a Marxist critique of the Green New Deals and Extinction Rebellion

Selling Extinction is a short introduction to the capitalist notion of a “Green New Deal”, the NGOs that support it and the recent Extinction Rebellion protests in London.’

Given its length (24 mins) I’ve done a very rushed transcript of the first 7 mins or so, then some of what’s mentioned past the half-way mark, to perhaps entice you to watch in case videos of this length are as agonizing to sit through as they are to  me.  Dunno how many sessions it took me to finish…

“there is a great strangeness and tragedy in greeting our historical moment, and yet…it cannot be avoided. we are today living in the sixth mass extinction…and may lead to the end of the human species, moreover: t is urgent.  an oct. 2018 UN report that we have but twelve years left for preventing the situation to becoming irreversible. these are the end times.  the top 100 companies in the world produced over 70% of global emissions since 1988.”

[Not included per se is  amerika’s war, inc.™ which has the largest carbon footprint on the planet.]

“these facts indicate the reality: profits come first.  the destruction of our environment is entirely the result of capitalist imperialism.  that is: monopoly capitalism dominated by finance capital; it is structurally incapable of considering anything other than profit.this reality is clearly expressed by the ambitions of factions of the ruling class who believe it is possible to make a ‘Green Capitalism’.  whether motivated by ego or simple incomprehension, it cannot be said, but one thing is clear: with the human species being confronted by extinction…capitalists can only see opportunity. Down with capitalist New Deal.  In 2007 a largely british group of NGO and financial directors, along with the economic editor of the Guardian and the green party MP, caroline lucas, formed the green new deal group to argue for a restructuring of capitalism.  their first report published in 2008 by the new economics foundation outlined the fundamentals of a green new deal.”

[Neweconomics.org: Why ​‘net zero emissions by 2050’ needs a Green New Deal]

“in essence, the proposal seeks to restore profitability to the capitalist system by destroying the fossil fuel industry and opening up new investments in green jobs, as well as destroying masses of capital by the break-up of big banks.

in various iterations of the deal, this is complemented by what is known as ‘the payments for ecosystems services system’, which argues that this new round of investment by the valuation of natural assets.  that is: the privatization and financialization of the whole sphere of the globe.  whilst the report and the literature surrounding it correctly identify that neoliberal globalization is ended, its understanding of this phenomenon is profoundly incorrect.  throughout their writing, the green new deal group argue that what is required is a return to the economic thought of keyenesianism and roosevelt.   this…is a dead end.

roosevelt’s new deal did not restore profitability to the capitalist system, nor end the great depression.  profitable reinvestment was allowed during the post-war boom precisely because of the violent destruction of the over-accumulated capital across particularly europe and japan during the wars, and the depressed wages left in fascism’s wake.  with the return of the imperialist countries the crisis conditions in 1974, the ransacking of the state under  neoliberalism and the redivision of the world (among) competing imperial powers following the collapse of the soviet union in 1991.  the economic conditions that we face today are more akin to those that preceded the wars than those that followed them.
Down with great power competition.”

At about 12 mins, the film makers discuss the Extinction Rebellion, including the organizer’s plans, the class structure of the protests, its monetization including XR business as per a letter in the Times.  They also indict the organizers for leaving those arrested or harmed by the police as having been pretty much hung out to dry, and charging them with collaboration with the Metro police, all while noting that the activists themselves are right in their dreams of a new world.  Left out of all discussions is the fact that the UK green new deal admitted that aside from their mobilizations, only Cuba, a socialist nation, has policies makes it the only sustainable nation on the earth, although the reasons for that have been left out of the discussions.

For further reading:

‘Trees don’t grow on money – or why you don’t get to rebel against extinction’, timhayward.com, April 29, 2019
…in which he delves into XR’s two demands for ‘halting biodiversity loss and reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025, and what they really mean…and don’t mean.

On XR business: ‘Green business leaders rally in support of Extinction Rebellion’, April 23, 2019-05-03 (I can’t get into Jeremy Leggett’s piece at the Times)

Green Anti-Capitalist Front, Climate Struggle Is Class Struggle, which includes their brief manifesto.

Climate Activism has been Madison Avenue Indigenized

and infanitlized, as Red Kahina had said, but I’d add: also future utopia ID politicized, as well as ‘Wise Indun-ized.’ Remember that AOC’s Green New Dream extols Net-Zero emissions, public/private partnerships, as well as market solutions like carbon credits, carbon offsets, and big business loves: carbon capture and storage, and makes appeals for the plan w/ ID politics, over and over. But hey: ‘we had all the technology!’

ach, there's more related stuff, but that's enough to digest (or not) for now. i might bring more in comments; we'll see.

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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lotlizard's picture

at what she calls the “non-profit industrial complex” and how Greta Thunberg etc. is being used to manufacture consent for the next multi-trillion dollar bailout.

http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/01/17/the-manufacturing-of-greta-th...

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

and thank you. that's caused a major contretemps on twitter, especially a war of tweets with george monbiot (added later: and media lens). these are hard things to want to learn for so many, but i'll say that the series i'd done here on compromised NGOs was mainly courtesy of cory morningstar. after i'd covered the G-8 sustainability conference in Rio in 2012 twice, i was thrilled to read her take on it, plus her rant against climate god bill mckibben at counterpunch.

on edit: if the world had allowed the indigenous into the Big Rio Conference, but no, they'd had to hold side meetings, things might be different now. their understanding of climate chaos was all about capitalism, and it was they who'd first taught me the evils of the system: capitalism exists to accrue more wealth for some, whatever it takes.

thanks, miz lizard.

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

cory's twitter account is insanely jammed by now, but there are other similar capitalist climate mobilization afoot; i had two others for the OP, but they wouldn't format correctly on my wordpress site, so i'd jettisoned them:

and i'd been having some email discussions with john steppling over much of this, plus those selling the 'over-population as the cause' (that's for another diary), and he'd wondered 'why is the emergency climate mobilization now? is the science incontrovertible? i offered that as long as the Deals are increasingly capital friendly, the time is right. and yes, we believe too quickly in 'science', even biased science, bought and paid for science, and peer-reviewed; all can lead us astray.

but myself, i think it's far too late for even capitalist mobilizations and Green Deals to make a fig of difference by now; whole big world of carbon out there!

and miz ocasio's helping it along. ; )

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wendy davis's picture

@wendy davis

john steppling had asked if i might read his latest: Dis-Order, but it was too much for me, so i gave his earlier 'Nature is Unnatural', and i could grasp some of it, esp. the many human penchants foot for end times, emergencies, etc. and the multi-disciplinary threads he weaves together: philosophy, literature, art, film, psychology, quotations...are sadly so often beyond my intellectual heft. his essays are always long, although morningstar's are far longer, and hard to link to, as her Parts I-VI, say, don't stand alone to link to.

kinda wish counterpunch still carried her stuff.

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snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

What is going on – is a rebooting of a stagnant capitalist economy, that needs new markets – new growth – in order to save itself. What is being created is a mechanism to unlock approximately 90 trillion dollars for new investments and infrastructure. What is going on is the creation of, and investment in, perhaps the biggest behavioural change experiment yet attempted, global in scale. And what are the deciding factors in what behaviours global society should adhere to? And more importantly, who decides? This is a rhetorical question as we know full well the answer: the same Western white male saviours and the capitalist economic system they have implemented globally that has been the cause of our planetary ecological nightmare. This crisis continues unabated as they appoint themselves (yet again) as the saviours for all humanity – a recurring problem for centuries.

I haven't been paying much attention to this Greta person and what she has been doing, but I never thought that it was this. Just goes to show that I'm still not being cynical enough about how we're being constantly manipulated.

Nea

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Greta poster.jpg

Hello all, I'm new here. I jump around the internet, have visited this site before on occasion, to read. I don't comment anywhere much. Touch and go. I hope my comment is not seen as an intrusion.

The headline of this post, and the mention of Greta Thunberg caught my attention. I agree that using capitalism as a solution to climate change is basically using the same toxic global economic approach that caused the problem to begin with. I am among those who agree with scientists such as Peter Wadhams, Paul Beckwith, Sam Carana, even Guy McPherson, and many others who think we may be much more quickly reaching NTHE (near term human extinction). Some of these (ex. McPherson) think it is already too late, that within a short period of a couple of years we may face abrupt, runaway climate change no matter what we do to reverse the trends. Capitalism will not save us. Many scientists believe that the IPCC, despite their alarming recent report, is far too optimistic, basing their prognoses on models that leave out the consequences of reinforcing feedback mechanisms such as melting permafrost, erupting methane, global dimming, and many other identified feedback loops.

Most of us on the left know that capitalism as a solution will fall short and will not be enough to stop this looming crisis that has put all of biological life on the precipice, on the verge of going over the cliff in possibly just a few years. Capitalism will utterly fail and we will not survive if we don't act with an enormous global response. Capitalistic solutions won't be the massive collective global effort that we need. The situation is that dire. We have a climate emergency.

Activists who know this are right to be disgusted by the typical neoliberal approach suggested by people who fail to understand that we are facing a dangerous crisis that needs an immediate all-out emergency-level response. We don't have much time if any at all.

Having said this, and with Cory Morningstar's views in mind, what does the world look like from the perspective of a highly intelligent, aware autistic teenager who sees with painful, alarming accuracy (common to autistics) that nothing is being done to save her future? She's a person who will be around to see the worst climate change predictions come true before her eyes. And she gets it. I think Greta Thunberg deserves a great deal of credit for a sixteen year old, who became so depressed at age 11 – because she learned about how dire climate change is – that she stopped eating, dangerously lost weight to such a severe degree that her growth was stunted, and became selectively mute (a trait of some autistics -- only managing to speak in certain cases of strong need). All of this because of what she read about climate change.

This intense reaction on her part is authentic and real. She didn't go through this depression at age eleven because of NGOs or entrepreneurs or people wanting a green new deal. Those of us who have followed her history know this. Autistics (as she has said) sometimes have an ability to see things with stark black and white, extremely sharp clarity, cutting through the distracting superficiality that clogs typical thinking processes.

She is terrified of the future. She knows she may not have a future at all. This is what motivates her, not capitalist entrepreneurship. They may want to have her speak at their events, they may want to be photographed with her, but she speaks with her own voice and is very much her own person. The idea an autistic person is so easily used, as if lacking in intellect, is buying into Hollywood/media stereotypes that are insulting to real people like Greta. Some austistics are so naturally independent they couldn't conform even if they wanted to. Many are gifted and highly intelligent with excellent pattern recognition. Greta is such a person.

I've read Cory Morningstar's series on Greta months ago on another site. Greta has answered the critics like Morningstar with this lengthy rebuttal.

Her response is worth a read for those who've believed Cory Morningstar's poorly sourced accusations (read through her series looking for evidence, and you'll notice she has few if any cited substantiations), but who didn't read Greta's story in her own voice.

Greta is a kid. She's scared for good reason. She isn't an ideologue (yet!), not a Marxist, not promoting strongly this or that agenda (aside from wanting climate change to be quickly and effectively controlled), not advocating a capitalistic response, per se, just a person who knows her future is being stolen from her and she sees no reason to go to school when people en mass are failing her and failing to educate themselves. So she strikes, and this was entirely her own idea, even going against her parents wishes (despite the made-up claims). Whichever groups have tried to hitch their wagon to her cause do not speak for her. She speaks for herself.

Even worse than Morninstar's undeserved polemics against Greta are attacks in Europe from the rabid right wing who have the audacity to assail her autism, that she's too young, anything they can throw at her. It seems people want to use her name to advance their polemics from all sides. All of this to discredit a mere sixteen year old girl. But she defies them with her independence. Even if she were to, here and there, tell her story before an audience that wants to use her, and even if she is photographed on occasion with the "wrong elements", her presence, her story, her powerful voice, is such a force that it soars above the rhetoric and is not easily bent to the purposes of others. She means what she says.

Let's hope she continues this way, with this defiant stance, into what future is still left for her in a sick and dying biosphere. We need to act. Now. I would hope that before any of you respond, read Greta's story, read her parents' narrative, see the world from her view, watch her TED talk. If you disagree, fine, but we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Greta is a gift to us.

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The Sixth Mass Extinction is occurring now, in our time. The situation is dire. We must act to avert the worst of what is to come, and it may already be too late.

@sixthmassextinction
Make yourself at home and please continue participating. I belieeve you have much to offer to the community here.

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@JtC Thank you.

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The Sixth Mass Extinction is occurring now, in our time. The situation is dire. We must act to avert the worst of what is to come, and it may already be too late.

travelerxxx's picture

@sixthmassextinction

Thank-you for your thoughtful comment.

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Cassiodorus's picture

The Green New Deal suffers from a vast deficit of imagination. It is Back To Keynes because they can't think of anything better, and it's Vote for the Democrat because they can't imagine a new political party and they can't imagine any political structure other than the existing one (yes despite the example of the Zapatistas). I'm sure that in the UK it's Vote for Labour, same deal, trust in the existing system. Do some protest, get arrested, get some publicity for who knows what.

That having been said, it's probably not the case that all supporters of the Green New Deal and of XR are merely trying to extend the lifespan of the capitalist system. A lot of them probably don't see any better choices given the smorgasbord of alienated labor that the capitalist system presents them. It's the same old bargain, right? Work to avoid death.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

wendy davis's picture

@Cassiodorus

how to your comment, partially because i dunno if you'd watched the video. but the film makers did note, as i'd crappily transcribed, that not all those participating and hung out to dry still have a good dream, they just need to challenge the organizers in several ways, including XR as a capitalist business model and supporting the ones who get beat up by the po-po in their 'non-violent activism'. the green anticapitalist front reckons the situation's so dire that 'direct action' is necessary.

but the new green deal in the film was a UK gig. i haven't seen their entire treatise, though there's a pdf there, arrrrrgh.

dunno many besides you and myself, cass, who admire the zapatistas so well. as a side note, they are not high on AMLO, but telesur english sure is. ; )

an yes, there are endless photos of greta with jeremy corbin. and bavaria has declared the climate a crisis, and would they all would have mobilized at least back in 2012, but Now Is the Emergency because: capital investments, i guess.

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Big Al's picture

Saw where Trump was supposed to meet last Wed with some "experts" to discuss whether to form a committee or something to study government data/information on climate change. Included those who think the CO2 level should be even higher because the higher levels are making the planet greener, etc. Don't know if he had it or what became of it, probably nothing, a bone thrown to his base maybe. But battle lines are being drawn while evidently we're all going to die in 12 years, effectively anyway.

The one thing that occurs to me with the 12 year thing is how fucking ridiculous it is to think the human race could actually pull off something like that in 12 years, if indeed it is necessary. I mean, if it really is true, then just hand out the champagne and let's party like it's 1999.

I know one thing, I wouldn't trust Al Gore as far as I could throw him. And I've got a bad shoulder. That's all I got.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

lol; that's plenty. iirc, it was cassiodorus who'd noted how many carbon projects were still extant in (the world? in the USA?) as well as in the future, but yep, even tim hayard (in the OP were squawking about the chemtrail sort of 'intentional' geoengineering for fun and profit, not this 'we can save the planet' sort. bless his heart, he hadn't responded.

hold the phone: it's usually rather 'saving the human species''; me, i could give a fart. i'd let a new evolutionary model commence from the cockroaches and dolphins who'll possibly survive the planetary apocalypse. our betters will be on another planet, and orbiting the earth in space; hello elon musk and/or cryofreezing. ; ) same for 'survivable limited nuclear war' some claim to believe in.

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Big Al's picture

@wendy davis but discussing "global warming" on a progressive blog is like discussing border control with conservatives. So I've tended to steer clear of asking questions, which this issue is full of.
I mean, as issues go, it's right up there, and the big picture is as complicated as it gets. So I've got lots of opinions.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

on your opinions, and it's unlikely that i'd be able to answer any of your questions. mr. wd and i last night were kicking around my belief that there's no way to clean up the oceans by now, and the more full of rotting plastic, spilled oil and leaked nuclear waste, the darker they get and the more heat they absorb. as the glaciers melt (the source of stored fresh water) the rivers below dry up as well.

so whether it's actually the increase of carbon ppm (post industrial world) as the cause of planetary warming...yeah, i think it is, but there sure are any number of peeps who deny it. but it's certainly not the only way humans have ruined the biosphere of this once big blue-green ball of a planet.

but of one thing i am sure: you don't fix the ruination caused by capitalism...with capitalist solutions such as in this second demand of XR's (from hayward's piece above:

"And how is biodiversity loss to be offset?[5] Here comes the familiar moves: in order to weigh the loss in one place against a putative gain in another they must be subjected to a common scheme of measurement. Biodiversity being something of value, the way to record how much value any instance of it has is taken to be by reference to monetary price. Hence we learn that ‘biodiversity conservation and the related concept of “natural capital” are becoming mainstream. For instance, the Natural Capital Coalition is developing the economic case for valuing natural ecosystems and includes buy-in from some of the biggest players in business, accountancy and consulting. And the financial industry is moving toward more responsible investing."

from that coalition's site:

'No One Wants To Put A Price On Nature, But We Do Need A Better Understanding Of Its Value'

'David Attenborough: Do Not Waste Nature's 'Capital':

“Financial systems have a lot in common with natural world systems. Both are economies,” Attenborough said Thursday during the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

“If you deal with your investment… it’s fine if you can take the profit, you take the investment, but you wouldn’t be so silly as to eat into the capital. But that is what we’re doing with the natural world all the time.”

The BAFTA winner and long-time presenter of BBC wildlife documentaries spoke with IMF chief Christine Lagarde…”

and he's another one (besides bill gates) who claims that the problem is over-populations, most especially in...africa. ecosocialists are quick to point out his carbon footprint is easily twelve times larger than any african citizens.

but what i think is that the XR protestors don't know is that their two demands, net zero carbon and net zero lost of biodiversity...are meaningless, as those market solutions are foisted onto poorer nations.

i'll add more about nations having declared 'climate emergencies' that at the bottom, as well as a few other freaky-deaky crap from XR organizers.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@wendy davis I read your links, I think. No one wants to put a price on nature, probably because no one wants to buy nature outside of the nice folks who want to manufacture commodities out of it. In my essay here, password AddletonAP2009 to see the PDF, I argue that a whole field of "environmental accounting" has been created to reduce environmental concepts to accounting concepts so as to make environmentalism comprehensible to capitalist egos. Tim Hayward seems rather slack-jawed at environmental accounting, as in "why do they think they can do this?"

In fact, I think we could one-up environmental accounting -- let's introduce a new field in the universities, we'll call it Ego Science -- it will specialize in the manufacture of new pseudo-sciences to please capitalist egos. So for instance we have the species of hokum called "evolutionary psychology," in which essential qualities of the brain and cultural determinants of behavior are ignored in an attempt to draw a straight line between genes and behavior. In real life, it constitutes a love letter from Steven Pinker to Bill Gates or something like that.

Anyway, going back to environmental accounting, the magical qualities of money, such as are discussed by Karl Marx in Chapter 1 of Volume 1 of Capital, are conjured by entities such as Extinction Rebellion and by politicians in proposals such as the Green New Deal, to suggest that paying a capitalist will solve our environmental ills. And so people support politicians and get arrested so as to establish new circuits of capital. Yes of course. I have one request: let's keep the focus upon the twisted logic used by the promoters of this stuff. The proposals themselves are a damned sight better than anything Trump and his syndicate buddies can suggest; it's the logic that needs to be relentlessly attacked. More than anything else people need to be able to think clearly while reading or hearing this nonsense.

Think, for instance, of all the times you've heard or read that alternative energy will solve climate change problems, and you've wanted to say: no, funding the manufacturing of alternative energy products gives the capitalists a chance to create slightly less onerous climate change problems while supplementing the fossil energy that causes the more onerous climate change problems. Or all this stuff about "reducing emissions" without mention of the problem of keeping the grease in the ground. Let's see: you're going to ask a few privileged actors to reduce their emissions, while oil production increases every year. People need an easy guide to deciphering all the hooey that's out there.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

wendy davis's picture

@Cassiodorus

here. i'll have to respond in parts, as weekends a chore-heavy. but first, tim hayward's no ingenue, and he may not have hit the idea hard enough for some, but his dissection worked fin for me and for the wrong kind of green collective. ; )

second, it was he who'd featured the Natural Capital Coalition, and i'd jest grabbed those two titles, and of course they want to quantify the value, and lie about it their own interests, to boot. also, it's not keyenesian economics when governments partner with private banks, 'bidness alternative energy' investors, and hedge funds, such as in AOC's new deal, and i'll readily admit that i grew bored to tears reading the UK green new deal's treatise pdf, but it's similar, and oh, my: do they love hers! theirs neglects 'climate change as a force multiplier', though (defense dept. language, wtf?).

your ego sciences paragraph riff is funny stuff, though. maybe you'll cause it to go viral?

i cannot say that i'll ever heed this request of yours, though:

"I have one request: let's keep the focus upon the twisted logic used by the promoters of this stuff. The proposals themselves are a damned sight better than anything Trump and his syndicate buddies can suggest; it's the logic that needs to be relentlessly attacked. More than anything else people need to be able to think clearly while reading or hearing this nonsense."

what does trump even have to do with such critiques, please? if these (hidden) capital cons don't get exposed over and over again, why do we even are about critical thinking skills? i wish i could think of a proper analogy to that request, but i'm answering once again in too much necessary haste.

and yes few apply their critical thinking skills to what the external carbon costs are to windmills, solar panels (esp. batteries that often require pillaging african nations to obtain, or the sources of power for their plug-in electric cars. but the greens and XR are speaking not of 'few emissions', but of net-zero emissions', and net-zero loss of biodiversity, which market techniques and CCS never end fossil fuel use, but noone notice that.

same for 'renewable energy' which breezes right by that much of that is 'not sustainable', like biofuels, no? anyway, hate to bitch and run, but...i gotta go. i'll try to look at your thesis later, but i can't swear ill have tie if it's long. slow reader here.

you also might look down-thread at ‘Keith Baker – Paying for your sins: Why carbon offsetting is not a serious approach to climate change’, braveneweurope.com, May 1, 2019
“If the Scottish National Party is to back up its “climate emergency” statement with serious substance, then carbon offsetting proposals must be rejected outright.”

thanks for contributing to discussion, cass.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@wendy davis As for Trump, he seems to have made it through to the White House because Clinton was such a screw-up. If Clinton had won in 2016 we'd be hearing and seeing the environmental accounting crap full force. Instead it's the favored discourse of the regime-in-waiting.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

wendy davis's picture

@Cassiodorus

i'm sorry, it looks very well done, well supported, but i simply haven't the time to read it.

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wendy davis's picture

let tonight's lullaby be from the late, great santee sioux AIM leader and alchemist John Trudell, whose life and wisdom will be remembered...forever(may he rest in power, not peace)

Crazy Horse
We Hear what you say

One Earth, one Mother
One does not sell the Earth
The people walk upon
We are the land

How do we sell our Mother?
How do we sell the stars?
How do we sell the air?

[video:https://youtu.be/Ku8ga-krBe4]

g' night.

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wendy davis's picture

for mr. wd this a.m as he'd wanted to know more about the market mechanisms, etc. for net zero carbon, and i'd gone in search of this one:

Keith Baker – Paying for your sins: Why carbon offsetting is not a serious approach to climate change’, braveneweurope.com, May 1, 2019
“If the Scottish National Party is to back up its “climate emergency” statement with serious substance, then carbon offsetting proposals must be rejected outright.”

on the right sidebar was: ‘Richard Murphy – Britain: A Climate Emergency Requires Action to Tackle It and None Was Promised Yesterday’, May 2, 2019

“I wish I could be so sure that anything else can be anticipated. It cannot be. Although the only logical reason for declaring an emergency is to provide the stimulus for the exceptional behaviour required in response to it, yesterday’s announcement revealed no sense of urgency amongst either Conservative or Labour politicians.

The third runway at Heathrow was not cancelled.
Nor was fracking.
The decision to allow a new colliery in Cumbria was not over-turned.
North Sea oil is not staying underwater.
Subsidies to carbon based fuels were not withdrawn.
There was no plan for a Green New Deal.
There were just some lukewarm words.”

but yes, we're supposed to feel all warm and fuzzy that politicians and leaders are 'declaring climate national emergencies', and governments and private hedge funders, etc. can commodify nature, invest in it, and use market mechanism and carbon capture and storage to fix it all.

i also ran into this grotesque pamphlet that's apparently been pulled by now:

and this on CCS:

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Cassiodorus's picture

@wendy davis And indeed carbon offsets are nonsense. But let's take a look at the logic behind carbon offsets so that we are sure we know why they're nonsense.

First off, they've decided they want to mitigate climate change by declaring carbon-burning to be some sort of sin. The fossil fuel companies pump 85 million barrels of oil out of the ground every day, but they're totally fine -- we don't even mention them. No, it's YOU CONSUMERS who are the sinners because you drive fossil-burning cars to work or whatever.

What a load.

Secondly, they've decided that those sinning consumers can be "forgiven" for their supposed "sins" if they buy carbon offsets. And the carbon offsets are a scam anyway because they're planting trees on indigenous lands and thereby forcing the indigenous peoples into cities where they'll forget their traditional ecological knowledge and adopt carbon-intensive lifestyles.

Gah.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

wendy davis's picture

@Cassiodorus

when i'd been (virtually) in davos this year, klaus schwab when responding to a few local critcs about the gazillion private jets coming in and leaving said he personally would purchase some carbon offsets. wasn't that swell of him?

damn, i wish these internal inks were still viable, but here are some of the indigenous who were kept outside of the rio sustainability conference in 2012. ah, my Part I may still have them.

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wendy davis's picture

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wendy davis's picture

comments, but i'd only found cass's sorry if i missed another one.

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wendy davis's picture

the Café:

An open letter to Extinction Rebellion;
The fight for climate justice is the fight of our lives, and we need to do it right." By grassroots collective Wretched of The Earth, May 3, 2019, redpepper.org.UK

"Another truth is that for many, the bleakness is not something of “the future”. For those of us who are indigenous, working class, black, brown, queer, trans or disabled, the experience of structural violence became part of our birthright. Greta Thunberg calls world leaders to act by reminding them that “Our house is on fire”. For many of us, the house has been on fire for a long time: whenever the tide of ecological violence rises, our communities, especially in the Global South are always first hit. We are the first to face poor air quality, hunger, public health crises, drought, floods and displacement.

XR says that “The science is clear: It is understood we are facing an unprecedented global emergency. We are in a life or death situation of our own making. We must act now.” You may not realize that when you focus on the science you often look past the fire and us – you look past our histories of struggle, dignity, victory and resilience. And you look past the vast intergenerational knowledge of unity with nature that our peoples have. Indigenous communities remind us that we are not separate from nature, and that protecting the environment is also protecting ourselves. In order to survive, communities in the Global South continue to lead the visioning and building of new worlds free of the violence of capitalism. We must both centre those experiences and recognise those knowledges here.

Our communities have been on fire for a long time and these flames are fanned by our exclusion and silencing. Without incorporating our experiences, any response to this disaster will fail to change the complex ways in which social, economic and political systems shape our lives – offering some an easy pass in life and making others pay the cost. In order to envision a future in which we will all be liberated from the root causes of the climate crisis – capitalism, extractivism, racism, sexism, classism, ableism and other systems of oppression – the climate movement must reflect the complex realities of everyone’s lives in their narrative.

As XR draws this period of actions to a close, we hope our letter presents some useful reflections for what can come next. The list of demands that we present below are not meant to be exhaustive, but to offer a starting point that supports the conversations that are urgently needed....

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wendy davis's picture

meant to include this in my 'for further reading' list, and with all the confusions of having to add tweets two different ways to cross-post:

Last but not least, the psychology involved in: How to create an emergency climate mobilization, from Margaret Klein Salaman and friends, theclimatemobilization.org

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