Pen-l] European carbon market crashing

[comvox@xxxxxxxxx]

Doug Henwood wrote:
> Yeah, we can't do anything about climate change until the revolution.  
> So I guess that means we're doomed.
> 
> Doug
> _______________________________________________


Excuse me, Doug. If you had bothered to read the articles I linked to, you 
would notice that I argue that we must do something prior to the revolution, 
and that I put forward a program for that. Indeed, I argue that it's 
precisely the advocates of neo-liberal measures, such as the carbon trading 
and the carbon tax, who are afraid of the measures that are needed now, and 
regard them as a "carbon dictatorship". 


In the introduction to my article denouncing cap and trade, I write that:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
. But the environmental crisis is upon us now, while capitalism still exists. 
Major steps will have to be taken soon, while the present capitalist ruling 
classes are still in power. As the failure of carbon emission markets to 
solve the problem becomes evident, they may take steps to implement carbon 
taxes; and as the failure of carbon taxes becomes evident, they will have to 
move to some type of regulation of production. True, the capitalists will 
likely wait until their hands are forced by a series of spectacular 
environmental disasters, and by then the situation will be quite desperate. 
But the time is coming closer when the capitalists will have to abandon neo-
liberal orthodoxy, and move towards a regulated capitalism. 

. But this will not mean that the capitalist governments will have become 
socialist. Neo-liberal market fundamentalism is not the only form of 
capitalism: capitalism has always oscillated back and forth between periods 
of greater and lesser regulation, and even now different capitalist countries 
have varying amounts of regulation and social programs. The planning that the 
capitalist governments introduce will be done by capitalist agencies, and 
indeed the world economy will be subject to imperialist agencies and the 
strongest imperialist powers. Capitalist planning will seek to have the 
masses pay for the continued profits of the corporations in the name of 
planning, just as now it makes the masses pay in the name of the free market. 
It will be up to the masses to fight to ensure that not only does the 
planning truly address the environmental problems, but that the well-being of 
the masses is protected.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


In the course of the article, I go into the record of cap and trade, which 
has been a fiasco in Europe, and elaborate what is really needed. Of course, 
we need measures that actually do something positive, and are not mere 
pretense. If we support measures that are a mere pretense, on the grounds 
that a pretense is better than doing nothing, than we will deserve the 
revenge that the environment will exact upon us.

-- Joseph Green


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