PEN-L message, [Pen-l] response to global warming. was European carbon market

The advocates of technology promise that growth will roar on. In an often-cited article in Scientific American (August 21, 2006) describing "climate wedges" that will save us, the authors, Socolow and Pacala assert "Economic growth will be maintained, the poor and the rich will both be richer." The EPA analysed last year's Lieberman-Warner cap & trade bill and found that with the bill US GDP will grow 80% from 2010 to 2030. Very reassuring to anybody worried about next week's rent and groceries but madness all the same.

The responses to climate change are all from people facing in the wrong direction. The issue is not how to get clean energy, it is "How do we reduce the need for energy?" And the answer lies in cutting consumption through cutting hours of work. It can at the same time correct the US income distribution. This is scalable and at the same time is the only US policy that can positively affect developing countries.

Gene Coyle

On Feb 6, 2009, at 12:45 PM, comvox@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

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

Doug
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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.
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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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[Pen-l] response to global warming. was European carbon market crashing