How Global Warming Will Force Political Realignment
November 5, 2007 |
One of the central arguments of Break Through -- one that has so far been ignored by True Believers at places like Grist -- is that global warming is going to create new political fault lines that don't fall along the left-right divide.
We write:
Climate change and the political response to it is already defining a new fault line in the culture. On one side of that line will be a global NIMBYism that sees the planet as too fragile to support the hopes and dreams of seven billion humans. It will seek to establish and enforce the equivalent of an international caste system in which the poor of the developing world are consigned to energy poverty in perpetuity. This politics of limits will be anti-immigration, anti-globalization, and anti-growth. It will be zero-sum, fiscally conservative, and deficit-oriented. It will combine Malthusian environmentalism with Hobbesian conservatism.
On the other side will be those who believe that there is room enough for all of us to live secure and free lives. It will be pro-growth, progressive, and internationalist. It will drive global development by creating new markets. It will see in institutions like the WTO, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund not a corporate conspiracy to keep people poor and destroy the environment, but an opportunity to drive a kind of development that is both sustainable and equitable. It will embrace technology without being technocratic. It will seek adaptation proactively, not fatalistically. It will establish social and economic security as preconditions for ecological action. It will be large and transformative, but not millenarian.
Earlier in that chapter we cite a landmark study done for the Pentagon by San Francisco-based Global Business Network (GBN) on abrupt climate change. Now, the authors of that paper are back with a smart new paper, this one co-authored with Nils Gilman of Monitor Group, GBN's parent firm. We hadn't seen it before we wrapped up our book, but Gilman, Doug Randall, and Peter Schwartz come to very similar conclusions about how the political reactions to climate change might divide the environmental community, just as immigration reform and Cape Wind divided the Sierra Club.
[C]limate change may form the basis for a new set of political coalitions and oppositions that do not fit within the [traditional left-right] political paradigm. One possibility is that political coalitions and parties may be reformed around different attitudes to social risk-sharing, with one faction opting for having the state take an activist approach to mitigating a variety of "big" security risks (military, terrorist, environmental) and another coalition forming around allowing people to fend for themselves, with a less intrusive but also less protective state. The recent debate in the Sierra Club over the organization's stance on immigration presages such a formation, as does the current debate in Europe about "repatriation" of immigrants.
The initial reaction from some people to Break Through was that we constructed a straw man, as though to say, Come on, there's hardly any environmentalists any more who are anti-growth, limits-based, NIMBY, or anti-immigrant.
These claims were often followed, without any apparent sense of irony, by the insistence that technology can't solve our problems, there are natural limits to economic growth, and there's not enough room on lifeboat Earth for everyone to live the way we live in the developed world.
Having spent the last month traveling around the country on book tour, Ted and I have been struck that the biggest objection audiences have to our book is our contention that there's room for all 7 billion of us Earthlings to live prosperous, free and fulfilled lives. We point out that this won't be the case if we continue on the current fossil fuel trajectory -- hence the need for a politics that gets us off it -- but if we move to a clean energy economy, live mostly in cities, and begin to restore the nonhuman ecosystems we depend on, there's no reason to believe the levels of prosperity we enjoy shouldn't be achieved by everyone.
Ever since Malthus in the early 19th Century (and likely well before that) people have been predicting that we're going to run out of food. Their calculations are always impeccable. The problem is that they're based on existing technologies. And technological innovation is what our species excels at.
The new political fault line we see shaping up is between a large politics (what we call "greatness") characterized by a vision for growth, development, globalization, and non-zero sum thinking (i.e., "win-win") -- and a small politics characterized by NIMBYism, anti-immigrant attitudes, the resistance to what GBN calls "social risk-sharing," and the sense that there's only so much planet Earth to go around.
Which side will prevail? GBN says it's uncertain. "While ecosystems have always been dynamic and changing (and subject to collapse), the scientific ability to track such collapses, and the media visibility of such collapses, is far greater than it has ever been. How the global public will react to such collapses is largely unknown."
GBN makes the very good point that as human systems collapse, humans "rely upon primary loyalties (families, neighborhoods, religious organizations, gangs) for daily survival.... Those unwilling or unable to profit from the chaos will radiate outward through refugee flows, exporting social conflicts to adjacent locales."
What I thought was missing from the GBN analysis was an acknowledgment of the fairly extensive research of how discourses of collapse and apocalypse feed the small, authoritarian, and NIMBY political reaction -- not the expansive, democratic, and ecological one.
Of course, ecological and subsequent systems collapse is a possibility, and one that has to be considered and carefully analyzed. But there's another question, no less important, that must be also asked: What must be done to trigger a progressive rather than reactionary reaction in the face of widening paranoia about the dark possibility of ecological collapse?
Comments
This is why the public and our legislature are on a no-stopping-now collision course. Political policy has ceased to have any rational elements, and certainly is not crafted in the best interest of constituents. Quite to the contrary it is not even crafted on verifiable fact. All these policies are, are ways to for each party to assure its own perpetuity, and keep curry favor with special interests for a rainy day.
Global Warming is a hoax. Yet on the heels of a housing collapse that bankrupted the world economy, billions of dollars have already changed hands over it. So as they meet for the G20 to try to figure out how to fix the current financial mess, most world leaders have already signed their names to assure the next, bigger one. Houses are real, and the market collapse was tragic. What will happen when the biggest countries in the world are wholly invested in Carbon Trading schemes and the curtain finally drops? And it will. Here's why:
WE WILL NOT POWER 25% OF THIS COUNTRY WITH WIND, SOLAR, AND GEOTHERMAL ENERGY EVER. EVER. EVER.
If you believe something different you are wrong, and if the sane among us have any luck you will die before your next opportunity to vote.
Sounds harsh, but its a fate better than what the living will experience if we allow these plans to be followed through to completion.
By Dubl on 2009 04 01
What was so galling about the original post was this: "However, supporters of this system have either not considered or chosen to overlook the regional inequities that will inevitably result from cap and dividend." This is exactly the kind of supercilious comment that harms Breakthrough's reputation, making it that much more difficult for honest brokers like me, Ted, to focus on the content of Breakthrough's work. And not only is this subtle put-down completely self-serving; it's utterly inaccurate. Of course advocates of this approach have looked into these possible inequities! If the author of this post had bothered to look into what scholars have done on this question, they would have found studies like those mentioned here: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/3/12/14433/9136?source=daily. So yes: as the Grist post illustrates, calls for 'seriously engaging the content' are exactly right. I am a big fan of the ideas that Breakthrough offers; keep it up, but don't be afraid to reach out.
By Jon Isham on 2009 03 19
Many are saying that Bailout is nothing to do for the stimulation of the economy. This will just cause too much debt. Food and financial crises ruin good lifestyle and health of people. It is really hard for the countries to decide which one will they choose to repair the economic downturn. The stimulation of economy is quite harder because of layoffs a bankruptcy. This gives a treat to the world. A financial crisis is something that you should deal with right away, and a faxless payday loan is one of the ways that you can do it. There are a lot of financial services that can help you with your needs. If you need faxless payday loans, or cash advances, those are out there. Just remember, do the research and find out what option is best for you. A budget emergency is never good.
By Payday Loan on 2009 02 09
One of the most talked issues today is about financial crisis. Everything is affected by this not only the situation of every citizen but also the situation of the environment. When the drift was first spotted in the early 1980s, it stirred only academic interest. But this year, as more economists and politicians began to take note of it. The great American middle class is no longer so great. It is shrinking steadily, goes the theory, and shedding its members into the economic extremes of wealth and poverty. Borrowers of payday loans just don't live up to the stereotype of them
By NicolasI on 2009 02 05
Thanks for your comment and your feedback John. Criticizing friends is always a delicate task, one that is not always appreciated even when it is done carefully. Yet, as you have admirably noted in the past, open, critical discourse plays a vital role in both building an effective movement and identifying strategies to transform our energy future and address the climate crisis that might actually succeed.
Attitude and tone are quite subjective perceptions, experienced through the eyes and ears of the beholder. You and other climate activists hear us saying "we are smarter than you." We see climate activists consistently dismissing and misrepresenting the issues we are raising with the current prioritization of caps, pricing, and emissions oriented policies and often attacking our character and motives rather than seriously engaging the content of our criticism.
Calls to both/and not either/or do not constitute a serious engagement of questions regarding the proper role, mix, and prioritization of pricing, regulation, and investment. The controversy over USCAP is revealing as to the real priorities of green groups both supporting and opposing that proposal and tells us much more about where different players are heading than theoretical support for caps or investment or anything else.
You have played an important role John, in attempting to bring the best of the activist and the academic sensibility together in pursuit of solutions to the climate crisis and attempting to create space to engage serious questions about both political strategy and public policy. I hope you will continue to embrace the role of an honest broker for so many of these critical discussions.
ted
By Ted Nordhaus on 2009 01 21
Breakthrough is certainly to be commended for advocating large-scale investments to make clean energy cheap. The logic of this argument is dead-on right, and Breakthrough's advocacy of this idea has been effective.
But the argument for putting a price on carbon, either via a tax or cap-and-trade, is just as solid. Yet too often, Breakthrough seems to fall into surprisingly reductionist reasoning when it comes to climate policy: that progressives can only champion investments or, say, cap-and-trade, but not both. Furthermore, Breakthrough's we-are-much-smarter-than-you attitude to us climate activists is palpable and, frankly, self-defeating.
For as I told folks in the Breakthrough Generation gathering last summer, a stance of intellectual superiority rarely wins; a stance of openness, humility and pragmatism usually does. As a fan of so much of Breakthrough's content, I hope that they will develop the wisdom to adopt a winning stance for the things that they believe.
By Jon Isham on 2009 01 16
I'm wondering if the high cost of oil/gas a few months back precipitated the financial crisis. People found themselves in the position of not being able to afford their mortgage and the cost of getting to work. They were paying as much as a second mortgage to pay for their gas and were as well as dealing with the change in their mortgage rates.
By Dan Comstock on 2008 11 23
Weisberg doesn't know much about Libertarianism nor does he know much about economics.
First off, Libertarianism, or classical liberalism, is responsible for gigantic strides in human freedom and value since its inception. Weisberg seems incapable of understanding that Libertarian economic principles are a subset of a much larger ideology that has objectively done a lot of good. His false equation of libertarianism, objectively successful, with marxism, which again objectively has led to mass poverty and mass murder, shows a total lack of understanding of political history.
Second, libertarians have been railing against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, enablers of the current crisis, for years. Greenspan has some points about the limitations of libertarian philosophy but the roots of this crisis are in government intervention, not free market thinking.
Finally, libertarians have never held that free markets will make everything good all the time, only that overall they are the best approach. Schumpeter, a very prominent free market economist, thought that free markets were demonstrably best but that they could not survive because people would reject the stress from the economic cycles and 'creative destruction' they caused.
Weisberg also fundamentally misreads the Japanese experience where heavy government intervention to prop up failing banks resulted in a long term recession.
By Robert www.neolibertarian.com on 2008 10 26
Brian,
Thanks. We all like to read Friedman's writing in the office. If you like that quote, you might enjoy some of our coverage of the financial crisis (http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/financial_crisis/) or are analysis of the changing political landscape surrounding energy issues (http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/new_energy_politics/). Keep reading, and enjoy,
Adam
By Adam Zemel on 2008 10 23
This is so dead on the mark! Thank you for sharing.
By Brian on 2008 10 22
Even more startling:
Mayer also revealed in an interview on Fresh Air (and presumably in her book - I have yet to read it), that methods sought out by Cheney et al. were ones well known to have been used and designed by the Soviets specifically for extracting false confessions.
Cheney and Rumsfeld presumably understood the function/purpose of these methods better than anyone else, considering that they spent the entire Cold War studying and dealing with the USSR. This evidence bolsters the disturbing case put forward by Naomi Wolf in "The end of America: Letter of warning to a young patriot" (2007, Chelsea Green), that, following 9/11, America has witnessed a 'fascist shift' consisting of ten steps that regimes typically use to subvert free and open societies.
Nevertheless, according to Mayer, Cheney and Rumsfeld championed the use of these methods, against tremendous opposition from others in the administration, the DOJ, etc.(even from Ashcroft), and apparently even went so far as to censor the flow of information to the President.
Also, in NPR's excerpt from the book, Mayer cites a secret Reagan executive order (as occuring under Cheney's watch) authorizing the initiation of Continuity of Government (COG) plans without congress being notified. This makes plausible the scenario described by Ketcham (see link to article) that the USA is now legally under the control of some highly classified parallel government. According to Ketcham, last year two democratic congressmen were forbidden access to administration documents regarding the current structure of our government with respect to COG.
The facts reported by Mayer, Ketcham, and others, is, sadly, all too consistent with some of the most outrageous (but alas, all too credible) explanations for the collapses WTC buildings 1, 2 and 7. Such explanations are explained in part by ex Governor Jesse Ventura in his latest book, and by architects, engineers, scholars, and high placed intelligence officials on patriotsquestion911.org, ae911truth.org, and stj911.org.
For me and my family's sake, I hope to God that those analysts are all way off base. If you can justify rationally, on the weight of the evidence, that they are, please let me know, as it would give me great peace of mind.
Thanks and all the best.
Ketcham's article:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19871.htm
By Nicholas Grenier on 2008 07 23
> "Ever since Malthus in the early 19th Century (and likely well before that) people have been predicting that we're going to run out of food. Their calculations are always impeccable. The problem is that they're based on existing technologies. And technological innovation is what our species excels at."
Okay. Technology will save us.
If technology allows the Earth to successfully feed 6.6 billion humans it follows (logically) that technology can successfully feed an infinite number of humans on the Earth.
Technology's capacity to produce food is infinite and unlimited, just as humankind's capacity to increase is infinite and unlimited.
No one should worry if there are 9,000,000,000 people on the Earth. Technology guarantees that the Earth can feed 9 billion people indefinitely.
Or so it would seem ...
Malthus, Malthus, Malthus ... why didn't you realize that technology would render Homo sapiens into the planet's god?
By David Mathews on 2007 11 16
Michael, one thing that could make a "reactionary reaction" more certain is if people give up any hope of mitigating or reducing global warming.
As you say in your book, if we quit fossil fuels tomorrow we're still in a heap of trouble. A more progressive or expansive reaction might be triggered by an embrace of not only energy transformation, but transformation on the land management (photosynthetic) side as well. These are both huge opportunities. If we only pursue one, the continuing deterioration won't help create the new politics we need, which as you say must be based on investment rather than regulation. The only book I know of so far that details such a comprehensive solution is Allan Yeomans's PRIORITY ONE: Together We Can Beat Global Warming (biospheremedia.org).
By Peter Donovan on 2007 11 11
This society is ready for a rethinking of the social conditions afflicting it, but I am unsure if your organization fully comprehends the degree to which it is influenced (and controled) by the thought patterns of the past.
For example, you proclaim a desire for new progressive politics without explaining what progressive means and if desirable how to free the word from the baggage of the past.
You desire a new social contract without explaining the content of the old, and if such an agreement existed except in the minds of advocates. You don't explain the content of this new contract or if it can be forged in a global economy.
You assume that clean energy can be produced without contemplating the cost, not only to the producers but also to the public who will be asked to fork over their money or rearrange their lives to realize your goals.
You assume with a simplicity that would have amazed poverty warriors such as Lyndon Johnson that poverty can be cured, as if it were a disease. Suppose it can't. What after spending billions and investing countless hours, the number of people living in poverty increases? At what point are you willing to admit - as some believe - that poverty is semi-permanent?
You goals may be laudable but as one who lived through the 1960's they reak with the innocent idelaism of a time long past.
By ocatvian on 2007 11 08