Where is the global warming Left?

Perhaps "Left", as in left-wing, is not the right word, but sometimes I feel like Erasmus, looking for a group that comes at global warming, peak oil, global ecological crises in general from a radical point of view. By "radical" I mean "root", as in getting to the root of the problem, and I don't mean a blanket condemnation of capitalism, and I also don't mean going back 1,000 years technologically while most of the planet dies. As can be seen at the top of this blog, I'm looking for concrete solutions. And so, we have the interesting spectacle of Counterpunch.

After two columns blasting global warming, we can, I feel, simply skip the scientific arguments he makes (there are probably better global warming skeptics elsewhere, and for a good place for anti-anti-global warming arguments, see "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic" at Grist, and realclimate.org recently had a response to Cockburn's first piece). Now Jeffrey St.Clair, an excellent environmental investigative journalist, and Cockburn's co-editor of Counterpunch, has also come forth with his take on global warming, which is pretty much opposite to his co-editor.

However, they are both interesting in terms of the problems they ascertain facing global warming movements. If you skip past the scientific discussion in Cockburn's pieces, and combine it with St. Clairs, you can see the rudiments of a Left critique of the global warming movement, but still they don't seem to want to come up with what it is we should do. Herewith, my best shot at their list of, shall we say, concerns:

1) Global warming concern could lead to a new lease on life for nuclear power. Al Gore and others sort of mumble about nukes under their breath, and used to scream a bit from the rooftops. Tony Blair manages to mangle his own concern about global warming by pushing nuclear power, and what do you know, Margaret Thatcher did the same (she also hated coal workers). I'm not too worried about this, because I think nuclear power has so many problems it's not going to be easy. Although, amid an alleged win for the environment, when the Texan utility was bought by KKR and canceled all but two of 11 proposed coal-powered plants, they turned around and announced they were going to build 2 nukes instead. We shall see, but uranium may be just as peak-ish as oil

2) The corporados are making hay with carbon trading. This is a big problem, and all kinds of hanky-panky is going on, globally (Adam Stein at the Gristmill blog seems to have a good focus on this).

3) Biofuels (Ban the Biofuels, anyone?). This is a huge boondoggle, I have a blog on it below, there may be a "tipping point" emerging against this one. However -- if gasoline gets very expensive, people won't care, so global warming activists should combine peak oil with their analysis so that they are not side-swiped when oil starts to run out.

4) "Clean coal". John Kerry likes this one, so there must be something wrong with it. I remember being very taken with this, but now it sounds like another boondoggle, and it would require a huge commitment in resources, which could be better used for solar, wind, etc.

5) The big environmentalists aren't doing shit. If you look at all of their sites, most of their advice on global warming starts with, "Things you can do", in other words, no collective action, no legislation even, no government-led programs, not much of anything. If you look around their sites, it certainly looks like there are some things they are doing right, but I have a feeling that they have a certain problem: if they get out in front of too many of their 100s of 1000s of supporters, they'll lose some, therefore, they aren't going to do it. Much less corporate donors. So, to return to the beginning of this post, there doesn't seem to be any large organization that is trying to get to the root of global problems.

The case of biofuels

One of the themes of this blog will be that we must think holistically about the world's problems, that they are all interconnected, and that if we think about them separately, the world system as a whole may suffer. Exhibit number one is the case of biofuels. As discussed in an article from the British newspaper the Guardian, entitled "Global Rush To Energy Crops Threatens To Bring Food Shortages and Increase Poverty, Says UN", the poor and the ecosystems of the world could easily be greatly harmed by the rush to biofuels. According to the article, already 1/3 of the corn crop of the U.S. is goin to ethanol production, which by the way requires an enormous amount of fossil fuels, and in particular natural gas, for its production.

By trying to solve the global warming and "energy security" problems, the problems of poverty -- and agriculture -- and deforestation are being made worse. Even more tragically, carbon emissions may be increased, since deforestation for palm oil production in Indonesia has made that country the third greatest generator of greenhouse gases on the planet, as the peat bogs are burned in that country (China and the U.S. are first and second -- not clear who is first at this point).

Another problem that could be "solved" by biofuels is the problem of peak oil, of the slow decline of output of oil globally. So peak oil solutions must also look at poverty and deforestation problems that could result from so-called "solutions".

The basic problem is this: something like 98% of fuel for transportation, at least in the U.S., derives from oil. In particular, cars and trucks use about 70% of our oil. Since, God forbid, nobody wants to move away from the use of cars and trucks, as gasoline becomes more expensive, oil-addicted societies like the U.S. won't care how they get their fuel. They'll fight wars for it, they'll let people starve to get it, they'll destroy what's left of the forests if it means that they can maintain the suburbs and highways. This is why it is essential to 1) propose programs for real renewables, solar, wind, geothermal, microhydro, but not biofuels; 2) Create rail systems that can use the electricity, because electric cars won't be able to replace the fast, heavy, long-distance automobiles we have now; 3) recreate town and city centers so that people can walk or use trains, instead of driving for shopping, seeing friends and relatives, going to school, to work, to think, to love, to do frickin' every-frickin' thing.

This three-pronged approach solves the peak oil problem, the climate change problem, saves forests, and if applied planet-wide, would develop poor countries without destroying them ecologically. The last piece in this puzzle is replacing the "Green Revolution" of dumping huge amounts of fossil fuels on agricultural land with intensive/permaculture/local/organic agriculture, so that poor people and rich people can eat decently.

For a good guide to the ills of biofuels, see "Peak Soil: Why biofuels are not sustainable and a threat to America's National Security". For a good discussion of a national rail policy, also at DailyKos, see "ENERGIZE AMERICA: The High Speed Passenger Rail Act, Draft 1 ". Harvey Wasserman and James Howard Kunstler are two high-profile intellectuals that understand the importance of trains replacing cars.