{"id":145964,"date":"2021-05-02T03:21:09","date_gmt":"2021-05-02T03:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=193578"},"modified":"2021-05-02T03:21:09","modified_gmt":"2021-05-02T03:21:09","slug":"what-would-a-deep-green-new-deal-look-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/05\/02\/what-would-a-deep-green-new-deal-look-like\/","title":{"rendered":"What Would a Deep Green New Deal Look Like?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>The Green New Deal has attracted perhaps the greatest attention of any proposal for decades. It would guarantee Medicare-for-All, Housing-for-All, student loan forgiveness and propose the largest economic growth in human history to address unemployment and climate change.<\/p>\n But the last of these hits a stumbling block. Creation of all<\/strong> forms of energy contributes to the destruction of nature and human life. It is possible to increase the global quality of life at the same time we reduce the use of fossil fuels and other sources of energy. Therefore, a \u201cdeep\u201d GND would focus on energy reduction, otherwise known as energy conservation<\/strong>. Decreasing total energy use is a prerequisite for securing human existence.<\/p>\n Recognizing True Dangers<\/strong><\/p>\n Fossil fuel (FF)<\/b> dangers are well-known and include the destruction of Life via global heating. FF problems also include land grabs from indigenous peoples, farmers, and communities throughout the world as well as the poisoning of air from burning and destruction of terrestrial and aquatic life from spills. But those who focus on climate change tend to minimize very real danger of other types of energy production. A first step in developing a genuine GND is to acknowledge the destructive potential of \u201calternative energy\u201d (AltE).<\/p>\n Nuclear power (nukes). Though dangers of nuclear disasters such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl<\/a> and Fukushima are horrific, problems with the rest of its life cycle are often glossed over. Mining, milling, and transporting radioactive material to supply nukes with fuel and \u201cdispose\u201d of it exposes entire communities to poisoning that results in a variety of cancers. Though operation of nukes produces few greenhouse gases (GHGs), enormous quantities are released during production of steel, cement and other materials for building nuclear plants. They must be located next to water (for cooling), which means their discharge of hot water is an attack on aquatic life. Radioactive waste from nukes, kept in caskets for 30-50 years, threatens to poison humanity not for decades or centuries, but for millennia (or eternity), which makes nukes at least as dangerous as FFs. Inclusion of nuclear power as part of a GND<\/a> is not the slightest bit green. The only way to address nuclear power is how to abolish it as rapidly as possible while causing the least harm to those who depend on it for energy and income.<\/p>\n Solar power<\/b> requires manufacturing processes with chemicals which are highly toxic to those who work with them. Even before production begins, many different minerals must be mined and processed, which endangers workers and communities while destroying wildlife habitat<\/a>. Additional minerals must be obtained for batteries. Once solar systems are used, they are discarded into large toxic dumps. Though few GHGs are created during use of solar panels, large amounts are created during their life cycle.<\/p>\n Wind power<\/b> creates its own syndrome of nerve-wracking vibrations for those living next to \u201cwind farms,\u201d along with even larger issues with disposal of 160-foot blades. Like solar farms, wind farms undermine ecosystems where they are located. The life cycle of wind power includes toxic radioactive elements<\/a> to produce circular rotation of blades.<\/p>\n Hydro-power<\/b> from dams hurts terrestrial as well as aquatic life<\/a> by altering the flow of river water. Dams undermine communities whose culture center around water and animals. Dams destroy farms. They exacerbate international conflicts when rivers flow through multiple countries, threaten the lives of construction workers<\/a>, and result in collapses which can kill over 100,000 people at a time.<\/p>\n Several problems run through multiple AltE systems:<\/p>\n Taking into account the extreme problems of the life cycle of every type of energy extraction leads to the following requirements for a genuine GND: Nuclear energy must be halted as quickly and as safely as possible with employment replacement. FF extraction should be dramatically reduced immediately (perhaps by 70-90% of 2020 levels) and be reduced 5-10% annually for the next 10 years thereafter. Rather than being increased, extraction for other forms of energy should be reduced (perhaps 2-5% annually).<\/p>\n Since honesty requires recognition that every form of energy becomes more destructive with time, the critical question for a deep GND is: \u201cHow do we reduce energy use while increasing employment and the necessities of life?\u201d<\/p>\n The Naming of Things<\/strong><\/p>\n But before exploring how to increase employment while reducing production, it is necessary to clean up some greenwashing language that has become common in recent years.<\/p>\n Decades ago, Barry Commoner used the phrase \u201clinguistic detoxification\u201d to describe the way corporations come up with a word or phrase to hide the true nature of an ecological obscenity. One of the best examples is the nuclear industry\u2019s term \u201cspent fuel rods<\/a>\u201d which implies that, once used, fuel rods are not radioactive, when, in fact, they are so deadly that they must be guarded for eternity. An accurate term would be \u201cirradiated fuel rods.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps the classic example is the way agribusiness came up with \u201cbiosolids\u201d for renaming animal sewage sludge containing dioxin, asbestos, lead, and DDT. As John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton describe in Toxic Sludge Is Good for You<\/em> (1995), industry persuaded the Environmental Protection Agency to reclassify hazardous animal waste to \u201cClass A fertilizer\u201d biosolids<\/a> so they could be dumped on fields where food is grown.<\/p>\n Rather than preserving traditions of early environmentalists, many current proponents of AltE use the terms \u201cclean\u201d and \u201crenewable\u201d to describe energy which is neither. AltE is not \u201cclean\u201d due to the many GHG emissions throughout the life cycle of all types of energy in addition to assaults on ecosystems and human health. Though the sun, wind and river power may be eternal, products that must be mined are very much exhaustible, meaning that no form of AltE is renewable.<\/p>\n An honest GND would never refer to AltE as either \u201cclean\u201d or \u201crenewable.\u201d Such a GND proposal would advocate the reduction of FFs but would not suggest a goal 0% of FFs by such-and-such a date because it is unattainable. Every type of AltE requires FFs. While it may be possible to produce some<\/strong> steel and some<\/strong> cement by AltE, it is impossible to produce massive quantities of energy for the entire world with AltE. Instead, a genuine GND would explain that the only form of clean<\/strong> energy is less<\/strong> energy and specify ways to use less energy while improving the quality of life.<\/p>\n A genuine GND would never imply that FFs are the only source of monstrously negative effects. Privileging AltE corporations over FF corporations is stating that environmental problems will be solved by choosing one clique of capitalists over another. This means that (a) if FFs should be nationalized, then all mining, milling and manufacturing processes to produced materials needed for AltE should be nationalized; and, (b) if FFs should remain in the ground, then all components for operating nuclear plants, dams, solar facilities and wind farms should also remain in the ground.<\/p>\n A Shorter Work Week for All<\/strong><\/p>\n The greatest contradiction in current versions of the GND is advocating environmental improvement while having the most massive increase in production the world has ever seen. These two goals are completely irreconcilable. A progressive GND would address this enigma via shortening the work week, which would reduce environmental damage by using less energy.<\/p>\n It is quite odd that versions of the GND call for Medicare-for-All, Housing-for-All, Student Loan Forgiveness-for-All; but none of them suggest a Shorter-Work-Week-for-All. The absence of this old progressive demand could be due to the incorrect neoliberal assumption that the best way to solve unemployment is via increased production.<\/p>\n Increased production of goods cannot create a long-term increase in employment. (It was WW II and not<\/strong> Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal<\/a> that consistently increased employment.) US production<\/a> increased 300-fold from 1913 to 2013<\/a>. If employment had increased at the same pace, everyone would be working at dozens of jobs today.<\/p>\n Unemployment increases from recent economic disruptions like the 2008 financial crisis and Covid in 2020 were due to the inability to shift work from some areas of the economy to others. A planned shrinking of the economy would require including the entire workforce in deciding to shift from negative to positive employment.<\/p>\n As the work week is reduced, every group of workers should evaluate what it does, how labor is organized, and how jobs should be redefined so that full employment is preserved. The only part of this idea which is novel is making changes democratically \u2013 job categories continuously change, with some types of work shrinking (or disappearing entirely) and other types of work expanding or coming into existence. Just as economic growth does not guarantee increases in employment, economic shrinking need not worsen unemployment if the work week is shortened.<\/p>\n However, a shorter work week will not accomplish environmental goals if it is accompanied by an \u201cintensification of labor\u201d (such as requiring workers at Amazon to handle more packages per hour or increasing class size for teachers). This means that a genuine GND requires workers\u2019 forming strong unions which have a central role in determining what is produced as well as working conditions.<\/p>\n Producing According to Need Instead of According to Profit<\/strong><\/p>\n If a core part of a GND becomes a shorter work week (without speed-up), the question naturally arises: \u201cWill lowering the amount of production result in people going without basic necessities of life?\u201d It is important to understand that production for profit causes the manufacture of goods that have no part of improving our lives.<\/p>\n Current versions of the GND are based on the neoliberal assumption that the best way to provide for necessities of life is through increased payments for purchases (ie, market economics). A progressive GND would advocate that the best way to provide the necessities of life is by guaranteeing them as human rights. This is often referred so as replacing individual wages with \u201csocial wages.\u201d For example, the neoliberal approach to healthcare is offering medical insurance while a progressive approach is to offer medical care directly (without giving a cut to insurance companies). Likewise, a neoliberal GND would offer cash for food, housing, transportation, education and other necessities while a progressive GND would provide them directly to people. Green economics must be based on making dollar amounts less important by replacing individual wages with social wages.<\/p>\n Current versions of the GND seek to provide necessities by increasing the quantity of products rather than focusing on creating things that are useful, reliable and durable. A massive increase in production is an unnecessary attack on ecosystems when there is already much more production than required to provide essentials for everyone on the planet. Needs are not being met because of production which \u2026<\/p>\n One important aspect of reducing production is often ignored. Each product manufactured must have a repairability index<\/strong>. At a minimum, criteria for the index<\/a> should include (a) availability of technical documents to aid in repair, (b) ease of disassembly, (c) availability of spare parts, (d) price of spare parts, and (e) repair issues specific to the class of products. The index should become a basis for strengthening production requirements each year. A durablility index<\/strong> should similarly be developed and strengthened annually. Since those who do the labor of manufacturing products are more likely than owners or stockholders to attain knowledge of how to make commodities that are more reliable and durable, they must have the right to make their knowledge public without repercussions from management.<\/p>\n There will always be differences of opinion regarding what is needed versus what is merely desired. A progressive GND should state how those decisions would be made. A major cause of unnecessary production is that decisions concerning what to manufacture and standards for creating them are made by investors and corporate bosses rather than community residents and workers manufacturing them. A genuine GND would confront problems regarding what is produced by involving all citizens in economic decisions, and not merely the richest.<\/p>\n Reparations!<\/strong><\/p>\n Perhaps the issue which is least likely to be linked to the GND is reparations to poor communities in Africa, Latin America, and Asia who have been victims of Western imperialism for 500 years. This connection forces us to ask: \u201cSince most minerals necessary for AltE lie in poor countries, will rich countries continue to plunder their resources, exterminate what remains of indigenous cultures, force inhabitants to work for a pittance, jail and kill those who resist, destroy farmland, and leave the country a toxic wasteland for generations to come?\u201d<\/p>\n For example, plans to massively expand electric vehicles (EVs) undermine the vastly more sustainable approach of urban redesign for walkable\/cyclable communities. Plans would result in manufacturing EVs for the rich world while poor and working class communities would suffer from the extraction of lithium<\/a>, cobalt and dozens of other materials required for these cars.<\/p>\n Africa may be the most mineral-rich continent. In addition to cobalt<\/a> from the Democratic Republic of the Congo for EVs, Mali<\/a> is the source of 75% of the uranium for French nukes, Zambia<\/a> is mined for copper for AltE and hundreds of other minerals are taken from dozens of African countries.<\/p>\n If there are to be agreements involving corporations seeking minerals for AltE, who will those agreements be with? Will the agreements be between the ultra-rich owners of the Western empire and its puppet governments? Or, will extraction agreements be with villages and communities which will be most affected by removal of minerals for the production of energy?<\/p>\n\n
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