ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
To return to plastics, BP would say that wouldn’t they? Though I don’t suppose too much of their profits comes from selling oil to make plastic bags (only about 4% of oil production is currently used to make plastics). Actually, using it to make plastics is a more rational use of oil than burning it to generate electricity or power transport. Just because oil is a villain in global warming doesn’t mean it should be blacklisted from being put to other uses. A lot more things are made of plastics than throwaway bags. Pipes, solar panels and wind turbines contain plastics. And when we’ve all got 3D printers we’ll need them. They will survive into socialism. We can no more do without plastics than we can without metals. Just because some of them are a source of pollution under capitalism is no reason to abandon them nor oil, their main raw material. Just cut back and eventually phase out burning oil (in socialism).
Alan, when Matt says that other members are engaged elsewhere he doesn’t mean that the are sitting at home watching football (or nature) programmes. He means they are on other “forums”. At the moment the most lively is one of our Facebook pages where members, sympathisers, ex-members and others from all parts of the world are involved. I don’t think it would be suitable for you as the exchanges are shorter and quickfire as opposed to our more ponderous ones here and on the Party blog.
I know the Conference agenda has been hi-jacked and swamped by one branch riding its particular hobby horse, but there is in fact an Item for Discussion on climate change (arising in fact from our exchanges here — which reminds me, I need to put the other side of your anti-plastics piece !). This month’s Socialist Standard also anticipated the school students anti-climate change strikes yesterday.
Anyway, here’s the Item for Discussion:
What should we say (and not say) about climate change?
Supporting statement:
Climate change is real and is being brought about by past and present human activity, in particular by the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy and power transport. This is an incontrovertible fact.
But does it represent a threat to human existence or civilisation? Is the end of the world nigh?
Some argue that it is, maybe just as a tactic to spur governments into doing more, but there are people who really believe it. But is such a what might be called “alarmist” approach justified? In other words, is it true? Is it a good tactic?
Without belittling the extent of the problem, the evidence is that it is not true. On the most plausible worst- case scenario (of nothing being done) the result would be disastrous, especially for low-lying coastal areas, but it would not mean the collapse of civilisation and certainly not the extinction of the human race. Nor, if you don’t really believe it, is it a sensible tactic, since if people come to think that the end of the world is nigh, then they are likely to conclude that nothing can be done about it and so not try to do anything – the exact opposite of what is intended. And, of course, there is also the chance of ending up with egg on your face as happened to the Club of Rome who predicted in 1972 that key metal and mineral resources would be begin to be exhausted in thirty years and that this would limit economic growth.
There are also other questions.
What do we think of those who argue that individuals should cut their personal consumption to help avert the problem? Should we?
And the more theoretical question of whether there are ecological limits to capitalism. The Party rejects the view that there are economic limits (i.e., that capitalism will collapse economically at some point) but does this apply to capitalism’s treatment of nature? Could there be natural limits to the accumulation of capital?
Relevant article in today’s Grauniad about why even some “immigrants” voted to Leave (alongside others who wanted to kick them out too) but who have since regretted it:
I see. Fair enough but they might be contributing to something being done so that the worst case scenario of the collapsologists won’t be reached (even if the capitalist authorities might not need prompting as they are not going to do nothing either).
I agree that a better socialist approach might be to record, not the predictions of doom, but technological developments which bring out that there are known technological solutions that could be applied in socialism but which are not being applied (or not quickly enough) under capitalism. The main one that is awaited is an efficient system of electrical storage as this would allow energy generated by renewables such as solar power and wind energy to be stored when there’s no sun shining or winds blowing. Arthur C. Clarke in his 1962 book Profiles of the Future imagined “efficient electrical storage” being achieved some time in the 1980s. Progress has, and is being made, but we are not there yet but could be achieved quicker if resources were thrown at it as a socialist society could.
Good stuff about Capitalocene, but what do you mean by this:
But isn’t part of the problem is that even those who actively campaign against climate change can be charged with a form of climate change denialism yet another depressing fact and evidence that collapsology has a strong element of reality within it.
Do you mean that because they deny that capitalism has caused the problem they are contributing to the problem not being solved?
Just followed up a link in that article I gave attacking collapsology. It says that the name of the present/coming geological age should not be Anthropocene (age of human influence on climate and environment) but Capitalocene (age of capitalism’s influence). That’s more like it.
https://en.unesco.org/courier/2018-2/view-dominica-anthropocene-capitalocene
(c) Report of the Election Committee (27 December)
OutdatedThe Election Committee’s report raised three points, only one of which — a council by-election in Lambeth — was outdated by February (because the EC had deferred consideration of the report at its January meeting). The other two — a possible general election and the UK having to organise elections to the European Parliament — are by no means outdated, both because of Brexit uncertainty.
The EC did discuss later in the meeting the possibility of a general election in noting that South Wales branch were prepared to contest a seat in Cardiff in that event.
If Brexit is delayed beyond June then there would have to be European elections in the UK in May. Nobody knows whether or not this will happen but it can’t be ruled out as “outdated”.
Apparently, Alan, you’re like the poet who didn’t know and are a collapsologiste without knowing it:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/french-braced-for-the-end-of-the-world-b68zktcqb
More on collapsology here.
I remember reading something about the Orinoco Valley in something August Bebel wrote. I did, and have found it again here. Writing in 1910 he refuted Malthus by referring to something the American economist Henry Carey had written 40 years previously:
Carey maintained forty years ago that the 360-mile long Orinoco valley alone could supply sufficient food to feed the whole human race.
If this is true the fact that anyone is starving in Venezuela today is to be blamed on capitalism and its production for profit rather than to directly satisfy people’s needs.
Where you referring to this:
This week’s revelations of a catastrophic collapse in insect populations, jeopardising all terrestrial life
🙂
Apart from that, he does have a point. It would be interesting to know who is behind this campaign for no deal.
She makes some shrewd observations but her conclusion (“wars will break out, the planet will heat up, species will die out, but how many, how hot and what survives depends on whether we act.” reflects the current reformist approach — that capitalism is the only game in town, all we can do is try to stop things getting worse. If you rule out socialism, this is true but what a miserable perspective and what a change from their previous one of gradually making things better. Neither capitalism nor reformism has anything to offer.
Maduro has a point that, insofar as there is a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, imposing sanctions on the government is counterproductive as it makes things worse. It is always ordinary people who suffer from sanctions not the ruling elite. The calculation of Trump and the states he has in tow is that by making the situation in Venezuela worse people will turn to support their puppet replacement as president. Completely cynical without concern for the suffering people they feign to be concerned about. All they want is regime change and are prepared to play politics with people’s lives to get it. Nothing new there, then. Capitalist diplomacy as usual.
I was not arguing against the findings of the research (that insect extinction has been proceeding at a rate of 2.5% per year over the past 25-30 years) or that this does not present a problem. What I was arguing was the way in which it was presented, in particular this:
The 2.5% rate of annual loss over the last 25-30 years is “shocking”, Sánchez-Bayo told the Guardian: “It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none.”
It’s the use of the word “will”, especially as, here, the “if” or the “unless” part is missing. “Could” doesn’t cut it either as anything not logically possible could occur, e.g. socialism could be established tomorrow, or feudalism for that matter, in fact all insects could become extinct tomorrow. “Might” would be better, as that brings in the question of how probable something is. As would “would”.
Also, apparently, the survey does not actually say that all insect species “will” be extinct by 2119. That’s just common sense. You don’t have to be a entomologist to dismiss as absurd the idea that all the species of insect on the planet, including the millions in the untouched jungles of the Amazon, the Congo and Indonesia, “will” go extinct by 2119, not even if nothing is done to try to counter species going extinct.
By coincidence, the difference is neatly illustrated by the front page headline in today’s Times: TORIES WOULD WIN MAJORITY IF ELECTION HELD TODAY. If it had read ‘TORIES WILL WIN MAJORITY IF ELECTION HELD TODAY’ the meaning would be quite different (even if a pessimist might prefer it expressed the second way).
Saying “there is a problem, but it’s being exaggerated” is not the same as saying “there isn’t a problem”. All I am calling for is a bit of critical thinking when faced with sensational or tententious headlines.
Yes, re sending that warship to the South China Sea, there was some talk of Britain joining the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42549541
Doesn’t really sense. Perhaps Rees-Mogg will be in favour as a protection for his financial interests in Hong Kong, though, on the other hand, provoking China doesn’t seem a good way of doing this. In fact, Mrs May doesn’t seem very happy with her boy War Minister — she wants to trade with China rather than rattle sabres at them:
More from speech:
Speaking in London at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, Williamson said Western allies must be prepared to “use hard power to support our interests”, and failing to intervene against aggressive foreign powers “risks our nation being seen as little more than a paper tiger.”
He is echoing here the realpolitik views of another militarist, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Carter, already discussed here. Thanks, anyway, to the both of them for revealing why there are wars under capitalism and always will be as states take military action as a last resort when the vital economic interest of their capitalist class (as over sources of raw materials, trade routes, etc) is at stake
At least one minister, someone called Williamson, who imagines he’s Minister of War (as in fact he is, “Minister of Defence” is Orwell’s Newspeak), thinks that Brexit provides a chance for a return the good old days of the British Empire:
“Brexit has brought us to a great moment in our history. A moment when we must strengthen our global presence, enhance our lethality and increase our mass.” The Cabinet minister will say that Brexit offers Britain the chance “to consider how we not only project but maximise our influence around the world in the months and years to come”.
He seems to have miscalculated as his speech is being widely seen as ridiculous. Nobody except him believes that the loss of economic clout in trade deals that Brexit will mean for the capitalist class can be replaced by military might (or “lethality” as he calls it). Another example of how the capitalist class’s interests are being looked after by incompetent non-entities.
