Arguably the biggest gambit of price theorists attempting to upscale their successes with small, well defined pollution rights trading schemes is that the economy/politics boundary in allocating permits can be located empirically. In the well ordered Popperian world of (neo)liberal economics, the lurching forth of experiment after experiment showed (after Montgomery’s foundational 1972 formal proof) that the allocation of free permits doesn’t effect the efficacy of the policy instrument. From tradeable fishing quotas to Acid Rain, the victors affected closure of the problem of allocation, at least inside the policy beltway of Washington and the EPA. From these (very real) successes, a cadre of policy acolytes in Canberra, Oslo, Wellington and other far flung locations spruiked the seductively simple model of (1) setting caps, (2) throwing out permits in accordance with the regular political process and (3) let the newly empowered and ‘calculatively endowed’ actors (fishermen, power plant managers etc.) decide for themselves about how to reach their goals. Emissions trading working groups were formed in the 1990s to refine recommendations. Even the Aussie Greenhouse Office released working papers. Fast forward to 2009 and economic pundits who have built careers on quantity instruments (eg. Robert Stavins) are fervently, even forcefully, spruiking their successes to methodically advocate emissions trading as the primary climate policy instrument.
Arguments about the first bit of the model, targets (1), fell off the front pages last year once the hubbub of Kevin taking the helm to deliver the Green Paper died down; so the transition to parts (2), allocation, and (3) regulatory institutions (in the broadest sense) is well underway. Which is all a roundabout way of saying Steven Bright has an wonderfully evocative, well grounded piece on the calculated, mundane, discursive violence that has characterized the CPRS negotiations:
Australia’s CPRS is barely breathing while a crowd of experts are milling around to snatch essential organs before death. Electricity wants a kidney; coal will settle for a lung; mining, maybe the eyes; farming wants a left foot; forestry, manufacturing, transport, everybody wants a piece of it.
Bright goes on to give examples of firms that are caught on the wrong side of the ‘two track‘ carbon pricing regime who can only peer across with rage to “where business-as-usual, profligate subsidies and penalties for innovation” are clicking along nicely thanks to the networks of influence Guy Pearse has documented so admirably. But what’s really going on here? Should we be disappointed, or even surprised?
The first lesson in Radical Criticism of Liberalism 101 is that, no, we shouldn’t be surprised whenever the barbarians arrive at the gates of the liberal settlement For a recent expression of the international version of the liberal settlement, see this New Matilda piece to enact its forceful seizure under the auspices of protection from immanent destruction – whether ‘virtually’ through modelling exercises or ‘actually’ in visions of decline and surrender. Such moments signal the darkest moment of liberal civility. As Vicki Bell puts it:
Any moment of disbelief, any lack of faith in another’s promise, is a moment that liberalism can contain – indeed, that it invites – but it is also the most fearful moment for the liberal machinery, the moment at which the general vision is doubted and alternative paths left and right are dreamt and drawn.
The counter-argument is that the possibility of economic transformation several years hence hardly equate to the ‘barbarians at the gate’ that theories of the exception are founded upon; but from the Small/Medium businesses Bright mentions, to Clive Hamilton to Planet Janet to the promise of 10 Dissenting Coalition Senate votes, it’s clear that CPRS Rage indicates a profound lack of trust in the legitimacy of the permit allocation process. The arbitrary will that liberalism seeks to keep in check has reared its ugly head: ‘if you’re not at the table, you’re probably on the menu.’ (see p.32) Reading Bright’s case studies you have to wonder why anyone should believe Penny Wong’s promise that ‘we’ are transitioning to a ‘low carbon economy’ after a ‘soft start’?
As Richard Denniss usefully explains, it’s clear that the coal industry and a few EITEs are the only ones who even got into the room, let alone to the table:
The CPRS, rather than a carbon tax, certainly doesn’t represent some Chicago School iteration of the Efficient Market Hypothesis in any simple sense, but enough of the normative commitments and policy artifices of neoliberalism are there to render the contradictions of the CPRS too glaring, just too absurd to even lay observers. At its harder edge, the ideology of Price Theory has worked as a filtering action: the institutions, cultural and legal systems based on values and norms are shot through with contradictions that only price, certainly not any ‘central planner’, can negotiate. Don’t get me wrong – there are good normative arguments why this could be the case; however, as Richard’s explanation suggests, there’s a clear democratic deficit here: price theory operates as a firewall between any meaningful governance of specific technologies. However, contra Richard, the point is not so much what the carbon price should be, but who is representing nature and how? How can the complexity of CCS (and I’ve written about Nanobes several times here) be reduced to a line on a graph? The unspoken assumption here – shared on both sides – is that scientific instruments represent nature, hence guaranteeing the autonomy of society. If nanobes act, the enframing of cost curves collapses …
Whilst some neoliberals watch with anguish as the size of Government grows with consequences that Saskia Sassen has deftly documented , economic sociologists see inherent tradeoffs between the calculable world liberal economists like Stavins and the Treasury Modellers promise and the networks of trust in which markets actually really exist. In other words, it becomes difficult to dismiss Karl Polanyi’s warnings of the Double Movement against the ‘free market’ as a quaint, performative axiom of Left politics – the more astute Post-Marxist theorists have noted the ‘rollback’, ‘rollout’ motion needed to ensure the legitimacy of the state can survive; and one can imagine ‘Citizen Councils on CCS’ analogous to the endless radioactive waste oversight committees in the UK. Just to be clear – I’m not a ‘relativist’, but just pointing out that facts are a socio-technical achievement – inscriptions must pass through competing laboratories, citizen councils etc. etc. before they become facts. Until then, they are entirely political – provocations, and should be treated as such.
Mark has rightly pointed out the futility of arguing about Hayek – ideology is what ideology does. But I can’t help but uncomfortably laugh at the prospect of a kind of reactionary pincer movement: a motley collection of farmers, retailers and manufacturer’s facing increased input costs dreaming and drawing some kind Benjaminian moment of rebellion on one side, and neoconservative ‘black helicopter’ fear-mongering about global warming science on the other. As this video by an entirely charming, entirely affable PhD student makes clear, there is a huge amount of material resources that goes into the surveillance, monitoring, translation, and explanation of the basic science of climate. This is big science. And it’s probably not a coincidence that the skepticism of centralized knowledge that underpins the neoliberal revolution of governance found fertile ground in a period when state apparatuses of surveillance and control has had unprecedented reach.
My meekly humanist liberal side says to make clear the necessary co-production of knowledge of ecosystem data and the institutions of monitoring, standardization and verification that will enable effective regulation. Oh and read some Science Studies – scientific truth isn’t simply a function of cognitive adjustment (switching denial to acceptance) but falls out of practices, routines and ideas that might require – at different times and places – trust, humility, or rage.
Earlier: “It’s not like we’re battling it” Part I – EITEs
Carbon price taking a back seat
Woah, dk, there’s some Traversian paragraphs up there. Did you happen to write this on one large roll of paper?
Do you think co-production is the issue, here or more co-herence? Sadly I think there is much ‘eco-system’ data in private hands (think miners for example) that is not being shared or disseminated, at least not without a special massage.
Of course, few private parties beyond miners have either the interest or the money to gather some of the info Joe Public (and govt) may be interested in. When a swarm of professors, etc. are willing to get it for free, and the news is likely bad for your industry, there’s little incentive to devote budget to it.
If by Traversian you mean ‘overly ambitious’, touche. Thanks for attempting to navigate it, though.
What sort of data do you have in mind that miners might have about eco-systems?
What are you actually trying to say in this article?
That You-Tube clip by Dr Richard Denniss is horrifying.
I can hardly believe that responsible people in government and Treasury would have colluded in producing such a rubbish scheme.
What is the matter with those idiots? The assumptions behind this bland belief that Australia has future emissions under control just beggar belief. It is seriously irresponsible and dishonest in the extreme.
If this is a correct reflection of the substance of the Rudd government’s much touted CPRS, then I have totally lost faith in them. The Rudd government will not get my vote again, unless they rectify this abomination.
Hi TerjeP,
My argument is basically the following:
1) The battle over the CPRS is probably the closest we’ll get to a legitimacy crisis for a while.
2) Scientific truth is not simply a matter of expertise but a technical and social achievement. Anyone who seriously thinks we should do something about climate change should understand the institutional requirements to make plausible emissions reductions happen. These are not unsurmountable but will require trust.
3) Predictions are hard, especially about the future.
4) The linearity of innovation is a poor basis for extensive government investment.
Perhaps I should’ve led with that.
dk.au @5, could I be so bold as to make your points even more plainly?
1. The CPRS is a pile of steaming manure.
2. Many industry leaders and CEO’s are asking for a proper legislative framework for investment in low-carbon technologies. They NEED this to make long-term investment decisions.
People also need to be confident that there is no “legislative risk”, i.e. that the goal-posts are NOT going to be moved or not implemented, AFTER they have made expensive investment decisions. That is, they have to trust the legislative framework has permanency and legitimacy.
3. The “predictions” of the CPRS are a pile of steaming manure.
4. The government is throwing $billions at the coal lobby in hopes of CCS to rescue Australia’s environmental reputation, ASSUMING that it can be made to work on a large scale by some fixed date.
The whole thing is a really, incredibly dumb strategy for risk mitigation.
Legitimacy Crisis – just two examples:
1. Go over to Andrew Bolts and see the two articles on the sea level rise propaganda being put oout by Senator Wong and her department. It was thoroughly shot to pieces.
2. Just one example of the “if it really is such a clear and present danger why aren’t the believers walking the walk?” – Copenhagen. It isn’t going to get a result, never was, and yet 25,000 will mostly fly there burning huge amounts of fossil fuels.
When the modelling and forecasting works and the believers start walking the walk, then I’ll take notice.
DK, I’d hazard a guess that the ecological information held by miners that PatrickG is talking about is the environmental survey results and monitoring data routinely collected by mining companies in order to comply with environmental impact assessment and licensing requirements, but which are not necessarily published or disseminated outside the mandatory disclosure to government, unless there is some “good news” story to encourage publication.
But if PatrickG is thinking of something else, no doubt he’ll correct me.
From dk.au we receive another post condemning the CPRS, without acknowledgment that it is only one of a suit of tools that will be used to reduce emissions. And lots of arts-talk (read: ‘arts-wank’) to remind us what a passionate university student he is.
“The CPRS, rather than a carbon tax, certainly doesn’t represent some Chicago School iteration of the Efficient Market Hypothesis in any simple sense, but enough of the normative commitments and policy artifices of neoliberalism are there to render the contradictions of the CPRS too glaring…”
Because it is a market tool? Are you saying that any use of markets in policy is an artifice of neo-liberaliam?
That’s correct, Tim. Additionally, I wouldn’t be suprised to find that the huge amounts of data these companies are currently crunching when surveying could be parsed by someone else for some interesting and possibly valuable information. The data involved in these calculations is mind-boggling in scale.
I apprecitate the executive summaries. Yes the CPRS is a pile of manure.
@hrgh
I wish that were true.
Here’s a short video explaining why it’s not
ps. This is up to date with the 2009 baseline decision.
@Tim and patrickg: interesting. Andrew Macintosh did a paper on biodiversity policy with the Minerals Council (of all people). I reckon there’s a lot of idle data that a lot of mining execs are happy to keep locked away.
Razor, two things.
If you regard the Bolta as a credible source on anything (particularly anything to do with the environment), you are further gone into delusion than I realised. I expect you to start drooling and interfering with yourself in a corner any second. The man’s either a fool or a liar, but probably both.
You’re right about Copenhagen. It’ll mostly be attended by a bunch of cornucopians, lawyers, and coin-clippers who know they’ll all be dead before the shit hits the fan.
“In 2008, GreenPower provided over 1.8 million megawatt hours per annum to over 877,000 households and 34,000 businesses.” (Choice)
Q: what does this “2009 Greenpower baseline” mean in temrs of the impact of voluntary reductions, dk.au (or anyone)?
Anyone who summarises weven part of their argument as “Scientific truth is not simply a matter of expertise but a technical and social achievement” instantly shoots themselves in the foot. Scientific truth is, or should be though the consequences of invention of the pseudo-discipline of climate science are unfortunately beginning to infect even real science, scientific truth regardless of how anti-social some may think it is.
It’s ironic that so many threads on climate change around here are predicated on “look at what the science is telling us” when the general level of basic understanding of what hard science actually is is so dismally low.
Wozza, please enlighten us with your extensive understanding of hard science. Further, where did you get your information from that a branch of Atmospheric sciences is a pseudo-discipline? And lastly would you call Philosophy of science a soft science?
Much obliged, Ootz.
dk.au @ 12
That “choice” vid is an excellent expose of why the CPRS is a pile of steaming horse poo.
I understand that it is exactly the permit system that may torpedo the conversion of the Victorian coal fired generation to gas.
Huggy
Ootz, you rather prove my point. If you need an explanation of what is hard science, then you are an illustration of the level of understanding of science amongst many commenters to which I referred.
I can certainly tell you very simply one thing hard scientific truth is not: it is not a social construct. This post alleges that it is.
That is my only point, and disingenuous questions designed to draw attention away from that point are exactly that and will be ignored.
dk. au, I guess what you are saying, how can we accept and have ownership of/believe in a scheme while the CPRS is on one side not ‘understood’ and and perceived as obtuse at best, while on the deniers side it is perceived as unnecessary and a burden to progress and growth. More so it appears that it is not even a worthwhile compromise to achieve the required emission reduction. One wonders what plans the Government has to wiggle its way out of or around it as obviously the above mentioned pile of horse manure will hit the fan. Or is it just to say ‘look we are doing some thing about AGW’ and a token to take to Copenhagen, surely not. What is the game plan here, so much rage surely does not go down well in the electorate, or doesn’t it matter with the opposition in disarray and the greens snookered?
Wozza, I think you’ve misunderstood what is meant by “Scientific truth is not simply a matter of expertise but a technical and social achievement”.
I had to think about it, as it’s not expressed in a way that’s familiar to me, but it’s not just a restatement of the relativist idea that all belief systems are equivalent.
The scientific method most certainly is a technical and social achievement. It’s a way of looking at the world that has developed only very recently, and relies (among other things) on the beliefs that the world is explainable, and that there is such a thing as cause and effect. (Hume, for one, doubted the latter.)
I’m also not sure why you think climate science is a pseudo-science, unless it’s because it somehow attacks some deeply-held belief of your own. That’s not a very scientific approach.
DI(nr) I think it helps if we understand that science is part of human striving. It is conditioned by what we choose to do in scientific endeavour, what meaning we give it in terms of the matrix of our beliefs and understandings and the purposes to which we put any knowledge gained. Plus more.
The other thing we have to understand is that knowledge is created inside people’s heads, albeit in forms and symbol systems that are (imperfectly) communicated to other humans, who are not a tabula rasa, but come to every new experience with a web of beliefs and understandings.
This is not to say that persistent relationships between phenomena in the external world don’t exist. They do, otherwise the business of living, which depends on such consistency and habits we form in dealing with it, would be impossible.
But those habits are conditioned by our values, understandings and relationships, in short in the end socially constructed.
Finally, “climate science” covers a multitude of disciplines, so generalistaions about it are hazardous and often useless.
Anyway, that’s how I see it right now. Try me tomorrow and it might be a bit different.
Wozza, I am just having problems with a comment on aspects of a scientific question of great relevance that includes colloquial terms, which paint other disciplines in science in a pejorative way. It stems usually from a rather ego- or discipline-centric view of science and like cherry picking of evidence can lead to distorted view of the endeavor of science and the’truth’ it establishes therein. Hence my question to you was to establish how you qualify ‘real’ science and methodology to establish ‘truth’. Some would say your comment represents a particular social construct of science and established truth, by however you construct or define them. Hope that helps.
Cheers Ootz.
dk.au, a crisis in legitimacy is a very big deal indeed, and worth writing a bit more about.
But you see how we non-sociologists struggle a bit with latching on to what you are telling us. A precis, or abstract in plain English up front as an advance organiser would help.
Lefty@14:
What it means quite simply that all the efforts to reduce emissions through buying GreenPower up until now have been ‘reset’. Therefore, the only way ‘voluntary action’ will make a difference is by future subscriptions from when the legislation is passed. I believe that this means you should cancel your GreenPower then resubscribe after the legislation passes if you want to ‘make your actions count.’
Ootz:
My point was that the rage is what’s going down in the electorate, albeit on those caught on the wrong side of the carbon price.
Brian: Yes there’s probably about 5 coherent blog posts worth of material there… Maybe I should stick to the 1 idea, 1 post rule. It tends to work better….
Brian @ 21, you’ve said, in part, what I was reaching for, I think.
Wozza appears to be missing that very point, but I’m not sure why.
Thanks dk – thats what I thought it meant, but it was so mind-boggling I had to check.
So, does this mean voluntary action AFTER the act will tear up the equivalent number of permits? Or is there slippage?
David Irving:
“It’ll mostly be attended by a bunch of cornucopians, lawyers, and coin-clippers who know they’ll all be dead before the shit hits the fan.”
My first belly laugh of the day. Thanks.
Wozza: the philosophy of science apparently eludes you. Try Chalmers ‘What Is This Thing Called Science?’ for a concise tour de force of scientific method and how there is little enough agreement between scientists about how they do what they do and then follow on with Kuhn and Feyerabend with maybe a little Donna Harraway thrown in to round out what you need to know.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, anthony. It’s gallows humour, unfortunately.
DI (nr), Brian, Ootz– sorry, I am retiring from this conversation. If you believe that scientific truth (and I emphasise “truth” because that word – not “method” – is the way the proposition was originally put) even approximates a social construct, and apparently you do, then I can’t help you. Science takes place of course in a social context, but that is a very different statement.
If it helps clarify my position, I will retreat slightly – geez, I’m a soft touch – from the perhaps over-brutal characterisation of climate science as a pseudo-science, in favour of agreeing with Brian’s “climate science covers a multitude of disciplines” and its implications. It is the constant exhortations to have regard to “the science” which frustrates me – we are actually talking about a whole range of science and complex interactions, some of which science is well-established in terms of “truth” and a whole lot of which is not, and it is quite wrong to speak of “the” science as entirely accepted. The frequent conflation of science with modeling, two entirely different things, comes into it too.
Anyone who wants to have “truth” needs to get religion. Back here in the observable but fuzzy world, we work with differing kinds and quantities of uncertainty and partial knowledge.
Science steers us away from things that are almost certainly bogus, and lights a path towards elusive things like “causality” and “insight” without the guarantee that we will live long enough to see them. There is no better guide than science to help us on this journey and we will not deride the guide because he can’t give us the certainty we crave.
Precisely for this reason, there is no better guide, imperfect as it is, to policy formation and rollout where scientific insight is foundational. To substitute untutored cultural impulse or visceral angst for science as do the deniers, would be reckless and sociopathic and invite failure on a grand scale in just the terms the science foretold.
That’s how I see it …
DI (NR)
Yeah, not much to laugh about. Sometimes I wonder whether these self styled skeptics also would argue with their physicians claim that smoking is affecting their health, just because Lindzen has come up with a contrary scientific evidence and medicine is not a hard science.
Having said that, I wish that Wozza and others in that camp could provide me with relevant and accurate evidence to counter or improve my current understanding of where we stand with AGW.
dk.au,
I think I did get your point and by extension was asking was this rage planned by the Government and if so what is their plan. Particularly since it appears that the CPRS will not produce the required emission reductions, and I assume they must know that too. Is it all about the electoral cycle here or are they genuine in their believe that CPRS is the vehicle to lead us out of the carbon age? …. just asking
Wozza, we, you, I and everyone else are ontologically social beings. Without each other we would not be human and would not be able to express our individual beings in human terms. And we are part of a flow, not the same from one instant to another. So start from there.
Every truth is finally communicated in the form of a statement, which uses symbols which are in their form and meaning socially constructed. The statement refers to a reality other than itself. Start also from there.
That said there is, I suspect, a lot we could agree about. Hansen says there are three categories of knowledge in relation to climate. In order of priority:
1. From current observations (going as far back as we reliably can)
2. The paleo climate record
3. modelling.
We possibly won’t agree about that.
That book that I recommended to you on the other thread, Morgan and McCrystal’s Poles Apart, has about three pages which explain the uses and limitations of climate models. For a lay person it was an excellent introduction. Morgan was trained as an economist and understands mathematical models very well, I think.
They worked their way through all that, all the claims of what they call Sceptics and Alarmists, and came to the conclusion that while climate science was a young science and uncertainties and unresolved matters certainly exist, the central core was secure enough for us to make policy decisions in the interests of risk management. In fact not to do so would be delinquent in the extreme. What the Alarmists say is alarming and soundly based enough that we should do them the courtesy of not calling them alarmists.
I was happy with that and I’m not claiming anything beyond that.
My question above got partially answered courtesy of an email from GetUp I just received.
Brian @32
Thanks for that, it exactly encapsulates where I am coming from. The risk management aspect to me is the real clincher and often gets lost in the scientific arguments.
It’s also untrue, and insulting to a lot of dedicated people who are trying to make an effort to solve this problem. You should take it back.
Ootz @33, the thing that truely amazes me, is the calmness with which everyone is taking the news that Aussies are the worst polluters in the world.
Why isn’t it a source of embarrassment and shame?
You’re right, Tim. I’m thinking of the politicians who have yet to arrive rather than those people who are actually attempting to find a solution.
We’re punching above our weight again, Elise. That’s a source of Aussie Pride!
Elise @35
These are good questions and warrant a thorough investigation in a thread by its own.
FWIW I have mentioned Kuebler Ross 5 stages of grieving (or coping, my interpretation) in a previous thread on AGW related issue, dont know whether it is relevant here. 1. Denial, there is certainly alot arond of that. 2. Anger = rage, as under discussion here.3. Bargaining, there is plenty of evidence of that too. 4. Depression, there are these comments such as ” Oh well what can we do, why save the planet!” And 5. there is Acceptance ” lets get on with it we do the best we can do according to the circumstances.
My other observation, as an overseas born citizen, is contemporary Australian culture does not do embarrassment and shame generally as opposed to past and present indigenous cultures. We are more akin to excel everyone else, if it is perceived as a sporting and worthwhile endeavor. So maybe we have to frame the AGW issue in a horse racing context, where people easily will understand the odds and repercussion (win/loss) of the outcome.
Brian @32
In approach we aren’t that far apart, but I suspect we draw different conclusions at the end.
Your/Hansen’s three categories of knowledge are a useful way of looking at it. To put my position briefly:
1 Current observations. This is where the only really “hard” science comes from, direct observation being the key to hard science. There is much in this (though much also that is agreed) that is still open for debate (eg our exchange yesterday on radiation), which is why I have a problem with sweeping generalisations about “the science” being settled.
2. Paleo-climate. There is a lot in this area which does in my view represent pseudo-science, or shonky science. eg Briffa and his disgraceful cherry-picking of the Yamal tree ring data. Even without cherry picking,a great deal of statistical torturing of data is involved in producing conclusions in much of paleo-climate research, torturing which in my view is incompatible with hard science, being a tool more used in social sciences.
3. Modelling. Where we probably part company most. There is considerable room to suspect that the models currently used have quite substantial high side biases, and that way the IPCC chooses models incentivises (not necessarily nefariously) this, in my view.
Now I really will retire.
Fair enough Wozza, but hang in there please.
From a risk management point of view, assuming you are familiar with its practice, in your assessment where would you put the binominal probability of AGW. Further, at what probability would you suggest we should seriously address the issue, considering the possible magnitude of its repercussions?
Ootz: I think you are totally correct to raise the stages of grieving in relation to the debate. Many people are stuck at affective denial.
BTW – Clive Hamilton’s claim that climate change “sceptics” are equivalent to Holocaust denialists is well argued at http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/11/16/hamilton-denying-the-coming-climate-holocaust/ I especially like his formulation that:
“We think of climate deniers as being immoral because we suspect them of being motivated, not by truth-seeking, but by political goals, a desire for funds from fossil-fuel companies or personal aggrandisement.”
That;s right – and its also true that competing theories are adjuged in part by their ability to explain observable phenomena.
For example, how does the “its not happening” school explain the succession of record heatwaves over the last 7 years? Does it even have an explanation? We know that slar radiation is actually at a low cycle, so it aint that. And what of the rise in natural disasters such as cyclones, floooding, widespread fires?
This – alongside the fact that people like Bolt actually have no credibility in the field of climate science – is why one side has won the so-called “debate”.
Now the only question is how to we best act.
LeftyE. Indeed. How to act. I keep reading here and there of dissatisfaction with how the parties of social democracy are failing us. My view too. Someone commented that the problem for s.d. parties is that their strategic approach is to negotiate a settlement between capital and labour but noted as well that you don’t negotiate with a planet. I also am increasingly coming across calls for mass scale non-violent direct action and general refusnik behaviour as a necessary step by which to encourage the s.d. parties to face up to capital. It seems to me that this is inevitable because the likelihood of those well known philanthropists – coal mine owners – giving up their power, prestige, wealth and luxury is les than zero. It seems to me that a lot of people are waiting for someone to take an effective initiative.
“I also am increasingly coming across calls for mass scale non-violent direct action and general refusnik behaviour as a necessary step by which to encourage the s.d. parties to face up to capital.”
Im certainly of that school of thought, Anthony.
Another big part of all this is the anthropomorphic error: the implicit idea that somehow the earth was designed to suit our needs and accommodate us, endlessly. Whereas in fact, we evolved on it – and we were designed for the climate we evolved in. Once we change it, all bets are off.
Hmm. Read the blog you referred to. Non-violence is an essential value in democracy even though opponents can and probably will resort to the opposite and use the dirty forces of the state as well. I don’t think it an accident that NSW Police have acquired a water cannon, for example, which is only useful against massed groups and has no alternative use (ie, no sprinkle setting).
So, non-violence is the key tactic. The middle classes swung behind the Franklin campaign not merely to support their favourite romanticised wilderness but because the campaign was well conducted along those principles.
I think the major difference now, compared to maybe two decades ago, in perceptions of capital’s assault on the ecological conditions of existence is that the professional bourgeoisie has woken up to reality. They will be key players who as yet lack the nerve or the will to act as citizens in common in preserving life but that moment may not be far away.
Hmmm, there maybe something to this call for direct action, because rage in itself has no effect at all and all this pent up energy needs to go some where. Perhaps that’s even what Kevin wants, how else is he going to get his above mentioned minimum 40% cut by 2020. Imagine the wing nuts uproar if that number would be on the table now. Yes the middle class needs to be activated, as Anthony above pointed out, it worked for the Franklin. I am afraid the 350 campaign is too intangible, what is needed is some thing that is better defined and can be branded in a Australian political context.
Hands up those who are confused. Okay, this is the way it works. We sell fossil fuels to major carbon polluters overseas and for this we get paid lots of money. The enterprises that are using our carbon-based fuels in those countries overseas pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Our government gets a royalty from the carbon extraction industries and then distributes the largesse to our polluters by exempting them from the carbon tax and by subsidising them through our tax system so they can buy carbon credits to include their purchase expenditure as input costs and which then come off their bottom line for the purposes of being assessed for taxation. The government can afford to forgo the tax revenue because it earns the royalties from the miners who sell to polluters overseas, who at the same time have the government over a barrel because the government relies on the royalties which they bring in. Our own polluters, who supply the cheap but dirty energy we need to have a good life also have the government over a barrel because politically the population will not put up with the true (high) costs of the coal energy we use once the ecological externalities are taken into account. Those industries can then buy carbon credits from those countries and their enterprises who have either been growing trees or using renewable energy so that they can sell carbon credits on the global market which our polluters buy.
“climate change direct action” gets 1,710,000 google returns at moment
someone should track it – watch it grow – too slow for sure – but would make an interesting index
at 47-”Those industries can then buy carbon credits from those countries and their enterprises who have either been growing trees or using renewable energy so that they can sell carbon credits on the global market which our polluters buy.”
.
This is the much praised transfer of equity mechanism.
And with the money the less developed countries obtain they can buy technology from us to boost their carbon credit production.
Everyone wins!
Here’s a short video on how the “everybody wins” thing works.
And here is Clark and Dawe.
On Wednesday the Fin Review had an article on coal mining. One of the problems in the industry is “fugitive emissions” or gassy mines that release methane during mining. Worldwide if you take the gas and oil industry as well as coal this source amounts just under ruminants and more than rice cultivation. It appears to be the fastest increasing sector.
The gasiness of mines varies greatly, so the government is reluctant to grant them EITE status, which would provide a huge windfall go ungassy mines. Instead they have thrown in $750 mill over 5 years to help mines cut emissions.
The miners are not happy. They reckon the assistance would cover only 4.5% of their costs leaving them $14 billion out of pocket over 10 years. This feature will certainly affect their competitiveness with other sources of coal.
But if the Govt goes the EITE route it will cost revenues in the ETS $10 billion over 10 years.
Interestingly the Coalition wants to use regulation, forcing cuts of emissions by 30% 2025. They reckon mines should capture and divert waste methane from underground mines at least to power generation.
We wait to see which way MacFarlane and Wong will jump.