Don't Count on Capitalism to Defeat Climate Change

Capitalist states, by their nature, protect their own interests — not collective ones. Is there still hope? 

Salon  https://www.salon.com/2019/10/19/dont-count-on-capitalism-to-defeat-climate-change/

October 19, 2019

The bad news just keeps coming.  Again and again, science-based studies uncover increasing evidence that the planet is headed toward unfathomable disaster.

In the last year alone, we have seen publication of the US National Climate Assessment’s Fourth NationalClimate report,  the UN Global Sustainable Development report (“The Future is Now”), the US NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration report, the World Meteorological Association report onAccelerating Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on Climate Change and Land and Ocean and Cryosphere, the Science Advisory Group to the UN Climate Action Summit’s report “United in Science,” to say nothing of countless articles in science journals warning that catastrophe lies ahead.

As “United in Science" put it, current efforts need to be “roughly tripled to be aligned with the 2^o C goal and increased fivefold to align with the 1.5^o C goal” adopted by the 2016 Paris Agreement (emphasis added).”

Hence we are confronted by the damage already resulting from climate change: more intense and frequent extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods, droughts, forest fires, and heat waves; rising sea levels that threaten the homes, lives and livelihoods of millions of people; and melting ice caps and permafrost, among others.

The consensus among science-based reports is that the path ahead is far worse: widespread food and water scarcity, increased exposure to diseases and allergic illnesses, economic decline, and damage to the “infrastructure, ecosystems, and social systems that provide essential benefits to communities.”

As Noam Chomsky put it, “To describe these challenges as ‘extremely severe’ would be an error. The phrase does not capture the enormity of the kinds of challenges that lie ahead.”

We can observe three kinds of responses to the crisis of climate change.  First, activism on a global scale is clearly on the rise, commonly led by young people who will bear the greatest burden of climate change.

Millions participated the global Climate Strike on September 20.  530 groups from around the world signed on to the Lofoten Declaration calling for rapid phasing out of fossil fuels.

One of the signers, the Extinction Rebellion, has mobilized two weeks of dramatic direct action and civil disobedience in cities from New York and Philadelphia to London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam, Toronto and Sydney: from traffic blockades to rallies, marches, and street theatre to throwing red paint on Wall Street’s bull statue.  Some 200 young mothers marched from Westminster to 10 Downing Street where they engaged in a Nurse-In, nursing the babies they seek to protect from climate disaster.

Second, most nations of the world, many states and localities within the United States, even some corporations and the US military, now recognize that the world faces a profound challenge.  Several governments have taken preliminary steps toward altering their emissions, and even more have pledged to do so.

In contrast to the energy of the Climate Strike and the warnings of the UN Science Advisory Group warning, the UN Climate Action Summit produced only modest pledges from a minority of nations.

These steps remain woefully inadequate if the world is to avoid a cataclysmic outcome.

Why this relative inaction in the face of global catastrophe?  The vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the world’s developed capitalist economies, with China and the US leading the way.  By contrast, people in nations that have the least impact on climate change are most vulnerable to the worst of its effects.

This climate injustice is only one manifestation of the inequalities and injustices built into the capitalist powers’ imperial exploitation of the “under-developed” world.  In the late Immanuel Wallerstein’s framework, the core capitalist powers compete with each other for dominance in exploiting the resources of the underdeveloped periphery nations.

Consequently, each of the capitalist powers is loathe to weaken its competitive position vis à vis the other capitalist economies.  In a capitalist world, each economic unit must act to protect what it deems its own interests.  The only counterweight comes from the public sector.

Yet in a capitalist world, each public authority — local, state or national government — is constrained by the fear that pushing public interests too far will cause capital flight, thereby undermining its viability.  And, of course, corporations and the wealthy dominate the shaping of public policy — nowhere more than in the US.

This is the way capitalism works, which suggests how profound and systemic the changes will have to be if the world is to avoid catastrophe.

Are Climate Obstructionists Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity

The Morning Call 

https://www.mcall.com/opinion/mc-opi-climate-change-global-warming-inaction-lehigh-20191002-es24we2c25hk3fift5acwdzrpa-story.html

Oct 02, 2019
 
[Photo] Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks as she takes part during the Climate Strike on Sept. 20 in New York. Tens of thousands of protesters joined rallies on Friday as a day of worldwide demonstrations calling for action against climate change began ahead of a U.N. summit in New York. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP) 
 

Alarming reports from a wide variety of science-based and international studies keep coming, warning us of disasters that lie ahead if the world fails to make massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Again and again, we are confronted by the damage that is already resulting from climate change: more intense and frequent extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, forest fires and heat waves; rising sea levels that threaten the homes, lives and livelihoods of millions of people; and melting ice caps and permafrost, among others.

The consensus among science-based reports is that the path ahead is far worse: widespread food and water scarcity, increased exposure to diseases and allergic illnesses, economic decline, and damage to the “infrastructure, ecosystems, and social systems that provide essential benefits to communities.”

As Noam Chomsky put it, “To describe these challenges as ‘extremely severe’ would be an error. The phrase does not capture the enormity of the kinds of challenges that lie ahead….”

Recognizing this, on Sept. 20, millions of people around the world engaged in a “Climate Strike,” the largest climate protest in history.

On Sept. 22, the Science Advisory Group to the U.N. Climate Action Summit released its grim “synthesis of latest climate change scientific information,” warning that current efforts to lower global emissions need to be “roughly tripled to be aligned with the 2-degree Celsius goal and increased fivefold to align with the 1.5-degree Celsius goal” adopted by the 2016 Paris Agreement.

On Sept. 23, the U.N. Climate Action Summit was addressed by the young Swedish activist, Greta

Thunberg, who declared in a trembling voice, “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

Despite the dire urgency for action, the Climate Action Summit produced only modest pledges from a minority of nations. Not surprisingly, the United States was silent. President Trump did not participate in the summit, instead declaring at a separate U.N. gathering, “The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots. The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations.”

There are two fundamental issues here.

Venezuela: The Big Lie [my title]

Your View: Media provides a distorted portrayal of Venezuela

By Ted Morgan

The Morning Call

https://www.mcall.com/opinion/mc-opi-venezuela-america-20190416-3igb3xzmendcxeynbvujxi4coy-story.html

Apr 16, 2019

[Photo selected by the Morning Call:] Supporters of opposition leader Juan Guaido march on April 6, 2019, in Caracas, Venezuela to protest outages that left most of the country scrambling for days in the dark. (Natacha Pisarenko/AP)

Backed by a chorus of U.S. corporate media singing in unison, the Trump administration has prepared the American people to believe that the United States is going to do whatever it takes to rescue the suffering people of Venezuela from their despotic and incompetent ruler, Nicolás Maduro.

The media behavior is quite stunning really, unless you happen to recall that the national media always respond this way when government propaganda prepares the public for a U.S. war or other form of intervention — from Vietnam and Central America to Afghanistan, Iraq, and many others.

From Fox News on the right spewing Trumpian rhetoric about the “failed socialism” of Venezuela to the New York Times, MSNBC and New Yorker on the so-called “left” side of the spectrum, the media have been cheerleading for what amounts to a Big Lie from this and previous administrations. Anyone wishing to examine the media chorus can check the media watch-dog www.fair.org and review any of its few dozen articles that document mass media coverage on Venezuela.

Let us first acknowledge that, yes, the Maduro administration, and to a lesser degree its predecessor under Hugo Chavez, has been increasingly authoritarian, suppressing opposition forces. Arguably, too, there has been mismanagement of the state-owned oil producer (PDVSA) and corruption among government officials. And, although the reasons are understandable, Chavez erred in failing to diversify Venezuela’s economy when oil was such a rich resource.

But we need to be clear about a few things. This is not about authoritarian government in Venezuela.

The United States has over the decades supported scores of authoritarian regimes — consider, for example, that bastion of human rights, Saudi Arabia. Readers might check William Blum’s documentation of case after case in his book, “Killing Hope.” This is not about bringing democracy to Venezuela. And very importantly, it is not about bringing aid to the suffering people of Venezuela.

No, instead, the U.S. has engaged in economic warfare against Venezuela going back into the Barack Obama administration, and, prior to that, staged a brief coup against Chavez during the George W. Bush years. Donald Trump has sharply escalated the U.S. effort to strangle the Venezuelan economy through devastating sanctions and a financial embargo.

For U.S. policymakers, the Venezuelan government’s cardinal sin has for years been that, in defiance of the United States, it used its ample oil revenue to provide the Venezuelan poor and working classes with a better life while also providing aid to other Latin American governments to free them from the boot of “Yankee Imperialism,” i.e., centuries of U.S. hegemony over “our backyard.”

As documented by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, poverty and extreme poverty declined precipitously under Chavez. Inequality, unemployment and infant mortality all fell significantly. The economy nearly doubled and the private sector grew faster than the public sector.

After Chavez’s death, global oil prices dropped radically, severely straining the Venezuelan economy. Then, claiming Venezuela was “an extraordinary threat to U.S. national security,” the Obama administration imposed sanctions that made it more difficult for Venezuela to attract investment and financing.

Meanwhile, the U.S. actively supported opposition groups through the so-called National Endowment for Democracy, a government funded organization with a record of working for regime change in “unfriendly” countries. Along with other opposition groups, the U.S. was grooming a young right-winger named Juan Guaido to this end.

The five separate Trump administration sanction orders have all but eliminated Venezuela’s ability to produce oil for export in order to provide revenue for public needs. Indeed, the nation’s economy is being strangled, and food and medicine shortages are increasing public desperation. Hence, the U.S. named Guaido as Venezuela’s “legitimate” interim president and announced $20 million in U.S. “humanitarian aid.”

The media provided unending visuals to back up administration claims about the heartless Maduro blocking aid for his people — what was in fact a publicity stunt designed to wean military supporters away from Maduro.

I believe the real aims of U.S. policy toward Venezuela are: 1) to gain control over Venezuelan oil reserves, the largest in the world, 2) to reassert U.S. domination over all of Latin America, after bringing about rightist regimes in Honduras, Brazil and Paraguay, and 3) to ensure that other nations do not seek a form of economic development independent of the U.S. neoliberal model.

[Links to press reports and the words "I believe" added by the Morning Call.]

Ted Morgan is emeritus professor of political science at Lehigh University and the author most recently of “What Really Happened to the 1960s: How Mass Media Culture Failed American Democracy.”