ALB
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Yes, there does seem to be an attempt to get a bandwagon rolling that nuclear power is the obvious immediate alternative to burning fossil fuels so as to reduce CO2 emissions. There’s an article in the latest issue (November/December) of the Skeptical Inquirer on the “ecomodernists”, a group which argues that embracing, not criticising, modern technology is the way to deal with the threat of too rapid global warming.
The article says of Germany:
In 2011, Germany made the rash political decision to phase out its seventeen emission-free nuclear power plants, which at the time accounted for 25 percent of the country’s electricity generation, In doing so, Germany has remained strongly dependent on some of the dirtiest coal power plants in the world for more than 40 percent of its electricity.
If true, this would mean that the Greens, who were at the forefront of the anti-nuclear campaign, would have made things worse.
Of the US, it says that fracking
lowered the cost of generating electricity from cleaner burning natural gas power plants, putting many dirtier and more expensive coal power plants out of business.
So generating electricity from burning natural gas from fracking is a “lesser evil” than generating it from burning coal. Nuclear power is a “lesser evil” than burning natural gas, but
A glut of cheap natural gas also threatens the country’s 100 emission-free nuclear power stations, which generate 20 percent of U.S. electricity.
This shows once again that, since what method is adopted to generate electricity is a matter of changing, relative prices, capitalism is incapable of implementing a rational energy policy.
For the record, what the “ecomodernists” advocate is a combination of nuclear and natural gas (but whose plants have effective means of capturing CO2 and burying it instead of releasing it into the atmosphere — not sure that this technolog exists yet, does it?) See: http://www.ecomodernism.org for their manifesto.
I note that one of the signatories is Mark Lynas who in 2007 published Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet which raised the rather alarmist prospect of Earth ending up like Venus, i.e the extinction of all life. It was reviewed in the August 2007 <i>Socialist Standard</i> (scroll down):
Perhaps he has scared himself into supporting nuclear as the only alternative.
It seems that “Anglo-Saxons” are not so keen to train to be hired killers and/or cannon fodder and that more of those General Sir Nick presumably considers “lesser races” are to be recruited from the “colonies”. The racist bonehead himself is one himself — a “settler” from Kenya.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/foreign-legion-join-british-army-13535813
Here’s what the Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, told the Sun in an interview yesterday:
General Sir Nick also warned history may be repeating itself – drawing parallels today with the beginning of last century – when powerful nations vied for supremacy. He added: “It’s particularly important in the world in which we live today where we have this return to what I call great power competition. That is very similar I would suggest to the first decade of the last century and it’s pretty important therefore that people understand what war is about and why it needs to be avoided at all costs.”
Fortunately, “we” are prepared for war:
he said today’s generation of troops still boast the “fighting spirit” of their comrades of a century ago, who the nation will silently remember tomorrow. He said: “We’re Anglo-Saxons, and Anglo-Saxons stand up and are counted for what they believe in. If people can see the value in the cause then I think that Anglo-Saxon desire to do the right thing and to fight if you have to fight is still there and will always be there.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7706217/stop-treating-veterans-like-victims/
Actually, the current inability, compared with the old version, to copy the whole of a message (without trimming it) when replying to or commenting on it, is an advantage. It means that we don’t have to read bird shit twice. So, please don’t re-introduce that facility !
That illustrates my point perfectly about the impossibility of adopting a rational energy policy under capitalism, let alone a rational approach to the threat of global warming.
Given that there is such a threat and that there’s an urgent need to drastically cut back on generating energy from other sources than burning fossil fuels, the only technologically feasible quick replacement (even in socialism) capable of producing a steady flow of electricity on the scale required would seem to be nuclear power. Yet, because it is currently more expensive than burning some fossil fuel, nuclear power stations are being closed down and new ones not being built.
I know nuclear power has its own dangers and Greens don’t like it either, but in the circumstances might it not be the lesser evil?
Alan, I don’t know why you are drawing my attention to the “benefits” of global warming. I only asked about the effect on other parts of the world than sub-Saharan Africa. I was not welcoming global warming because it would bring benefits to people living in the northern part of the northern hemisphere (or parts of Chile and Argentina in the southern hemisphere) !
Having said that, the problem is not so much a rise in average global temperature but the speed at which it is happening and that it is happening under capitalism (which drags its feet over taking steps to slow it down and won’t be able to cope with the consequences such as mass migrations). A warmer world, brought about slowly over centuries, would or should in theory make it easier to grow more food. But that’s not on the agenda.
This recent headline shows why it is impossible to adopt a rational energy policy under capitalism — what is used to generate electricity depends on the relative prices of he alternative methods:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/old-king-coal-is-back-as-gas-costs-rise-g2zvhclxd
Capitalism will only stop or drastically cut back generating electricity from burning fossil fuels (whether coal, oil or gas) when the cost of this exceeds the cost of using other sources (nuclear, renewables). This hasn’t happened yet and probably won’t for a number of years.
One at least of the voters’ initiatives (referendums initiated by a minimum number of electors) had a positive result. People in Florida voted to potentially increase the electorate there by 1.4 million or 10%:
https://www.wral.com/florida-passes-amendment-to-restore-felons-voting-rights/17978574/
Just finished reading this book. I am afraid it’s no good. Apart from 6 pages where he outlines and defends the view (and does it quite well, actually) that
I think getting rid of money and markets entirely is not only a necessary condition for getting rid of capitalism but also desirable in its own right. I think that many utopians have been quite right to imagine worlds without money. I reject all programs that propose to transcend capitalism but retain money and markets as supposedly efficient methods of allocating resources in a new and better society – whether they be of socialist or anarchist or libertarian inspiration.
But then, as I expected he would, he goes on to outline various ways in which the use of money can be gradually “restricted” and “marginalized” under capitalism. These are common or garden reforms such as free and subsidised services, price and rent controls, lower taxes on consumer goods, limits on interest on consumer credit, etc, a whole programme of reforms identical to what the traditional Left have always proposed but to be achieved not through parliament but by “autonomous” working class action.
Still, in agreeing that getting rid of capitalism involves getting rid entirely on money and markets, this is shifting the debate back from one about ends to one about the means to get there. Which must make our task easier.
I don’t think that Parecon and Zeitgeist can be linked together. Parecon is a currency crank blueprint for a real dystopia where people spend all their time voting and checking on what their neighbours want to consume. We’ve debated against them both in print and in public:
This from the April 2006 Socialist Standard
And this debate in 2010 against one of those who thought it up:
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/video/post-capitalism-parecon-or-world-without-money/
Zeitgeist, on the other hand, stand for a moneyless world of abundance that is recognisably similar to what we stand for. Having said that, some of them do, illogically, see monetary reform as a transition to this and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of them embraced PareCON as well as UBI as such a transitional reform.
I would say that some of those voting against limitations on drilling for oil or gas will have done so to keep or get a job (no doubt exaggerated by the propaganda of those capitalists against the limits on their profit-making). In a way that would be understandable as workers need a job, or rather the wage that goes with it, today. That will naturally have priority in their minds over something that might or might not happen in 10 or 12 years time. Can we really condemn them for that? It’s not their fault that they live in a society where economic necessity compels them (us) to find and keep a job as a source of income.
Under warming of less than 2 degrees by the 2050s, total crop production could be reduced by 10 percent, said Oxfam.
I assume this refers only to sub-Saharan Africa and not the whole world?
Purely as a matter of interest (and not to be taken as a defence of global warming) global warming by 1.5 or 2 degrees ought to make other areas of the world more suitable for crop production. For instance, vast areas of Canada and Russia. Are there any figures for this?
Our comrades in Calcutta (Kolkata) conduct their meetings in Bengali, a language with a long history of literature. One of them once told me that Bengalis look down on Hindi as a mongrel patois with no historical literature. Having said this, I see from their latest minutes that they just admitted a new member with the questions and answers being conducted in Hindi.
We have in fact tried to engage the Greens and can predict what their answer will be (once they’ve finished dealing with relative minutae such as more cycle lanes, more 20 mph roads and more vegetarian choices in schools): “Socialism is a long way off and the problem of global overwarming is so urgent that we can’t wait for that. We must do something now.” This of course begs the question that something effective and lasting can be done “now”, i.e within capitalism.
