Nina-Bytes: Capitalism, Carbon, and Neoliberal Climate Denial

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

The ‘Sensible’ Climate Compromise Is Not Sensible

Look, I'm not trying to be a killjoy here, but sooner or later as a society we're going to have to talk about flavors and levels of self-deception in the fight to prevent climate catastrophe. Take for example this well-argued October 27th article by Alexander Sammon over on The American Prospect. As you may have heard, Joe Manchin and Big Oil are current eviscerating Biden's environmental agenda in real time; an agenda that was already a milquetoast liberal compromise fantasy, quite frankly. Discussing the now-gutted climate crisis mitigation measures in the Build Back Better Act, Sammon notes that the Biden climate strategy currently centers around tax credits to two technologies; nuclear energy and carbon capture, utilization, and storage or CCUS.

As the author points out however, there's a pretty big reason why that's a terrible idea:

"So alongside the remaining clean-energy and electric-vehicle tax credits, beefed-up support for nuclear and carbon capture is what Joe Biden is going to take to Glasgow’s COP26 climate talks as proof of the United States’ willingness to tackle climate change head on.

The inconvenient problem is that those technologies don’t exist, at least not in any meaningful way. In the name of compromise, Build Back Better is now forgoing proven, cost-effective technologies for unproven ones, because that, evidently, is less ideological."

Sammon then goes on to demonstrate that we're lightyears away from producing enough nuclear power to meet our energy needs despite plenty of pre-existing subsidies, and that CCUS technology is basically a pipe dream that rewards the worst carbon-spewing supervillains to boot. Finally, Alex really brings home the bacon by pointing out that betting all your chips on fantasy ideas instead of investing in clean-energy solutions we've had for decades, is itself a form of climate science or climate change denial. 

That last point is key. and what I've taken to calling the "neoliberal flavor of climate science denial" is an issue that deserves more regular discussion in our society. When we talk about climate science or climate crisis denial, most people think of astroturf campaigns by fossil fuel companies, or the unhinged ravings of reactionary right wing politicians. It rarely ever occurs to people to consider whether acknowledging climate catastrophe, and yet refusing to take meaningful action to prevent it because your donors profit from the situation, isn't also clearly a form of denial?

And therein lies the problem I have with this piece. I'm not trying to pick on Alex; he's absolutely correct that doing only a fraction of what is required to stop climate catastrophe is its own form of denial. Which unfortunately means writing an article that doesn't acknowledge there's no way to stop climate catastrophe without getting rid of capitalism, is also its own form of denial. Sammon is certainly not alone in this; just this morning I read a piece by a left leaning academic who admitted we're all barbeque unless we get rid of capitalism, but proposed we forget about trying for now because it's impossible. Clearly, the denial runs deep.

Can you hear me in the back? If you're for preventing climate catastrophe and averting a mass extinction event, you're against capitalism. You can't scream "I refuse to acknowledge this" at a boiling planet and pretend you're on the right side of this issue. There is no halfway position here; there's no acceptable compromise between killing the planet for profit and saving the people, no matter what "reasonable center" you start working from. It's capitalism, or the planet, and the rich guys have clearly made their choice already.

So the question I pose to the left-leaning media, who I agree with on so many other issues is simple: which side are you on? I'd choose quickly my friends; before capitalism gets around to deciding you're an acceptable sacrifice too.

nina illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst. 

You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

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“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”