Working Class Politics and Green politics

[Vanguard1917]

I think VG's problem is a tendency to conflate the wacky ELF/ALF/EF! side of the environmental movement (which have risen to prominence due to more widespread acceptance of the more reasonable environmental ideas) with the more sensible demands of the environmental movement.

Not at all. It's the mainstream enivronmentalists who concern me - they're the ones who are campaigning for the introduction of reactionary policies and getting their voices heard. In fact, environmentalism now plays a central part in ruling ideology. The environmentalists outlook informs government policy-making: from the economic and social policy of the government to the micro-policies of local councils.

[apathy maybe]

Care to respond to my case on why hummers are bad?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by Coggy+--> (Coggy)In fairness your going to have to have your own car or at least 1 for ever 2houses , what about driving too work you leave you car there don't you ? plus driving too school rush hour is basically on at the same time the 9-5 thing what happens when two people are working in different places at the same times ... (i like the washing machine example more )[/b]

There's no need for cars at all... ever heard of a thing called public transport? And we can save a hell of a lot of fuel by transporting good by rail and shipping it as opposed to using trucks and planes.

Reinvigorating and expanding our canal systems would also be a good idea.

Vanguard1917

Not at all. It's the mainstream enivronmentalists who concern me - they're the ones who are campaigning for the introduction of reactionary policies and getting their voices heard. In fact, environmentalism now plays a central part in ruling ideology. The environmentalists outlook informs government policy-making: from the economic and social policy of the government to the micro-policies of local councils.

While I agree with the statement that environmentalism plays a part in ruling class ideology, I feel that it is being used more as a way of gaining votes and generating cash rather than being used to foist outright reactionary policies on the general populace.

[Vanguard1917]

There's no need for cars at all... ever heard of a thing called public transport? And we can save a hell of a lot of fuel by transporting good by rail and shipping it as opposed to using trucks and planes.

People generally want to get to where they're going as quickly and efficiently as possible. Public transport has its place but individual transport does, too. We need to improve the former but we need to improve the latter as well. We need to call for more government investment in transport, which needs to include the construction of more roads. We also need to call for much more investment in energy. If there are problems of energy shortages, we need high-tech solutions to these problems. For example, more innovation around nuclear power and hydroelectric power (forms of energy which do not emitt greenhouse gases). But environmentalists are against these things; they're against large-scale and forward-looking solutions to the problems facing society. Their solution to everything is to introduce more measures to reduce the consumption and living standards of ordinary people.

[LSD]

I don't usually find myself on the same side as Vanguard, but I must confess that I cannot help but find something undeniable despicable about first world "environmentalists" telling the third world that its attempts to stop starving are "destroying the planet".

That said, I don't think we can dismiss global warming and other environmental dangers quite so quickly as Vanguard suggests we do.

It just strikes me as far too unlikely that it's all a massive "conspiracy" to enforce some nebulous "green" agenda. For one thing, I don't think there's anywhere near a coherent "green" agenda to enforce; and for another, I don't think the environmental movement is either organized or powerful enough to perpetrate the kind of "swindle" detractors accuse them of.

It's also a little too coincidental that, with very few exceptions, everybody speaking out against global warming is either on the pay of big business or ideologically inclined to parrot their line.

And when 90% of scientists are saying one thing and it's only CATO and the AEI saying something else, I don't think it's that hard to figure out which one is probably on the level.

Are there extremist elements to mainstream environmentalism? Of course, but the fact that primitivists and other anti-industrial types are eager to take advantage of global warming does not mean that global warming does not exist.

I don't have the background or education to determine for myself what the evidence says, but as a matter of common sense I don't find it that difficult to imagine that pumping millions and millions of tons of chemicals into the atmosphere might just have an effect.

The third world has every right to develop and we must oppose those "greens" who would try and stop them in the name of "saving nature". But at the same time, there's no reason not to support environmental "market hampering", especially in the first world which can more than afford it.

There is an unfortunate masochistic streak to a lot of contemporary environmentalism, but the reality is that private citizens are not generating most of the world's polution.

Things like mandatory recylcing programmes only serve to victimize the average worker instead of placing the blame where it really belongs, on corporate production.

Similarly, efforts to dissuade the undeveloped world from fixing its very real problems in the only way that's ever proven effective only worsens the potential impact of an environmental crisis.

You want to reduce population levels? Great, but you know what's the only way to get people to stop having so many children? Industrialization. 'Cause as long as they're starving farmers, they're going to keep pumping out babies. Give them education and a tertiary economy and you give them alternatives.

But trying to avert disaster by freezing the world as it is today just freezes inequality and disparity. India and China are going to develop. No matter what "greens" may think of it, it's virtually inevitable.

So the question i want to ask is this: is the labour movement in the West environmentally sustainable?

Quite possibly, at the very least it would seem to be incompatible with notions of "environmental sustainability" as they are presently constructed; but those notions are political, not scientific.

Again, the real problem here is not the science, the numbers are going to show what they show. The problem is the people who are far too vested, either financially or ideologically, in their respective positions to concede an inch of ground, as it were.

And as long as the environmentalist movement maintains this absurd masochistic millenialism, it's never going to be an ally of the workers' movement.

Because workers aren't fighting to "save the planet" or anything else so narcististically grandiose. They're fighting to survive. For that day, for the next, and for the one after that.

And telling them that there's nothing to fight for, that the world is collapsing all around them and that all that's left is to "go back to nature" isn't going to motivate them to struggle, it's going to invite surrender.

That's what millenialist cults do, after all, they engender despair.

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by LSD+--> (LSD) I don't usually find myself on the same side as Vanguard, but I must confess that I cannot help but find something undeniable despicable about first world "environmentalists" telling the third world that its attempts to stop starving are "destroying the planet".[/b]

LSD

The third world has every right to develop and we must oppose those "greens" who would try and stop them in the name of "saving nature".

I hate to repeat asking this question LSD but really you think Greenpeace is forcing third world government from Building Nuclear reactors ? Or Japan is a poor country who has to solely rely on Whaling to feed its people ? Or France is a struggling third world country who was building some Nuclear power station in Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls ? Or Royal Dutch shell's operations in association with the Nigerian Military Junta was really in the interests of Nigerian poor people ?

You want to reduce population levels? Great, but you know what's the only way to get people to stop having so many children? Industrialization. 'Cause as long as they're starving farmers, they're going to keep pumping out babies. Give them education and a tertiary economy and you give them alternatives.

Kerala Model

Your thoughts about this LSD ? And to my knowledge as I have stated already in other thread which Vanguard1917 started to spout his agenda population is not a problem. and for other points you have made also.(really Vanguard1917 is turning us all in to broken tape recorders).

For example, more innovation around nuclear power and hydroelectric power (forms of energy which do not emitt greenhouse gases). But environmentalists are against these things;

But most of the opposition to Nuclear Power is not from Environmentalists but from imperialist governments.The real reason for limitations of them in third world countries is general unaffordablity of running it and lack of men and Raw materials.

Green did not bomb and destroy Iraq's nuclear facilities it was done by Israel. And greens are not the main vocal opponents of the Iran's Nuclear programme it is the Imperialists.

And only Greenpeace have actively campaigned against Nuclear power and it is mostly against the Atmospheric and Underwater Nuclear Testing.

Regarding hydro electricity it in itself have a hell a lot of problems. And not all rivers can be used to generate Hydroelectricity and it is not efficient in all aspects. And building dams does destroy not only forests but also cities and villages and if the greens fight for the compensation for those who lived there, i don't think it is opposing the dam project but fighting for social justice.

[Vanguard1917]

That said, I don't think we can dismiss global warming and other environmental dangers quite so quickly as Vanguard suggests we do.

I'm not actually suggesting that. I'm not denying that global warming is happening. Temperatures have indeed risen in the last 150 or so years - by around 0.6-0.8 celsius.

All i'm suggesting is that this does not warrant slowing down development. In fact, if anything, we need to step up development. The very straightforward fact is that the better developed we are economically, the better equiped we are to deal with environmental threats.

Indeed, it is the industrially underdeveloped parts of the world - whose economies are over-reliant on backward agricultural production - which are the most vulnerable to changes in temperature.

It's also a little too coincidental that, with very few exceptions, everybody speaking out against global warming is either on the pay of big business or ideologically inclined to parrot their line.

If you look a bit closer, this is not what is actually happening. In reality, big business is increasingly reluctant to associate itself with 'climate-deniers'. Appearing green has become a priority for big business.

There is a lot of money being pumped into the field of climate science. This relatively small field of science has grown enormously and artificially in the last few years due to disproportionate funding by Western governments.

But, contrary to popular belief, this money is not going to 'climate-deniers'. If you're a scientist looking want funding, the last thing you should do is go against the current environmentalist orthodoxies.

It just strikes me as far too unlikely that it's all a massive "conspiracy" to enforce some nebulous "green" agenda. For one thing, I don't think there's anywhere near a coherent "green" agenda to enforce; and for another, I don't think the environmental movement is either organized or powerful enough to perpetrate the kind of "swindle" detractors accuse them of.

That's not my argument at all. It's not a conspiracy. Green groups are not actually causing the rise of environmentalist attitudes. Green groups have always existed. But it is only under certain social and economic conditions that the environmentalist outlook rises to prominence.

Today, the rise of environmentalism in the West is caused by two main factors:

1) Capitalist stagnation. Environmentalism provides convenient excuses for capitalism's lack of economic dynamism. Environmentalist slogans like 'sustainable development' make a virtue of capitalist stagnation.

2) The retreat of the working class movement and the collapse of the working class-oriented left. With no working class movement, there is no section in society putting forward a progressive alternative to capitalism. As a result, criticisms of capitalism are increasingly reactionary in content.

These are characterised by their low opinion of working class people. There is a general anti-working class attitude central to environmentalism. In the past, socialists saw the working class as the solution to the world's problems. Scratch the 'leftwing' surface of today's environmentalism, and it becomes obvious that environmentalists see ordinary working class people as the problem.

Whereas socialists saw workers demanding more (more wages, more affluence, more disposable incomes, better living standards, etc.) as something progressive, environmentalist see this as grave cause for concern.

In fact, the last thing they want is workers having more material prosperity.

More wealth = more consumption = more carbon emissions

That's how the environmentalist imagination works.

-----------

You want to reduce population levels? Great, but you know what's the only way to get people to stop having so many children? Industrialization. 'Cause as long as they're starving farmers, they're going to keep pumping out babies. Give them education and a tertiary economy and you give them alternatives.

By the way, this is a terrible way to put forward the case for industrial development: if you want less people on earth, support development!

Whatever happened to a putting forward a positive case for development? That we should support economic development worldwide because it will allow more human beings to live longer, healthier and safer lives than ever before, and that this is a bloody good thing. After all, it is estimated that if today's best Western industrial and agricultural practices were used worldwide, the third world alone could sustain 32 billion people.

[socialistfuture]

the division is capitalist divide and conquer tactic me thinks