An alternate approach to climate change mitigation: changing society

Any alternate approach to climate change mitigation should start with an essay titled "Beyond Paris: avoiding the trap of carbon metrics" by Camila Moreno and a number of coauthors. The essay's byline is telling:

Instead of changing our economic system to make it fit within the natural limits of the planet, we are redefining nature so that it fits within the economic system.

Economic incentives, considered by themselves, hope to keep the system "as is" while claiming to achieve "climate change mitigation." Instead, the real goal is to produce nice-looking statistics which might or might not have any meaning at all. Much of what counts as "climate change mitigation" in the richer nations actually involves the export of carbon-using industries to other nations, thus keeping their rich-nation statistics "green" while the overall problem remains no closer to a solution.

Climate warriors are asking the wrong question. The wrong question is: "how can we achieve 'climate change mitigation' while keeping everything as it is?" The right question is: "what form does world society need to take to achieve climate change mitigation?"

Most of our production is a waste of time, money, and resources. Under capitalism everything must be produced to extract money from those who have, and so "needs" are invented for those with money just to provide a pretext for those who must do business. Even so, about a third of the human race remains completely shut out of the capitalist system, according to sociologist William I. Robinson (Global capitalism and the crisis of humanity, p. 179).

Consider, however, the alternative vision presented by Anitra Nelson in "Carbon Metrics: Prices and Values" in the Journal of Australian Political Economy. Nelson's vision is what she calls "Non-Market Socialism":

Non-market socialists have a vision of a money-free, market-free, wage-free, class-free and state-free planetary society. Non-market socialist models centre firmly on production and exchange on the basis of use value. It is hard to envisage an easier way to make everyday life sustainable in environmental, social, political and economic terms. We would live simply and fulfill human needs through more creative, democratic and ecologically respectful practices. The contrast with uncontrollable capitalist growth is stark.

It's easy to dismiss Nelson as "utopian" while ignoring her more important point: social change must be the raw material out of which climate change mitigation is fashioned.

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Steven D's picture

Politicians aren't going to change the path we are on. That much is obvious.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

Steven,

Based on your sentence, I came up with this. Politicians aren't going to change the path that they are on, but we can change the path that we are on. I've been working with the regenerative agriculture, ranching, forestry, watershed people in new Mexico for the last ten years or more. So much is happening around soil health - creating healthy soil that pulls CO2 from the atmosphere in a more robust way. If a land mass the size of Australia had good, healthy soil, that soil system could suck down all the excess carbon in our atmosphere in a year, while sequestering millions of gallons more water per rain and snow event. All the while creating fantastically rich cropland and grassland, which yields more food per acre with little or no need for externalities like fertilizers,herbicides, etc. Now many farmers are turning to "no till" agriculture where they plant cover crops which protect the soil, clean water run off, provide nutrients, and another form of income. Ronnie Cummins from Regeneration International figures we need 3 million farmers practicing these methods over a wide range of acreage to begin to pull the excess carbon down and put it back into the soil where it actually becomes very beneficial again. Sorry for the long windedness, and thanks for this wonderful and important diary Cassiodorus. This is where the new economy/society is happening.

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Bisbonian's picture

This is what humans Used To Do. We need to learn to do it again.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

All of us doing what we can, little by little, to change lifestyles. I know it's urgent, but one foot in front of the other maybe can help prevent panic, despair, and giving up.

And Bernie would sure make a difference.

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Haikukitty's picture

But its very hard to remove yourself from a system that you are embedded in. There's only so much you can achieve when you work all the time just to keep a roof over your head.

A leader like Bernie to start the conversation in the right direction sure would make a big difference.

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Lookout's picture

We have got to make radical change fast. How does it happen? We think the obstruction Bernie faces is significant. It's nothing to the resistance we'll deal with if we move to really address climate change...ie leave it in the ground!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

featheredsprite's picture

For capitalism to exist, it must have profits to feed on. The only way to make a profit is to take in more than you give out. We have been doing this to the earth for a long time, probably since before capitalism itself developed. But with the industrial revolution, we have taken exploitation of the earth to new heights.

Socialist utopia is based on no profit and no competition, just production to fill needs. However, even we socialists understand that is a utopian dream and not likely to happen. We may have to tackle each problem individually.

Leave it in the ground is a good idea. We have the technology and the funds to switch to renewable energy. Most people on earth would be willing to make such an adjustment.

But what about our overlords?

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Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

Haikukitty's picture

Just producing what you need to get by, not having to work as a wage slave somewhere, consuming very little?

Think of all the things people could do if they didn't have to give all their time away for someone else's profits.

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I have to run , but I will check back in. This is such an important topic...and hopeful as well.

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hester's picture

Morningstar, which I'm just beginning. here's a link. It's huge, unwieldy and dense. But it's about NGOs and McKIbben and Climate and it's worth a try. Not flattering. I don't know enough (Yet) to parse it out. THought it'd be interesting.

http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2014/03/11/350-orgs-friends-on-wall-stre...

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Don't believe everything you think.

hester's picture

they are

The most critical of ecological nightmares – the key driving forces of climate change, those being first world consumption:

resource/lifestyle wars
industrialized livestock
a capitalist economic system absolutely dependent on infinite growth

Interwoven with exploitation of Earth and her most vulnerable citizens and sentient beings, the continued genocide of Indigenous peoples as the caretakers of our lands and forests, the continued meltdown of Fukushima, are problems from a different world, a different lifetime.

They have no place amongst the negotiations led by 1% of the Earth’s population creating 50% of the global greenhouse gas emissions.

The ultimate goal of course has now been achieved, the non-profit industrial complex (and those it feeds) having not only succeeded in establishing the global acquiescence for a third industrial revolution under the guise of “clean energy”, it manufactured a global demand – saving a suicidal economic system teetering on the verge of collapse. Rather than recognizing this is a unique and rare opportunity in our history to allow and ensure this lethal economic system fails, all radical resistance (as activism) is now passé. In vogue is “activism as choice” for what technological solutions (i.e further consumption/growth) can “save” the humans species (of privilege).

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Don't believe everything you think.

Cassiodorus's picture

It just seems that they are nice bourgeois people who want careers like anyone else. That's still a problem, though.

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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

Martha Pearce-Smith's picture

Climate Change coupled with peak oil/other resources is going to change EVERYTHING... To survive Humankind must adapt, and it is perhaps THE best thing we do... it is how we have survived against bigger and stronger predators to become the top of the food chain. Change is coming. And it will be painful. Just like any growing pains....It will probably be very ugly too... but it is my belief that our lives will be very, very different in 200 years. Probably a lot more labor intensive....but less stressful. More in tune with Nature and less dependant upon "stuff" to make us happy.

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detroitmechworks's picture

We're looking at over a hundred years of propaganda telling us that happiness is "Stuff" so changing the entire mindset is mandatory.

Is there "Stuff" that I want? Yes, BUT at the same time, there's a lot of things that I want which I'm very flexible on the shape and size of. Even the capabilities, really. The great thing about decoupling from advertising is it gives you time to really examine what you need as opposed to what they tell you you need.

Step one, I think, is to dismantle the manufacturing of pointless desire. (Very Buddhist, I know, but at the same time, a reasonable idea.)

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Martha Pearce-Smith's picture

stuff worth doing is always hard...and that the easy way leads to disaster. We have been following the easy way for far too long, IMO.

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jamess's picture

there have to be some local communities
already living that way.

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Mosquito Pilot's picture

We can only change ourselves.
By changing ourselves we change the world.

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Dig within. There lies the wellspring of all good. Ever dig and it will ever flow
Marcus Aurelius

Cassiodorus's picture

Start 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

We can do a little more every day for the earth by giving our own nitrogen (urine) back to the earth. It's wonderful for lawns & gardens, just make sure not to put too much in any one place. When I had a big unfenced garden, 3 adults did this around the perimeter & no deer or smaller critters (except insects) ate any of it. As a woman, I used a jar to transmit the stuff, but the men were more direct. This is much better than sending it to the waste treatment plant & then into the waterways.

Does putting more nitrogen into the soil cause more CO2 to follow?

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