Argues that it’s time for professional organizations, and especially in sociology, to quit their “business as usual” operations and focus on the climate change crisis.ies

THE GROWING CRISIS OF THE COLORADO RIVER:  A SIGN TO US ALL

–Kim Scipes, Ph.D.

There is a growing crisis out in the southwestern part of our country that has a message for us all.  Politicians and the mainstream media from all over the country are ignoring it or generally treating it as a “one-time” issue to cover, not understanding that it is a sign  of great importance for all Americans and the world.

The reality:  most of the Southwest is dependent on water and electricity from the Colorado River, not only for life, but for industry, agriculture, and tourism.  As Pam Wright, writing for the website Weather.com, reports from a recent study, “The Colorado River Basin encompasses seven states and northern Mexico, and is home to 22 federally recognized Native American tribes.”  Further, “The river provides municipal and industrial water for 40 million people distributed across every major Southwestern city both within and without the basin, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Denver and the entire Front Range of Colorado, Albuquerque and Santa Fe.”

It also provides electricity for the entire region, which is essential for modern life.  However, additionally, while it may not seem as important for areas on or near the coast or those at higher altitudes, it is a requirement for living in desert areas:  for many people, especially the very young and the very old, it is necessary for survival in the desert areas because they cannot live in the harsh climate without air conditioning.  And desert areas such as Las Vegas and Phoenix are some of the fasting-growing population centers in the country.

Yet the climate in this region is changing.  It is in the middle of the worst drought in 1,200 years, and overall climate change is adding to the problem.

Accordingly, the Colorado is drying up.  Lake Mead and Lake Powell, two man-made lakes behind the Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams, respectively, are the two largest reservoirs in the country: let’s focus on Mead, the larger of the two:  Lake Mead is 110 miles long. Lake Mead has dropped nearly 170 feet since 2000–you can actually see a “bathtub ring” around the lake, showing how far it has dropped–and today stands at 28 percent of capacity; as the Los Angeles Times notes, the River is “continuing to decline.”

This has important ramifications not only for the Southwest but for many parts of the country.  Many areas get most of their winter vegetables and citrus fruits from the Imperial Valley, in far southern California into Mexico, and the nearby area around Yuma, Arizona.  A former university student of mine just reported in a recent paper that two-thirds of our fruits and vegetables in Northwest Indiana, where we live, come from these areas.  These areas are dependent on Colorado River water.

And the reality of the Colorado is that water supplies are going to be cut dramatically; and agriculture is expected be a major loser.

Yet this isn’t stopping “development” in the region, with free flowing fountains, lakes big enough to ski on, ponds, and surf parks dotting some of the chosen areas. The population of the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler metropolitan area is over 4.9 million people, and continues to grow. 

The town of Buckeye, Arizona—southwest of Phoenix in some of the harshest desert anywhere—plans to triple its population by 2030, and eventually sees growth from about 110,000 to a projected 872,000.  (In 1970, according to the Census, Buckeye was a town of 2,599 and the local area was home for 7,807 people; I used to ride my motorcycle through Buckeye regularly, traveling to and from the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma and Phoenix, where my mother lived, between 1970-73.)

Arizona has already taken a 21 percent cut of its share of Colorado River water.  Buckeye is depending on water from underground aquifers.  Yet the groundwater in the region has been “disappearing nearly seven times faster than the combined water losses from Lakes Powell and Mead,” according to a hydrology professor who studies water security:  “Groundwater losses of that magnitude are literally an existential threat to desert cities like Phoenix and Tucson.”

The environment has been trying to tell us there are limits beyond which humans cannot safely live; wildfires in California, hurricanes across the Gulf of Mexico, sea levels rising, and shrinking rivers and lakes in the Southwest.  We humans have not generally listened.

Now, the water crisis of the Southwest has been enough to spur elected officials in some areas to begin to wake up:  Scottsdale, Arizona, an eastern suburb of Phoenix, has cut off water to a development outside of the city, in an unincorporated area; Scottsdale officials want to make sure they have sufficient water for those who currently live there.

As the Los Angeles Times recently reported, “This reckoning with the reality of the river’s limits is about to transform the landscape of the Southwest.”

As a child of the desert Southwest, I argue that the lesson is much more profound than this:  a key idea of US culture—that Americans can do anything we can individually afford or get credit to afford—is outdated and that efforts to violate environmental limits will only come with increasing misery and self-destruction.  We can no longer let individual “initiatives” determine social development; we have to begin to think collectively for the good of all, and reject individual and corporate self-interests to prevail.  We ignore this lesson at our own peril.

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Kim Scipes, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Purdue University Northwest in Westville, Indiana, and has taught a course on “Environment and Social Justice” since 2006.  Raised in the desert Southwest and a 1969 graduate of Alhambra High School in Phoenix, Dr. Scipes has lived, worked, traveled, and served in the US Marine Corps in the Southwest, where his siblings still live.  The author of four books, his “Climate Change, Environmental Destruction, and Social Justice” web page can be reached at https://www.pnw.edu/faculty/kim-scipes-ph-d/publications/climate-change-publication/.

by Katie Singer

In the event that a developer wants to install a utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) facility near you, consider yourself blessed with opportunities. You can shake up your assumptions about “clean, green” energy. You can learn how to present the technology’s not-so-sunny sides so that neighbors and legislators who believe that solar PVs cannot possibly have problems…actually hear you.

With humility, you can insist that the developer and your county’s planning department show you a professional engineer’s report certifying that all of the project’s hazards are mitigated.

Honestly, you might rather plant turnips or watch your child’s ballgame, but you should learn where this solar facility’s generated power will go, and if the array will connect to the grid.

If health and safety matter more to you than money—and you can suspend belief that solar PVs are renewable, safe and problem-free, proceed to Step 2: Get legal advice so that your county permits the facility only if your conditions are met.

Installation

Insist that the developer use only raw materials sourced from companies that can verify worker and environmental protections.

From installation to “decommissioning,” the developer must carry liability insurance for the project—not self-insure.

How much water will the developer use during construction? Where will it come from? Where will wastewater go? To protect groundwater, will used construction water need treatment?

The developer must keep all soil on the site. Only 400 acres (say) of land can be disturbed at a time to prevent stormwater runoff. (A big rain after a clear-cut would result in disaster.) After clearing an area (i.e., of shrubs or trees) the developer must plant grass within X number of days in order to hold soil and prevent sediment run-off. The developer must set up stormwater basins.

Your county staff, planning commissioners (if so equipped) and board of supervisors will have to evaluate against their ordinance about stormwater runoff and sediment in waterways—and/or land use issues specific to your topography.

Operations

Panels hold chemicals, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs). In a hailstorm (say), panels can crack. Your county can require monthly soil testing in specified locations to ensure that no chemicals leak into the soil. If chemicals leach into soil, what will the developer do?

Solar panels are electrical equipment. All electrical equipment poses fire hazards. To reduce risk of fire, your county can specify how long grass (or other vegetation) can get before it must be cut.

If a fire does occur during the day, the solar panels will not stop collecting sunlight and converting it into electricity: you cannot de-energize solar panels. Firefighters cannot spray burning panels with water—because water conducts electricity, and water will not put out a solar panel fire. It can only cool it. At a public hearing in Spotsylvania, Virginia, the county’s fire chief said he would not try to extinguish a solar PV fire. He would just hose down everything near it. In the event that the array catches fire, what is your county fire chief’s plan?

If the project includes a battery electric storage system (BESS)

Batteries provide high energy storage. One BESS battery can be the size of a small trailer. If you get a short and a discharge, you end up with arcing and extremely dangerous, toxic fires. (At a BESS in Moss Landing, California, one battery caught fire on September 20, 2022. Nearby residents were not allowed to leave their homes, open their windows or run ventilation systems for nearly 24 hours. Roads and businesses were closed. This BESS was designed and maintained by PG&E and Tesla; the September 20 fire was the plant’s third fire since it opened in April, 2022.)

For a data base of BESS failure events, see  https://storagewiki.epri.com/index.php/BESS_Failure_Event_Database

Your county can require the developer to provide a professional engineer’s “sealed” report that all fire hazards have been evaluated and mitigated; and this BESS will not catch fire like the one at Moss Landing or others listed in the database.

To keep cool, batteries require a cooling system. How much water will this cooling system use? Where will it come from? Where will this BESS’s wastewater go? To protect groundwater, will it need treatment?

End-of-Life

When the facility is no longer efficient enough to be profitable, either all panels will be replaced and all wires (and batteries, if there’s a BESS) will be upgraded—or the developer will abandon the project. Require the developer to post a bond so that the county will not be burdened with decommissioning costs if the developer walks away. Sending panels to a recycling center is very expensive. What will happen with the (toxic, flammable) batteries at their end-of-life?

To write up conditions that you aim for your county board of supervisors to approve, you will need:

• a land-use lawyer to provide guidance and appropriate language.
• money for the lawyer.
• to learn your county’s restrictions about discuss issues with commissioners who vote. In any case, you’ll need friendly relations with your permitting commission’s staff.
• an articulate, thoroughly informed, well-mannered and even-tempered person to speak with county staff.
• You might also need a professional engineer (PE).
• If the developer claims that the solar facility will benefit your county economically, you will need to hire an economist to evaluate these claims.
• Do not expect coverage from local media. To educate the public, you’ll need well-written, well-referenced brief entries posted on social media.

Ask if the county has in-house experts to evaluate a solar facility’s chemical run-off, fire hazards and economics etc. If not, then the county can require the developer to provide funding so that the county can hire expert-consultants chosen by the county to evaluate the facility.

For resources, visit the website maintained by Citizens for Responsible Solar: https://www.citizensforresponsiblesolar.org/. See their solar toolkit at https://www.citizensforresponsiblesolar.org/solar-toolkit. See also Kansans for Responsible Solar: https://westgardnersolar.com/utility-scale-solar-health-and-safety-concerns/

For an example of final conditions approved by Spotsylvania, VA’s Planning Commission—which does not include a BESS—visit: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ea0NyIBLdyPHaD__P9nBnoUbDGVwrqHV/view
For general info about rarely-discussed problems with solar PVs, visit www.OurWeb.tech/letter-43.

Katie Singer writes about the energy, extractions, toxic waste and greenhouse gases involved in manufacturing computers, telecom infrastructure, electric vehicles and other electronic technologies. She believes that if she’s not aware that she’s part of the problem, then she can’t be part of the solution. She dreams that every smartphone user learns about the supply chain of one substance (of 1000+) in a smartphone. Her most recent book is An Electronic Silent Spring. She currently writes about nature, democracy and technology for Meer.com. Visit www.OurWeb.tech and www.ElectronicSilentSpring.com.

by Katie Singer

Say that a restaurant offers “healthy, natural” chicken soup. How do you know what it means by “healthy” or “natural?” Farmers can cage chickens, feed them genetically-modified soy, wash butchered birds in antibiotics—and still call their chickens natural. Cooks can use lead-coated pots¹ and chemically-fertilized vegetables–and still, legally, call the soup healthy.

“Healthy” and “natural” are marketing terms.

Likewise, when corporations offer “clean,” “renewable” solar photovoltaic (PV) power, how do you know their definition of “clean” or “renewable?”

Now, with The Inflation Reduction Act granting $369 billion to subsidize “renewables” like rooftop and utility-scale solar, must consumers considering these systems assess the technology themselves? Do we aim for an energy resilient country—or just lower electric bills in some households?

When I realized that I don’t know how to live without electricity for more than a few days, I challenged myself to investigate my assumptions about “green” technologies. In this article, I’ll introduce what I’ve learned about solar photovoltaics (PVs).

Assessing electronics from design to discard

Accurate assessment of any product, including solar PVs, requires analyzing impacts from manufacturing, operation and discard. Energy used to manufacture any electronic product accounts for much more than what it uses during operation and discard. For example, a laptop consumes 81% of lifetime energy use before its end-user turns it on for the first time.²

Then, energy efficiency actually increases consumption: when a product’s efficiency increases, its price decreases, and more people buy it. This leads to more manufacturing—more energy use, mining and hazardous waste.³

#1 Manufacturing

You know those white squares under solar panels’ glass? They’re made from pure silicon, which is not available in nature. Manufacturing polysilicon starts with transporting pure quartz gravel, a pure carbon (i.e., petroleum coke) and moist wood to a smelter that is kept at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit for years at a time. Smelters require steady delivery of electricity—or they could explode. They’re typically powered by natural gas, coal and/or nuclear power. Neither solar nor wind can power a smelter since they provide only intermittent power.⁴

For Step 2, producing polysilicon, a modern factory consumes up to 400 megawatts of continuous power per year. Producing 20,000 tons of polysilicon draws enough power for 300,000 homes.⁵ 

Next—making a cylindrical silicon ingot, then slicing it into wafers—are also energy-intensive, toxic waste-emitting processes.⁶

Nearly half the world’s polysilicon comes from a handful of Chinese factories. Reports claim that these manufacturers use forced Uyghur labor.^7,8

Once silicon is formed, phosphorous, boron and sometimes arsenic are “doped” into it so wafers can receive electric signals.

To increase durability, dirt-repellency and energy production, a solar panel’s frame, front sheet, back sheet and encapsulant^9-13 (and batteries, if there are any^14,15) each, typically, hold perfluorinated chemicals (PFAs). Exposure to “forever chemicals” may weaken immune systems, increase cholesterol levels, change liver enzymes, increase pregnant women’s risks of high blood pressure, and increase kidney or testicular cancer risks.^16-18 While manufacturers claim that newer PFAS are safer, research shows that these chemicals are equally harmful.¹⁹ If panels crack (from hailstorms, say), do PFAs leach into groundwater?^20,21

Transporting solar PVs’ raw materials to factories—and final products to consumers—requires cargo ships powered by highly polluting bunker fuel. ²²

#2 Operation  

On sunny days in North America, solar PVs collect sunlight and generate energy between about 11am and 3pm. On cloudy days, they produce 10-25% of sunny-day energy. Meanwhile, households demand electricity mostly around dinnertime. Users who want electricity 24/7 therefore need backup power.

Ten percent of solar systems are backed up by battery storage. Making batteries requires mining (i.e., lithium, cobalt, copper), chemicals and water. Batteries are hazardous to manufacture and at disposal.²³

About ninety percent of solar PV systems stay grid-connected. Their backup comes from whatever fuel the utility uses.

Solar PVs can weaken grid stability. For example, grid-connected solar systems generate so much daytime electricity that utilities must sometimes pay other utilities to take their excess.²⁴

#3 End-of-life waste

While the vast majority of toxic waste occurs during manufacturing, by the end of 2016, the world had generated about 250,000 metric tons of discarded solar panels. By 2050, the world could acquire 78 million metric tons of (hazardous) solar panel waste.^25,26

Typically, solar panels contain lead, cadmium and toxins like PFAs. Since modules can break—and toxins can leach into soil—solar panels should not be disposed of in “regular” landfills.^27,28 Recycling solar panels requires separating their materials—and consumes substantial energy.

Fire hazards

A rooftop solar system requires wiring multiple panels together, connecting them to the main power system, and a DC-to-AC inverter. Many of its components are outdoors.²⁹ Whenever the number of electrical connections increase, so do fire hazards. Firefighters may need special training to respond to solar PV fires.³⁰ If there’s a fire while panels generate electricity, can firefighters turn panels off?

Battery Electric Storage Systems (BESS), which store power generated by solar PVs,³¹ also pose fire hazards:³² On September 20, 2022, a Tesla mega pack battery (one of 256) caught fire at PG&E’s battery storage facility in Moss Landing, California.^33,34 Nearby residents were advised to shelter-in-place, close windows and ventilation systems—because when lithium-ion batteries burn, they emit hazardous chemicals.³⁵ For most of the day, businesses and storefronts were not allowed to open; roads in the Monterey Bay area were closed. Designed and maintained by both PG&E and Tesla, this PG&E plant could store enough energy (generated by solar PVs) to power 225,000 homes for up to four hours during peak demand. This was the facility’s third fire since it opened in April. For now, it is shut down indefinitely.

Other key issues:

• Since solar PVs produce low-energy-density, large arrays require massive amounts of acreage to supply industries with sufficient power. For example, Virginia’s 500MW Spotsylvania Energy Facility removed 4500 acres of trees before installing 1.6 million solar panels to power data centers (with backup from the nearby natural gas-powered utility).³⁶
• When converting the sun’s direct current to alternating current, solar PV systems expose residents to potentially harmful electrical pollution.³⁷
• Manufacturing solar PV systems depends on rare earths. China controls 70% of the rare-earth market: dependence on it creates geo-political conflicts.³⁸
• While demand grows for solar PVs and other electronics, so does demand for cobalt, nickel, manganese and copper. Mining these ores endangers fragile ecosystems including the Amazon.³⁹ As terrestrial supplies become harder and less profitable to extract, some propose mining the ocean floor, regardless its impacts to marine ecology.⁴⁰
• Demand for copper—used in solar panel wiring, cables and inverters—could exceed supply by 2025.⁴¹

New questions and challenges

Proponents might say that solar PV systems emit less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels. Whether or not this is true, don’t we need to reduce all kinds of ecological harm? In 2016, The United Nations’ Environmental Programme noted that countries that invest heavily in “green” technologies—Sweden, Germany and the U.S.—rank sustainable on the UN’s index.⁴² China, the Democratic Republic of Congo and India—where ores are mined and smelted, where manufacturers make chemicals and dope silicon, where e-waste is discarded—these countries generate CO_2, toxic waste and worker hazards—and rank unsustainable.

Instead of comparing fossil fuels and solar PVs, could we focus on reducing international production and consumption?

Could we restore the engineering principle that no technology is safe or ecologically sound until licensed experts prove it?

Could we define and monitor terms like “sustainable,” “carbon-neutral,” “zero-emitting” and “renewable?”

Would consumers research the supply chain of one substance in a solar panel, a smartphone, a TV or an e-vehicle—and host forums to share their research with classmates, neighbors and co-workers?

Could households, schools, businesses and municipalities each reduce their consumption by three percent each month—and share what they learn?

Systemically and by household, how could we reduce consumption by three percent each month?

Study and discuss what safe, reliable, affordable electricity require. (Is ecologically sound electricity possible?)⁴³

Learn from countries prone to frequent blackouts.

Paint rooftops with reflective paint.

Opt for swamp coolers over air conditioners.

Dry laundry in the sun.

Build and cook with solar ovens.

Grow food at schools, businesses, clinics and in neighborhoods.

Compost kitchen scraps.

Walk, bike or take public transportation.

Create media diets. Wait at least four years to upgrade new hardware and software. Prefer wired connections (which use much less energy) to mobile ones. For meetings, prefer voice (which uses much less data and energy) to video. Delay electronics for children at least until they master reading, writing and math on paper. Download videos rather than stream them. Limit video-watching to (say) three hours per week.

Since buying anything new engages the global super-factory, keep what we have in good repair. Celebrate mechanics and people who consume less.

Live with the questions: What’s a luxury? What’s essential? and treasure people who will discuss them.

References  

1. www.tamararubin.com
2. https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environment/your-phone-costs-energyeven-before-you-turn-it-on
3. Read about the Jevons Paradox, first described in William Jevons’ 1862 book, The Coal Question.
4. Troszak, Thomas, “The hidden costs of solar photovoltaic power,” NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence, No. 16., Nov. 2021. https://www.enseccoe.org/data/public/uploads/2021/11/d1_energy-highlights-no.16.pdf
5. Bruns, Adam, “Wacker Completes Dynamic Trio of Billion-Dollar Projects in Tennessee: ‘Project Bond’ cements the state’s clean energy leadership,” 2009, www.siteselection.com
6. Troszak, Thomas, “Why Do We Burn Coal and Trees for Solar Panels?” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we_burn_coal_and_trees_to_make_solar_panels
7. Murtaugh, Dan, Colum Murphy and James Mayger, “Secrecy and Abuse Claims Haunt China’s Solar Factories in Xinjiang, April 13, 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-xinjiang-solar/
8. Bloomberg News, “Solar energy boom could worsen forced labor in China, group says,” March 28, 2022.
9. Rojello Fernandez, Seth, C. Kwiatkowski, T. Bruton, “Building a Better World: Eliminating Unnecessary PFAS in Building Materials,” Green Science Policy Institute, 2021. https://greensciencepolicy.org/docs/pfas-building-materials-2021.pdf
10. AiT Technology. (2015). Transparent Encapsulating PVDF Front Sheet – AI Technology, Inc. AiT Technology.
    https://www.aitechnology.com/products/solar/transparent-pvdf-encapsulating-front-sheet/?s=
11. Terreau, C., De, J., & Jenkins, S. (2014). Encapsulation of solar cells (USPTO Patent). Google Patents.
    https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/80/c1/43/c47454f302f6d6/US8847063.pdf
12. Daikin. (2020a). Chemical Products UNIDYNE Repellents and Surface Modifiers Daikin America. Daikin America.
    https://daikin-america.com/surface-modification-technology/#zeff
13. Daikin. (2020b). Renewable Green Energy Zero-Energy Fluoropolymers. Daikin America. https://daikin-america.com/renewable-energy/
14. Arcella, V., Merlo, L., Pieri, R., Toniolo, P., Triulzi, F., & Apostolo, M. (2014). Fluoropolymers for Sustainable Energy. In D. Smith, S. Iacono, & S. Iyer (Eds.), Handbook of Fluoropolymer Science and Technology (pp. 393–412). Wiley Online Library. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118850220
15. Daikin. (2012). Business Review: Daikin Fluorochemical Products. In Chemwinfo. http://www.chemwinfo.com/private_folder/Uploadfiles2015_Feb/Daikin_Brochures_Chem_Biz.pdf
16. Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry. (2018). ATSDR – Toxicological Profile: Perfluoroalkyls. Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/tp200.pdf
17. C8 Science Panel. (2012). C8 Probable Link Reports. C8 Science Panel. http://www.c8sciencepanel.org/prob_link.html
18. National Toxicology Program. (2016). NTP Monograph Immunotoxicity Associated with Exposure to Perfluorooctanoic Acid or Perfluorooctane
    Sulfonate. In the National Toxicology Program. https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/ohat/pfoa_pfos/pfoa_pfosmonograph_508.pdf
19. Gomis, M. I., Vestergren, R., Borg, D., & Cousins, I. T. (2018). Comparing the toxic potency in vivo of long chain perfluoroalkyl acids and fluorinated alternatives. Environment International, 113, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2018.01.011
20. http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/DesertSunlight.html
21. http://www.businessnorth.com/daily_briefing/storm-damages-minnesota-power-solar-power-plant/article_a7f34d54-75fb-11e6-89fe-53abb52280c3.html
22. https://www.wired.com/story/container-ships-use-super-dirty-fuel-that-needs-to-change/
23. Klinger, PhD, Julie Michelle, “Environmental Footprints of Rare Earth Mining Past and Present,” Center for the Sustainable Separation of Metals, Feb. 23, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGQeXrkCqM0
24. Penn, Ivan, “California invested heavily in solar power. Now there’s so much that other states are sometimes paid to take it,” LA Times, June 22, 2017.
25. https://www.irena.org/publications/2016/Jun/End-of-life-management-Solar-Photovoltaic-Panels
26. Atasu, Atalay, et al., “The Dark Side of Solar Power,” Harvard Business Review, June 18, 2021. https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power
27. https://www.re-plus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/N253_9-14-1530.pdf
28. Kisela, Rachel, “California went big on rooftop solar. Now that’s a problem for landfills, LA Times, July 14, 2022. https://darik.news/california/californias-growing-solar-panel-waste-poses-environmental-risk-due-to-lack-of-safe-disposal-options-affect-your-world-today/657021.html
29. https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/system-wiring-and-interconnect-for-rooftop-solar-panels
30. Piantedosi, Matt and Tony Granato, “Solar PV Fire Safety Training,” U.S. Dept. of Energy SunShot Initiative Rooftop Solar Challenge II. https://www.cesa.org/wp-content/uploads/CESA-PV-Fire-Safety-Training-Slides.pdf
31. https://www.utilitydive.com/spons/energy-storage-101-how-energy-storage-works/627194/
32. https://rivercitymalone.com/wind-solar-energy/bess-bombs-part-1/ https://rivercitymalone.com/wind-solar-energy/bess-bombs-part-2/
33. Copitch, Josh, “Highway 1reopened near Moss Landing, shelter-in-place lifted,” KWBW Action news, Sept. 21, 2022. https://www.ksbw.com/article/highway-1-reopened-near-moss-landing-shelter-in-place-lifted/41302918
34. Wright, Thomas, Sept. 20, 2022, Monterey County Herald. https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2022/09/20/caltrans-highway-1-temporarily-closed-in-moss-landing/   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09784-z.pdf
35. Larsson, Fredrik, et al, “Toxic fluoride gas emissions from lithium-ion battery fires,” Scientific Reports, 30 August 2017.
36. Johnson, Jeromy, “The Dark Side of Solar,” April 2017. https://www.emfanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dark-Side-of-Solar.pdf
37. https://smallcaps.com.au/rare-earth-stocks-asx/ultimate-guide/ Cullinane, Danica, “Rare earth stocks on the ASX: The Ultimate Guide,” September 11, 2019.
38. www.OurWeb.tech/letter-28
39. Aldred, Jessica, “Explainer: Deep-sea mining,” China Dialogue, 11.23.21. https://chinadialogueocean.net/6677-deep-seabed-mining/; Teske S, Florin N, Dominish E, Giurco D., “Renewable Energy and Deep Sea Mining: Supply, Demand and Scenarios: Report prepared by ISF for J.M.Kaplan Fund, Oceans 5 and Synchronicity Earth,” July 2016; 2016.
40. https://www.mining.com/the-looming-copper-crunch-and-why-recycling-cant-fix-it/
41. Jason Hickel, “The World’s Sustainable Development Goals Aren’t Sustainable,” Sept. 30, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/30/the-worlds-sustainable-development-goals-arent-sustainable/ Global Material Flows and Resource Productivity: Assessment Report for the UNEP International Resource Panel, 2016. https://www.resourcepanel.org/reports/global-material-flows-and-resource-productivity-database-link
42. www.OurWeb.tech/letter-14

Further Resources

Citizens for responsible solar: https://www.citizensforresponsiblesolar.org/

Jensen, Derrick, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert, Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, Monkfish, 2021.

Martin, PhD., Calvin Luther, “Solar Energy: Yes or No?” https://d19cgyi5s8w5eh.cloudfront.net/usr/7cf0b55423c99874f014fa1484465c9c/eml/0gT1mQ6MSLyoWNirz_1NKw?e=19clay%40gmail.com&a=GZmXcm4zQ6GbJD1RJ2k-iQ&f=&t=

Owen, David, The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse, Riverhead, 2011.

Rehbein, Jose A., et al., “Renewable energy development threatens many globally important biodiversity areas,” Global Change Biology, 4 March, 2020.

Smith, Olivia, “The dark side of the sun: avoiding conflict over solar energy’s land and water demands,” New Security Beat, 10.2.18. https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2018/10/dark-side-sun-avoiding-conflict-solar-energys-land-water-demands/

Deep-sea mining (for materials that make electronics, solar PVs, and e-vehicles possible) now steps further toward a green light. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/27/united-nations-ocean-treaty-marine-life

Documentaries:

• Jeff Gibbs’ and Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans”
• Julia Barnes’ “Bright Green Lies”
• Jean-Louis Perez and Guillaume Pitron’s “The Price of Green Energy”

Katie Singer writes about the energy, extractions, toxic waste and greenhouse gases involved in manufacturing computers, telecom infrastructure, electric vehicles and other electronic technologies. She believes that if she’s not aware that she’s part of the problem, then she can’t be part of the solution. She dreams that every smartphone user learns about the supply chain of one substance (of 1000+) in a smartphone. Her most recent book is An Electronic Silent Spring. She currently writes about nature, democracy and technology for Meer.com. Visit www.OurWeb.tech and www.ElectronicSilentSpring.com.

Noting the extensive number of progrssive protests, mobilizations, and social disruptions from below since the mid-1980s, not just in the US but around the world, this article suggests that what is going on is the expansion of the global economic and social justice movement, a bottom-up form of globalization.  It suggests that this is, ultimately, a rejection of industrial civilization itself.  And it points out, through an examination of the effects of climate change, that the continued existence of industrial civilization is imposing a burden on the peoples of the world that far outweighs its benefits, and suggests that protests will expand as more and more people understand the costs of industrial civilization.

On the IPCC’s latest climate report: What does it tell us?

            – Brian Tokar

The UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently released its latest comprehensive report on the state of the earth’s climate. The much-anticipated report dominated the headlines for a few days in early August, then quickly disappeared amidst the latest news from Afghanistan, the fourth wave of Covid-19 infections in the US, and all the latest political rumblings. The report is vast and comprehensive in its scope, and is worthy of more focused attention outside of specialist scientific circles than it has received thus far.

The report affirms much of what we already knew about the state of the global climate, but does so with considerably more clarity and precision than earlier reports. It removes several elements of uncertainty from the climate picture, including some that have wrongly served to reassure powerful interests and the wider public that things may not be as bad as we thought. The IPCC’s latest conclusions reinforce and significantly strengthen all the most urgent warnings that have emerged from the past 30 to 40 years of climate science.  It deserves to be understood much more fully than most media outlets have let on, both for what it says, and also what it doesn’t say about the future of the climate and its prospects for the integrity of all life on earth.

First some background.  Since 1990, the IPCC has released a series of comprehensive assessments of the state of the earth’s climate, typically every 5 – 6 years.  The reports have hundreds of authors, run for many hundreds of pages (this one has over 3000), and represent the international scientific consensus that has emerged from the period since the prior report. Instead of releasing a comprehensive report in 2019, as originally scheduled, the IPCC followed a mandate from the UN to issue three special reports: on the implications of warming above 1.5 degrees (all temperatures here are in Celsius except where otherwise noted), and on the particular implications of climate change for the earth’s lands and oceans. Thus the sixth comprehensive Assessment Report (dubbed AR6) is being released during 2021-22 instead of two years prior. Also the report released last week only presents the work of the first IPCC working group (WGI), focused on the physical science of climate change. The other two reports, on climate impacts (including implications for health, agriculture, forests, biodiversity, etc.) and on climate mitigation – including proposed policy measures – are scheduled for release next February and March, respectively. While the basic science report typically receives far more press coverage, the second report on climate impacts and vulnerabilities is often the most revealing, describing in detail how both ecosystems and human communities will experience the impacts of climate changes.

In many respects, the new document represents a qualitative improvement over the previous Assessment Reports, both in terms of the precision and reliability of the data and also the clarity of its presentation. There are countless detailed charts and infographics, each illuminating the latest findings on a particular aspect of current climate science in impressive detail. There is also a new Interactive Atlas (freely available at interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch), which allows any viewer to produce their own maps and charts of various climate phenomena, based on a vast array of data sources and climate models.

If there is a key take-home message, it is that climate science has vastly improved over the past decade in terms of its precision and the degree of confidence in its predictions. Many uncertainties that underlay past reports appear to have been successfully addressed, for example how a once-limited understanding of the behavior and dynamics of clouds were a major source of uncertainty in global climate models. Not only have the mathematical models improved, but we now have more than thirty years of detailed measurements of every aspect of the global climate that enable scientists to test the accuracy of their models, and also to substitute direct observations for several aspects that once relied heavily upon modeling studies.  So we have access to better models, and are also less fully reliant upon them.

Second, scientists’ understanding of historic and prehistoric climate trends have also vastly improved. While the IPCC’s third report in 2001 made headlines for featuring the now-famous “hockey stick” graph, showing how average temperatures had been relatively stable for a thousand years before starting to spike rapidly in the past few decades, the current report highlights the relative stability of the climate system over many thousands of years. Decades of detailed studies of the carbon contents of polar ice cores, lake and ocean sediments and other geologically stable features have raised scientists’ confidence in the stark contrast between current climate extremes and a couple of million years of relative climate stability. The long-term cycle of ice ages, for example, reflects shifts of about 50 to 100 parts per million (ppm) in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, compared to a current concentration (approximately 410 ppm) that is well over 150 ppm higher than the million-year average. We need to look back to the last interglacial era (125,000 years ago) to find an extended period of high average temperatures comparable to what we are experiencing now, and current carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are believed to be higher than any time in at least two million years.

With these overarching issues in mind, it is time to summarize some of the report’s most distinctive findings and then reflect upon their implications.

            First, the question of “climate sensitivity” has been one of the more contentious ones in climate science. It is a measure of how much warming would result from a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ from preindustrial levels, i.e. from 280 ppm to 560 ppm. Early estimates were all over the map, giving policymakers the wiggle room to suggest it is reasonable to reduce emissions more slowly or wait for newer technologies – from better batteries to carbon capture and even nuclear fusion – to come along. This report greatly narrows the scope of that debate, with a “best estimate” that doubling CO₂ will produce approximately 3 degrees of warming – far too high to avoid extremely dire consequences for all of life on earth. Climate sensitivity is very likely (more than 90% confidence) between 2 – 4.5 degrees and likely (2/3 confidence) between 2.5 and 4 degrees. Of the five main future scenarios explored in the report, only those where global greenhouse gas emissions reach their peak before 2050 will avoid that disastrous milestone. If emissions continue increasing at rates comparable to the past few decades, we’ll reach doubled CO₂ by 2100; if emissions accelerate, it could happen in just a few decades, vastly compounding the climate disruptions the world is already experiencing.

            A second key question is, how fast do temperatures rise with increasing emissions?  Is it a direct, linear relationship, or might temperature rises begin to level off any time in the foreseeable future? The report demonstrates that the effect remains linear, at least up to the level of 2 degrees warming, and quantifies the effect with high confidence. Of course there are important deviations from this number (1.65 degrees per thousand gigatons of carbon): the poles heat up substantially more quickly than other regions, the air over continental land masses heats up faster than over the oceans, and temperatures are warming almost twice as fast during cold seasons than warm seasons, accelerating the loss of arctic ice and other problems. Of course more extreme events remain far less predictable, except that their frequency will continue to increase with rising temperatures. For example the triple digit (Fahrenheit) temperatures that swept the Pacific Northwest of the US and southwestern Canada this summer have been described as a once in 50,000 years event in “normal” times and no one excludes the possibility that they will happen again in the near future. So-called “compound” events, for example the combination of high temperatures and dry, windy conditions that favor the spread of wildfires, are the least predictable events of all. The central conclusion from the overall linear increase in temperatures relative to emissions is that nothing short of a complete cessation of CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions will significantly stabilize the climate, and there is also a time delay of at least several decades after emissions cease before the climate can begin to stabilize.

            Third, estimates of likely sea level rise, in both the near- and longer-terms, are far more reliable than they were a few years ago. Global sea levels rose an average of 20 centimeters during the 20^th century, and will continue to rise throughout this century under all possible climate scenarios – about a foot higher than today if emissions begin to fall rapidly, nearly 2 feet if emissions continue rising at present rates, and 2.5 feet if emissions rise faster. These, of course, are the most cautious scientific estimates. By 2150 the estimated range is 2 – 4.5 feet, and more extreme scenarios where sea levels rise from 6 to 15 feet “cannot be ruled out due to deep uncertainty in ice sheet processes.” With glacial melting expected to continue for decades or centuries under all scenarios, sea levels will “remain elevated for thousands of years,” potentially reaching a height of between 8 and 60 feet above present levels. The last time global temperatures were comparable to today’s for several centuries (125,000 years ago), sea levels were probably 15 to 30 feet higher than they are today. When they were last 2.5 to 4 degrees higher than preindustrial temperatures – roughly 3 million years ago – sea levels may have been up to 60 feet higher than today. Again these are all cautious estimates, based on the available data and subject to stringent statistical validation. For residents of vulnerable coastal regions around the world, and especially Pacific Island dwellers who are already forced to abandon their drinking water wells due to high infiltrations of sea water, it is far from just a theoretical problem.

            Also, for the first time, the new report contains detailed projections for the unfolding of various climate-related phenomena in every region of the world. There is an entire chapter devoted to regionally-specific effects, and much attention to the ways in which climate disruptions play out differently in different locations. “Current climate in all regions is already distinct from the climate of the early or mid-20^th century,” the report states, and many regional differences are expected to become more pronounced over time. While every place on earth is getting hotter, there are charts showing how different regions will become consistently wetter or dryer, or various combinations of both, with many regions, including eastern North America, anticipated to experience increasingly extreme precipitation events. There are also more specific discussions of potential changes in monsoon patterns, as well as particular impacts on biodiversity hotspots, cities, deserts, tropical forests, and other places with distinctive characteristics in common. Various drought-related phenomena are addressed in more specific terms, with separate projections for meteorological drought (lack of rainfall), hydrological drought (declining water tables) and agricultural/ecological drought (loss of soil moisture). It can be expected that all these impacts will be discussed in greater detail in the upcoming report on climate impacts that is due in February. 

            There are numerous other important observations, many of which directly counter past attempts to minimize the consequences of future climate impacts. For those who want to see the world focus more fully on emissions unrelated to fossil fuel use, the report points out that between 64 and 86 percent of carbon emissions are directly related to fossil fuel combustion, with estimates approaching 100 percent lying well within the statistical margin of error. Thus there is no way to begin to reverse climate disruptions without an end to burning fossil fuels. There are also more detailed projections of the impacts of shorter-lived climate forcers, such as methane (highly potent, but short-lived compared to CO₂), sulfur dioxide (which counteracts climate warming) and black carbon (now seen as a substantially less significant factor than before). To those who assume the vast majority of emissions will continue to be absorbed by the world’s land masses and oceans, buffering the effects on the future atmosphere, the report explains how with rising emissions, a steadily higher proportion of the CO₂ remains in the atmosphere, rising from only 30 to 35 percent under low emissions scenarios, up to 56 percent with emissions continuing to increase at present rates and doubling to 62 percent if emissions begin to rise more rapidly. So we will likely see a declining capacity for the land and oceans to absorb a large share of excess carbon dioxide.

The report is also more skeptical than in the past toward geoengineering schemes based on various proposed technological interventions to absorb more solar radiation. The report anticipates a high likelihood of “substantial residual or overcompensating climate change at the regional scales and seasonal time scales” resulting from any interventions designed to shield us from climate warming without reducing emissions, as well as the certainty that ocean acidification and other non-climate consequences of excess carbon dioxide would inevitably continue. There will likely be substantially more discussion of these scenarios in the third report of this IPCC cycle, which is due in March.

In advance of the upcoming international climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland this November, several countries have pledged to increase their voluntary climate commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement, with some countries now aiming to achieve a peak in climate-altering emissions by mid-century. However this only approaches the middle range of the IPCC’s latest projections. The scenario based on a 2050 emissions peak is right in the middle of the report’s range of predictions, and shows the world surpassing the important threshold of 1.5 degrees of average warming in the early 2030s, exceeding 2 degrees by mid-century, and reaching an average temperature increase between 2.1 and 3.5 degrees (approximately 4 – 6 degrees Fahrenheit) between 2080 and 2100, nearly two and a half times the current global average temperature rise of 1.1 degrees since preindustrial times.

We will learn much more about the impacts of this scenario in the upcoming February report, but the dire consequences of future warming have been described in numerous published reports in recent years, including an especially disturbing very recent paper reporting signs that the Atlantic circulation (AMOC), which is the main source of warm air for all of northern Europe, is already showing signs of collapse. If carbon emissions continue to increase at current rates, we are looking at a best estimate of a 3.6 degree rise before the end of this century, with a likely range reaching well above 4 degrees – often viewed as a rough threshold for a complete collapse of the climate system.

There are two lower-emissions scenarios in the report, the lowest of which keeps the temperature rise by the century’s end under 1.5 degrees (after exceeding it briefly), but a quick analysis from MIT’s Technology Review points out that this scenario relies mainly on highly speculative “negative emissions” technologies, especially carbon capture and storage, and a shift toward the massive-scale use of biomass (i.e. crops and trees) for energy. We know that a more widespread use of “energy crops” would consume vast areas of the earth’s landmass, and that the regrowing of trees that are cut down to burn for energy would take many decades to absorb the initial carbon release– a scenario the earth clearly cannot afford. The lower-emissions scenarios also accept the prevailing rhetoric of “net-zero,” assuming that more widespread carbon-sequestering methods like protecting forests can serve to compensate for still-rising emissions.  We know that many if not most carbon offset schemes to date have been an absolute failure, with Indigenous peoples often driven from their traditional lands in the name of “forest protection,” only to see rates of commercial logging increase rapidly in immediately surrounding areas.

It is increasingly doubtful that genuine long-term climate solutions can be found without a thorough transformation of social and economic systems.  It is true that the cost of renewable energy has fallen dramatically in the past decade, which is a good thing, and that leading auto manufacturers are aiming to switch to electric vehicle production over the coming decade. But commercial investments in renewable energy have leveled off over the same time period, especially in the richer countries, and continue to favor only the largest-scale projects that begin to meet capitalist standards of profitability. Fossil fuel production has, of course, led to exaggerated standards of profitability in the energy sector over more than 150 years, and most renewable projects fall far short. We will likely see more solar and wind power, a faster tightening of fuel efficiency standards for the auto industry and subsidies for electric charging stations in the US, but nothing like the massive reinvestment in community-scaled renewables and public transportation that is needed. Not even the landmark Biden-Sanders budget reconciliation plan that is under consideration in in the US Congress, with all its necessary and helpful climate measures, addresses the full magnitude of changes that are needed to halt emissions by midcentury. While some obstructionists in Congress appear to be stepping back from the overt climate denial that has increasingly driven Republican politics in recent years, they have not backed away from claims that it is economically unacceptable to end climate-altering pollution.

Internationally, the current debate over reducing carbon pollution (so called “climate mitigation”) also falls far short of addressing the full magnitude of the problem, and generally evades the question of who is mainly responsible. While the US and other wealthy countries have produced an overwhelming share of historic carbon pollution since the dawn of the industrial era, there is an added dimension to the problem that is most often overlooked, and which I reviewed in some detail in my Introduction to a recent book (co-edited with Tamra Gilbertson), Climate Justice and Community Renewal (Routledge 2020). A 2015 study from Thomas Piketty’s research group in Paris revealed that inequalities within countries have risen to account for half of the global distribution of greenhouse gas emissions, and several other studies confirm this.

Researchers at Oxfam have been studying this issue for some years, and their most recent report concluded that the wealthiest ten percent of the global population are responsible for 49 percent of individual emissions. The richest one percent emits 175 times more carbon per person on average than the poorest ten percent. Another pair of independent research groups have released periodic Carbon Majors Reports and interactive graphics profiling around a hundred global companies that are specifically responsible for almost two-thirds of all greenhouse gases since the mid-19^th century, including just fifty companies – both private and state-owned ones – that are responsible for half of all today’s industrial emissions (See climateaccountability.org). So while the world’s most vulnerable peoples are disproportionately impacted by droughts, floods, violent storms and rising sea levels, the responsibility falls squarely upon the world’s wealthiest.

When the current IPCC report was first released, the UN Secretary General described it as a “code red for humanity,” and called for decisive action. Greta Thunberg described it as a “wake-up call,” and urged listeners to hold the people in power accountable. Whether that can happen quickly enough to stave off some of the worst consequences will be a function of the strength of our social movements, and also our willingness to address the full scope of social transformations that are now essential for humanity and all of life on earth to continue to thrive.

Brian Tokar is the co-editor (with Tamra Gilbertson) of Climate Justice and Community Renewal: Resistance and Grassroots Solutions (Routledge 2020) and the author and editor of six previous books on environmental issues and movements, including Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change (New Compass 2014). He is a lecturer in Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont and a long-term faculty and board member of the Vermont-based Institute for Social Ecology.

… averting climate change is not going stop the global collapse of the planet as we know it.  Don’t get me wrong.  Climate change is a global emergency and will cause tremendous damage, and, in fact, already has for many. But the thing is, massive, global-scale destruction has been going on for a long time even before climate change. …addressing climate change using the values and viewpoints of this Western culture will only exacerbate the problem.  The disease powered by solar fields is still the same disease that is powered by coal.

The core cultural values of a revolutionary

Science, imagination, education and democracy are core values for any revolutionary movement which aims for an ecologically sustainable civilization. 

Our reference to science, of course, is to scientific inquiry and its results, not to the institutions of science as limited by capitalist rule. Likewise, our reference to education is to the learning and sharing of skills and knowledge, not educational institutions largely constrained by the capitalist class and its ideological representatives. With respect to democracy, we mean much more than periodic participation in the election of candidates for public office. 

While political and academic representatives of the ruling class frequently claimed science, imagination, education and democracy as their own values and accomplishments during their war against humanity’s first efforts to move beyond capitalism, the reality of a system now well past its best before date is more accurately represented by the core cultural values of the 45^th President of the United States, Donald Trump, the antithesis of a commitment to these values. 

Essential roles in the transition to a more just, democratic and sustainable society belong to the arts, sciences and education. These aims can only be achieved if there is scientifically informed public participation on all matters of public concern. For this there also needs to be a corresponding development of human imagination so that all can envision alternatives to those institutions and practices that need to be repurposed.

Such cultural change begins in the course of political struggle. Characterized by human solidarity and voluntary participation, the fight for a more just, democratic and sustainable society fuels the inherent human desire for artistic expression, scientific knowledge, and inclusion in democratic decision making and the political demand that participation in all these aspects of human culture be made more readily available to everyone, not dependent on exceptional personal wealth and circumstances. 

Also essential to the achievement of a society beyond capitalism is consideration of the relationships between science, technology and society.

Science and Society. The practice of science cannot be isolated from the nature of the society in which scientists conduct their research, especially not from the priorities of those societies, as established by its laws. The priority assigned by the legal system of capitalist nation-states to the managers of the transnational corporations that dominate economic life under capitalism is the accumulation of private wealth, an aim which capitalist competition makes necessary. Our revolutionary commitment, however, is to a society whose laws prioritize a just, democratic and sustainable relationship among people and with nature. To the extent that private wealth accumulation is incompatible with these aims, such an outcome would be unlawful in the future to which revolutionaries are dedicated. Investment in science would be made in the public interest. Scientific research would be undertaken by publicly supported scientific institutions and organizations, not by private-for-profit corporations.  

Technology. To science, imagination, education and democracy as core values of revolutionaries should be added technological innovation in the public interest, applying the broadest definition of technology. Sometimes mistakenly understood to include only the physical tools we use for changing our environment, technology should also be understood to include the intellectual tools. Understood in this broader sense, technology includes, for example, not only carpenters’tools, but methods of construction management, not only computers, but teaching methods that utilize computers.  

Science and Technology. Technology responds to such questions as how to build a better mousetrap or how to more effectively educate our children. Science and technology, of course, are related, but they are not the same. To build a better mouse trap, scientific knowledge of mouse behavior can be utilized. To develop more effective teaching methods, scientific knowledge of human learning can be applied. Technology can precede as well as follow science.   The science of thermodynamics (heat as a form of energy), for example, largely followed the invention of methods of using heat for doing work (such as the steam engine). On the other hand, most modern technology, including electronic devices and educational methods, are the result of direct application of advances in scientific knowledge. These include in the case of electronic devices, the application of electromagnetic theory and quantum mechanics, and in the case of education, application of educational psychology.  

Science, Technology and Society Whereas the primary motivation for technological innovation under capitalist rule is private profit, the necessary alternative is investment in technological innovation which prioritizes human well-being and a sustainable relationship with the rest of nature. The longer capitalism prevails, the greater will be the existential challenge humanity faces. This recognition underscores the urgency of revolutionary transformation. 

It should also be underscored that capitalism is itself a technology, created by human beings, institutionalized and constrained by laws also made by human beings. The creation of a more just, democratic, environmentally sustainable society is the task now facing humanity.

Drawing from history

Every revolution in human history has been characterized by a change in property relationships. As a reminder for comparative purposes, historically recent examples include, among others: 

– the establishment in 1688 of a constitutional monarchy in England, decisively moving the locus of economic and political power from the feudal landlord class to capitalist property owners, who have served as England’s ruling class ever since; 

– the similar, but later French Revolution of 1789;  

– the revolutionary independence of the United States of America from British colonial rule in 1803, establishing in the United States the pre-eminence of its national capitalist economy over colonial economic ties;  

– the civil war in the United States, ending the practice there of slavery, i.e. human beings as a legal form of property;  

– the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the first of these decisively transferring political power from a feudal landowning class to a then recently emergent and growing capitalist class, and the second replacing the leading role of the capitalists and their representatives by the communists, who instituted state “socialism”;  

– the successful anti-imperialist revolutions following World War II, establishing nominally independent nation-states, including the two most populated countries on earth, China and India; and  

– the counter-revolution in the former Soviet Union in 1991, replacing state “socialism” with capitalist property relationships.   

The latter is a recent illustration that a system of property relationships and associated governance is a choice, not God given. Having chosen capitalism over state “socialism”, the victorious Russian revolutionaries of 1991 literally had to select individuals for the role of capitalist property owners. Reflecting in part the composition of the new government, many, if not most, of the new capitalists were chosen from among the former managers of state socialist enterprises. Also, this change was made relatively peacefully, illustrating that revolutions can be non-violent, as needs to be the case if humanity is to be spared the use of contemporary weapons of mass destruction.  

This story is not over, however. The hopes of the former Soviet people for the kind of prosperity they imagined prevailed in the leading capitalist countries and their aspiration for relief from the threat of nuclear annihilation at the hands of the USA and its NATO allies have both turned out to be short-lived, the former for the vast majority of its people, the latter for everyone. This experience notably included the destruction by their new pro-capitalist government of their welfare system, which once served as a global inspiration to people everywhere to struggle – often successfully – for similar provisions even within the most ruthless of capitalist states.

The experience of the people of the former Soviet Union may turn out to be an illustration of the likelihood that the transition from global capitalism to a global ecological civilization will, in at least some countries, involve a period in which the dominant form of property relationships will pass back and forth between private and communal forms, at least until either the communal (ecological) form becomes dominant globally, or, to the contrary, capitalism is given the time and opportunity to irretrievably alter the Earth’s biosphere to such an extent that it is no longer able to sustain human existence.

In the face of an ecological collapse of human civilization if capitalism continues to prevail, the responsible course to take is, once again, a revolutionary one. A renewed revolutionary movement on a global scale in the 21^st Century is not without historical precedent. But if such an effort is to succeed, there is immediate need for rapid learning from the accumulated anti-capitalist revolutionary experience of the past two centuries. 

It is particularly from the past failures of the revolutionary movements that we must learn. This learning begins with the lessons recorded by Karl Marx and his nineteenth century contemporaries. It continues with the lessons to be learned from more recent anti-capitalist revolutionary movements. It includes identification of the recognizable barriers to success, and current conditions that can be utilized to overcome them.

An enduring strategic perspective 

The centuries old ideal of a fully cooperative society has sustained human struggle through the worst tribulations of recent centuries, even though no enduring model was achieved during this period. Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875) argued that the operative ethical principle of such a system is “from each according to [their] ability to each according to [their] needs.” Although tarnished by the failure of the revolutions of the 20^th Century to live up to this ideal, it remains the logical alternative to systems of private appropriation of what were once resources held in common by all people (land, air, water, natural resources, and ideas).

For those interested in the more comprehensive vision of Karl Marx, we highly recommend Peter Hudis (Haymarket Books, 2012) Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism.

Favorable conditions and barriers to success

Most, if not all, of the pre-conditions for the establishment of a global ecological civilization now exist. These include, among other developments, a relatively high level of popular education by comparison with prior centuries, a phenomenal increase in labor productivity and a veritable revolution in electronic control and communications technology.

The private-for-profit use of these developments is itself the main barrier to taking full advantage of them for the welfare of people and the maintenance of a healthy, mutually sustaining relationship with the rest of nature. 

Perhaps the most significant development over the past century has been the growth in the proportion of the population, in each nation and globally, which is engaged as employees, directly or indirectly, of the ruling capitalist class. The middle-class buffer between the expanding number of billionaires and those who need to work for a living income has rapidly declined and may in time evaporate. It is now primarily the middle-class aspirations and illusions of the majority which maintains the capitalist system and the dominance of the owning class that profits from it. 

The first response of working people world-wide is understandably the hope that the human and environmental emergencies they face can be resolved by a gentler, kinder capitalism – a hope that is sustained by a part of the capitalist class itself. The problem, however, is the necessary response of the members of the capitalist class to competition and the long-term trend towards a falling rate of capitalist profit as technology becomes an increasingly significant fraction of the cost of continuing production. This response is to continue to expand the very crisis that threatens humanity’s continued existence – and now rules out even the remote prospect of a kinder gentler capitalism on any enduring basis.

Particularly troubling are the continuing illusions of many of our fellow environmentalists in green capitalism as a satisfactory response to the environmental crisis. If capitalism is itself the main driving force expanding the environmental crisis, green capitalism is certainly not the alternative. Even a form of capitalism reduced to the smallest, most community, worker and consumer friendly capitalist enterprises can only reproduce the conditions for its own survival by the maintenance of laws, regulations and customary practices which prioritize private property rights over communal rights, such as the right to a healthy natural environment and supportive working conditions.

For further argumentation on the relationship between capitalism and the environmental crisis, we recommend Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster (Monthly Review Press, 2011) What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism

A revolutionary perspective must be a global one

All past efforts to achieve a system beyond capitalism have been constrained within local to at most regional boundaries by an externally dominant capitalism and internal pro-capitalist opposition. The most thoughtful and knowledgeable of the revolutionaries realized that they would need supportive revolutions in those countries they depended on for mutually beneficial trade. This, so far, has not materialized on the scale necessary for enduring success. Prior attempts were undermined by behavior – however necessary for short term success – that undermined the revolutionary objective of a communal, democratic alternative to capitalism. The economic and consequently political and military dominance of capitalism has so far prevailed, continuing to represent an existential threat to all those who challenge it. 

The current global environmental and social crisis, even more than those crises of the past century, threatens the very existence of human civilization – and in the present case even most, if not all, life on Earth. No effort to meet this challenge can now be anything less than global. Thankfully, there are circumstances that favor success, most of all the will of people to continued existence, but necessarily including the technology that puts us in ready communication with people in every corner of the Earth, enabling us to quickly recognize our common humanity and the biosphere we share and to cooperate in the struggle against any recognized threat to our common existence. 

Perhaps the greatest barrier to cooperation is uneven sharing within and between nations of the Earth’s resources and the products of human work and imagination, including scientific and technical knowledge. A commitment to the global sharing of these resources and products is the essential condition for an ecologically sustainable future for humanity. Every revolutionary must share in this commitment, including assigning it priority in all political and economic activity. 

Above all else, time is of the essence. The longer a moribund capitalism prevails, the greater the resulting destruction of life, including essential human bonds to nature and to each other. The capitalist class itself, by increasing its own relative wealth and privilege while engaging in reckless destruction of nature, is undoing any reason people might once have had to extend it a further social license. Let’s put an end to this class-based system before it puts an end to human life itself.

For those interested in a more comprehensive understanding of the global nature of the capitalist system and the challenge and opportunities this presents to revolutionaries, we recommend both William I. Robinson (Cambridge University Press, 2014) Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity and Samir Amin (Monthly Review Press, 2013) The Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism.  

Charles Posa McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden

Fredericton, New Brunswick, CANADA

www.greensocialdemocracy.org

apcamcfadden@aol.com

If nothing else, the last few months have heightened awareness of the desperately parlous predicament that now faces humanity, with an accelerating climate and ecological crisis. So attempts to design assertive policy proposals are very welcome. The Green New Deal is the one that currently is getting the most attention and perhaps traction. So I want to ask some critical questions that generally seem to be ignored in the infectious enthusiasm for the idea. In doing that I’ll also be rehearsing some insights from the degrowth perspective.

The dynamics of capitalism as a system and the limits of single-issue reforms

If capitalism is the principal source of the planetary emergency, which we argue here is the case, then our political response must be one that diminishes and ultimately ends capitalism as the dominant form of social relationship for making our way within nature.

We will have a greater likelihood of moving beyond the cycle of partial victories followed by serious retreats if we consciously link our reform efforts with the necessity of system change.  For that we need to first shed ourselves of the belief promulgated by our ruling elites that capitalism is a universal descriptor of economic life. Capitalism is no more a universal system than was feudalism. Its supporting ideology is no more universal than medieval belief in an earth centred universe.   

We begin here by defining the individual capitalist as a person who makes a living primarily by earning income from the goods and services created by the labor of others. We likewise define a capitalist enterprise as one whose existence is dependent on the profit appropriated by the enterprise’s owners from the sale of products and services created and provided by their employees. In the first place, profits are needed by capitalist enterprises to enable them to continue their own activity. This need would also be true of enterprises owned by their workers and operating within a capitalist market economy.  

Both a capitalist enterprise and a worker cooperatively owned and operated one, so long as they are active in a capitalist market economy, need additional profits for investment in new technology to match or better the productivity of rival enterprises. Distinguishing capitalist enterprises from worker cooperatively owned and operated ones, however, is the striving of the former to achieve levels of profit that enable them to expand their activity in a capitalist world in which no amount of accumulation of capital provides certain security against predation, takeover and defeat by other capitalists. In that sense, it is questionable whether any enterprise, whether owned by a capitalist or by its workers can consistently behave as a non-capitalist one in a market dominated by capitalists.  

Those capitalists that survive as such recognize the crises endemic to the system as occasions when those with larger amounts of capital, both in liquid form and in the form of credit-worthy collateral, are able to absorb or expand at the expense of their more vulnerable rivals, or at the very least, subordinate less powerful capitalists, making them the equivalent of labor exploited for the additional profits they channel up to the dominant capitalists. A ready example is that of the small farmer, squeezed by financial capital, the suppliers of the equipment, seed and fertilizer they depend on and by the retail chains they depend on for bringing their produce to market.  Indeed, it is likely that most such small business owners contribute more of their own labor to the benefit of the more powerful capitalists than these latter could extract by turning them into their direct employees.

The concentration in fewer hands of capital ownership also has consequences for employees as well as for rival capitalists. For example, the crises that create opportunities for some capitalists to expand at the expense of their more vulnerable rivals are also opportunities for intensifying the exploitation of the most vulnerable participants in the capitalist market economy, workers.  Those thrown into a more desperate economic position, in the absence of successful collective resistance, are frequently forced to accept reduced wages or more dangerous and self-destructive working conditions. 

For working people, every economic crisis in recent decades has marked a further race to the bottom in relative economic position and forced acceptance of deteriorating environmental conditions. This deterioration is fostered by deregulation, imposed on workers as a means of creating more favorable local conditions for needed capitalist investment and therefore employment.   

The mobility of capital to take advantage of the lowest wage rates and weakest regulation of working conditions and environmental protections drives a global race to the bottom in these conditions. Only global solidarity of the labor, environmental and social justice movements can counter and defeat this destructive force.   

For those making a living through their ownership of small businesses, naming the result as profits fosters a corresponding illusion of their independence, which in practice continuously vanishes in the exercise of the increasing power of the monopolistic enterprises, especially financial ones, that precede and follow them in the economic web in which they are immersed.  To paraphrase Marx, one capitalist kills many.

Environmental and social consequences of capitalism

In sum, capitalism is characterized by increasing proportions of the wealth created by labor and nature passing into the private ownership of the capitalists at the top of the capitalist food chain.  This wealth comes at the expense of labor and at the expense of nature. The latter equates to the transfer to future generations of the unpaid costs associated with the destruction of nature.  Ultimately, these costs, unchecked in time, could include human life itself.  

Perhaps our best indication of the direction we are heading in, if we do not soon and emphatically move away from fossil fuels as our principal source of energy, is the greatest mass extinction that has occurred on Earth since the one 250 million years ago at the boundary in time between the Permian and Triassic geologic periods. Associated with high concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, comparable to those we are now heading towards, with consequent temperature increases of 6 ⁰C at the equator and more at higher latitudes, 96% of all marine species, and 70% of all land vertebrates went extinct. Ocean surface temperatures reached 40 ⁰C, too hot for most life. For more detail, see the article on the Permian-Triassic extinction at www.wikipedia.org. 

The motive force of capitalism, its fundamental law, is the continuing accumulation of capital.  Accumulating more capital is the only thing that maintains the individual capitalist enterprise over the longer haul. Cumulatively it characterizes the system as a whole. A consequence of this fundamental law of capitalism acting across economic cycles is economic growth, measured as the busy-ness of the economy and not necessarily as the production of goods and services needed to achieve maximum human happiness and well-being.  

As irrational as this may be, destruction and waste are included in the aggregate of capitalist market economic activity and growth. The greater the expenditure of natural and human resources on destroying both nature and humans, the greater can be the measure of economic growth. The cost of rebuilding a city devastated by the storms enhanced by human caused climate change contributes to gross domestic product, the standard measure of economic growth. Likewise, the standard measure of growth increases as a result of the reconstruction of structures destroyed by war or replaced after their decay in a period of economic stagnation and disuse. The greater the destructive activity of a capitalist economy, the greater can be the measure of its economic growth.  Human activity cannot get more irrational.

The greater the degradation of nature, the greater the expenditure on attempting to replace functions otherwise provided by nature, such as the restoration of soil fertility and the purification of polluted water. Short of collective action by the people to control, limit and ultimately outlaw normal capitalist behavior, the greater the share of total income and wealth going to the surviving capitalists, the greater the unpaid costs of the destruction of nature.   

From decades of a losing defensive battle to a winning offensive

Decades have now come and gone during which labor productivity gains have nearly all gone to the increased income and wealth of Capital and its leading representatives. Among the consequences are the rapidly accumulating negative results for the health of people and nature.  During these decades, Capital was largely victorious in its class struggle for unfettered exploitation of labor and the environment. It won on the economic front and on the political one, in a mutually supporting spiral, upwards for Capital, downwards for labor and the environment. 

For decades it was commonplace to herald the newly cooperative relations between Capital and labor, the near disappearance into an amorphous middle class of the former working class. But quite evidently, this was the result of mere appearances, not reality. A far higher proportion of the people in every country on Earth now depends on working for someone else to make a living.  By that definition, today most of us are working class. An increasingly smaller proportion of the population enjoys the personal wealth now rapidly accumulating at the top of the pyramid.  

During these decades the ruling capitalist class has succeeded in using its political and economic power to grow the army of people who represent its financial and ideological interests. This army ranges in composition from the politicians whose campaigns it funds and the media it owns or controls to corporate spokespersons and lawyers, corporate funded researchers, public relations experts, and marketing personnel, and the top echelons of the security forces and military brass.  

Capital’s achieved level of influence and control over government also provides it a powerful lever for clawing back the income gains made by employees. For isn’t that really a large part of what happens when the wealthiest corporations and the wealthiest citizens pay a declining share of taxes and receive an increasing share of government largesse? Add to that, the advantage that the wealthy have in capitalizing on government indebtedness. Do the wealthiest among us really want government deficits to disappear (which would mean a loss to them of this secure means of earning interest) or do their political representatives intend only to cut those social costs of government (the education, health care and other services needed by working people) which the wealthiest routinely purchase privately?   

The fightback against Capital’s economic and political victories is well underway, as it needs to be. Our introductory arguments may help explain why the labor and environmental movements have no choice but to meet Capital on both the political and economic fronts of the struggle, to recover the ground lost over recent decades and re-gain resources of space and time for the struggle for a future for humanity and the environmental health of the planet that sustains us.

Capitalism has entered the period of its existential crisis. Until capitalism is ended, its net costs are greater than the good that can be accomplished within the system. Allowed to continue, the ultimate limit to capitalism, as already noted, is the end of human life. In other words, the limits to capitalist economic growth are either those we consciously and deliberately set, or nature itself will end both human life and with it the capitalist system.       

Facing the crisis in capitalism means engagement in a revolutionary transformation to a global ecological civilization

More than at any time in our history as a species, nature is now imposing its limits on us. The dominant social system, global capitalism, is unable to sustain our continuing existence. It is a system in its ultimate crisis. And so are we if we fail to replace capitalism with an alternative system, what we describe here as the achievement of a global ecological civilization, but which popularly goes by a range of other names, including ecosocialism and democratic socialism. 

Without the establishment of an alternative economic system, one that enables us to reverse the trend to growing wealth and income inequality and sustain the biosphere as a supportive environment for human life, we as a species and the healthy living nature we depend upon will continue to suffer what in its aggregate has become a downward, expanding spiral of the degradation of life on Earth and the health and stability of human society. Our destruction as a species on Earth will be one of the consequences of this downward spiral, sooner than later if we fail in our current emergent efforts to constrain globally dominant capitalism and ultimately replace it with a global ecological civilization.   

The alternative to a globally expanding, destructive capitalist market economy is to restore and expand the non-market economy (the commons) at the expense of the global capitalist market one. This can begin with the reinvestment of profits from the latter into building the former into a global ecological civilization. But such a beginning necessitates the political victory of the people over the currently ruling global network of billionaire capitalists and their political and ideological servants. This, in turn, will require global solidarity between the labor, environmental and social justice movements of the people, sufficient for joint political action.

On the basis of joint political action, we can proceed to the development of a global ecological civilization by turning labor productivity into opportunities for non-market activity to meet human needs. Policies for doing so can include reduced hours per week of work in the market economy and earlier retirement from market economic participation, with the time freed in this way transferred to non-market economic activity, to building and restoring the commons, the free sharing of the knowledge, including technology, to which past generations contributed, and of the resources which a restored nature can provide.    

By working towards the elimination of waste in global material production, we can restore human health, welfare and happiness while total economic activity can decrease. Increasingly efficient use of materials, including greater durability of structures and technology, can multiply this effect. The reduction and ultimate elimination in the use of non-renewable resources is an integral part of such a process, putting increasing reliance on recycling and substitutions for non-renewable resources. We can also reduce the use of renewable resources to the level that can be maintained by a restored nature through our increasingly knowledgeable stewardship.

The alternative to oligarchic rule is distributed economic and political power, initially by reversing the neoliberal trend from increasing concentration of income, wealth and political power to increasing equality in each of these dimensions. This achievement can be facilitated 

by making the financial industry a public utility and placing it in the service of an expanding commons. This can be accompanied by decentralized usufruct rights and stewardship responsibilities, where local communities would have control, based on informed consent, of the extent and nature of larger scale economic projects. 

All the above will need to be accomplished globally as well as locally if the result is to be a globally sustainable relationship with nature. This, in turn, is only achievable with commitment to and construction of globally equitable economic and political structures and results. The presently dominating transnational corporations (financial and non-financial) and the international agencies established by the current globally ruling transnational capitalist class to serve their private interests must be brought under global democratic control. Again, this means radically democratic global coordination of those projects that are to remain transnational in character, based on informed consent by the communities electing to participate in them. 

The existing market economy, in which goods and services are exchanged using money as a medium, will need to be reduced and largely replaced by the expansion of the commons, meaning reciprocity in the exchange of use values, based on mutual interest and agreement. These economic and political changes will need to be institutionalized by corresponding constitutional and legislative changes in every participating community, bottom-up from local communities to coordination at regional, national and global levels as desired. 

This presumes the commitment of people in all corners of the Earth to the achievement of global equality. In turn, this means commitment to measures needed to address uneven development between and within countries, in large part the historical consequence of imperialism, including unequal contributions to the global ecological effects of fossil-fuel-based capitalist industrial development. Included must be a commitment to free movement of people across current political boundaries, partly in response to the uneven global effects of the environmental crisis and partly to ensure global equality in the distribution of the results of global economic activity.    

Paving the way to a globally sustainable civilization are peoples’ struggles for: 

1. keeping fossil fuels in the ground, moving instead to a low-carbon economy, 
2. bringing to a halt any project that irremediably degrades the natural environment that sustains all human activity, 
3. moving decisively towards greater democracy and accountability by business and government,
4. extending human rights to include the right to a healthy environment, including full implementation everywhere of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,
5. extending the rights to collective bargaining to all workers in both the private and public sectors,  and including the duty of every employer to provide opportunities during working hours for their employees to meet and formulate their demands, with severe penalties for employers or government officials who place obstacles or otherwise obstruct the exercise of these rights,
6. inclusion in collective bargaining agreements the right of workers to have an equal say in the decisions now reserved as the rights of owners and their managers, 
7. setting the minimum wage above the poverty level;
8. ending poverty by establishing a basic living income guarantee to all, and
9. making the banking system a public, not-for-private-profit service. 

Some of these demands assume the continuation of a market economy, and as such must be considered as transitional reforms, paving the way to a non-market alternative to capitalism. Indeed, some, if not all these have been partially met in some capitalist countries, without, however, replacing the dominant capitalist system of social relations. Public banks are an example. Within capitalist market economies, they can serve as:  

1. a repository of government income (which after all belongs by right to the people), responsible to the public for making government economically accountable and transparent,
2. the manager of the government insurance accounts (such as unemployment insurance, social security, disability funds and any other social insurance fund the people decide to create for themselves),
3. support for introducing elements of a more sustainable economy,
4. the source of credit to government, so that payments on future public debts, including any interest payments, would go back to the people, rather than to enrich private investors, 
5. and as a source of credit for credit-worthy initiatives to build a more just, sustainable economy, with repayment to the people, with interest.

But supporters of this proposal need to understand that this reform is only a transitional one. In a subsequent article we will advance a decisive argument against those who propose any kind of market system as an adequate response to the crises created by capitalism.

Even before a globally decisive political victory of the people over the currently ruling capitalist class is won, the means to such a victory can be achieved. This includes the further creation and strengthening of non-governmental organizations that are not limited to working for capitalist solutions. Enduring accomplishments can include successful experimentation in the creation of more democratic social, political and work organizations, featuring cooperation and solidarity within and between organizations and bottom-up decision making. This experience provides models and experience for institutional changes in the structure of democratic decision-making both at work and in government. In effect, the people’s non-governmental organizations and their public activity are educational means to a more democratic society.  

Success in the building and strengthening of our organizations and achieving solidarity between them – locally, nationally and globally – also serves as our best defense against the potential for violence against the people by an increasingly isolated ruling economic-political elite. If a political crisis were to arise in which an isolated ruling elite were tempted to cut-off democratic channels of response, the people’s non-governmental organizations provide an alternative means of civil response to the crisis.   

If necessary, the people can mobilize to resist peacefully but forcefully any ruling class violence aimed at closing off peaceful, democratic channels. A politically engaged people faced with a ruling elite unwilling to permit the people to exercise their democratic right to self-government would then have the means and the moral right to convene a fully democratic constitutional convention which could make the institutional changes needed. Hopefully, this will not become necessary; the existing institutions would be amenable to the changes that most people insist upon. But if necessary, then action to create more fully democratic institutions of self-government is always the people’s moral right, one they might elect to exercise when sufficiently engaged and determined to do so, particularly in the face of ruling class violence against them. 

Charles Posa McFadden and Karen Howell McFadden

Fredericton, New Brunswick, CANADA

www.greensocialdemocracy.org

apcamcfadden@aol.com