Good summaries, Max. The overall conundrum is SO large and frustrating, makes me think that maybe even stronger language would help shake some people from the slumber, for example, extractivism jobs, habitat destroying jobs. "Green jobs" obviously helpful for raising awareness about the hypocrisy, am just thinking out loud here, trying to tip the scale in favor of all the beings, including Earth, adversely affected, as your article shows.
It feels like I'm an uphill battle. Whenever I try to explain how green really isn't green I usually get looked at like I'm crazy and then the subject is changed.
It can be challenging to make the case in a brief conversation. In my experience I need at least 5 or 6 minutes to get started with a decent argument. It's not an "elevator pitch" type of issue...
Ashley, Certainly uphill battle what with massive amounts of $ and corporations/institutions/governments spouting the 'party lines'. I find that telling people about how the mining destroys habitats and affects the workers, some children!, at least help expose the bigger picture.
well yeah i agree, too much debate about it... tho some people take the stance of 'less or more degrees of pollution' so some discussions don't go far.
Thanks, Mankh. I struggled with the title for this one, so that feedback is good. I like to title my pieces with something provocative, but not gratuitous. A challenging balance at times.
Title is excellent, Max, easy to remember, like a kid's poem, and provokes thinking about it like a Zen koan, and most people familiar with the "green" issues. It was just after reading the article i started thinking of other ways to convey things.
It's decent, but IMHO it could be better. I like the punchiness of the EIJ web headline of "The Cost of Green Tech is Too High," but I don't love the absolutism of the statement, not because it's wrong but because I think it would push too many readers away who disagree or are on the fence, and I'm not only interested in preaching to the choir. Headlines are really tough to get exactly right!
Also "the cost" headline maybe alludes to 'let's lower the cost and all's well.' Anyway, yeah, headline 'hooks' can be tricky. Back in the day i almost went into advertising copy writing, so i tend to go for catchy/provocative. If you ever want to run an article by me before posting to see about headline, let me know.
Excellent, Max. I like that you didn't end with a nice, neat solution, but instead left us with the very difficult conundrum facing the left. Jobs (economic growth) and the protection of nature are not resolved by "green energy." I'm pro-labor because I am a laborer. I honor physical work. But the labor movement in the US has become so much about maximizing salaries for greater consumption. The quote about this being the first revolution that calls for us to reduce our material expectations nails it, and it's interesting that it dates back to 1974. We knew then, and what's followed has been mostly a long, intricate evasion.
Hi Max. Now 5 years into the realm of green fundamentalism. Is sufficiently clear, that these folks who live with a certain level of prosperity, wish to set aside one part of the world exclusively for themselves, that is clean, functional and intact, while the rest is up for experimentation, acquisition, occupation, extraction, pollution, destruction, hollowing out or just total negation. Institutions like the World Economic Forum symbolize a ‘portend’ for common people across the world. Democracy, human rights and rights of non-humans have no place within the entire specter of current techno-messianism and techno-optimism.
Absolutely. I was just having a conversation with a few friends about how China's ecological civilization project is increasingly mirroring the West's colonial projects, by outsourcing extraction and other dirty polluting industries to poorer countries or internal sacrifice zones while celebrating and gathering accolades for cleaning up their economy. I haven't studied China's eco-civ project in detail yet, but I'm skeptical. At first glance it appears to be basically the Bright Green project writ large, with the biggest possible subsidies.
Likewise i only know some bits but China seems to have, to some degree, adopted Americana circa 1950s as they tout economic improvements for the masses, that's good, yet seems to revolve around the model of get shiny appliances then life is good. Plus they're wheeling-dealing in Africa, as you'd know from "Cobalt Red" book.
Hi Max. Keep us posted about your take on the China bit. From what I saw when I visited China in 2013-14, and what I read now about China in terms of ecological damage, it is a cascade of disasters. The cost of massive rapid industrial growth of 40 years, playing catch-up with the West, has a great price. Certain parts of urbanized China beats a 80s Bladerunner scene.
"wish to set aside one part of the world exclusively for themselves". The book "Empire Of Borders" by Todd Miller clearly shows the two-tiered system of domination at work.
Definitely, Diana. It's frustrating how often these issues are herded into isolated corners and keep them separated. I try and bridge the gaps where I can. There are lots of great people out there who understand these issues, but the conclusions are challenging. I think the key is accepting the reality that industrial civilization's days are numbered.
Yes, there are many who are at the same intersection.
I've been paying attention to geopolitical issues lately, and I think you're right about industrial civilization's days being numbered. I find watching the rise of BRICS makes me hopeful.
Thanks Max for a well researched and written piece.
My feeling is that the climate lobby are to some extent a victim of their own success. It’s become the only show in town. The ecological crisis has taken a back seat as if people are unable to conceive of more than one planetary crisis at a time.
The north has been feeding its populations with a constant diet of progress and entitlement for centuries and it is tragically ironic that the people who have least benefited from this ‘progress’ are amongst those most vociferously resisting the idea of reduced consumption.
This of course is partly owing to the narrative that degrowth will hit jobs and wages which in an elite-run transition would certainly be the case.
There is an urgent need for an attractive narrative from the labour side that paints a picture of how quality of life can be greatly increased while reducing and ultimately shutting down extractive operations that don’t respect the the ecology of the planet.
I fear that in practice this will only happen when elites have ceded control.
Thanks for the thoughful comment, Richard. I think you're right.
I used to be amongst the bright greens, when I was a young teenager. The simplistic narrative that solar panels could save the world appealed to me at the time, and my experience of people active in that community is that most of them were utopians who had a simplistic view of the problem. Some really wonderful, well-meaning, kind-hearted people, but not a very nuanced take of how empire functions globally, or of the historical development of a planet-destroying civilization.
The challenge that I see in regards to your comment is that this attractive narrative is currently the bright green narrative — which is why the big unions are getting behind it, and regions which have lost manufacturing jobs due to free trade agreements and so on are giving big subsidies to battery and EV factories, solar facilities, data centers, and so on. The degrowth narrative is, in my view, not going to be attractive for many people in the global north. At least, that is what I'm worried about. We have become so used to, for several generations, the narrative that Lewis Mumford called the magnificent bribe — the idea that ever-increasing industrial production and profits for the wealthiest as well as technological progress will allow the masses to be satiated with increasingly powerful sophisticated and dazzling gadgets and an ever-easier personal life. Anyways, these are complex topics, and there is a lot of nuance. Mabye we'll get a chance to discuss more in person sometime.
There is a mountain to climb - if not a whole range - but I have a belief in the basic decency of people so the task becomes talking to people where they’re at and getting to grips with their perspective. I believe we have to use the tools of the world we want to create! Feel free to message me - not that I’m likely to set the world on fire but it’s always good to chat to like minded souls.
I’m taking a few courses about the dominant food system this semester. (Fortunately, NEXT semester we get into agroecology etc…) It’s insane that 1-in-6 Americans experiences food insecurity, and even when we talk about addressing it at the systemic level, it’s just about finding people a place in The Economy as it currently exists. (https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/food-insecurity) How badly does this whole arrangement have to fail for us to question the entire industrial/wage-based model? (Apparently pretty badly.) As disruptive-in-a-bad-way as Peak Energy will be, whenever it really starts to hit, at least it will force a rethink…(?)
It's so interesting as a glimpse into how people perceive and discuss these issues. It reminds me of the famous quote, "it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism."
I co sign this message in the article. All of this green stuff is ripping up the earth. The lands are in usually what are called indigenous people lands if folks haven't noticed to feed us in the northern hemisphere we are saving the earth. For me it is a total farce and a continuation of colonialism 21st century style.
I don't know anyone in the 'climate movement' who say we can bypass jobs vs environment with solar panels, EVs and 'green' energy jobs. The WEF may say it- they are paid up Imperialists. To the clowns at the WEF the 'new' energy economy is just like the 'old 'one of extractivism and neo-colonialism.
The actual climate movement says we will have a low energy future, whether by choice or physics.
Yes, net zero by 2050 (itself a scam to procrastinate indefinitely) would need more minerals as the amount of energy used by humans would have increased. A large amount of rare minerals are currently used for fossil fuel energy production and EV batteries can actually be made with sodium chloride- a mineral though not a rare one-so these sweeping statements about the 'green energy' transition can be deliberately off putting. The monetary, environmental and mineral costs of not transitioning to net zero by 2050 is left out of these statements.
However, the point is there is no transition. Only an energy addition. Energy consumption is still increasing meaning co2 emissions are still increasing too.
Jobs in production cannot be offset by an energy addition whatever the source, nor by billions of EVS. Jobs have to be in care, quality of life and service industries.
Multilateral degrowth is the only solution, and it's up to BRICS now to see what they can achieve with crisis they have inherited from the Global North.
You're totally right about the energy addition, not transition, Jo. Growth has shattered whatever chance (which was already, at best, near zero in my view) green tech had at actually addressing the climate crisis.
Hey Mike, thanks for the comment. I actually don't agree that that's a good thing. I take less of a NIMBY approach and more of a NOPE (Not On Planet Earth) approach to issues like mining. It's tragic what's happening in the Chinese supply chains as well...
I understand. If I spoke Chinese and had a way to resist their extractive industries, I'd certainly do it. But I don't, and that's a crisis not just for them, but globally. Of course, their pollution travels, and their increasing commercial empire is tearing up more and more of the world (in a strange collaboration/competition with the west). I'm going to fight mainly where I live, because that's where I have the most access and leverage to do so. But I think the global solidarity is also really important.
Idealism and bravery is a helluva mix. Having had my bashes with power, I'm more conservative with hope.
I also try view the positive, such as China having made major improvements. Yes, it will be the biggest extractor of our lifetime, but there's genuine effort, whereas I don't see that in the USA; just bickering politicians, and their bosses profiteering from both ends.
I've scheduled the crosspost for tomorrow. Saturdays the slowest for views but I've already got my own stuff scheduled.
Good summaries, Max. The overall conundrum is SO large and frustrating, makes me think that maybe even stronger language would help shake some people from the slumber, for example, extractivism jobs, habitat destroying jobs. "Green jobs" obviously helpful for raising awareness about the hypocrisy, am just thinking out loud here, trying to tip the scale in favor of all the beings, including Earth, adversely affected, as your article shows.
It feels like I'm an uphill battle. Whenever I try to explain how green really isn't green I usually get looked at like I'm crazy and then the subject is changed.
It can be challenging to make the case in a brief conversation. In my experience I need at least 5 or 6 minutes to get started with a decent argument. It's not an "elevator pitch" type of issue...
Ashley, Certainly uphill battle what with massive amounts of $ and corporations/institutions/governments spouting the 'party lines'. I find that telling people about how the mining destroys habitats and affects the workers, some children!, at least help expose the bigger picture.
Fuck arguing climate change. Just ask if they support pollution.
well yeah i agree, too much debate about it... tho some people take the stance of 'less or more degrees of pollution' so some discussions don't go far.
Thanks, Mankh. I struggled with the title for this one, so that feedback is good. I like to title my pieces with something provocative, but not gratuitous. A challenging balance at times.
Title is excellent, Max, easy to remember, like a kid's poem, and provokes thinking about it like a Zen koan, and most people familiar with the "green" issues. It was just after reading the article i started thinking of other ways to convey things.
It's decent, but IMHO it could be better. I like the punchiness of the EIJ web headline of "The Cost of Green Tech is Too High," but I don't love the absolutism of the statement, not because it's wrong but because I think it would push too many readers away who disagree or are on the fence, and I'm not only interested in preaching to the choir. Headlines are really tough to get exactly right!
Also "the cost" headline maybe alludes to 'let's lower the cost and all's well.' Anyway, yeah, headline 'hooks' can be tricky. Back in the day i almost went into advertising copy writing, so i tend to go for catchy/provocative. If you ever want to run an article by me before posting to see about headline, let me know.
Thanks!
Excellent, Max. I like that you didn't end with a nice, neat solution, but instead left us with the very difficult conundrum facing the left. Jobs (economic growth) and the protection of nature are not resolved by "green energy." I'm pro-labor because I am a laborer. I honor physical work. But the labor movement in the US has become so much about maximizing salaries for greater consumption. The quote about this being the first revolution that calls for us to reduce our material expectations nails it, and it's interesting that it dates back to 1974. We knew then, and what's followed has been mostly a long, intricate evasion.
Decreasing our material expectations but increasing our spiritual ones. Sounds good to me.
Well said, Rob.
Excellent post, thanks.
You're welcome, Tara!
Hi Max. Now 5 years into the realm of green fundamentalism. Is sufficiently clear, that these folks who live with a certain level of prosperity, wish to set aside one part of the world exclusively for themselves, that is clean, functional and intact, while the rest is up for experimentation, acquisition, occupation, extraction, pollution, destruction, hollowing out or just total negation. Institutions like the World Economic Forum symbolize a ‘portend’ for common people across the world. Democracy, human rights and rights of non-humans have no place within the entire specter of current techno-messianism and techno-optimism.
Absolutely. I was just having a conversation with a few friends about how China's ecological civilization project is increasingly mirroring the West's colonial projects, by outsourcing extraction and other dirty polluting industries to poorer countries or internal sacrifice zones while celebrating and gathering accolades for cleaning up their economy. I haven't studied China's eco-civ project in detail yet, but I'm skeptical. At first glance it appears to be basically the Bright Green project writ large, with the biggest possible subsidies.
Likewise i only know some bits but China seems to have, to some degree, adopted Americana circa 1950s as they tout economic improvements for the masses, that's good, yet seems to revolve around the model of get shiny appliances then life is good. Plus they're wheeling-dealing in Africa, as you'd know from "Cobalt Red" book.
Plus the obvious but worth mentioning, China's population around 1.4 billion, so every trend or whatever gets magnified!
Hi Max. Keep us posted about your take on the China bit. From what I saw when I visited China in 2013-14, and what I read now about China in terms of ecological damage, it is a cascade of disasters. The cost of massive rapid industrial growth of 40 years, playing catch-up with the West, has a great price. Certain parts of urbanized China beats a 80s Bladerunner scene.
Yeah, that's how it seems to me too.
"wish to set aside one part of the world exclusively for themselves". The book "Empire Of Borders" by Todd Miller clearly shows the two-tiered system of domination at work.
Hey, Max, that's my reality too -- from a labour background, and a committed environmentalist, and concerned about indigenous rights.
So many attitudes from the labour and environmental crowd stand in the way of real progress. Big blind spots, many steeped in colonialist attitudes.
Thanks for posting some ideas about how we get beyond this.
Deep solidarity is key, I think.
Definitely, Diana. It's frustrating how often these issues are herded into isolated corners and keep them separated. I try and bridge the gaps where I can. There are lots of great people out there who understand these issues, but the conclusions are challenging. I think the key is accepting the reality that industrial civilization's days are numbered.
Yes, there are many who are at the same intersection.
I've been paying attention to geopolitical issues lately, and I think you're right about industrial civilization's days being numbered. I find watching the rise of BRICS makes me hopeful.
Thanks Max for a well researched and written piece.
My feeling is that the climate lobby are to some extent a victim of their own success. It’s become the only show in town. The ecological crisis has taken a back seat as if people are unable to conceive of more than one planetary crisis at a time.
The north has been feeding its populations with a constant diet of progress and entitlement for centuries and it is tragically ironic that the people who have least benefited from this ‘progress’ are amongst those most vociferously resisting the idea of reduced consumption.
This of course is partly owing to the narrative that degrowth will hit jobs and wages which in an elite-run transition would certainly be the case.
There is an urgent need for an attractive narrative from the labour side that paints a picture of how quality of life can be greatly increased while reducing and ultimately shutting down extractive operations that don’t respect the the ecology of the planet.
I fear that in practice this will only happen when elites have ceded control.
Thanks for the thoughful comment, Richard. I think you're right.
I used to be amongst the bright greens, when I was a young teenager. The simplistic narrative that solar panels could save the world appealed to me at the time, and my experience of people active in that community is that most of them were utopians who had a simplistic view of the problem. Some really wonderful, well-meaning, kind-hearted people, but not a very nuanced take of how empire functions globally, or of the historical development of a planet-destroying civilization.
The challenge that I see in regards to your comment is that this attractive narrative is currently the bright green narrative — which is why the big unions are getting behind it, and regions which have lost manufacturing jobs due to free trade agreements and so on are giving big subsidies to battery and EV factories, solar facilities, data centers, and so on. The degrowth narrative is, in my view, not going to be attractive for many people in the global north. At least, that is what I'm worried about. We have become so used to, for several generations, the narrative that Lewis Mumford called the magnificent bribe — the idea that ever-increasing industrial production and profits for the wealthiest as well as technological progress will allow the masses to be satiated with increasingly powerful sophisticated and dazzling gadgets and an ever-easier personal life. Anyways, these are complex topics, and there is a lot of nuance. Mabye we'll get a chance to discuss more in person sometime.
There is a mountain to climb - if not a whole range - but I have a belief in the basic decency of people so the task becomes talking to people where they’re at and getting to grips with their perspective. I believe we have to use the tools of the world we want to create! Feel free to message me - not that I’m likely to set the world on fire but it’s always good to chat to like minded souls.
I’m taking a few courses about the dominant food system this semester. (Fortunately, NEXT semester we get into agroecology etc…) It’s insane that 1-in-6 Americans experiences food insecurity, and even when we talk about addressing it at the systemic level, it’s just about finding people a place in The Economy as it currently exists. (https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/food-insecurity) How badly does this whole arrangement have to fail for us to question the entire industrial/wage-based model? (Apparently pretty badly.) As disruptive-in-a-bad-way as Peak Energy will be, whenever it really starts to hit, at least it will force a rethink…(?)
It's so interesting as a glimpse into how people perceive and discuss these issues. It reminds me of the famous quote, "it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism."
I co sign this message in the article. All of this green stuff is ripping up the earth. The lands are in usually what are called indigenous people lands if folks haven't noticed to feed us in the northern hemisphere we are saving the earth. For me it is a total farce and a continuation of colonialism 21st century style.
And fossil fuels (that also uses lots of rare minerals found in all batteries) aren't ripping up the earth at all?
They definitely are.
I just added this editor’s note: as of late 2024, General Motors has now invested nearly $1 billion and owns 38% of the Thacker Pass project.
I don't know anyone in the 'climate movement' who say we can bypass jobs vs environment with solar panels, EVs and 'green' energy jobs. The WEF may say it- they are paid up Imperialists. To the clowns at the WEF the 'new' energy economy is just like the 'old 'one of extractivism and neo-colonialism.
The actual climate movement says we will have a low energy future, whether by choice or physics.
Yes, net zero by 2050 (itself a scam to procrastinate indefinitely) would need more minerals as the amount of energy used by humans would have increased. A large amount of rare minerals are currently used for fossil fuel energy production and EV batteries can actually be made with sodium chloride- a mineral though not a rare one-so these sweeping statements about the 'green energy' transition can be deliberately off putting. The monetary, environmental and mineral costs of not transitioning to net zero by 2050 is left out of these statements.
However, the point is there is no transition. Only an energy addition. Energy consumption is still increasing meaning co2 emissions are still increasing too.
Jobs in production cannot be offset by an energy addition whatever the source, nor by billions of EVS. Jobs have to be in care, quality of life and service industries.
Multilateral degrowth is the only solution, and it's up to BRICS now to see what they can achieve with crisis they have inherited from the Global North.
You're totally right about the energy addition, not transition, Jo. Growth has shattered whatever chance (which was already, at best, near zero in my view) green tech had at actually addressing the climate crisis.
Although double-bladed, American land will be saved by China winning the electric car war.
Thank you for your commitment!
Hey Mike, thanks for the comment. I actually don't agree that that's a good thing. I take less of a NIMBY approach and more of a NOPE (Not On Planet Earth) approach to issues like mining. It's tragic what's happening in the Chinese supply chains as well...
My "double-bladed" was the BUT in that sentence :)
If I was never going to get utopia, but was offered a clean backyard, I'd be a realist... and invite campers.
I understand. If I spoke Chinese and had a way to resist their extractive industries, I'd certainly do it. But I don't, and that's a crisis not just for them, but globally. Of course, their pollution travels, and their increasing commercial empire is tearing up more and more of the world (in a strange collaboration/competition with the west). I'm going to fight mainly where I live, because that's where I have the most access and leverage to do so. But I think the global solidarity is also really important.
Idealism and bravery is a helluva mix. Having had my bashes with power, I'm more conservative with hope.
I also try view the positive, such as China having made major improvements. Yes, it will be the biggest extractor of our lifetime, but there's genuine effort, whereas I don't see that in the USA; just bickering politicians, and their bosses profiteering from both ends.
I've scheduled the crosspost for tomorrow. Saturdays the slowest for views but I've already got my own stuff scheduled.
Wishing you well... for me :)