A Historic Event or a Fraud? -- Critical Thoughts on the Paris Climate Accord

Considering that so much depends on whether global warming can be arrested soon, it was no wonder that all thinking people had turned their attention to Paris, where on 13^th December the COP21 "successfully" ended, with great jubilation. I too followed the process through the media.

Positive and Negative Reactions

A day after, I read the following comments: (1) "Today is a historic day: as tens of thousands of people filled the streets of Paris, politicians finalized a major new global climate agreement". And (2) "It’s a fraud really, a fake,”… “It’s just bullshit…"¹ The first was made by May Boeve, the US national organizer of 350.org, a big NGO, that is playing a leading role in the climate justice movement, the second by James Hansen, a former NASA scientist, considered the father of climate change awareness. Which one can we regard as the correct assessment?
    Given that nobody in my position has the time and energy to read all the reports and comments on the COP21, I hope that my readers would forgive me if I have overlooked some important point in the agreement or an important comment on it. But fairness demands that I also mention a middle position, for example that of Thomas Friedman, a liberal columnist of the New York Times. He wrote:"I had low expectations for the U.N. climate meeting, and it met all of them – beautifully. I say that without cynicism. Any global conference that includes so many countries can’t be expected to agree on much more than the lowest common denominator."²
    That is understandable. As far as I could follow, nobody had big expectations. But then I do not understand how May and other prominent people of big NGOs can be so enthusiastic about it. Bill McKibben wrote: "With the climate talks in Paris now over, the world has set itself a serious goal." ³  I have doubts. Was the goal really set seriously? Friedman wrote: "But the fact that the lowest common denominator is now so high [he means the target 1.5⁰ Celcius] – a willingness by 188 countries to offer plans to steadily and verifiably reduce their carbon emissions – means we still have a chance." ² Again I have doubts. I would very much like to agree with Boeve, McKibben, and Friedman. But at present at least, I cannot, for reasons I shall present below.

Why Call it a Fraud?

I too think, like Hansen, the accord was a fraud, but for reasons very different from those of his. I think it was only because they were afraid of being branded as the guilty in case the COP21 failed to reach an agreement that the major CO₂ emitter countries reluctantly decided to sign this very weak paper. But paper, as the Germans say, is patient. If you want evidence, then look at the position with which the government of India went to Paris. Only a few months before the COP21 began, the government of India had announced the policy decision to double India's coal production in the next 5 years. Just a few days before he left for Paris, Mr. Javadekar, India's environment minister, had said in an interview: "I'm asking the developed world to vacate the carbon space so that we can park our development."⁴
    Retorting to US Secretary of State John Kerry's criticism of India's decision to double its coal production, Javadekar had remarked it was "absolutely unfair and unacceptable," especially since the CO₂ reduction targets announced by the developed countries would fail to arrest the climate change crisis, which they had a historical responsibility of fixing after a century of pumping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. He also warned the Americans against "bullying" India.⁴
    Or take the case of Norway, very rich in oil and gas. Just twelve days after they signed the Paris accord, the prime minister of the country said:"We believe that in a situation in which we shall have attained the goal of Paris, there will be demand for Norwegian oil and gas."⁵ So they are continuing with all the plans and projects for extracting oil and gas from the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. While claiming that they want to protect the Arctic from the effects of global warming, they are speculating on the melting of the arctic ice that will make more access to oil and gas possible. It seems they are saying (in German): Wasch mir den Pelz aber mach mich nicht nass, or (in English): We want to eat the cake and have it too.
    These are actually irreconcilable positions. We can formulate them as two most fundamental controversial questions: (1) Should the underdeveloped countries be allowed to develop their economies to the level reached by the USA or Germany? (2) And must the economies of the developed countries be scaled down, in order to vacate the carbon space in favor of the former? In Paris, these questions were probably not put on the table in these stark terms. In the interview referred to above, Mr. Javedkar, while asserting India's right – implicitly the right of all underdeveloped countries – to development, did not raise the second question. The Paris accord too recognizes all underdeveloped countries' "right to development". It "… aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, … " (Article 2). But it does not mention the second question.
    It appears that all participants in COP21, the big and small environment NGOs, publicists, and activists take it as a matter of course that the answer to the first question is Yes, and that to the second is No. The controversy was just papered over. It is simply taken for granted that a deus ex machina, namely technological development, would enable humankind to solve the problem of global warming without causing any pain to anybody, and that it only needs some more time and large investments in renewable energies and efficiency-raising technologies. In the rich, developed countries, a large part of the hope of technology optimists is placed on the carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, although not even its feasibility has yet been established. Bill Mckibben, founder and leader of 350.org, charts the strategy for the coming years.⁶ The state(s) must do the following:

"You’ve got to stop fracking right away … . You have to start installing solar panels and windmills at a breakneck pace – and all over the world. The huge subsidies doled out to fossil fuel have to end yesterday, and the huge subsidies to renewable energy had better begin tomorrow. You have to raise the price of carbon steeply and quickly, so everyone gets a clear signal to get off of it."

And he lays down the task of the movement as follows:

"There can be no complacency after the Paris talks. Hitting even the 1.5C target will need drastic, rapid action. Think of the climate movement as personal trainers – for the next few years our job is to yell and scream at governments everywhere to get up off the couch."

The most popular article of faith of environmental NGOs and activists (not of governments) is that – given the right policy decisions such as those laid down by McKibben in the above quote, and correspondingly large amounts of state subsidies – it would be possible in two to three decades to meet 100 percent of humanity's energy needs by means of renewable energy technologies, so that burning fossil fuels would not be necessary at all; there would also be no need for the CCS technology.
    Hansen calls the accord a fraud, mainly because he sees no concrete action plan in it, only promises that, moreover, the signatory states are required to implement gradually, beginning only in 2020. His idea was a tax or price or fee of $15 a tonne of CO₂ to be paid by major emitters. He argued that only this measure could force down CO₂ emissions quickly enough. But he found no support, not even among big environment groups, because, as he said, nobody wants to scare people off by talking off new taxes.¹
    I could have supported the tax proposal of Hansen if he had stopped there. But, like the others mentioned above, he too believes that ultimately it is only by replacing fossil fuel energies with clean energies that we can avert climate catastrophes. For he says in the same interview: "We need to have a rising fee on carbon in order to move to clean energy."¹
    Unlike Hansen, I see the fraud taking place since long, and it is contained in the very conceptions of the proposed solutions – in all parts thereof and both in their short as well as long-term versions. Firstly, the whole COP process from the very beginning, i.e. since 1992 onwards, is swearing to promote sustainable development and eradicate poverty while at the same time protecting the environment and averting global warming. The COP21 did the same. Otherwise the developing countries would not have taken part in the process. But how do you, in the short term, eradicate poverty in developing countries, e.g. in India, South Africa or Colombia, if you make power much dearer by (a) imposing a tax of $15 a tonne of CO₂ payable by major emitters (that includes India), (b) by ending all subsidies to fossil fuels, and (c) paying huge subsidies to renewable energies (where will the huge sums come from)?
    Most persons, groups, parties etc. mentioned above simply assume that economic growth i.e. growth in prosperity can and will continue without any problem when the fossil fuel energies have been replaced with "clean" energies. As against that, I (and my political friends, e.g. Ted Trainer) believe since long that it is absolutely necessary that the major industrial countries, including China, India, Brazil etc. purposely bring about a contraction of their economies – in order not only to stop burning more and more fossil fuels but also to reduce the general level of environmental pollution. We do not think that economic growth would be possible if we really want to save the biosphere. I can also cite evidence supporting this belief: In recent history, the only time CO₂ emission and general environmental pollution went down in a large region were the 1990s, i.e. after the Eastern European economies, especially the then second biggest economy of the world, that of the Soviet Union, collapsed. But in the Paris accord there is no mention of this necessity. The whole de-growth movement has been totally ignored, also by the big environmental NGOs. They simply believe in miracles.
    One may ask why I doubt that it would be possible, if not soon, then at least in the near future or in the long term to fully or at least largely replace fossil fuel energies (and other nonrenewable resources) with renewable ones. After all, technological progress is taking place all the time! Basing myself on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's differentiation between feasible and viable,⁷ I have been expressing this doubt for the last 25 years. It is not possible to repeat all my arguments here; interested people may read some of my writings recommended below.⁸ Here I only want to refer to two sets of facts that serve as indications that my doubt may be justified. (1) Already in 1994, Eurosolar and its friends and associate organizations claimed in a full-page advertisement in the German print media that solar energy based on the technology developed till then could compete with fossil fuel energies. But today, after twenty more years of research and development, we see that solar energy is still neither competitive nor viable without large subsidies. That is why even today new coal-fired power plants are being built? (2) India is very rich in sunshine and wind. Still its government wants to double coal production in order to supply energy to the masses. Why? And why do its politicians say, it is only coal that India has for energy? Are the Indian engineers stupid or ignorant? Or have they all sold away their conscience to the coal lobby?
    Protagonists of green growth, i.e. growth based on 100% transition to renewables are all very intelligent people. Yet they are ignoring these facts and questions. If they are not intentionally bluffing, then they are, I believe, suffering from an illusion.
There are some more reasons why I criticize the big environmental NGOs. (1) They – unlike Hansen, who has called the whole agreement a fraud – have exonerated the political class (the authors of the Paris Deal) from all guilt, as if they are not always ready to fulfill the wishes of big corporations, as if they are actually good people who, like the NGOs, care for the interests of the masses, the only "villains" being the fossil fuel industries. Opposing these villains are, in their view, the good "ordinary people", the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, as if they do not want to consume more and more energy and other products of fossil fuels. This is too naïve, if it is not a fraud too. (2) They have isolated the climate crisis from all other crises involved in mankind's present predicament, as if they are not interconnected. They simply ignore the totality of the crisis. (3) They do not seem to know that the $100 billion that the politicians of the rich countries have promised to pay to the victims of global warming will first have to be generated by producing more green house gases. (4) It appears, moreover, that they have not noticed that these are all only promises. Don't they know that governments, especially in times of economic crisis, never deliver what they promise? The UNHCR, for example, recently reduced the food ration to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan etc. because they haven't received all the money that was promised to them.
    But the more basic problem I have with those who are euphoric about the Paris accord is that the signatory governments as well as the NGOs, green and left parties etc. do not even mention the real and deeper causes of the ecological, economic, political and social miseries of humankind, of which climate change and large-scale migration are just currently the most glaring manifestations. These real and deeper causes are the continuously growing demands, aspirations and ambitions of a continuously growing world population, while our resource base is continuously dwindling and the ability of nature to absorb man-made pollution is continuously diminishing – in short, the lunatic idea that in a finite world infinite growth is possible.

Is the System Question Irrelevant?

What I, moreover, found very strange is that, all along, all people involved in the COP process assumed that the envisioned drastic changes in such a vital factor as the energy supply base of the modern industrial economies could be undertaken without requiring any changes in the current political-economic system.
    Of course, one could not expect from the politicians who signed the deal that they would include in it a clause stating that the system they have built up and which has made them rich and powerful also needs to be changed. But how come also the rest of the involved people did not have the slightest doubt that the huge problem can be solved within the framework of capitalism and free market economy? Outside this circle, however, in the context of the problems at hand, the system question had already been posed several hundred times, in speeches and writings, before the COP21 began. In TV news broadcasts, I have even a few times seen pictures of radical leftist protesters carrying banners and placards with the slogan "System change, not climate change".
    Can't one expect of honest and thinking NGO and media people that they also at least consider the possibility that the technological breakthroughs – 100% renewable energy, CCS etc., on which they are placing all their hopes – do not occur or do not occur in time? If they do not occur, shouldn't one have a plan B for averting the catastrophes? In plain English, if humanity can no longer indulge in the growth compulsions inherent in capitalism with its principle of competition in a free market economy, shouldn't the state(s) step in and order a stop in further economic growth? Shouldn't the state(s) then tell the people that they have to accept a contracting economy and all the consequences thereof? Shouldn't the state(s), from then on, plan an orderly withdrawal from the present mad economic system?⁹
    Unfortunately, many people who do raise the system question – there are even some prominent people among them – often do that half-heartedly. They often question "capitalism as we know it or as it is today" or "globalized neo-liberal capitalism", as if a better form of capitalism is conceivable, as if it could be made ecological, social or humane, and compatible with economic contraction. I do not think such half-hearted critiques are of any use. Such people do not realize that as long as the motive of profit maximization and the principles of private ownership of means of production, selfishness, and competition remain – and these are the most essential elements of capitalism –, there would always be a compulsion to grow, whatever that may cost human society and nature. That will bring to nought all efforts to overcome the climate crisis and many other crises.

Conclusion. Can Anything be Done Before an Eco-Socialist Revolution?

A friend said to me: look, Saral, I am convinced what you are saying is correct. But your eco-socialist revolution may never happen or it may come too late. Can't the powers that be do something short of your revolution, and soon? And can't ordinary people, who are afraid of too radical a change, urge them to do something in this emergency situation.
    I think that is possible. But a fraud on the people is not what I can advocate. A fraud cannot help even if we, as Mckibben urges us to do, "yell and scream at governments everywhere to get up off the couch."
    I can today imagine that an honest, well-meaning (think of PODEMOS and SYRIZA), and eco-sensitive social democratic party in near future comes to power through an election and gives itself, against the background of humanity's serious multifaceted crisis, an immediate program that could be implemented within the framework of current kinds of democracy and capitalism.
    The top priority of such a program should be to tell the voters the truth about limits to growth (and prosperity) and the necessity of respecting them, and then to take all feasible measures to gradually curtail economic growth, if not immediately and totally stop it. That should not be impossible. In fact, in Japan and the EU (with the exception of Germany), the economies are already stagnating – in Japan for the last 15 or 25 years and in the EU since 2008. Already now, people in the rich countries are getting used to stagnating economies or (as in China) falling growth rates. In Greece, Portugal and Spain people have experienced falling wages and cuts in salaries, pensions, and social benefits. We only have to make a virtue of this unwelcome development by openly and courageously saying that a recession is good for the environment including the climate. The government must only equitably distribute the burdens of protecting the environment in this way, and the burdens of the resulting unemployment by reducing by law the average weekly working hours.
    In the broad environmental movements in the Western capitalist countries, we can find many concrete proposals and concrete examples for this policy: Governments can promote public transportation and discourage private motorization. Activists can start a system of borrowable cars and two-wheelers owned by groups. Governments can pass orders to the effect that individual private cars can be used only on alternate days etc. etc. Above all, governments must stop all previous policies of promoting growth. All such things work against the capitalist ideal of growth and lead us toward collectivism. In the past, capitalists have had to swallow them.
    As far as I can observe, in the developed countries, among the masses, understanding for such policies is growing, although it is still far from becoming the majority view. Particularly political parties that want to get elected to parliaments are still not ready to adopt such a program. The Green Party of Germany has of course, long ago, betrayed its original program. But the latter was really an ecological social-democratic one.¹⁰ Here lies the great task of extra-parliamentary environmentalists and eco-socialist groups and individuals: to mobilize mass support for such a program. Today, the chances that they would succeed are much greater than in the early 1980s.
    In the underdeveloped countries, the two most important parts of such an immediate program should be to stop population growth and build up a modest social security and job guarantee system.¹¹ Fortunately, both ideas are well accepted among the elites of many of such countries, although implementation is weak. To drive the illusions of catching-up economic development and growing prosperity out of their heads would become much easier once the elites of the developed countries have done their part of the work.

 References

1. The first was communicated to me by my friend Kamran Nayeri. For the second see
Hansen, James (2015): http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/james-hansen-climate-change-paris-talks-fraud

2. Friedman, Thomas L. (2015):
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/opinion/paris-climate-accord-is-a-big-big-deal.html?_r=02

3. McKibben, Bill (2015) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/13/paris-climate-talks-15c-marathon-negotiating-physics

4. Javadekar http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/11/21/prakash-javadekar-intervi_n_8617864.html

5. Bigalke, Silke (2015) "An der Eiskante" . In Süddeutache Zeitung, 28.12. 2015

6. Mckibben, Bill (2015) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/13/paris-climate-talks-15c-marathon-negotiating-physics

7. Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas (1978) "Technology Assessment: The Case of the Direct Use of Solar Energy", in Atlantic Economic Journal, December.

8. My detailed arguments on this issue are contained in
chapter 4 of my book Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? (see 9),
in http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/2014/04/krugmans-illusion-we-becoming-richer.html
and in http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/2015/09/root-causes-of-cleavages-in-ecological.html

9. I have thoroughly discussed these questions in my book Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? – A Critical Analysis of Humanity's fundamental Choices. (1999. Zed Books, London).
In German translation: Die Nachhaltige Gesellschaft – Eine kritische Analyse der Systemalternativen. (2001. Rotpunkt Verlag, Zürich)

10. See: Saral Sarkar (1994) Green-Alternative Politics in West Germany – Vol.II: The Greens. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.

11. For details of my argumentation see http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/2012/08/polemics-is-useless-proposal-for-eco.html

 

The Global Crisis and Role of So-Called Renewable Energies in Solving It

Aspects and Causes of the Crisis

The climate crisis is only one aspect of the global crisis. Yet, generally speaking, Western governments, media, politicians, NGOs, and publicists have been trying to make us believe that it is the only dangerous and the only global crisis. It appears that for them all other crises in the world are only partial or regional problems of secondary importance. But this is a patently reductionist and superficial view of the present global crisis. Consequently, also the policies that are being pursued for solving the climate crisis are wrong.
    The aforementioned agents of worldwide climate politics plus the UN pressurized nearly all states of the world to sign up to the Paris accord (2015). But no similar global effort is being made to address, let alone solve, the global ecology crisis, the various, seemingly unending civil wars and uprisings in the world, the terrorist attacks of various kinds, increase in crime rates almost everywhere, the unemployment-and-poverty problem in all poor and "developing" countries, and the massive refugee-migrant crises in many parts of the world – in short, the globally growing failed and failing states crisis. To my mind, this is the right description of the critical state of the world today. The climate crisis is only one part of it, and as a crisis, it is of recent origin. It is, of course, also a major, but not a basic (i.e. deeper), cause of the global crisis.
    To justify why I do not consider the climate crisis to be a basic cause of the global crisis, I would like to refer to the present situation in Mexico and Venezuela. They are very advanced candidates for the title "failed state". In Mexico, in short, the main cause of this situation is widespread drug-related crimes, in Venezuela it is the totally wrong economic policy of successive governments of a petro-socialist state. Or take for instance the two cases of South Sudan and Central African Republic. People there are not suffering from any climate-change-related drought or flooding.

Dubious Politics of Climate Politicians

Let us first examine the understanding that climate change is at present the greatest danger to mankind and that, therefore, it should be addressed as the most important task of governments.
    Most government leaders and party politicians admit that climate change is a big danger, but they are not prepared to make an all-out effort to avert or mitigate it. Their topmost policy-priority is continuous economic growth. For stabilizing global warming below two degrees Celsius in the near future, they think it would suffice if the world economy could gradually be made to run on an energy mix of various sources, including some so-called renewables, and that, according to IPCC chief economist Edenhofer,^* would not cost the world more than 0.06 percent growth.
    But radical climate NGOs and activist groups maintain that the economies of highly industrialized countries such as Germany could run 100% on the basis of "renewable energies". And they say that a rapid replacement of fossil-carbon and nuclear energy industries through renewable energy industries would create many new jobs, thus becoming the main pillar of green growth. They have more or less concrete ideas for the transition, even very detailed action plans for a quick transition to 100% "renewables".
    I can here take just one example, only Bill McKibben's action plan entitled A World at War.¹ In it he calls for a "war" effort – although "war" is here only a metaphor – as huge as the American military and industrial mobilization for World War II. In naming his enemy, however, McKibben makes the initial big error in analysis. He thinks it is climate change. He imagines this enemy is committing a huge aggression against us. Once he calls it an "enemy as powerful and inexorable as the laws of physics."
    Isn't it absurd? Any person with some common sense knows that climate change is only the result of global warming. But even global warming cannot be the "enemy". We know today that it is man-made. For a moment McKibben also recognized his error. He himself mentions in a half-sentence "our insatiable desires as consumers," but he does not spell it out as the ultimate cause of the malady. 
    Anyway, he demanded of the then US government (and its future successors) that it should initiate and organize a huge industrial mobilization to get "a hell of a lot of factories" built in order to turn out "thousands of acres of solar panels, wind turbines the length of football fields, and millions and millions of electric cars and buses." David Roberts²  made it vivid:

"Well, have a look at Solar City’s gigafactory, … . It will be the biggest solar manufacturing facility … covering 27 acres, capable of cranking out 10,000 solar panels a day – a gigawatt’s worth in a year. At the height of its transition to WWS [wind, water, solar], the US would have to build around 30 gigafactories a year devoted to solar panels, and another 15 a year for wind turbines. That’s 45 of the biggest factories ever built, every year. That is [even for an American] a mind-boggling pace of building, … ."

Imagine now the huge amount of shit this gigantic effort would simultaneously produce: the environmental pollution, resource depletion, and waste that has to be dumped somewhere.
    We may allow McKibben his war metaphor in the name of poetic license. But if a general makes a wrong analysis of the war situation or, said in the jargon of applied medical science, if the diagnosis is wrong, the strategy or the prescribed medicine may do more harm than good. McKibben's prescription, the huge dose of the wrong medicine – i.e. a huge mobilization for the "Third World War" that climate change, he imagines, is waging against us – is actually uncalled-for. There can be a much lighter and more effective medicine to cure the severe illness based on his more correct diagnosis, namely his half-sentence "our insatiable desires as consumers".
    Any adherent of the old left (old socialism) of any kind would speak of the capitalists' insatiable desire for profit and capital accumulation as the main cause of our troubles. She would call upon us to wage class struggle. But McKibben and climate activists like him are not old-leftists. They are not willing to fight against capitalism, but only against climate change. And this he wants to do, like all past and present old-leftists, by technological means. Blinded by technological optimism, such people believe that a 100% transition to "renewable" energies is possible. They say we need more technology, not less; they assert we could overcome all crises and problems of mankind by means of technology. I already heard in 1984 that the intermittency-and-storage problem of renewable energies can be easily solved, namely by means of batteries and liquid hydrogen.

Critique of technological solutions

Such activists are suffering from some illusions. They appear not to know the most inexorable of all the laws of physics, namely the Second Law of Thermodynamics (AKA the Entropy Law that also applies to matter). In reality, so-called renewable energies are neither renewable nor clean. One makes this mistake due to a logical error that must be rectified. We have to differentiate between sources of energy and equipments needed to convert them into electricity and heat. Sunshine, wind, and flowing water are sources that will still be there after Homo sapiens has disappeared from the surface of the earth and will still supply useful energies to the next hominid species– e.g. as driver of sailing boats and as supplier of warmth. So they indeed are renewable and also clean. But the equipments needed to generate electricity from these sources are made of materials that are nonrenewable. And the energy used to produce these material things comes till today for the most part from fossil-carbon and nuclear fuels, both of which are nonrenewable and dirty. So how can solar, wind and hydro-electricity be called renewable and clean? And how can electric cars be preferable to combustion engine cars if the batteries made of nonrenewable materials store nonrenewable and unclean electricity?
    Moreover, these so-called renewable energies are not viable, although they are feasible. Suppose tomorrow, accepting the demand of the movements, all states decide to leave all the still unextracted fossil-carbon and nuclear fuels in the ground. How will then the said equipments be manufactured/built?
    And the equipments that have already been manufactured/built and are supplying electricity have a lifespan of 20-30 years. When they are no longer working and must be replaced, the second generation thereof cannot be manufactured/built, because then, we shall not have any fossil or nuclear energy to be used. Either the fossil-carbon and nuclear fission materials are exhausted or our governments have decided to leave them in the ground. To make the point clear, let me quote an impatient discussant, who, using the pseudonym "foodstuff", put the following questions to protagonists of the so-called renewable energies:³

"I still want to know if the following can be done:

1. Mine the raw materials using equipment powered by solar panels.
2. Transport and convert metal ores, e.g. bauxite-aluminum, using equipment run by solar panels and in a factory built using the energy from solar panels.
3. Make the finished panels in a factory run by solar panels, including building and maintaining the factory.
4. Transport, install and maintain the solar panels using equipment running on solar panels.
All this is presently being done [mainly] with the energy from fossil fuels. How will it be done when they are gone?"

EROEI

Protagonists of 100% "renewable energies" say: we must use a large part of the generated renewable energies for producing the equipment needed for producing the second generation of equipment for producing renewable energies. And so it will go on and on.
    Here comes the crucial question of EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested or energy balance). Assuming that the first generation equipments do produce some net energy, i.e. EROEI is positive, how large is the amount of this net energy? Let us Remember, hundreds of millions of households and enterprises producing consumer goods will first consume electricity from this source. Will there be anything left for investing in production of all the equipments, i.e. producing and reproducing everything necessary for running an industrial economy?
    There is no certainty in this question. Many experts who tried to measure it expressed doubt that the EROEI of solar energy technology is positive. Why is the matter so uncertain?
    The gross ER (energy return) part of the question is easy to answer, and correctly, if you have a good meter attached to the solar panel. But how do you measure the EI (energy invested) part of the question? What the experts do is actually guesstimating. Here bias starts playing a role. So I answer the question in a different, and I think more convincing, way:
    Since almost all raw materials and energy that are till today used to produce the required equipments are nonrenewable, the old mines and wells of the same gradually get exhausted. Miners must then go to ever remoter and ever more difficult places to extract them out of new mines/wells. That means, energy invested (EI) in fuels and minerals progressively increases. That means EI – not only for energy equipments but also for any industrial product – continuously increases. Remember, we are not talking of prices and money costs which depend on many variable factors, but of EI, of energy cost of a product. For example, money cost of production of solar panels would fall further, and hence also their price, if production is transferred from China to, say, Bangladesh, where wages are lower than in China.
    In case of minerals such as copper and Nickel we are digging deeper and deeper and going to ever hotter and icy-colder deserts and polar regions. The copper mine of Chuquicamata in Chile's Atacama desert is in the meantime so deep that the big heavy trucks that bring the ore to the surface can only be seen like toys down below. For oil, we are since long boring in deep seabed. Recently, geologists have found a mountain containing huge quantities of extremely rare cadmium telluride, the material that can greatly increase the efficiency of solar cells. But it stands at a depth of 1000 meters down in the Atlantic Ocean. If that is the objective situation, no small innovation improving the ER side can, I think, in the long run offset the secular trend of rising energy costs (EI). For such small innovations cannot overcome the two cosmological constants involved here, namely (1) the intensity of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth at any particular place – which is very low, so that organisms can survive – and (2) the fact that the sun does not shine in the night.⁴

Conclusion–
Perspective on a Future Sustainable Society

I hope now it has become clear to my readers that "renewable energies" cannot play any role in solving the multifaceted global crisis of today and that, on the contrary, investing in these technologies is a waste of time, effort, energy and, most important of all, scarce resources. If scientists and engineers were honest, they should say that the only really renewable and clean sources of energy, apart from our own physical energy, are wood and other biomass products for fire, wind for sailing boats and wind mills, and flowing water in rivers and streams for water mills – the last two only for generating kinetic energy. And, if we are prepared to exploit other living beings, then also the muscle power of domestic animals.
    Humanity has lived for thousands of years with only such energies. In a not so distant future, we have to be satisfied with that. But that would be impossible with 9+ billions of us. Let me quote here an impossibility theorem that I formulated some time ago:

It is impossible to fulfill the continuously growing "needs", demands, wishes, aspirations and ambitions of a continuously growing world population while our resource base is continuously dwindling and the ability of nature to absorb man-made pollution is continuously diminishing. It is a lunatic idea that in a finite world infinite growth is possible.

    Our top-priority political tasks today and for a transition period of uncertain duration would therefore be (a) to start a massive campaign for a population control program with the long-term goal of bringing down the world population of homo sapiens to, say, two billions; (b) a campaign for reducing consumption simultaneously with a campaign against the growth ideology; (c) propagating alternative conceptions of peaceful human societies (my own preference is an eco-socialist society); (d) a campaign to let wild forests and the number of wild animals expand.
    These are very broadly defined tasks. Details need to be worked out, which however can only be done if many people show interest.

Notes and References

* Edenhofer, Ottmar & Michael Jacob (2017) Klimapolitik. Ziele, Konflikte, Lösungen. Munich: C. H. Beck, P. 52.

1. McKibben, Bill (2016): A World at War
http://forhumanliberation.blogspot.de/2016/08/2418-bill-mckibben-world-at-war.html

2. Roberts, David (2016): Climate Justice Policy and the Metaphor of War
http://forhumanliberation.blogspot.de/2016/08/2419-climate-justice-policy-and.html

3. "foodstuff", comment as part of the discussion on Ugo Bardi's article. See:

Bardi, Ugo (2016)"But what's the REAL energy return of photovoltaic energy?" in Cassandra's Legacy (online).

4. This presentation on the EROEI of solar energy technologies is based on

Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas (1978): "Technology Assessment. The Case of the Direct Use of Solar Energy";

http://www.peakoilindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Georgescu-Roegen-The-Case-of-the-Direct-Use-of-Solar-Energy.pdf

I discussed all these matters more thoroughly in my book Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? (1999). London: Zed Books.

For my other, shorter, writings on similar issues, see my blog-site:
www.eco-socialist.blogspot.com

Is Collapse of Our Civilization Unavoidable?

The question put above should not surprise anybody who is informed about the state of the world today. In the past, other civilizations have collapsed or withered away. So our civilization too may not be able to avoid that fate. Currently, this possibility is being associated with global warming,¹ But even earlier, the end of the current civilization was speculated on in association with the discovery of limits to growth. With this essay, I am adding my two cents to the discussion.
    While millions are worried, some, called the denialists, do not accept that global warming is a man-made problem. I need not here go into their arguments, I simply accept the well-known view of the vast majority of climatologists that excessive emission of green-house gases by humans is the explanation of this phenomenon. If so, it is the duty of us humans to repair the damages and see to it that GHG emissions remain below the limit. Many optimists believe, the problem can be solved.

The Political-Economic Difficulties in Solving the Problem

But I have strong doubts. Our prevailing political-economic system, that today seems to be unalterable, is the big obstacle to solving the problem. The optimists say, we only need to have the will to do the necessary things. But that is only theory. The million Dollar question is: will humanity be able to develop the strong will to take the difficult and complex measures necessary for stopping warming in the given narrow timeframe, i.e. by 2030? We must delve a little deeper in the matter, in order to judge whether that, in reality, would also be possible.
    Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis,² postulated in 1989 before the fall of the Berlin wall, was largely (though not fully) borne out by the developments that took place in the years immediately thereafter – viz. the systemic transformation that took place in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European communist states. If it proves to be an enduring truth, then we have to reckon with a long life for the political-economic system of liberal democracy plus free-market capitalism and Western lifestyle. Apparently, at present at least, this system has no rival as an ideal.
    This system has two parts: (1) It requires that, generally speaking, the incumbent rulers, an elected president or prime minister, and her party, which has a majority in the parliament, seek endorsement of the majority of the voters for another period of 4 or 5 years in office. Now human nature being what it is, politicians crave for (more) power (Fukuyama says: recognition) and power holders try to remain in power. (2) The majority of the voters, the ordinary people, on their part, crave for more prosperity, more comfort, and more enjoyment in life through consumption of more and more goods and services.
    The former can attain their objective by serving or promising to serve the immediate material interests of the majority of the voters – for instance, by promising to create more and better jobs, lower taxes, raise wages and welfare benefits, increase security etc. All that requires high rates of economic growth, for which borrowing money is made easier and cheaper for both private and public sectors. As a result, generally speaking, all economies of the world are today sitting on mountains of debt.
    These two fundamental aspects of human nature have been two of the main drivers of human history. They have given rise to capitalism and industrialism, from which we today cannot escape. They contributed strongly to continuous material and technological “progress”, but also caused much misery and destruction (at least ever since we left the putative state of primitive communism behind). Of course, throughout history, there have been exceptional humans who rejected these motives and followed lofty ones for their actions (Gandhi, Saint Francis of Assisi, Buddha e.g.). But they have been few and far between. These cravings have driven kings and emperors, but also other kinds of rulers, to conquer or dominate over more and more territories and peoples, which was their way of satisfying their own lust for power and the hunger of their own subjects for (more) prosperity. Neither the citizens’ democracies of the ancient Greek city states, nor the ancient Roman republic of the assembly of aristocrats (the Senate) has been much of an exception. In more recent times, neither the revolutionary democratic French republic founded with lofty ideals in 1779 nor the United States of America founded after a liberation struggle in 1776, with its ideal democratic constitution, could resist the temptation of conquering other countries and dominating over other peoples.
    Throughout history, these two drivers got ever more force from the continuous growth in human population, which caused a continuous growth in the volume of demand for goods and services that satisfy the consumption desires of people. A growing human population also enabled entrepreneurs to hire (or buy on the slave market) more and more cheap laborers (slaves) and rulers to recruit (or conscript) ever more soldiers for their wars.
    In our present context, the most problematic aspect of this system is that it has developed a growth dynamic that cannot be stopped, let alone reversed, anymore for any length of time without risking a serious political and economic crisis. But without reversing it, we cannot also stop our march along the slippery slope to an ecological collapse. The situation has been summarized in the well-known equation:

                                                       I = P x A x T

(Where I stands for total ecological Impact, of which climate change is only a major part, P for population, A for affluence, and T for technology). That means the more the population grows, the more affluence we achieve, and the more we use sophisticated technologies, the more we impact adversely on our environment.

The Gloomy Perspective

Against this background, is there any reason to be optimistic? The phylogenetic (i.e. innate) behavior patterns of us humans were formed (as those of all animals) by the processes of our biological evolution, the most important of which have been struggle for survival and survival of the fittest. There is not much room there for altruism. Yet, we are now being called upon to (decide to) do things that totally go against the grain of this genetic inheritance: As individuals, we should not act only in our own individual interest, not even only in the interest of our identity group (nation, tribe, ethnic group), but also and primarily in the interest of the whole humanity, and the rest of nature (other animal and plant species) to boot. And we should not even act only in the interest of the currently living generations of humanity, but also in the interest of the future generations thereof. Our politicians should not strive for power, but only desire to serve the people and the future generations. Our economic policies should no longer be oriented toward continuous economic growth, but, on the contrary, toward a contracting (degrowing) economy. We should no longer seek joie de vivre in more consumption of luxury goods and services, but in sacrificing standard of living we are used to. We should e.g. drastically reduce air travel and use, instead of cars, bicycles and boats for travel. In sum, we should drastically reduce use of scarce resources, especially of fossil fuels, the very basis of affluence in our current civilization. Is all that humanly possible at all? Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, a famous German author on the subject, wrote in 1989: “To tell Europeans, Americans, and Japanese that they should wear sackcloth and ashes and forgo prosperity, is a strategy condemned to failure.”^2a
    If at all possible, it will, in any circumstance, be extremely difficult. Firstly, climate change is a global phenomenon. Though mainly caused by the industrial societies, in the recent decades, all countries have been contributing to it, more or less.  It is a typical “tragedy of the commons” situation,³ the commons being here the global atmosphere. We know how difficult it was to achieve the Paris Accord on climate change (2015). India, e.g., resisted accepting any cut in its CO₂ emission and had to be pressured by other powers to do so.
    Secondly, no underdeveloped country is prepared to give up its ambition of catching up with the USA with regard to affluence. The accord finally signed was therefore very weak, some even called it a fraud.⁴ Even this weak accord has in the meantime been repudiated by the USA. Actually, global CO₂ emission is still rising.
    The essential problem is that one cannot kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs. Fossil fuels are the very basic resource (the goose), the foundation on which the present-day industrial civilization has been built and continues to run. If you drastically reduce their use, your economy will most certainly take a nosedive. That has been well understood all over the world by both the majority of the voters and their leaders. The strong desire to continue to get the golden eggs remains unabated. That is why nothing serious is being done, can be done, to mitigate global warming.
    There is of course a minority of voters in almost every industrial country, the naïve environmentalists, who believe it is possible to run a highly industrialized economy/society without using any fossil fuels, and without substantially sacrificing prosperity. They are demanding since long that their governments embark on a quick 100% transition from fossil fuels to so-called renewable energies. But governments of the world are not doing anything more than giving some token support to the “renewable” power industry. Fact is, in the main, they are continuing to rely for the bulk of the energy needs of their country on the conventional sources, viz. fossil fuels, nuclear power, and hydroelectricity.
    Elsewhere,⁵ I have explained in detail why this dream of the naïve environmentalists appears to me, at least till now, to be unrealizable. In short, renewable energies are feasible but, energetically and economically, not viable – because the net energy that we can get from them (their EROEI) at the best sites is very low and at less than optimum sites often negative.

Summing up

Already since the mid1970s, it is clear to discerning people that there are limits to economic growth. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen called the one-off availability of stocks of non-renewable energy sources and other minerals in low-entropy state “the limited dowry of mankind’s existence on earth”. He concluded in 1971:

“Even with a constant population and a constant flow per capita of mined resources, mankind's dowry will ultimately be exhausted if the career of the human species is not brought to an end earlier by other factors.”⁶ 

But politicians and experts, like ostriches, refused to heed their warnings, even pushed back with caviling. Frustrated, Georgescu-Roegen wrote:

"Will mankind listen to any program that implies a constriction of its addiction to exosomatic comfort? Perhaps the destiny of man is to have a short, but fiery, exciting and extravagant life rather than a long, uneventful and vegetative existence. Let other species – the amoebas, for example, – which have no spiritual ambitions, inherit an earth still bathed in plenty of sunshine."⁷

   

    This pessimistic but realistic perspective of the 1970s was mainly based on the realization of the limitedness and exhaustibility of non-renewable resources, especially of energy resources. However, for the time being, the danger of sky-rocketing crude oil prices as a result of “peak oil” has been averted through the development of “fracking” technology that opened up shale oil deposits for exploitation. But even that would not save this civilization from the growing resource problems. Today, however, the greatest danger is coming from global warming.
    We can describe the situation today as a “pincer-grip crisis”. On the one hand, the resource scarcity is increasingly making itself felt while the world population is continuously growing. On the other hand, if and to the extent that we succeed in solving the resource scarcity problem and thus make continuous economic and population growth possible, we would be heating up the atmosphere and pollute the environment. There is no solution to this crisis within the current model of civilization.

Is there Any Hope? Can Something Still Be Done?

In the light of the analysis presented above, it seems that end of history in Fukuyama’s optimistic sense – worldwide proliferation of a quasi-steady-state liberal-democratic capitalism – will not materialize. What we are observing today is rather the impending end of history in the sense of collapse of our present civilization followed by centuries of chaos, wars, and destruction. But that does not mean that humans as a species would soon become extinct, as the movement Extinction Rebellion seems to suggest. Our present one is not the only possible civilization. No, humans are a tough and intelligent species. In its history, this species has survived some earlier climate changes. And, as for civilization, there have been several ever since humans transitioned from a nomadic hunter-gatherer way of life to a sedentary agricultural one. So, in the future too, after the collapse of the present one, a different civilization could be possible, which, hopefully, could be made more peaceful, more ecological and more social.
    Denialists, but also many who accept the view that climate change is man-made, see only one way of positively reacting to the unavoidable change, viz. progressive adaptation to the new situation: e.g. by withdrawing from the coastal plains and newly desertifying areas and resettling in still habitable areas. That would not be easy, also because resistance to foreigners/outsiders encroaching on one’s own territory is a strong element of human nature. Currently, we are witnessing this in the USA and Europe, but also in Assam (a province in India).
    Human nature would most certainly be a big obstacle to creating a new civilization. But there may still be some hope. Iräneus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, the great German human-ethologist wrote:

“We are not fully predetermined by our instincts. We are capable of controlling our nature through culture. … What is decisive is that we are the first creatures that can set goals for themselves, and thus give our life a meaning. By doing this, we, of course, do not free ourselves from [our] nature, but we actively enter into new situations, in which new conditions of [evolutionary-biological] selection act upon us.” ⁸

But Frans de Waal, famous primatologist and human-ethologist, claims that we do not have to wait for new conditions of selection to arise that would affect our behavior pattern and make it appropriate for a better and just society. Counter to the assumption that animals (so also humans)⁹ are inherently selfish, he has on several occasions observed in several animals of different species facets of altruism, viz. cooperativeness, empathy, helpfulness etc. He believes, contrary to the narrow understanding of Darwin’s theory of evolution, also these traits of behavior are innate in many mammalian species including humans, part of their phylogenetic inheritance. They have always been among the conditions of survival of these species. We can then also conclude that the phylogenetic foundations for an ecological and better, i.e. more humane, civilization already exist. We only have to set these goals for ourselves.
    For reasons described above, just setting these goals may be, in practical-political terms, very difficult. But, at least on paper, a part of them has already been set, long ago – e.g. in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the UN (1948) and in various constitutions of individual states.
    This part has also been realized to some extent in some countries, as evidenced e.g. by the compassionate or tolerating reception of political and war refugees as well as illegal migrants in some European countries such as Germany, Sweden etc. Such receptions have also been observed in poorer countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Kenya, Tanzania etc.
    But these examples also reveal the limit to such compassionate tolerance. As soon as the number of refugees and migrants swelled to a million and above, the host native peoples of the EU started fearing they “might lose their homeland”. Xenophobic views and slogans like “Germany for Germans, foreigners get out” started being expressed, and fascistic and right-extremist groups got new impetus. There is no doubt, there does exist a social-critical limit to tolerance toward foreigners.
    What can we conclude from all these facts for today’s honest policy-makers and eco-political activists? Of course, we must not give up our ultimate cause of building an ecological and social-human society, But, as Paul Ehrlich once wrote addressing leftist activists, ”whatever be your cause, it is a lost cause unless we control population [growth].” I fully agree. To make people control their greed and consumption desires is very difficult. It is much easier to make them accept population control.

References

1. For the most detailed account, see:
Wallace-Wells, David:
The Uninhabitable Earth
http://www.ecologise.in/2017/07/15/viral-essay-uninhabitable-earth/

2. Fukuyama, Francis (1992) End of History and the Last Man. New Delhi etc.: Penguin.

2a. Weizsäcker, Ernst Ulrich von (1989: 14) Erdpolitik. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.

3. Hardin, Garrett (1968) “The Tragedy of the Commons”
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243

4. See my article “An Historic Event or a Fraud? – Critical Thoughts on the Paris Climate Accord”.
https://eco-socialist.blogspot.com/search?q=Paris+Climate

5. See my article “The Global Crisis and Role of So-called Renewable Energies in Solving It,”
https://eco-socialist.blogspot.com/search?q=Global+Crisis
See also chapter 4 of my book:

Sarkar, Saral (1999) Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? London: Zed Books.

6. Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas (1971/1981: P. 296) The Entropy Law and the Economic Process. Cambridge (USA), London: Harvard University Press.

7. Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas (1972/1976: P.35.) Energy and Economic Myths. New York: Pergamon Press.

8. Eibl-Eibesfeld, Irenäus (1990: P. 81) "Glaube als Offenbarungswissen und Zuversicht", in Deschner (note 8a)

8a. Deschner, Karlheinz (ed.) (1990) Woran ich glaube, Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn.

9. de Waal, Frans (1996) Good Natured. The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
See also his book

de Waal, Frans (2010) The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society. New York: Three Rivers Press.

The Ecology Movement is not a Social Movement -- A Response to John Foran's Article on the How-Question

John Foran has issued a wake-up call, a "call to arms", and addressed it to colleagues and comrades:¹
    I feel spoken to. Not only because of its subject, but also because I am both a colleague and a comrade of Foran. I have namely been both studying and writing about social movements as well as actively participating since the 1950s in all movements for radical social change – in India and Europe.² I am a bit dissatisfied with the contents of Foran's article.

Climate Change is Only a Part of the General Global Ecology Crisis Affecting Societies

In the beginning Foran speaks of an unprecedented crisis, in a world beset by massive social problems. He enumerates the latter and then names the unprecedented crisis: it is "climate change" which he regards as "a crisis of humanity and of all species." But climate change did not suddenly fall from the sky like a "wicked" meteorite. Firstly, it is only a part, albeit at present the most dangerous part, of the general global ecology crisis. Climate is changing because of global warming, which in turn is being caused by a particular kind of air pollution, namely excessive concentration of CO₂ and some other green house gases in air. Secondly, this unprecedented crisis of humanity has really been brewing, without being noticed by many people, for nearly two hundred years now, i.e. since the beginning of the industrial civilization. It was already foreseen and indicated in 1972 in the book Limits to Growth, the subject matter of which had six years earlier been dealt with by the American social scientist (political economist) Kenneth Boulding as the central theme of his essay on spaceman economy and cowboy economy (1966).³
    This comprehensive and historical view of today's "unprecedented crisis of humanity" is actually lacking in the wake-up call of Foran. He of course mentions the term "ecology", but only in the context of a scientific principle. I did not find in the article the term ecology crisis. Instead, he uses the term "environment" in the phrase "movements for environmental, climate, and social justice".
    In my experience, the terms ecology and environment (German: Umwelt) are generally loosely used synonymously. But I think, for the sake of clarity, they should be understood as slightly different things.
    Ecology is the branch of biology that studies relations among populations of organisms in an habitat – including both symbiotic and prey-and-predator relations – and between them and their respective physical and organic environment that contains the resources the species need for survival. As soon as we bring in humans in our considerations and study their interactions with other organisms and the physical environment of the particular habitat, ecology becomes a social science, political ecology, because humans are political animals (zoon politicon).
    When a group of humans are trying, say, to keep the air clean – locally or globally, in their own interest or not – it is an environmental movement. The same applies to a movement to protect e.g. a particular marshland or all marshlands of the world or mangrove forests. But when the environmental conditions in a particular habitat or on the whole earth or the numerical relations between humans and other organisms have deviated so much from the equilibrium/optimum (i.e. deteriorated) that the resource base, hence survival, of (a population of) humans is in danger, then we should speak of an (global) ecological crisis. We should use the term (global) ecology movement when we are speaking of the efforts of the whole humanity or a part thereof to restore the equilibrium, i.e. health, of our one and only habitat because it is so important for our survival. To make it clearer, an environmental movement of the NIMBY (not in my backyard) type must not be called an ecology movement. In theoretical ecological literature there is a formula for showing the level of ecological crisis:

Impact = Population  x  Affluence  x  Technology ⁴

     In Foran's wake-up call, however, there is no mention of these elements of the crisis, no mention of overpopulation – of particular populations of humans or of the seven and a half billion humans in the world, no mention of the standard of living, i.e. affluence (resource problem), no mention of high-tech as a problem. There is also no mention of the conflicts of interests and power struggles between different populations of humans (ethnies, nations. identity groups etc.) that result from changes in the above elements. But without such a comprehensive view – global warming being only a part of the total impact of our present civilization – we would neither understand the crisis of humanity nor would we be able to save the biosphere of the planet, humanity's only home. Without such a view, we would also not find a solution to any of the social problems Foran mentions.⁵

What is to Be Done? Are the Social Movements of Any Help?

Nevertheless, unlike his friends Bill McKibben and Co., Foran seems to have realized that we cannot tackle the unprecedented crisis of humanity only by tackling climate change, and that too only by means of a very rapid and massive technological change – 100% renewable energies – brought about with the help of engineers and investors. He is a member of 350.org. So I guess he takes it for granted that, firstly, such a massive technological change is necessary and possible, and that, secondly, it is possible without much negative impact on human society and the global environment. But, unlike many others in his scientific community, he thinks that is not enough. That is why he speaks at the very beginning of

"a world beset by massive social problems – the obscene poverty and inequality that neoliberal capitalist globalization has wreaked on at least two-thirds of humanity, the immobility of the political elite almost everywhere, and cultures of violence that poison our lives from the most intimate relations to the mass murder of the world’s wars.
    These interconnected problems are rooted in long-standing processes of inequality – patriarchy, racism, colonialism, capitalism, and now corporate-controlled globalization – whose ongoing, overlapping legacies are making the early twenty-first century a crucial hinge of history."

That is why he is also calling – and this is his great merit – for a radical social change. He writes:

"We may need a combination of both a dense network of movements and a totally new type of political party to achieve anything like deep radical social change. These movements will have to develop both powerful political cultures of opposition, and compelling political cultures of creation."

That is why he wants to make the global climate justice movement the most radical social movement of the twenty-first century. And that may also be his reason for being a member of the Green Party of California. But there are a few problems:

The Ecology Movement is not a Social Movement, Because
There is a Conflict Between Them

Social movements as we know them are not useful for solving the crisis of humanity that we are talking about now. I came to this conclusion in the 1990s. Let me repeat, with a few changes, what I wrote then:

We must realize that there is a fundamental difference between the ecology movement and social and socialist movements of the past. Until the ecology movement emerged, most large movements arose from social problems. In earlier epochs, in the industrial societies, most social problems could, at least partly, be solved through more or less continuous economic growth. Acute poverty could be overcome and wages increased. The poor, the unemployed and students got financial help. Care of the old and the ill was provided for, Women got the franchise and also better paid jobs in industry and trade. Democratic rights were recognized and extended. The demands of all social movements could be fulfilled to a large extent, thanks to the growing cake. But with the emergence of the ecology movement, the situation has changed completely. Now, not only must the cake not grow, it must shrink. The very basis of the ability of industrial societies to solve social problems in its particular way must be attacked if the problems from which the ecology movement arose are to be solved. For the first time in history, a mass movement "promises" to lower the standard of living of the masses.⁶

    In fact, in my experience in Germany from 1982 till now, I have known some old social movements as special opponents of the ecology movement (but not of the environmental movement) and some others as indifferent to the questions and doubts raised by the ecology movement. Thus in the early 1980s, the ecology movement and the Green Party – in its early years, when it was really radical – were opposed and abused by the trade unions and, generally speaking, the working class movement as destroyers of their jobs and prosperity. The latter two, for example, actively opposed the anti-nuclear- energy movement, they opposed the movement to close down the lignite mines. And they opposed the idea of drastically raising petrol prices in order to reduce private motorized transportation (automobile traffic). Roughly the same was the attitude of activists of the Third World solidarity movement. They were generally uninterested in such issues and causes. Their focus was on anti-imperialism, Third World countries' right to development, fair trade, development aid etc.
    In contrast to their oppositional stance or indifference toward the above mentioned radical ecological demands and proposals, no social movement, old or new, have ever hesitated to support e.g. the movement against dying of forests (due to air pollution) or the demand to fit every car with catalytic converters in order to keep the air in urban areas clean. These latter issues are, in my opinion, typical for the environmental movement.

New Social Movements

One may now object that Foran is not a defender of the old social movements (e.g. the old working class movement, old Women's Movement), that he is seeking to mobilize the new ones in order to build "a dense network of movements" and so to "make the global climate justice movement the most radical social movement of the twenty-first century." Right. But it should be in order, I think, to also examine this movement a bit. Here is first its short self-introduction:

"Young people across the globe are leading a movement for a real power shift: we're addressing the climate crisis by standing up to corporate polluters and tackling root causes of the crisis, while lifting up community and people-centered solutions.
    Countries like the United States, who have greater historical responsibility for causing climate change must be held to higher standards for reducing emissions and addressing impacts, including adequate financial support.
    The dirty energy industry is jeopardizing the future of young people, indigenous peoples, people in developing nations, and the very survival of small island states, but there are young people across the planet who are passionate and committed to stabilizing the climate, restoring democracy, upholding human rights, and transforming the climate crisis into an opportunity to design new systems."⁷

    I do not here want to repeat my critique of the logic of isolating the climate crisis  from the whole ecology crisis nor my doubts about the feasibility and viability of the idea of transition to 100% renewable energies for solving the global climate crisis. See for these points my articles on the optimism of McKibben, Krugman, COP21 declaration (Paris) ⁸ But even otherwise this self-introduction does not inspire me very much.
    They claim to be "tackling the root causes of the crisis", I do not see any sign thereof. What are the root causes? Like all old-left radicals before them, they too are blaming the crisis solely on "corporate polluters", "the dirty energy industry", and capitalist/imperialist "countries like the United States" etc. And they want to lift up community and people-centered solutions, as if the communities and the people are totally free from any responsibility for the climate crisis, global ecology crisis or the crisis of humanity. This is a very simple black and white picture. Like in Foran's wake up call, and McKibben's grandiose plan, there is no mention of population and affluence, the most variable and the most important factors in the equation mentioned further above. They may even be saying these two may or must be allowed to continue to grow.
    And then there are the tall claims: "Young people across the globe are leading a movement for a real power shift." How can you lead a movement without first presenting a convincing analysis of the crisis? After all, global warming did not suddenly fall from the sky! Some such radical young people sometimes also talk of the need for system change. Not bad, but at best they mean by "system" capitalism, not industrialism itself. However, the secrets of power of the powerful and the longevity of the system are not that easy to understand, they need deep, thorough and sincere analysis. Radical slogans and presence on the streets in large numbers are not enough.
     Let us now look at a few other new or currently very active old movements that are pursuing a social end, each for itself. They enjoy mass participation, hence they may qualify as a social movement: Unfortunately, after the withering away of the old international socialist movement, which was truly global both in the sense of its presence in the whole world and in the sense of fighting for a socialist society for the whole humanity, the social movements of today (at least those I know of) have reduced themselves to movements for what is generally and properly called identity politics. The separatist movements of today – those of the Catalans, Basques, Scots etc. belong to this category.
    In the USA, the human rights movement is mainly represented by the Black Lives Matter movement. Earlier such movements – Black Power Movement and the Black Panthers – have, like the current one, clearly been movements of and for the Blacks and against their oppression and discrimination in the USA. In the media I have several times come across the slogan "white lives matter too". But there is no general movement against the high-handed, now and then even murderous behavior of the US police forces. I haven't ever heard of any contribution of the Black Lives Matter movement (we are here not talking of individuals) to other general or particular causes related to the struggle against capitalism or imperialism nor to the struggle for protecting the environment or the ecology.
    Roughly the same can be said about the new women's (feminist) movement, although there are some feminist theorists who have realized the problem and call themselves eco-feminists, while some others among them organized in the past some conferences and demonstrations on some general issues (e.g. women against nuclear power plants, women against genetic engineering) in which exclusively women were invited to take part and speak. But the anomaly remains. The justification for such special identity-based demonstrations and conferences on general issues is not clear, since there has never been an eco-masculinist nor a patriarchal ecological theory or movement.
    The anomaly recently became clear in the campaign phase of the 2016 US presidential election, in which all women (50% of the voters) were called upon to vote for Hilary Clinton, because now "it was the turn of a woman" to become president, because the "glass ceiling" had to be broken through. But the majority of white women voted for Trump. I recently read an interesting and revealing article on this anomaly. The author Susan Chiradec⁹ asked some white young women about their explanation for Clinton's defeat. She reports that white young women did in their majority vote for Clinton, but "their enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders during the primary seemed to say that for some, feminism’s traditional preoccupations seem out of date." In October, Chiradec had asked some such women "about their perceptions of Clinton." One politically active woman "said she found Mrs. Clinton’s feminism outdated, failing to prioritize climate change, income inequality and the toll of American intervention overseas." Chiradec writes further, "the brand of feminism that spoke to her, though, wasn’t about breaking historic barriers. It was more specific: 'progressive feminism, eco-feminism.' ”
    When one speaks of the ecology movement (as distinct from the environmental movement), one should bear in mind that this movement is not so much in the interest of or for the wellbeing of the present generations of grown-up people as for the wellbeing of the future, yet unborn generations – at the most for that of the children of today. And it is about us modern humans withdrawing from much of those territories that we encroached upon in the past decades and centuries – in order to leave enough space for the rest of nature, i.e. for the other species, so that they can continue to exist on this blue planet.¹⁰ That means, not only must our ecological footprint be drastically reduced, but also the sheer numbers of humans. The women's movement's persistent opposition to any kind of population control program in developing countries in the name of reproductive rights of individual women is not compatible with this imperative, nor the Third World developing nations' right to development.
    To take another example, in India, the "Dalits" (members of the lowest castes among Hindus plus the indigenous tribes) have since time immemorial been suffering from social discrimination and through it also oppression and economic deprivation. In the decades before and after India became independent (1947) they struggled to overcome the caste system. But in the 1990s, they began fighting for special economic rights in the sense of reservation of jobs and places in universities for them. When these demands were accepted, the movement succeeded but it also moved away from its great goal of reforming Hindu society and "annihilate caste". This huge identity-based social movement has nothing to contribute to the struggle to save the biosphere of the planet. Even if, as is happening of late, they realize the limitations of their kind of movement and ally themselves with the national left movement for social justice¹¹, they will have nothing to contribute to it because the whole national left movement has nothing but the interests of the currently living working class in mind.
    Such identity-based movements may very well be necessary as long as a particular group of citizens (Blacks, women, Dalits) do not find adequate attention to their sufferings and particular grievances, oppressions and discriminations in the established political system. But it must be clear that ultimately a black person, a woman, a Dalit etc. is also a member of society at large, citizen of a particular state along with all others, ultimately, as a human being, a citizen of the world. They cannot free themselves completely from their own particular oppression and discrimination unless the system of oppression and discrimination as a whole is overcome. Nor can they secure the future of their children unless the biosphere is protected. Of course, they may get certain concessions, such as affirmative actions to favor them in economic and job matters. The most intelligent and qualified among them can be co-opted in the ruling elite. But the general rule is that favors to particular groups in society do also generate animosity in the other groups, as the recent history of US and India shows.

A Network of Movements and a New Type of Party

Foran's concluding idea is: "We may need a combination of both a dense network of movements and a totally new type of political party to achieve anything like deep radical social change "
    This is not a very new idea. I have experienced, participated in, and studied such a combination in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. The result of that study commissioned by the United Nations University (UNU) is a two-volume book, written in English and published by the UNU Press.¹² In Germany it began with the state-wide anti-nuclear-energy movement and it was quickly followed by the Citizens' Initiative Movement consisting of hundreds of groups (generally called a citizens' initiative) struggling for a cause or against some project of the state or private economic interests. These included the state-wide Peace Movement and a plethora of smaller and mostly local/regional one-issue one-demand movements for protecting an aspect of the environment. The sum total of the latter kind of movements, which were also very much connected, were also called the Environmental Protection Movement. In the same way there arose the Alternative Movement, Women's Movement etc.etc. And finally, from all these movements, arose the Green Party of Germany (Die Grünen), which at the beginning understood itself as an "anti-party party" and as the "electoral-political arm" of the new social movements mentioned above. These movements mostly have had the same qualities that Foran lists in connection with the modern-day social movements that he wants to bring together in a network. As far as I am informed, such movements arose in most highly industrialized rich countries of Europe and North America.
     The point I want to make here is that these movements, in my objective overall judgment, ultimately failed – except some of the one-issue one-demand movements. They either fizzled out or were co-opted into the system, particularly their leaders. Die Grünen have become a pillar of the current system. (Neither PODEMOS nor SYRIZA are willing to be the electoral-political arm of the ecology movement.) There is no space here to go into the details, and one may disagree with this assessment of mine. But, this is in short my argument, if they had been successful there would not be any need today for a climate justice movement, nor for a cry to protecting the biodiversity of the planet.

My own conclusions

In short, all efforts are doomed to failure unless at first an honest analysis of the present world situation is made and propagated and unless it is accepted by the majority of those who form opinions and make decisions. Unfortunately, the majority of those whose task it is to make this analysis and propagate it, are cherishing several illusions. I have elaborated this critique in several contributions to the debate, and presented my own analysis of the present world situation in my major writings.¹³
    So far as the contribution of concerned citizens of the world is concerned, they may organize themselves in a truly ecology movement and not be satisfied with just some environmental improvements (see above for the difference).
    In this connection I may inform the readers that in some countries of Europe a truly ecology movement has begun. It is the De-Growth Movement. There is also an organization called Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) with branches in many industrial countries. And since without the promise of social justice and without global economic equality no poor person, nor any poor nation, would accept an ecology movement that inevitably entails economic contraction, it is necessary to enlarge the ecology movement to a global eco-socialist movement.


Notes and References

1. http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-03-14/a-few-thoughts-on-studying-the-most-radical-social-movement-of-the-twenty-first-century/

2. Relevant in the present context are the two empirical studies:

Sarkar, Saral (1993) Green-Alternative Politics in West Germany. Vol. I. The New Social Movements. Tokyo: United University Press.
and
Sarkar, Saral (1994) Green-Alternative Politics in West Germany. Vol. II. The Greens. Tokyo: United University Press.

3. Boulding, Kenneth E. (1966) "The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth"

http://www.ub.edu/prometheus21/articulos/obsprometheus/BOULDING.pdf

4. See: Meadows, Donella H.; Dennis L. Meadows; and Jörgen Randers (1992) Beyond the Limits, London; P. 100.

5. For this point see my critique of Bill McKibben's and others' calls for a massive World War II like industrial effort to achieve a quick transition to 100% renewable energies:

http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/2016/10/saving-planet-american-style-critical_7.html

6. Sarkar, Saral (1999) Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? A Critical Analysis of Humanity's Fundamental Choices. London: Zed Books. P. 226f.

7. http://powershift.org/campaigns/global-movement

8. Some of my articles on the subject:

http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/2016/10/saving-planet-american-style-critical_7.html

http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/search?q=Krugman

http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/search?q=A+Fraud

See also the following latest info:

"Phys.org reports: The climate friendly electricity generated by solar panels in the past 40 years has all but cancelled out the polluting energy used to produce them, a study said Tuesday. Indeed, by some calculations, the so-called “break-even point” between dirty energy input and clean output may already have arrived, researchers in the Netherlands reported."
    On this Euan Mearns commented: "The numbers in the excerpt are quite damning – 40 years of PV development and it seems that we only now got the first net energy to society."
http://www.ecologise.in/2016/12/19/solar-panels-repay-energy-debt-study/#comment-180

9. Susan Chiradec: Feminism Lost. Now What?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/feminism-lost-now-what.html?hpw&rref=sunday-review&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

10. Let me here state clearly that I am not calling upon the indigenous people to withdraw from e.g. the Amazonas or the rain forests of Indonesia. Their ancestors did not encroach upon these territories in the recent centuries. These constitute their home since time immemorial.

11. On this issue see:

"When Jai Bhim meets Lal Salaam"

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/when-jai-bhim-meets-lal-salaam/article9216080.ece

12. See note 2.

13. See : Sarkar 1999 (note 6) and

Sarkar, Saral (2012) The Crises of Capitalism. A Different Study of Political Economy. Berkeley : Counterpoint.