Richard Smith
Member
On July 14th David Wallace-Wells published a cover story in New York Magazine, “The Uninhabitable Earth,” on some of the worst-case scenarios that the climate crisis could cause by the end of this century. It describes killer heat waves, crippling agricultural failures, a devastated economy, plagues, resource wars, and more. It has been read millions of times, the most-read article in the magazine’s history. The article provoked controversy and was criticized in the climate movement mainly because the piece was said to be “too frightening.”
Margaret Klein Salamon, clinical psychologist and founder and director of The Climate Mobilization (TCM) , responded on Resilience.org that the climate movement fears to tell the awful truth because many think this could paralyze people into inaction. She says, “it is OK, indeed imperative, to tell the whole, frightening story . . . it’s the job of those of us trying to protect humanity and restore a safe climate to tell the truth about the climate crisis and help people process and channel their own feelings — not to preemptively try to manage and constrain those feelings.” She continues:
"people are coming out of the trance of denial and starting to confront the reality of our existential emergency. I hope that every single American, every single human experiences such a crisis of conscience. It is the first step to taking substantial action. Our job is not to protect people from the truth or the feelings that accompany it — it’s to protect them from the climate crisis!" (Climate Truth and the New York Magazine’s “The Uninhabitable Earth” - Resilience)
I’m no psychologist but it seems to me she’s certainly correct that facing up to the whole awful truth is essential to motivating people to confront our existential crisis and “the first step to taking substantial action.” Yet as an ecosocialist, I would say that Salamon either does not fully grasp or is too fearful to confront, the reality of scope of the necessary systemic political-economic changes we would need to make happen in order to prevent ecological apocalypse and the collapse of civilization – namely: the overthrow of capitalism and the institution of an ecosocialist social order.
What I find interesting about Salamon’s Climate Mobilization group is that, whereas many environmentalists are narrowly focused on suppressing fossil fuels while giving little or no thought to the broader implications of doing so, Salamon’s group goes further, presenting a comprehensive “plan” to save the planet, authored mainly by TCM co-founder Ezra Silk. As they describe it,
The Climate Mobilization's "Victory Plan" aims to detail how a fully mobilized United States government could drive our economy to net zero greenhouse gas emissions within a decade, restore a safe climate, end the sixth mass extinction, reverse ecological overshoot — and revitalize America, with 100% employment for all who want work.” (What does WWII-scale Climate Mobilization really mean?):
"Our Victory Plan lays out what policies would look like that, if implemented, would actually protect billions of people and millions of species from decimation. They include: 1) An immediate ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure and a scheduled shut down of all fossil fuels in 10 years; 2) massive government investment in renewables; 3) overhauling our agricultural system to make it a huge carbon sink; 4) fair-shares rationing to reduce demand; 5) A federally-financed job guarantee to eliminate unemployment 6) a 100% marginal tax on income above $500,000. (Climate Truth and the New York Magazine’s “The Uninhabitable Earth” - Resilience)
"This is far beyond anything proposed in today’s polite political debates about climate action. We believe that unless policymakers, advocates, and citizens envision what "victory" might actually look like when facing the complexity of our looming emergency, it's impossible to determine a horizon for our ambitions that is in line with the increasingly stark realities of climate science. (What does WWII-scale Climate Mobilization really mean?)
"We aren’t doomed — we are choosing to be doomed by failing to respond adequately to the emergency, which would of course entail initiating a WWII-scale response to the climate emergency. Gradualist half measures, such as a gradually phased-in carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, that seem “politically realistic” but have no hope of actually restoring a safe climate, are not adequate to channel people’s fear into productive action. " (Climate Truth and the New York Magazine’s “The Uninhabitable Earth” - Resilience)
So what does this Victory Plan (VP) envision and call for? The Executive Summary details a 10 Point Plan (Victory Plan Executive Summary.pdf). The main points are as follows:
Front One:
I. Kick-start the Mobilization by declaring a global climate emergency, setting limits on all 15 greenhouse gas emissions, and most crucially: “Order all businesses with annual revenues greater than $10 million to produce plans “showing how each entity will cut their emissions to net zero by 2025.”
IV. Ration GHG emissions: “The federal government should institute a rationing system in which all products and services that emit greenhouse gases are rationed . . .”
V. Energy and Electricity: The Plan calls for a “massive, mandatory” decarbonization of energy generation, based on “a tremendous build-out of solar and wind energy,” the building of a continental renewable energy ‘super-smart’ power grid,” “built as a federal works program on a scope and scale similar to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936,” with the goal of a “shift to 100% renewable energy economy” by 2025.
VI. Transportation Mobilization: The VP calls for replacement of virtually all fossil-fuel powered vehicles and public transportation with electric vehicles, trains, and so on.
IX. Full Employment Job Guarantee: “To ensure a just transition” for working people, the
VP says that “a system must be implemented that provides economic security for working individuals and families and protects them from the burdens of transition costs.” The government “must create a federally funded, locally organized Job Guarantee program . . . and a salary cap on income above $500,000 for the duration of the mobilization, in order to ensure relative equality of sacrifice and social solidarity.”
Front two:
I. Reverse ecological overshoot to halt the Sixth Extinction
-Phase out consumerism and planned obsolescence
-Considerably shrink the physical resource consumption levels of the global economy
-Set aside at least half the Earth’s land surface for preservation
-Halt the further expansion of agricultural and land and restore degraded lands
Potentials, contradictions, questions:
There’s a lot to admire in this Plan, much that we ecosocialists support, and indeed, they make some of the same arguments I’ve made elsewhere (for rationing, for job guarantees, for contraction of consumption in the industrialized economies) in my book and Six Theses paper: Six Theses on Saving the Planet - The Next System Project. That said, here are some problems I see with their Plan as it currently stands:
1. Abstract demands vs. concrete realities: First of all, TCM envisions their decarbonization within the framework of our existing capitalist system. But in the real world 100% decarbonization has to mean closing down some of the richest most powerful industries in the world: ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and so on. I don't understand how Silk and Salamon see this happening. There is no way to incentivize them to put themselves out of business. I don’t see how we can close down the carbon industrial complex without nationalizing or socializing these industries. Yet I don’t see that Salamon and Silk have anything to say about this. The same applies to all those industries that depend on fossil fuels, everything from autos to airlines, shipping to construction , chemicals to plastic junk, disposables and more, much more. Again, how else can we force those industrial closures or retrenchments short of taking them over, as public property, to socialize the costs of closures?
2. How can such a huge transformation be done without comprehensive economic planning? Government mandates for GHG emissions are a start but we would need to systematically and comprehensively plan the retrenchments, closures, reallocation of labor and capital, reprioritizing the whole economy, and so on. Companies cant’ do this. They’re owned by and responsible to shareholders, not society. I just don't see how this could happen in a market economy. It requires direct planning of the economy, indeed, planning or at least tight coordination of much of the world economy to limit emissions, protect forests, oceans, etc. We would need something like a world government, at least with respect to ecological concerns, which i the end amount to most of the economies. As I've argued elsewhere, I don't see any need to nationalize small businesses, worker co-ops, farmers and such. They're not destroying the world. But the world's corporations are destroying the world. We need to socialize these and directly plan much to most of the industrialized economies. (I won't repeat arguments I've made elsewhere but see my Six Theses paper on these issues).
3. When TCM calls for “phasing out consumerism and planned obsolescence,” again, how can this be done in the context of a capitalist market economy? Except for basic infrastructure, nearly all industries in the U.S. are based on consumerism. And most, everything from iPhones to H&M clothes to IKEA furniture and more, are based on designed-in obsolescence. We do indeed need to abolish those industries and not only here but in China and elsewhere as well (on which see my "China's communist-capitalist ecological apocalypse": http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue71/Smith71.pdf). But it doesn’t appear that TCM fully grasps the depth of this problem – or the impossibility of solving it within the system of private property.
So those are my first reactions reading Salamon & Silk's Victory Plan. What do other people think?
Margaret Klein Salamon, clinical psychologist and founder and director of The Climate Mobilization (TCM) , responded on Resilience.org that the climate movement fears to tell the awful truth because many think this could paralyze people into inaction. She says, “it is OK, indeed imperative, to tell the whole, frightening story . . . it’s the job of those of us trying to protect humanity and restore a safe climate to tell the truth about the climate crisis and help people process and channel their own feelings — not to preemptively try to manage and constrain those feelings.” She continues:
"people are coming out of the trance of denial and starting to confront the reality of our existential emergency. I hope that every single American, every single human experiences such a crisis of conscience. It is the first step to taking substantial action. Our job is not to protect people from the truth or the feelings that accompany it — it’s to protect them from the climate crisis!" (Climate Truth and the New York Magazine’s “The Uninhabitable Earth” - Resilience)
I’m no psychologist but it seems to me she’s certainly correct that facing up to the whole awful truth is essential to motivating people to confront our existential crisis and “the first step to taking substantial action.” Yet as an ecosocialist, I would say that Salamon either does not fully grasp or is too fearful to confront, the reality of scope of the necessary systemic political-economic changes we would need to make happen in order to prevent ecological apocalypse and the collapse of civilization – namely: the overthrow of capitalism and the institution of an ecosocialist social order.
What I find interesting about Salamon’s Climate Mobilization group is that, whereas many environmentalists are narrowly focused on suppressing fossil fuels while giving little or no thought to the broader implications of doing so, Salamon’s group goes further, presenting a comprehensive “plan” to save the planet, authored mainly by TCM co-founder Ezra Silk. As they describe it,
The Climate Mobilization's "Victory Plan" aims to detail how a fully mobilized United States government could drive our economy to net zero greenhouse gas emissions within a decade, restore a safe climate, end the sixth mass extinction, reverse ecological overshoot — and revitalize America, with 100% employment for all who want work.” (What does WWII-scale Climate Mobilization really mean?):
"Our Victory Plan lays out what policies would look like that, if implemented, would actually protect billions of people and millions of species from decimation. They include: 1) An immediate ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure and a scheduled shut down of all fossil fuels in 10 years; 2) massive government investment in renewables; 3) overhauling our agricultural system to make it a huge carbon sink; 4) fair-shares rationing to reduce demand; 5) A federally-financed job guarantee to eliminate unemployment 6) a 100% marginal tax on income above $500,000. (Climate Truth and the New York Magazine’s “The Uninhabitable Earth” - Resilience)
"This is far beyond anything proposed in today’s polite political debates about climate action. We believe that unless policymakers, advocates, and citizens envision what "victory" might actually look like when facing the complexity of our looming emergency, it's impossible to determine a horizon for our ambitions that is in line with the increasingly stark realities of climate science. (What does WWII-scale Climate Mobilization really mean?)
"We aren’t doomed — we are choosing to be doomed by failing to respond adequately to the emergency, which would of course entail initiating a WWII-scale response to the climate emergency. Gradualist half measures, such as a gradually phased-in carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, that seem “politically realistic” but have no hope of actually restoring a safe climate, are not adequate to channel people’s fear into productive action. " (Climate Truth and the New York Magazine’s “The Uninhabitable Earth” - Resilience)
So what does this Victory Plan (VP) envision and call for? The Executive Summary details a 10 Point Plan (Victory Plan Executive Summary.pdf). The main points are as follows:
Front One:
I. Kick-start the Mobilization by declaring a global climate emergency, setting limits on all 15 greenhouse gas emissions, and most crucially: “Order all businesses with annual revenues greater than $10 million to produce plans “showing how each entity will cut their emissions to net zero by 2025.”
IV. Ration GHG emissions: “The federal government should institute a rationing system in which all products and services that emit greenhouse gases are rationed . . .”
V. Energy and Electricity: The Plan calls for a “massive, mandatory” decarbonization of energy generation, based on “a tremendous build-out of solar and wind energy,” the building of a continental renewable energy ‘super-smart’ power grid,” “built as a federal works program on a scope and scale similar to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936,” with the goal of a “shift to 100% renewable energy economy” by 2025.
VI. Transportation Mobilization: The VP calls for replacement of virtually all fossil-fuel powered vehicles and public transportation with electric vehicles, trains, and so on.
IX. Full Employment Job Guarantee: “To ensure a just transition” for working people, the
VP says that “a system must be implemented that provides economic security for working individuals and families and protects them from the burdens of transition costs.” The government “must create a federally funded, locally organized Job Guarantee program . . . and a salary cap on income above $500,000 for the duration of the mobilization, in order to ensure relative equality of sacrifice and social solidarity.”
Front two:
I. Reverse ecological overshoot to halt the Sixth Extinction
-Phase out consumerism and planned obsolescence
-Considerably shrink the physical resource consumption levels of the global economy
-Set aside at least half the Earth’s land surface for preservation
-Halt the further expansion of agricultural and land and restore degraded lands
Potentials, contradictions, questions:
There’s a lot to admire in this Plan, much that we ecosocialists support, and indeed, they make some of the same arguments I’ve made elsewhere (for rationing, for job guarantees, for contraction of consumption in the industrialized economies) in my book and Six Theses paper: Six Theses on Saving the Planet - The Next System Project. That said, here are some problems I see with their Plan as it currently stands:
1. Abstract demands vs. concrete realities: First of all, TCM envisions their decarbonization within the framework of our existing capitalist system. But in the real world 100% decarbonization has to mean closing down some of the richest most powerful industries in the world: ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and so on. I don't understand how Silk and Salamon see this happening. There is no way to incentivize them to put themselves out of business. I don’t see how we can close down the carbon industrial complex without nationalizing or socializing these industries. Yet I don’t see that Salamon and Silk have anything to say about this. The same applies to all those industries that depend on fossil fuels, everything from autos to airlines, shipping to construction , chemicals to plastic junk, disposables and more, much more. Again, how else can we force those industrial closures or retrenchments short of taking them over, as public property, to socialize the costs of closures?
2. How can such a huge transformation be done without comprehensive economic planning? Government mandates for GHG emissions are a start but we would need to systematically and comprehensively plan the retrenchments, closures, reallocation of labor and capital, reprioritizing the whole economy, and so on. Companies cant’ do this. They’re owned by and responsible to shareholders, not society. I just don't see how this could happen in a market economy. It requires direct planning of the economy, indeed, planning or at least tight coordination of much of the world economy to limit emissions, protect forests, oceans, etc. We would need something like a world government, at least with respect to ecological concerns, which i the end amount to most of the economies. As I've argued elsewhere, I don't see any need to nationalize small businesses, worker co-ops, farmers and such. They're not destroying the world. But the world's corporations are destroying the world. We need to socialize these and directly plan much to most of the industrialized economies. (I won't repeat arguments I've made elsewhere but see my Six Theses paper on these issues).
3. When TCM calls for “phasing out consumerism and planned obsolescence,” again, how can this be done in the context of a capitalist market economy? Except for basic infrastructure, nearly all industries in the U.S. are based on consumerism. And most, everything from iPhones to H&M clothes to IKEA furniture and more, are based on designed-in obsolescence. We do indeed need to abolish those industries and not only here but in China and elsewhere as well (on which see my "China's communist-capitalist ecological apocalypse": http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue71/Smith71.pdf). But it doesn’t appear that TCM fully grasps the depth of this problem – or the impossibility of solving it within the system of private property.
So those are my first reactions reading Salamon & Silk's Victory Plan. What do other people think?
