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Permalink for this bulletin. Please forward to your lists! Previously: Bulletin 252 (“Fundraising reminder; why LANL cannot be any kind of plutonium factory, in a nutshell”) 25 Jan 2019 Bulletin 253: Emergency climate mobilization; a “green new deal” 
Dear friends and colleagues – Before returning to nuclear weapons issues, we wanted to share with you a few thoughts and references concerning the important “Green New Deal” (GND) discourse now underway nationally and in New Mexico, and the parallel necessity of emergency climate mobilization in other ways. The most important conclusion we offer here: No sufficient GND can be enacted in our present political climate without much greater popular mobilization and education. Even if there are terrible climate and intense-weather catastrophes, our overall lack of democracy and knowledge, and the structural barriers in our economic, financial, and political systems will prevent successful enactment of an adequate GND. To repeat: governments are not going to respond adequately to the climate crisis under present political conditions. What is therefore key right now is to mobilize and educate, on an emergency basis, to end business as usual (BAU) as we transform our society to one that will not destroy the living earth and its most vulnerable peoples, as presently is happening. That does not mean citizens should not also press for the best possible GND, which means the best possible suite of policies at every level to deal with the climate and overall environmental emergencies and associated (long-standing but intensifying) social emergencies. As we will show, to be real a GND must utterly transform US foreign policy and discretionary spending priorities. A successful GND can be nothing less than a “new” national identity and unifying purpose, affecting every aspect of life. “New” is in quotes because no unifying national identity is currently visible. At this point in human history, many of us should not be planning a business-as-usual education, career, or family trajectory. We need as many hands on deck as we can muster. There are many policy prescriptions available that attempt to solve the climate change “problem” while maintaining as much “business as usual” (BAU) as possible. While there is some merit in many of these, and some of us will work on them, the larger point is easily missed. The collapse of a livable climate; famines and mass migrations; the proximity of irreversible climate tipping points; and the collapse of habitats and species populations worldwide are telling us that the BAU framework in which we evaluate the merits of various climate “solutions” is itself deeply problematic. Great danger, great opportunity The great danger posed by the GND concept is one of substituting fake solutions to the climate crisis for real ones. A GND may remain a mere posture. Worse, it may hurt the climate and environment. “Baby steps” will not be enough. If it’s not an emergency response that requires upending established practices across all of society and all economic sectors, and one that requires economic sacrifices by most people, it’s not going to be enough by a long shot. The great opportunity of the GND discussion is that relatively dramatic changes in the status quo can now be discussed, as we are doing here. At present the GND idea is undefined. It is a very popular idea on both sides of the aisle (92% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans like it), in no small part because nobody knows what it is. It’s not a new idea; the idea and moniker have history in Green and Democratic party circles. The basic principles go back a long way before that in the environmental movement and indeed to the 19th century, but nobody then imagined trying to build a “green” society with such an enormous throughput of energy and materials. Simplicity was a companion to social harmony and environmental sustainability both in practice and in theory. Not so in today’s GND, which as we will see is a problem. Politically, the time is ripe. Global warming, which a GND purports to address, along with social justice, is personally important for a sharply-increasing number of Americans. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the best-known messenger of the GND idea, is herself very popular, not just for the GND notion but also (and more so) for her clarion call for a higher taxation on the very rich, supported by a large majority of Americans. The two ideas – GND and increasing taxes on the rich – are mutually necessary and complementary, as we will see. Discussions about a GND provide a precious opportunity to debate and negotiate global warming mitigation and the justice issues involved, not just in global warming but in all the converging crises we face, such as:
At the same time, we see a great risk that partisan GND posturing will close the window of time in which we can successfully address global warming. “Soft” climate denialism a grave problem In our view, gross climate denialism is not the main or even a very important political problem anymore. Rather, the “soft” climate denialism common in the agenda-setting environmental community and nearly universal among seemingly-sympathetic elected officials is a far more subtle and serious danger. Why? Because it limits the range of acceptable discourse, frequently to the exclusion of factual science. We must be very ambitious, but we can’t defer practical action for the sake of dreams, a lot of which is going on. It is widely understood that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), including its trenchant recent warning, understates climate dangers. The IPCC is after all an intergovernmental body, not a merely scientific one. It works by consensus and has been consistently reticent to include the most recent analysis and predictions, leading to a pattern of errors on the downside. The recent report waters down the climate science in many ways, saying (for example) there are "safe" trajectories for global warming that "temporarily" exceed 1.5o C, claiming atmospheric CO2 concentrations can be drawn down later by various optimistic techniques, some of which do not exist. There is almost no mention of positive feedbacks, which threaten, at an early date, to push the Earth into a self-reinforcing “hothouse” condition inimical to higher life forms. In sum, there is nothing "safe" or stable about today's warming of somewhat more than 1o C, or the 1.5o C Paris agreement target. Current CO2 concentrations would eventually equilibrate with warming of 3-4o C, and they are not at all safe for life in the sea right now. Climate catastrophe is not a future event. It is a current process. Bottom line: we have no “carbon budget” – or more accurately, greenhouse gas (GHG) budget – to spend. We – not so much the poor, rather world’s middle class and wealthy – have already spent it. The way of life we consider normal and non-negotiable is exactly what must end – and will end one day very soon, quite likely in our children’s lifetimes, whether we like it or not. “Induced implosion” of the fossil fuel industry immediately necessary It may still be possible to limit warming to less than 1.5o C, if the phaseout of all fossil fuel infrastructure began immediately, a recent study found, echoing previous work. The new study did not however consider the possibility of climate “tipping points,” for example from greenhouse gas emissions from melting Arctic permafrost or Arctic continental-shelf methane clathrates, a major omission. That aside, this conclusion is in line with 2015 comments from Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who said then, in a felicitous phrase, that an “induced implosion” of the fossil fuel industry was necessary to avoid dangerous global warming. 100% renewable energy at the current US scale of consumption will never be possible Many people bring to the GND discussion vague fantasies involving a “100% renewable” future at the present scale of energy use (or even greater scale, given economic and population growth). These fantasies prevent sober planning and policy-making, and lead toward mere political posturing. They delay needed initiatives affecting society as a whole, while focusing attention on growing just one form of renewable energy (RE), namely electricity. This is popular with politicians because it a) keeps fossil fuel interests fairly happy, b) avoids antagonizing our gigantic military-industrial establishment and a foreign policy/intelligence complex bent on maintaining a global empire (to a great extent in order to control fossil fuels), c) requires little change in our economy within current electoral windows, d) requires no personal sacrifices, and e) keeps our present minimal social contract and institutional power relationships largely unchanged. It is, in other words, a deeply conservative assumption, and not in a good way. That’s precisely what we don’t need. Fantasies of 100% RE at the present scale are easily refuted. Stan Cox references a few mainstream critiques in this excellent summary (with deeper analysis at the links): “100 Percent Wishful Thinking: The Green-Energy Cornucopia,” Green Social Thought, 09/09/2017). Cox further argues correctly that “Cornucopian Renewable-Energy Claims Leave Poor Nations in the Dark,” Green Social Thought, 02/22/2018). To be globally equitable, Cox argues that US energy use will need to drop to roughly 20% of what it is today, not far from the figure independently derived in Ted Trainer’s decades of research. The energy descent we must make is necessary for survival as well as for justice. Without it, the chances of enlisting participation from “developing countries,” will be zero. Even an 80% goal for renewable electricity alone may be so difficult as to be economically infeasible in many states – even in California, as an article in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review points out: Fluctuating solar and wind power require lots of energy storage, and lithium-ion batteries seem like the obvious choice—but they are far too expensive to play a major role. The Clean Air Task Force, a Boston-based energy policy think tank, recently found that reaching the 80 percent mark for renewables in California would mean massive amounts of surplus generation during the summer months, requiring 9.6 million megawatt-hours (9.6 TWh) of energy storage. Achieving 100 percent would require 36.3 million (36.3 TWh). Building the level of renewable generation and storage necessary to reach the state’s goals would drive up costs exponentially, from $49 per megawatt-hour of generation at 50 percent to $1,612 at 100 percent. And that’s assuming lithium-ion batteries will cost roughly a third what they do now. As energy blogger and consultant Roger Andrews put it: In summary, wind and solar may indeed undercut coal and nuclear on price when the costs of intermittency are ignored, and batteries may indeed be good for short-term grid stability applications. But please let’s not have anyone claim that solar + wind + batteries will usher in an era of cheap, clean, 100% renewable energy, because they won’t. Yes, we know, with massive transmission lines connecting diverse, distant sources of renewable electricity, higher RE grid penetration is possible, but only at staggering fiscal and environmental cost and land commitments. Having established that “100% renewables” is a fantasy, our purpose here is not the (impossible) job of figuring out exactly at what level of RE grid penetration the costs and environmental impacts go through the roof (which will be different in each situation). Rather, it is to tell you that there is such a level, which takes away the fantasy element and requires us to face the reality of energy descent. To have 100% renewable electricity, which we do need, we must get used to the idea that it will not always be there on demand 24/7, and we must use a lot less of it, especially in unfavorable weather. More broadly, sacrifice is required from wealthy nations to save the earth’s climate. If that sacrifice is not shared within and between countries, the needed policies will not be enacted. If they try they may collapse, as the “yellow vest” protests in France warn. The US economy cannot grow under a GND; it must shrink (and will anyway) Perhaps the central blind spot in nearly all GND proposals is the failure to recognize that the present vastly-destructive economy is the economy in which a GND will be implemented. Decreasing systemic economic and social inequality are fine goals which we all should support, but unless compensatory measures are taken, policies to decrease inequality will increase, not decrease, GHG emissions. Building RE, investing in energy efficiency (EE), and building a non-fossil fuel transport system are likewise very fine endeavors. They will cost trillions of dollars – and entail vast GHG emissions as they are built. We must indeed build them fast, but the faster we build, the greater the increase in GHG emissions from their construction. We don’t have a long time for the GHG “payoff.” Unless we curtail GHG quickly, there will be no “long run.” So our investments must pay for themselves as far as the climate is concerned quickly – in the coming decade, even the IPCC tells us. What this means is that our economy must shrink even as we implement a GND. This reality is absent from most GND proposals. Let’s quantify this to a first approximation, which is all that is needed right now. What GHG emissions are involved in $1 of US gross domestic product (GDP)? Here is a somewhat dated (2014) and incomplete GHG emissions inventory from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As the EPA explains, This analysis uses global warming potentials from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Fourth Assessment Report. In that report, methane has a global warming potential of 25, which means a ton of methane emissions contributes 25 times as much warming as a ton of carbon dioxide emissions over 100 years, and that ton of methane emissions is therefore equal to 25 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. See the table for comparison with global warming potentials from IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report. For additional perspective, this indicator also shows greenhouse gas emissions in relation to economic output and population. This EPA inventory omits chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), and natural GHG sources and sinks. Leaving that aside, the biggest problem with this assessment is its underestimation of climate forcing per unit of heat supplied from natural gas over the crucial 20 or so years ahead. EPA’s analysis based on old data. Cornell’s Howarth provides a corrective. (Here’s a fact sheet on the topic produced by one of our interns in 2017.) The problem is that natural gas leaks at every stage of its industrial life. Natural gas produced by hydrofracturing (“fracking”) is particularly prone to leakage. (Here’s the Environmental Defense Fund’s report on methane leakage in New Mexico, which estimates leakage components.) In short, and in the absence of effective leakage regulation and following Howarth and other work we reviewed in 2017, we suggest that the EPA’s attributed methane contribution should be multiplied by a factor of about four. Thus at present, natural gas is worse for the climate than coal. (This, by the way, is part of the reason Obama’s Clean Power Plan was going to make global warming worse, not better.) The EPA’s emission tabulation – admittedly incomplete as they note, even apart from the methane issue – give a figure of 401 grams CO2 equivalent (CO2e) per dollar of GDP in 2014. Recalculating using a 4x greater impact from methane, which better captures the immediate “hit” given to global warming over the coming 20 years by methane, gives 530 g CO2e per GDP dollar in 2014, 32% higher. There has been some growth in RE since 2014 to be sure, but also a tremendous growth in natural gas use at the expense of coal (and the climate). So, without excessive precision and likely with some conservatism, a $10,000 investment in RE – or an additional $10,000 added to the economy in the form of new money supplied to people or businesses or communities who will spend, not save it – will cost, very roughly, about 5,300 kg of CO2e. Whether the figure is 4,000 or 6,000 makes little difference in this context. The point is, there is a big climate cost, because our economy is dirty. (By the way, the EPA’s emission inventory also did not include the embedded GHGs in imported goods, which comprise a non-trivial portion of consumer and business spending. One review: A series of studies has recently measured the carbon content–or ‘embodied’ emissions–of international trade [refs 1-8 at the link]. As one remarkable finding, imports to the United States were shown to contain on average 0.77 kg of CO2 per dollar, whereas for its exports this number is only 0.49. The problem of exporting GHG-intensive industries abroad, which has already happened to a significant degree, is a serious concern. Proposals for GHG taxes and dividends often include a tariff on imported goods based on their embedded emissions.) Returning to the main theme of this section, we can see the effect of economic growth in last year’s rise of US CO2 emissions, as we noted earlier: We read in today's New York Times that US carbon dioxide emissions -- presumably not counting net forest and agricultural land losses -- increased dramatically in 2018 according to preliminary estimates. As the NYT explains, this is not because of Trump's wholesale deregulation, the effects of which will come later, but because the economy grew. This is why we said yesterday that supplying New Mexico renewable energy so that California and Arizona can grow will do nothing good for the climate. George Monbiot explains: It doesn’t matter how many good things we do: preventing climate breakdown means ceasing to do bad things. Given that economic growth, in nations that are already rich enough to meet the needs of all, requires an increase in pointless consumption, it is hard to see how it can ever be decoupled from the assault on the living planet....When a low-carbon industry expands within a growing economy, the money it generates stimulates high-carbon industry. To a first approximation (sufficient to data quality and for policy), “decarbonization,” let alone “de-GHGification,” of the US economy has not yet happened, nor is it happening to any significant degree. Although a proper statistical analysis would be better, Gail Tverberg has charted for our convenience the intimate, long-term dependency of energy and oil on the world’s overall GDP. The same closely-tracking curves can be drawn country by country. We won’t decrease fossil fuel use significantly or fast enough without decreasing GDP.
Stan Cox, in a recent “must-read” article, deserves the last word here: "That Green Growth at the Heart of the Green New Deal? It’s Malignant," 15 Jan 2019. Earth’s energy balance must be restored, and soon What climate science tells us is that, in the absence of solar radiation management, net GHG emissions per dollar GDP, from all sources and sinks both human and natural, has to go to zero and below, as averaged worldwide. The earth’s energy balance must be restored before too much heat builds up, or all will be lost. More than 90% of that extra heat has been going into the oceans, so we don’t experience very much of it. The total heat added is equal to about 1.5 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons per second for 150 years. Currently, oceanic heat gain is estimated to be between 3 and 6 Hiroshima bombs per second. As long as GHGs in the atmosphere remain greater than pre-industrial levels, the earth will keep getting hotter. Lowering emissions is just the beginning of the answer. It’s the overall burden or stock of GHGs in the atmosphere which must be lowered. That will require restoring natural sinks, such as via afforestation and soil carbon programs. Any GND worth its salt will include payment for sequestration services, which will help support the millions of acres of new forests, prairies and associated wildlife corridors and habitat edges they create, that can replace the cornfields we don’t need for the cattle feed we won’t use and the ethanol we won’t burn in the internal combustion engines we will use less and less. An effective GND can’t be funded with new money We are now in a position to take up the question of just how a GND can be financed. Many proponents argue that additional deficit federal spending would work. Normally the main danger posed by flooding the economy with new money is inflation, but as one GND advocate (Robert Hockett, professor of Law and Public Policy at Cornell) argues in a recent article (“The Green New Deal: How We Will Pay For It Isn't 'A Thing' - And Inflation Isn't Either”): The Green New Deal aims to stoke massive production of a vast array of new products, from solar panels to windmills to new battery and charging station technologies to green power grids and hydroelectric power generation facilities. The new production and new productivity that renewed infrastructure will bring will be virtually unprecedented in our nation’s history. This will be more than enough to absorb all new money spent into our economy. It will also distinguish the Green New Deal starkly from pseudo-stimulus plans of the recent past, none of which flowed to production or infrastructure and nearly all of which simply inflated financial markets. As far as the climate goes, new money is a huge problem. Every time one of these new GND dollars is spent, half a kilo of CO2e emissions will be generated, on average. US emissions will rise to the extent the economy grows – which, ceteris paribus, it would. Hockett is quite wrong in other words: how we’ll pay for a GND is “a thing” because the way we pay for a GND has to cut GHG emissions more than the GND increases them, and it has to do so in the short run, i.e. within a decade. So what would work? Various forms of taxation certainly; an interesting large subject. AOC’s proposal for 70% taxation of the very rich, likely essential politically for a GND, would also cut GHGs somewhat, but probably not enough. It also could not raise the $2+ trillion/year needed to drastically lower GHG emissions in the US alone, not counting any help the US might provide abroad. Without visible shared sacrifice, a society undergoing the degree of transformation we are embarked upon, whether as a matter of policy or forced upon us by merciless events, will come apart at the seams. Fiscal issues aside it is important for financial elites, who are also political elites in our oligarchic polity, to experience some form of global warming privation. As one NASA-funded model showed (but it’s also just common sense), if elites are “buffered from the most ‘detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than [c]ommoners,’ [this allows] them to "continue 'business as usual' despite the impending catastrophe," thus driving the entire society past the point of no return. In 2017, Stan Cox argued persuasively that “The [roughly] 33 Percent Will Have to Pick Up the Tab for the Climate Conversion.” The problem with inequality, as Cox notes, “is not just that too many people are poor; it’s also that too many are rich.” Indeed, especially as regards climate impacts. In other words, a GND has to be paid for in emissions and in economic terms, both, and it has to be done in substantial part by cutting consumption. The poor, near-poor, and precarious, cannot by definition bear the burden of leadership in this matter. Far beyond the scope of this bulletin, there are also material limits on resources – on land (e.g. for carbon sequestration vs. meat and timber production), on oil, and on water, to mention three, which impose limits on consumption. These, amplified by vast inequality, are already slowing economic growth. Overall, an essential aspect of the GND is that of limits, which we have reached. It is not clear that most GND advocates understand this. And then there is the US military What federal department is: a) the largest institutional user of fossil fuels on the planet; b) politically, institutionally, and in terms of foreign policy incompatible with global climate cooperation? You got it: the Department of Defense, or more broadly (and including nuclear warheads) the national defense establishment as funded in the “050” federal budget line. As we noted last April, The US now spends more per capita on its “defense” than the total income available to almost half the people in the world [Hauke Hillebrandt, “Median GDP per capita: how much does the typical person earn in different countries? A look at global inequality,” 25 May 2016. In 2013, median global per capita income was estimated at $2,920. Glenn Phelps and Steve Crabtree, “Worldwide, Median Household Income About $10,000,” Gallup, 6 Dec 2013.] US defense expenditures – $1.7 million per minute – exceed the combined military spending of the next eight biggest military spenders (most of which are US allies), as well as the combined military expenses of the entire rest of the world not counting these top nine [SIPRI, “Biggest military spenders”].Especially considering the leading role of the US in international institutions, this deluge of money embodies devastating priorities. Our time in history is one of rapidly converging crises that threaten the very existence of civilization, the US included. Globally these crises include wars, resource shortages, mass migrations, extreme poverty and hunger, a collapsing global climate (with its attendant droughts, extreme storms, and rising seas), and collapsing ecosystems. Mass extinction of species has begun. We won’t get a GND without dramatically cutting military spending. As we said in December’s Bulletin 251 (“Converging resource, climate, and social crises compel broad, deep transformation -- far more than usually envisioned”): …the era when competing claims on limited or declining resources could be somewhat papered over with new debt, federal and otherwise, is coming to an end. Now we have to wake up to what is already a life-and-death struggle over priorities at every level but especially federally.Military (including nuclear weapons) interests already understand this. Progressives, and the Democratic Party, in general do not. Climate hawks, for example, are losing a struggle to the military they don't even acknowledge they (and we) are in.Infrastructure renewal, expensive "progressive" programs of social uplift, and huge programs of climate mitigation and adaptation -- necessary for survival but not happening and not much mentioned in campaigns this fall -- are economically and politically incompatible with a US global empire. These programs are unaffordable, as well as unattainable politically, without deep cutbacks in defense spending. Can the GND idea be rescued and made useful? Perhaps. It is new to mainstream discourse, and rightly conjoins respect for nature with respect for persons, both of which oppose the horrible mainstream discourse of implicit disposability of everyone and every living thing that is not fodder to growth. But overall we should not let the prospect of a “GND”, which at present is not a “thing,” or the policies that would make up a GND if we had one, distract us from forceful nonviolent education. Such education is exemplified in the Extinction Rebellion, the first US actions in which begin tomorrow, 26 Jan 2019. (We are unaware at this time of XR actions planned in New Mexico. If you are planning something please let us know.) Most of what is being proposed as a GND is too deeply flawed to succeed in its either of its two main aims: successful global warming mitigation, beyond a political posture, and social justice. Why the latter? If our converging crises develop much further without adequate response, governments will not be able to cope and social justice will erode. If we fail to halt climate change, “social justice” will become a distant memory. Some say, more out of habit than logic, that even baby steps are better than nothing. I am afraid that is not always true. Cooptation and associated lack of trenchant action, on the basis of pie-in-the-sky slogans like “100% RE,” are altogether unhelpful. I am not going to try and review here all the extant GND reports and possible policy elements. That would really require a team of people – or rather teams, because conditions are different everywhere. It’s critically important however, as an ongoing activity. If you haven’t seen it you might take a look at The Climate Mobilization’s “Victory Plan,” which incorporates many useful policies at the appropriate scale, speed, and scope. Is it all hopeless then? For crying out loud no. Some of you may enjoy this short piece by Kathleen Dean Moore published by Earth Island Journal, “Why We Won’t Quit the Climate Fight.” For further reference We have written a lot about these issues in the recent past and will not be able to capture all the major points here. If the present reflections have been of any use to you, it’s possible some of the following articles and letters from the last 3 years may be as well.
Thank you for your attention, Greg Mello, for the Study Group |
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