Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
the grip is, indeed, not so deep. but it's a grip of iron, nonetheless. basically, i find people buy into the belief system(s) of the power structure. not because they've been brainwashed or 'implanted' as it were. but because they know it's what's expected. they know it's convenient. this is, for those in power, a double-edged sword. On Dec 11, 2011 7:15 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Robert Glad you liked it, me too. And sympathies. Bill Blum said this - actually he was talking about US foreign policy, but it fits, sort of: ... My advice is to forget such people. They would support the outrages even if the government came to their homes, seized their first born, and hauled them away screaming, as long as the government assured them it was essential to fighting terrorism (or communism). My (very) rough guess is that they constitute no more than 15 percent of the population. I suggest that we concentrate on the rest, who are reachable. [more] http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer31.htm The Anti-Empire Report Some things you need to know before the world ends March 22, 2006 by William Blum Not always so easy though. ... reachable, that is, through the relentless drench of spin everyone's constantly bombarded with, silent noise. Which is probably also a large factor in the views of the uber-right: their opinions aren't even their own, they're just implants from the opinion manufacturing industry. Actually it's worse than that. I said this a couple of years ago: ... what gets implanted is entire belief systems. It has little to do with facts or truth or rationality, it's emotional, it works by making people want to believe stuff (then they argue against the facts all by themselves). Three brands: political, corporate, and military, often all at once. But its grip isn't as deep and total as they like to think it is, or how would you explain Occupy Wall Street, for instance. Even the uber-right are capable of waking up, IMHO. They're probably good people at heart, most people are. But again it's not easy. I've run into climate change deniers here a couple of times, and there wasn't much I could do about it, short of a futile argument. Bill Blum's right. I wonder what they'd say about the Arctic shipping routes story I just posted. Magic it away I guess, poof - gone. All best Keith On 12/11/2011 10:01 AM, Keith Addison wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. big snip Wow! That was bang-on! Those of us who have been on this list a long time have discussed this issue before. Without a fundamental restructuring of our economic model--away from large, centralized, subsidized industrialization--to small, localized economic independence, it will be impossible to deal with the issues that have caused so much social inequity and environmental destruction. But as long as the free markets are the only solution subtext goes unchallenged, as long as the unbridled avarice of our current model is promoted as the ONLY good, the ONLY ideal, the ONLY way forward, our individual efforts to live in closer harmony with the environment will make little headway. What I find particularly annoying about this whole discussion is that sentiments like the one I've expressed above are ridiculed as hand-wringing by the uber-right, while solutions imposed by a legal framework on the larger society are ridiculed for promoting more government. So then, what does the right propose? Business as usual, of course! It's like the man whose doctor tells him that he's suffering from lead poisoning, only to hear from the physician that the recommended treatment is consuming more lead . . . Robert Luis Rabello Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Meet the People video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txsCdh1hZ6c Crisis video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZedNEXhTn4 The Long Journey video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy4muxaksgk ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20111217/5bac3719/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
Keith, To better understand the companies people that the Heartland Institute thinks their message resonates with, the attached PDF from the upcoming EUEC (Energy, Utility Environment Conference) conference may be helpful. There is also a copy of the PDF stored on Google Documents: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B83-0weSlvJvYzVlMzYxMWMtYjIzMi00MzIzLWE4ZTctMTQxMmU5YmU4OTRh The Heartland Institute will be speaking as a conference co-sponsor (see below). Some of the session titles include: REDUCING THE CARBON FOOTPRINT IN THE AMERICAS: IS IT WORTH THE COST? James Taylor, Senior Fellow, Environment Policy, The Heartland Institute AIR QUALITY REGULATORY CHALLENGES FOR POWER GENERATORS IN 2012 UPDATE TO UNITS AT RISK FOR RETIREMENT IN PJM AS A RESULT OF EPA REGULATION WHAT ABOUT THE NEIGHBORS? ENVIRONMENTAL NUISANCE CLAIMS AND AIR QUALITY COMPLIANCE IMPACT OF SOLID WASTE REGULATION ON ALTERNATIVE FUEL NO. 6 OIL USE UNDER THE EGU MACT RULE6 OIL USE UNDER THE EGU MACT RULE FEDERAL GHG REGULATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR BUSINESS RECENT TRENDS IN EPA AND ACTIVIST GROUP AIR PERMIT CHALLENGE IMPLICATIONS OF EPA’S PROPOSED CLEAN WATER ACT 316(B) REGULATIONS ON THE POWER INDUSTRY THE FUTURE OF FLYASH AS A CEMENTITIOUS MATERIAL ENSURING OPTIMAL COMPLIANCE WITH FUTURE MERCURY REGULATIONS CARBON TAX OR “CAP-AND-TRADE” SYSTEMS ITS EFFECT ON U S. REFINING MARKETING THE CONTINUING SHALE GAS STAMPEDE SPILLS, SINS STARBUCKS: HOW WE DESIGNED OUR CITIES AROUND OILS, SINS STARBUCKS BRINGING ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING INTO THE 21ST CENTURY NUCLEAR POWER IN A POST-FUKUSHIMA WORLD Cheers, Christian On Dec 13, 2011, at 06:56 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Christian The Heartland Institute is a loud proud sponsor at various conferences (EUEC in Phoenix) news aggregators (epOverviews) ... Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith On Dec 11, 2011, at 1:01 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland's Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually an attack on middle-class American capitalism. His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine? Here at the Heartland Institute's Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren't going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who specializes in harassing climate scientists with nuisance lawsuits and Freedom of Information fishing expeditions, angles the table mic over to his mouth. You can believe this is about the climate, he says darkly, and many people do, but it's not a reasonable belief. Horner, whose prematurely silver hair makes him look like a right-wing Anderson Cooper, likes to invoke Saul Alinsky: The issue isn't the issue. The issue, apparently, is that no free society would do to itself what this agenda requires· The first step to that is to remove these nagging freedoms that keep getting in the way. Claiming that climate change is a plot to steal American freedom is rather tame by Heartland standards. Over the course of this two-day conference, I will learn that Obama's campaign promise to support locally owned biofuels refineries was really about green communitarianism, akin to the Maoist scheme to put a pig iron furnace in everybody's backyard (the Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels). That climate change is a stalking horse for National Socialism (former Republican senator and retired astronaut Harrison Schmitt). And that environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather (Marc Morano, editor of the denialists' go-to website, ClimateDepot.com). Most of all, however, I will hear versions of the opinion expressed by the county commissioner in the fourth row: that climate change is a Trojan horse designed to abolish capitalism and replace it with some kind of eco-socialism. As conference speaker Larry Bell succinctly puts it in his new book Climate of Corruption, climate
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
of corporations to define their own spheres of activity, cumulatively to cultivate their markets over time, and create for themselves the need to overproduce grossly, is largely eliminated. In other words, roundaboutness is no longer fed but starved. And also less obvious is how the impact on size would affect method, as corporations would often be placed on the other side of technological marginalities which, manipulated like a skilful organic gardener, might even cause them to reconstitute themselves as worker co-operatives, etc. Secondly, government can subject everything it already does to this organic-personalist principle: where it provides transport infrastructure to structure it best to support the movements of a local economy over a national or global one; where it determines which land uses are allowable to allow the land uses that a local, small-scale economy needs and to disallow those that create dependance on bigness; where it engages with agriculture to support the organic through education, regulatory abstinence, a sane view of land-parcel size, etc. Where it sets standards for building it should preserve the vernacular over the industrial, and not the other way around. Where it facilitates the provision of energy it should actively encourage off-grid self-generation at either household or community level. (I believe an off-grid norm will be more desirable than a smart-grid norm, out of the same total-scale mechanism theory I propose in connection with production volume, above and elsewhere.) All this tends to relegate the corporations to relative irrelevance. All this will also tend to collapse the elaborate edifice of need-structures the corporations built, which is huge. Government needs to do all this urgently, as a first priority, not merely if it has time left over after lording it over us. It is important that these government initiatives proceed from an organic gardener's mind-set, that they work with social systems and not try to force outcomes the way the one law currently does. I submit that this will progressively make government's (more) legitimate tasks easier, as organic gardening becomes easier the better established, the more normal, it becomes - though thus, too, the need for government is progressively reduced (to eternal vigilance? I can live with that.) The alternative, we know, is ultimately desertification: draconian tyranny which fails, despite its storm-trooping force, to produce the desired result. And I submit that the desired result will come without force, more safely and stably than otherwise. Government may continue to look, clipboard and measuring-tape in hand, but it will not need to touch. And I shall not keep wanting to slap its roving hand ... Regards Dawie Coetzee From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Tuesday, 13 December 2011, 19:07 Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein Hi Dawie Thankyou, some good points, but overall I think Robert gets closer to it, as does Naomi Klein. First, though I do like the anarchist view that the only good government is a dead government, anything and everything that comes from government isn't necessarily authoritarian. You're not saying, are you, that government has no positive role to play? Coercion is sometimes required in this perfect/less-than-perfect world. For instance, as in recent discussions, there's another 1% (also less than 1% I think), comprising the sociopathic element, a tiny minority that's capable of wreaking great harm, if allowed to. There's also the troubling matter of what happens at the interface between the haves and have-nots in a world which (a) is richer than ever before, with more than enough money and food for everyone, and (b) has arguably never before been so grossly inequitable, with at least 1 in 3 humans living in poverty, and one child dying of hunger every three seconds. It's troubling, apart from all that, because if for instance you've just been mugged it's a little difficult to regard the mugger as the victim, and because the law (government coercion) deals with it by simply adding one wrong to another and dressing it up as a right. And so on. But what's the alternative, short of the systemic change we all know is required? And that change too will probably require government coercion. Vee haf our vays to force you to be free. :-) Re this: Absent from the usual debate is two very important elements: the cultivation of needs through systemic manipulation; I don't think it's absent, certainly not here, and, as I said: ... its grip isn't as deep and total as they like to think it is, or how would you explain Occupy Wall Street, for instance. It's not as invisible as they like to think it is either. and the need, in mass-production-based systems, to repeat every little spark of creativity millions of times. These, and nothing
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
Keith, As to why the Heartland Institute is a repeat sponsor at serious energy+ conferences and news aggregators, ask the Directors Owners of the two respective firms mentioned: 1. EUEC http://www.euec.com/directors.aspx 2. epOverviews http://www.epoverviews.com/about.php Best, Christian On Dec 13, 2011, at 06:56 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Christian The Heartland Institute is a loud proud sponsor at various conferences (EUEC in Phoenix) news aggregators (epOverviews) ... Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith On Dec 11, 2011, at 1:01 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/indexphp?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland's Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually an attack on middle-class American capitalism. His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine? Here at the Heartland Institute's Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren't going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who specializes in harassing climate scientists with nuisance lawsuits and Freedom of Information fishing expeditions, angles the table mic over to his mouth. You can believe this is about the climate, he says darkly, and many people do, but it's not a reasonable belief. Horner, whose prematurely silver hair makes him look like a right-wing Anderson Cooper, likes to invoke Saul Alinsky: The issue isn't the issue. The issue, apparently, is that no free society would do to itself what this agenda requires·. The first step to that is to remove these nagging freedoms that keep getting in the way. Claiming that climate change is a plot to steal American freedom is rather tame by Heartland standards. Over the course of this two-day conference, I will learn that Obama's campaign promise to support locally owned biofuels refineries was really about green communitarianism, akin to the Maoist scheme to put a pig iron furnace in everybody's backyard (the Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels). That climate change is a stalking horse for National Socialism (former Republican senator and retired astronaut Harrison Schmitt). And that environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather (Marc Morano, editor of the denialists' go-to website, ClimateDepot.com). Most of all, however, I will hear versions of the opinion expressed by the county commissioner in the fourth row: that climate change is a Trojan horse designed to abolish capitalism and replace it with some kind of eco-socialism. As conference speaker Larry Bell succinctly puts it in his new book Climate of Corruption, climate change has little to do with the state of the environment and much to do with shackling capitalism and transforming the American way of life in the interests of global wealth redistribution. Yes, sure, there is a pretense that the delegates' rejection of climate science is rooted in serious disagreement about the data. And the organizers go to some lengths to mimic credible scientific conferences, calling the gathering Restoring the Scientific Method and even adopting the organizational acronym ICCC, a mere one letter off from the world's leading authority on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But the scientific theories presented here are old and long discredited. And no attempt is made to explain why each speaker seems to contradict the next. (Is there no warming, or is there warming but it's not a problem? And if there is no warming, then what's all this talk about sunspots causing temperatures to rise?) In truth, several members of the mostly elderly audience seem to doze off while the temperature graphs are projected. They come to life only when the rock stars of the movement take the stage-not the C-team scientists but the A-team ideological warriors like Morano and Horner. This is the true purpose of the
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
No, that's not what I asked. Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith Keith, As to why the Heartland Institute is a repeat sponsor at serious energy+ conferences and news aggregators, ask the Directors Owners of the two respective firms mentioned: 1. EUEC http://www.euec.com/directors.aspx 2. epOverviews http://www.epoverviews.com/about.php Best, Christian On Dec 13, 2011, at 06:56 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Christian The Heartland Institute is a loud proud sponsor at various conferences (EUEC in Phoenix) news aggregators (epOverviews) ... Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith On Dec 11, 2011, at 1:01 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/indexphp?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland's Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually an attack on middle-class American capitalism. His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine? Here at the Heartland Institute's Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren't going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who specializes in harassing climate scientists with nuisance lawsuits and Freedom of Information fishing expeditions, angles the table mic over to his mouth. You can believe this is about the climate, he says darkly, and many people do, but it's not a reasonable belief. Horner, whose prematurely silver hair makes him look like a right-wing Anderson Cooper, likes to invoke Saul Alinsky: The issue isn't the issue. The issue, apparently, is that no free society would do to itself what this agenda requires·. The first step to that is to remove these nagging freedoms that keep getting in the way. Claiming that climate change is a plot to steal American freedom is rather tame by Heartland standards. Over the course of this two-day conference, I will learn that Obama's campaign promise to support locally owned biofuels refineries was really about green communitarianism, akin to the Maoist scheme to put a pig iron furnace in everybody's backyard (the Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels). That climate change is a stalking horse for National Socialism (former Republican senator and retired astronaut Harrison Schmitt). And that environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather (Marc Morano, editor of the denialists' go-to website, ClimateDepot.com). Most of all, however, I will hear versions of the opinion expressed by the county commissioner in the fourth row: that climate change is a Trojan horse designed to abolish capitalism and replace it with some kind of eco-socialism. As conference speaker Larry Bell succinctly puts it in his new book Climate of Corruption, climate change has little to do with the state of the environment and much to do with shackling capitalism and transforming the American way of life in the interests of global wealth redistribution. Yes, sure, there is a pretense that the delegates' rejection of climate science is rooted in serious disagreement about the data. And the organizers go to some lengths to mimic credible scientific conferences, calling the gathering Restoring the Scientific Method and even adopting the organizational acronym ICCC, a mere one letter off from the world's leading authority on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But the scientific theories presented here are old and long discredited. And no attempt is made to explain why each speaker seems to contradict the next. (Is there no warming, or is there warming but it's not a problem? And if there is no warming, then what's all this talk about sunspots causing temperatures to rise?) In truth, several members of the mostly elderly audience seem to doze off while the temperature graphs are projected. They come to life only
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
Well Keith, Dollars to donuts: Stewart @ the Daily Show (and other independent minded citizens like myself) find the militant we can piss in the soup, who cares! modus operandi of Heartland Institute guests, staff directors funny at best. Except, not really funny. Examples: 7/10 on the Militant-We-Can-Piss-in-the-Soup!-o-meter: http://blog.heartland.org/2011/12/coca-cola-playing-a-dangerous-game-by-cuddling-with-environmentalists/ 2/10 on the Militant-We-Can-Piss-in-the-Soup!-o-meter: http://blog.heartland.org/2011/12/getting-the-enron-story-straight/ 10/10 on the Militant-We-Can-Piss-in-the-Soup!-o-meter: http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/12/01/climate-change-weekly-climategate-2-reveals-more-destruction-evidence-s http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/12/09/climategate-conspirator-mann-plays-persecuted-victim I wish the Daily Show's Stewart would host the Heartland Institute's Managing Director James M. Taylor (http://heartland.org/james-m-taylor) and Science Director Jay Leher (http://heartland.org/jay-lehr) on the show ... A little light can go a long way. Christian On Dec 14, 2011, at 10:24 AM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No, that's not what I asked. Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith Keith, As to why the Heartland Institute is a repeat sponsor at serious energy+ conferences and news aggregators, ask the Directors Owners of the two respective firms mentioned: 1. EUEC http://www.euec.com/directors.aspx 2. epOverviews http://www.epoverviews.com/about.php Best, Christian On Dec 13, 2011, at 06:56 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Christian The Heartland Institute is a loud proud sponsor at various conferences (EUEC in Phoenix) news aggregators (epOverviews) ... Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith On Dec 11, 2011, at 1:01 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/indexphp?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland's Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually an attack on middle-class American capitalism. His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine? Here at the Heartland Institute's Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren't going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who specializes in harassing climate scientists with nuisance lawsuits and Freedom of Information fishing expeditions, angles the table mic over to his mouth. You can believe this is about the climate, he says darkly, and many people do, but it's not a reasonable belief. Horner, whose prematurely silver hair makes him look like a right-wing Anderson Cooper, likes to invoke Saul Alinsky: The issue isn't the issue. The issue, apparently, is that no free society would do to itself what this agenda requires·. The first step to that is to remove these nagging freedoms that keep getting in the way. Claiming that climate change is a plot to steal American freedom is rather tame by Heartland standards. Over the course of this two-day conference, I will learn that Obama's campaign promise to support locally owned biofuels refineries was really about green communitarianism, akin to the Maoist scheme to put a pig iron furnace in everybody's backyard (the Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels). That climate change is a stalking horse for National Socialism (former Republican senator and retired astronaut Harrison Schmitt). And that environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather (Marc Morano, editor of the denialists' go-to website, ClimateDepot.com). Most of all, however, I will hear versions of the opinion expressed by the county commissioner in the fourth row: that climate change is a Trojan horse designed to abolish capitalism and replace it with some kind of eco-socialism. As conference speaker Larry Bell succinctly puts it in his new book Climate of Corruption, climate
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
Sorry Christian, I didn't mean to sound ratty. I just don't get it, I don't know anything about Stewart @ the Daily Show. How would it help? By the way: http://www.mail-archive.com/search?q=Heartland+Institutel=sustainablelorgbiofuel%40sustainablelists.org 55 hits at the List archives for Heartland Institute. Best Keith No, that's not what I asked. Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith Keith, As to why the Heartland Institute is a repeat sponsor at serious energy+ conferences and news aggregators, ask the Directors Owners of the two respective firms mentioned: 1. EUEC http://www.euec.com/directors.aspx 2. epOverviews http://www.epoverviews.com/about.php Best, Christian On Dec 13, 2011, at 06:56 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Christian The Heartland Institute is a loud proud sponsor at various conferences (EUEC in Phoenix) news aggregators (epOverviews) ... Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith On Dec 11, 2011, at 1:01 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/indexphp?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland's Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually an attack on middle-class American capitalism. His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine? Here at the Heartland Institute's Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren't going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is. snip ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
Well Keith, Dollars to donuts: Stewart @ the Daily Show (and other independent minded citizens like myself) find the militant we can piss in the soup, who cares! modus operandi of Heartland Institute guests, staff directors funny at best. Except, not really funny. Examples: 7/10 on the Militant-We-Can-Piss-in-the-Soup!-o-meter: http://blog.heartland.org/2011/12/coca-cola-playing-a-dangerous-game-by-cuddling-with-environmentalists/ 2/10 on the Militant-We-Can-Piss-in-the-Soup!-o-meter: http://blog.heartland.org/2011/12/getting-the-enron-story-straight/ 10/10 on the Militant-We-Can-Piss-in-the-Soup!-o-meter: http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/12/01/climate-change-weekly-climategate-2-reveals-more-destruction-evidence-s http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/12/09/climategate-conspirator-mann-plays-persecuted-victim I wish the Daily Show's Stewart would have the Heartland Institute's Managing Director James M. Taylor (http://heartland.org/james-m-taylor) and Science Director Jay Leher (http://heartland.org/jay-lehr) on the show ... A little light can go a long way. Christian On Dec 14, 2011, at 10:24 AM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: No, that's not what I asked. Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20111214/272965ac/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
Hi Keith, You don't sound ratty. Like Mark Twain? Then you'll love John Stewart @ the Daily Show. Extended interviews available for free online: http://www.thedailyshow.com/extended-interviews Examples Cheers, Christian On Dec 14, 2011, at 12:24 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry Christian, I didn't mean to sound ratty. I just don't get it, I don't know anything about Stewart @ the Daily Show. How would it help? By the way: http://www.mail-archive.com/search?q=Heartland+Institutel=sustainablelorgbiofuel%40sustainablelists.org 55 hits at the List archives for Heartland Institute. Best Keith No, that's not what I asked. Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith Keith, As to why the Heartland Institute is a repeat sponsor at serious energy+ conferences and news aggregators, ask the Directors Owners of the two respective firms mentioned: 1. EUEC http://www.euec.com/directors.aspx 2. epOverviews http://www.epoverviews.com/about.php Best, Christian On Dec 13, 2011, at 06:56 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Christian The Heartland Institute is a loud proud sponsor at various conferences (EUEC in Phoenix) news aggregators (epOverviews) ... Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith On Dec 11, 2011, at 1:01 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/indexphp?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland's Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually an attack on middle-class American capitalism. His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine? Here at the Heartland Institute's Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren't going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is. snip ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): biofuel@sustainablelists.org/'http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20111214/07a551bd/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
that. The mechanism by which centrality of control tends to cultivate increases in production volume is barely discerned, never mind understood. Producing 90% less doesn't mean having 90% less. That needs to be understood. There is a disparity between production and consumption, and another between consumption and possession. The common understanding that desire drives consumption drives production is erroneous: the system of production won't work on that basis. Threshold volume is the fix, and everything else has to be arranged to ensure that it is safely exceeded. Shifting product is something the system needs to do, and what it wants is to keep moving to higher threshold volumes which require it to shift even more product. That is why the system is an ecological disaster, and why imposing carefulness on it just makes it worse. Indeed, we need to change how we do business, but to on a smaller scale, with a smaller ambit and a shorter reach rather than more carefully. We need to produce less - far less - for any given amount of creativity. The fun:volume ratio is completely wrong. It is unbelievable how wrong it is, and it needs to be put right. And yes, the State is best positioned to undo its own damage, and restructure physical and practical systems to allow us to satisfy our needs more directly, if one can ever get the State to do anything that will thus reduce its subsequent indispensibility. And if that ever happens the State can finally just fade into the mist. None of this is about giving up rights. In fact it is about regaining rights and liberties that are being lost to the corporations. Because these ideas are not part of the usual debate, because people have not had the opportunity to mull them over, they are not widely understood. Hence they are not part of the conventional solutions. I am not prophecying that the conventional solutions will not work; I am observing that they have not worked. They have in each case resulted simply in a mushrooming scope and volume of the thing thought problematic. The catalytic converter is a traffic generator. In that, GM succeeded in their design objective. That is why I have never owned one, and never shall. Best regards and Advent greetings Dawie Coetzee From: robert and benita rabello [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Monday, 12 December 2011, 20:28 Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein On 12/11/2011 10:23 PM, Dawie Coetzee wrote: Actually the ideological error of the American right is small and rather fine. It is centred upon a confusion of personal and corporate rights; and again it plays into corporate hands - from two sides. I'm not confident that's true. Naomi Klein's thesis focuses on the fact that The American Way of Life is fundamentally threatened by the necessary steps required to address climate change. We will have to give up our right to drive around as single occupants of two ton machines. We will have to change the way we do business, which means an end to consumerism, industrialized farming and many other aspects of American Life that we've discussed in this forum before. We will have to learn to make do with a LOT less than we have now. We won't be able to leave our lights on, crank the AC when it's hot, or turn up the heat when it's cold. We'll have to give up our freeways, our billion dollar football stadiums, our flat-screen televisions in every bedroom and the abundance of stuff (which we really don't need) in our stores. If we give up those things, what's going to happen to our cozy little lives? We're going to get dragged down so the rest of the world can rise up, right? In that case, the issues at stake are not about corporate rights at all. They're not about science. They're not about what's moral, either. They're about me having to give up what I have, so that people who haven't worked as hard as I have will benefit. My strong sense of individual entitlement demands that I have a RIGHT to the fruit of my labor. Then, my racism rears its ugly head, and pretty soon you'll hear me spouting vitriol mixed with nationalism that sounds every bit as strident as the segregationist rhetoric of George Wallace, or worse . . . (Ok, I wouldn't do that, but I know many who do!) This leads to an important question that very few people in my country wish to discuss. I've asked my sister, who is a stock broker, about an alternative economic system that can replace the broken one we have. She and most conservatives insist that there isn't one. The ONLY options available to us are either unfettered capitalism, or socialism / communism. Once you begin to propose public transportation and densified housing as a means of reducing carbon emissions, immediately you will run up against a strong aversion to being told what to do and how to live. We Americans like our
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
The Heartland Institute is a loud proud sponsor at various conferences (EUEC in Phoenix) news aggregators (epOverviews) ... Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. On Dec 11, 2011, at 1:01 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland's Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually an attack on middle-class American capitalism. His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine? Here at the Heartland Institute's Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren't going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who specializes in harassing climate scientists with nuisance lawsuits and Freedom of Information fishing expeditions, angles the table mic over to his mouth. You can believe this is about the climate, he says darkly, and many people do, but it's not a reasonable belief. Horner, whose prematurely silver hair makes him look like a right-wing Anderson Cooper, likes to invoke Saul Alinsky: The issue isn't the issue. The issue, apparently, is that no free society would do to itself what this agenda requiresŠ. The first step to that is to remove these nagging freedoms that keep getting in the way. Claiming that climate change is a plot to steal American freedom is rather tame by Heartland standards. Over the course of this two-day conference, I will learn that Obama's campaign promise to support locally owned biofuels refineries was really about green communitarianism, akin to the Maoist scheme to put a pig iron furnace in everybody's backyard (the Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels). That climate change is a stalking horse for National Socialism (former Republican senator and retired astronaut Harrison Schmitt). And that environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather (Marc Morano, editor of the denialists' go-to website, ClimateDepot.com). Most of all, however, I will hear versions of the opinion expressed by the county commissioner in the fourth row: that climate change is a Trojan horse designed to abolish capitalism and replace it with some kind of eco-socialism. As conference speaker Larry Bell succinctly puts it in his new book Climate of Corruption, climate change has little to do with the state of the environment and much to do with shackling capitalism and transforming the American way of life in the interests of global wealth redistribution. Yes, sure, there is a pretense that the delegates' rejection of climate science is rooted in serious disagreement about the data. And the organizers go to some lengths to mimic credible scientific conferences, calling the gathering Restoring the Scientific Method and even adopting the organizational acronym ICCC, a mere one letter off from the world's leading authority on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But the scientific theories presented here are old and long discredited. And no attempt is made to explain why each speaker seems to contradict the next. (Is there no warming, or is there warming but it's not a problem? And if there is no warming, then what's all this talk about sunspots causing temperatures to rise?) In truth, several members of the mostly elderly audience seem to doze off while the temperature graphs are projected. They come to life only when the rock stars of the movement take the stage-not the C-team scientists but the A-team ideological warriors like Morano and Horner. This is the true purpose of the gathering: providing a forum for die-hard denialists to collect the rhetorical baseball bats with which they will club environmentalists and climate scientists in the weeks and months to come. The talking points first tested here will jam the comment sections beneath every article and YouTube video that contains the phrase climate change or global warming. They
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
Hello Christian The Heartland Institute is a loud proud sponsor at various conferences (EUEC in Phoenix) news aggregators (epOverviews) ... Wish Stewart @ the Daily Show would make them a weekly feature. Why? Best Keith On Dec 11, 2011, at 1:01 PM, Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland's Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually an attack on middle-class American capitalism. His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine? Here at the Heartland Institute's Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren't going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who specializes in harassing climate scientists with nuisance lawsuits and Freedom of Information fishing expeditions, angles the table mic over to his mouth. You can believe this is about the climate, he says darkly, and many people do, but it's not a reasonable belief. Horner, whose prematurely silver hair makes him look like a right-wing Anderson Cooper, likes to invoke Saul Alinsky: The issue isn't the issue. The issue, apparently, is that no free society would do to itself what this agenda requires·. The first step to that is to remove these nagging freedoms that keep getting in the way. Claiming that climate change is a plot to steal American freedom is rather tame by Heartland standards. Over the course of this two-day conference, I will learn that Obama's campaign promise to support locally owned biofuels refineries was really about green communitarianism, akin to the Maoist scheme to put a pig iron furnace in everybody's backyard (the Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels). That climate change is a stalking horse for National Socialism (former Republican senator and retired astronaut Harrison Schmitt). And that environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather (Marc Morano, editor of the denialists' go-to website, ClimateDepot.com). Most of all, however, I will hear versions of the opinion expressed by the county commissioner in the fourth row: that climate change is a Trojan horse designed to abolish capitalism and replace it with some kind of eco-socialism. As conference speaker Larry Bell succinctly puts it in his new book Climate of Corruption, climate change has little to do with the state of the environment and much to do with shackling capitalism and transforming the American way of life in the interests of global wealth redistribution. Yes, sure, there is a pretense that the delegates' rejection of climate science is rooted in serious disagreement about the data. And the organizers go to some lengths to mimic credible scientific conferences, calling the gathering Restoring the Scientific Method and even adopting the organizational acronym ICCC, a mere one letter off from the world's leading authority on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But the scientific theories presented here are old and long discredited. And no attempt is made to explain why each speaker seems to contradict the next. (Is there no warming, or is there warming but it's not a problem? And if there is no warming, then what's all this talk about sunspots causing temperatures to rise?) In truth, several members of the mostly elderly audience seem to doze off while the temperature graphs are projected. They come to life only when the rock stars of the movement take the stage-not the C-team scientists but the A-team ideological warriors like Morano and Horner. This is the true purpose of the gathering: providing a forum for die-hard denialists to collect the rhetorical baseball bats with which they will club environmentalists and climate scientists in the weeks and months to come. The talking points first tested here will jam the comment sections beneath every article and YouTube video that contains the phrase
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
On 12/11/2011 10:23 PM, Dawie Coetzee wrote: Actually the ideological error of the American right is small and rather fine. It is centred upon a confusion of personal and corporate rights; and again it plays into corporate hands - from two sides. I'm not confident that's true. Naomi Klein's thesis focuses on the fact that The American Way of Life is fundamentally threatened by the necessary steps required to address climate change. We will have to give up our right to drive around as single occupants of two ton machines. We will have to change the way we do business, which means an end to consumerism, industrialized farming and many other aspects of American Life that we've discussed in this forum before. We will have to learn to make do with a LOT less than we have now. We won't be able to leave our lights on, crank the AC when it's hot, or turn up the heat when it's cold. We'll have to give up our freeways, our billion dollar football stadiums, our flat-screen televisions in every bedroom and the abundance of stuff (which we really don't need) in our stores. If we give up those things, what's going to happen to our cozy little lives? We're going to get dragged down so the rest of the world can rise up, right? In that case, the issues at stake are not about corporate rights at all. They're not about science. They're not about what's moral, either. They're about me having to give up what I have, so that people who haven't worked as hard as I have will benefit. My strong sense of individual entitlement demands that I have a RIGHT to the fruit of my labor. Then, my racism rears its ugly head, and pretty soon you'll hear me spouting vitriol mixed with nationalism that sounds every bit as strident as the segregationist rhetoric of George Wallace, or worse . . . (Ok, I wouldn't do that, but I know many who do!) This leads to an important question that very few people in my country wish to discuss. I've asked my sister, who is a stock broker, about an alternative economic system that can replace the broken one we have. She and most conservatives insist that there isn't one. The ONLY options available to us are either unfettered capitalism, or socialism / communism. Once you begin to propose public transportation and densified housing as a means of reducing carbon emissions, immediately you will run up against a strong aversion to being told what to do and how to live. We Americans like our freedom, and we don't want anyone to tell us how we ought to live. (Strangely, the folks that recoil in horror at the thought of being forced onto a trolley car with other people are often the same ones who have no compunction about imposing their morality on everyone else, but that's a different discussion . . .) As Naomi Klein explains, only governments are large enough and powerful enough to compel compliance with the changes that are necessary to combat global climate change. She is correct to point out that progressives avoid discussing the reality that market solutions will not suffice, because the moment a legislative solution is proposed, everyone understands that the extremist conservatives simply stop talking and start obstructing. It's easier to deny climate change when doing so nicely plays into a host of other a-priori assumptions about reality that include--but are not limited to--fears of big government, hand-wringing over the New World Order and the appearance of the antichrist, jingoism, racism, American exceptionalism, economic anxiety and the widespread belief that anyone can make it in America. While much of this is mythical and the real villains stoke these fears from the sidelines, I believe that my countrymen are being cleverly manipulated by an overwhelming flood of propaganda funded by interests who would like to see the status quo maintained. The widespread and erroneous belief that personal liberty and the health of the environment are mutually incompatableis a phenomenon advantageous to the corporations. But it isn't a false belief. My father-in-law was discussing this with me a few weeks ago. He said, Thirty years ago, we didn't worry about asbestos. Now, businesses and people have to PAY to get that stuff removed. Those are costs we didn't have back then. I explained that this isn't true. I tried to outline how the costs were borne by individuals and the larger society, and that the problem of socializing costs is the issue that's being addressed by environmental legislation, but that makes no sense to him. All he sees is an additional and unnecessary burden for business, which stifles growth, reduces profit and nets no gain for working people. He's not alone in this. It's a widespread perception. Don't get me started on the Enbridge and XL pipelines . . . The jobs vs. environment arguments are alive and well in those situations. Firstly it tends to
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
greetings Dawie Coetzee From: robert and benita rabello [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Monday, 12 December 2011, 20:28 Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein On 12/11/2011 10:23 PM, Dawie Coetzee wrote: Actually the ideological error of the American right is small and rather fine. It is centred upon a confusion of personal and corporate rights; and again it plays into corporate hands - from two sides. I'm not confident that's true. Naomi Klein's thesis focuses on the fact that The American Way of Life is fundamentally threatened by the necessary steps required to address climate change. We will have to give up our right to drive around as single occupants of two ton machines. We will have to change the way we do business, which means an end to consumerism, industrialized farming and many other aspects of American Life that we've discussed in this forum before. We will have to learn to make do with a LOT less than we have now. We won't be able to leave our lights on, crank the AC when it's hot, or turn up the heat when it's cold. We'll have to give up our freeways, our billion dollar football stadiums, our flat-screen televisions in every bedroom and the abundance of stuff (which we really don't need) in our stores. If we give up those things, what's going to happen to our cozy little lives? We're going to get dragged down so the rest of the world can rise up, right? In that case, the issues at stake are not about corporate rights at all. They're not about science. They're not about what's moral, either. They're about me having to give up what I have, so that people who haven't worked as hard as I have will benefit. My strong sense of individual entitlement demands that I have a RIGHT to the fruit of my labor. Then, my racism rears its ugly head, and pretty soon you'll hear me spouting vitriol mixed with nationalism that sounds every bit as strident as the segregationist rhetoric of George Wallace, or worse . . . (Ok, I wouldn't do that, but I know many who do!) This leads to an important question that very few people in my country wish to discuss. I've asked my sister, who is a stock broker, about an alternative economic system that can replace the broken one we have. She and most conservatives insist that there isn't one. The ONLY options available to us are either unfettered capitalism, or socialism / communism. Once you begin to propose public transportation and densified housing as a means of reducing carbon emissions, immediately you will run up against a strong aversion to being told what to do and how to live. We Americans like our freedom, and we don't want anyone to tell us how we ought to live. (Strangely, the folks that recoil in horror at the thought of being forced onto a trolley car with other people are often the same ones who have no compunction about imposing their morality on everyone else, but that's a different discussion . . .) As Naomi Klein explains, only governments are large enough and powerful enough to compel compliance with the changes that are necessary to combat global climate change. She is correct to point out that progressives avoid discussing the reality that market solutions will not suffice, because the moment a legislative solution is proposed, everyone understands that the extremist conservatives simply stop talking and start obstructing. It's easier to deny climate change when doing so nicely plays into a host of other a-priori assumptions about reality that include--but are not limited to--fears of big government, hand-wringing over the New World Order and the appearance of the antichrist, jingoism, racism, American exceptionalism, economic anxiety and the widespread belief that anyone can make it in America. While much of this is mythical and the real villains stoke these fears from the sidelines, I believe that my countrymen are being cleverly manipulated by an overwhelming flood of propaganda funded by interests who would like to see the status quo maintained. The widespread and erroneous belief that personal liberty and the health of the environment are mutually incompatableis a phenomenon advantageous to the corporations. But it isn't a false belief. My father-in-law was discussing this with me a few weeks ago. He said, Thirty years ago, we didn't worry about asbestos. Now, businesses and people have to PAY to get that stuff removed. Those are costs we didn't have back then. I explained that this isn't true. I tried to outline how the costs were borne by individuals and the larger society, and that the problem of socializing costs is the issue that's being addressed by environmental legislation, but that makes no sense to him. All he sees is an additional and unnecessary burden for business, which stifles growth, reduces
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
On 12/11/2011 10:01 AM, Keith Addison wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. big snip Wow! That was bang-on! Those of us who have been on this list a long time have discussed this issue before. Without a fundamental restructuring of our economic model--away from large, centralized, subsidized industrialization--to small, localized economic independence, it will be impossible to deal with the issues that have caused so much social inequity and environmental destruction. But as long as the free markets are the only solution subtext goes unchallenged, as long as the unbridled avarice of our current model is promoted as the ONLY good, the ONLY ideal, the ONLY way forward, our individual efforts to live in closer harmony with the environment will make little headway. What I find particularly annoying about this whole discussion is that sentiments like the one I've expressed above are ridiculed as hand-wringing by the uber-right, while solutions imposed by a legal framework on the larger society are ridiculed for promoting more government. So then, what does the right propose? Business as usual, of course! It's like the man whose doctor tells him that he's suffering from lead poisoning, only to hear from the physician that the recommended treatment is consuming more lead . . . Robert Luis Rabello Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Meet the People video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txsCdh1hZ6c Crisis video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZedNEXhTn4 The Long Journey video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy4muxaksgk ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
Hi Robert Glad you liked it, me too. And sympathies. Bill Blum said this - actually he was talking about US foreign policy, but it fits, sort of: ... My advice is to forget such people. They would support the outrages even if the government came to their homes, seized their first born, and hauled them away screaming, as long as the government assured them it was essential to fighting terrorism (or communism). My (very) rough guess is that they constitute no more than 15 percent of the population. I suggest that we concentrate on the rest, who are reachable. [more] http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer31.htm The Anti-Empire Report Some things you need to know before the world ends March 22, 2006 by William Blum Not always so easy though. ... reachable, that is, through the relentless drench of spin everyone's constantly bombarded with, silent noise. Which is probably also a large factor in the views of the uber-right: their opinions aren't even their own, they're just implants from the opinion manufacturing industry. Actually it's worse than that. I said this a couple of years ago: ... what gets implanted is entire belief systems. It has little to do with facts or truth or rationality, it's emotional, it works by making people want to believe stuff (then they argue against the facts all by themselves). Three brands: political, corporate, and military, often all at once. But its grip isn't as deep and total as they like to think it is, or how would you explain Occupy Wall Street, for instance. Even the uber-right are capable of waking up, IMHO. They're probably good people at heart, most people are. But again it's not easy. I've run into climate change deniers here a couple of times, and there wasn't much I could do about it, short of a futile argument. Bill Blum's right. I wonder what they'd say about the Arctic shipping routes story I just posted. Magic it away I guess, poof - gone. All best Keith On 12/11/2011 10:01 AM, Keith Addison wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. big snip Wow! That was bang-on! Those of us who have been on this list a long time have discussed this issue before. Without a fundamental restructuring of our economic model--away from large, centralized, subsidized industrialization--to small, localized economic independence, it will be impossible to deal with the issues that have caused so much social inequity and environmental destruction. But as long as the free markets are the only solution subtext goes unchallenged, as long as the unbridled avarice of our current model is promoted as the ONLY good, the ONLY ideal, the ONLY way forward, our individual efforts to live in closer harmony with the environment will make little headway. What I find particularly annoying about this whole discussion is that sentiments like the one I've expressed above are ridiculed as hand-wringing by the uber-right, while solutions imposed by a legal framework on the larger society are ridiculed for promoting more government. So then, what does the right propose? Business as usual, of course! It's like the man whose doctor tells him that he's suffering from lead poisoning, only to hear from the physician that the recommended treatment is consuming more lead . . . Robert Luis Rabello Adventure for Your Mind http://www.newadventure.ca Meet the People video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txsCdh1hZ6c Crisis video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZedNEXhTn4 The Long Journey video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy4muxaksgk ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein
Actually the ideological error of the American right is small and rather fine. It is centred upon a confusion of personal and corporate rights; and again it plays into corporate hands - from two sides. The widespread and erroneous belief that personal liberty and the health of the environment are mutually incompatableis a phenomenon advantageous to the corporations. Firstly it tends to promote the sort of regulatory response that the corporations like, i.e. the sort that outlaws potential and actual competition to themselves. Secondly, by confusing personal and corporate rights the interests of the latter are made to resonate with the Jeffersonian tradition which, but for this imposed confusion, represents to my mind a salutary stance. The support thereby generated for the corporate cause is for the most part neither here nor there. Much more important is the clumsy and artificial polarity induced between the Jeffersonian impulse and the popular left: for an alliance there would be disastrous to corporate interests. Such an alliance, rejecting corporate personhood, would ensure that regulatory responses are structured to preserve personal liberties; and that would leave the corporations wide open. They would be irrelevant in no time. Regards Dawie Coetzee From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Monday, 12 December 2011, 2:14 Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Capitalism vs. the Climate - Naomi Klein Hi Robert Glad you liked it, me too. And sympathies. Bill Blum said this - actually he was talking about US foreign policy, but it fits, sort of: ... My advice is to forget such people. They would support the outrages even if the government came to their homes, seized their first born, and hauled them away screaming, as long as the government assured them it was essential to fighting terrorism (or communism). My (very) rough guess is that they constitute no more than 15 percent of the population. I suggest that we concentrate on the rest, who are reachable. [more] http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer31.htm The Anti-Empire Report Some things you need to know before the world ends March 22, 2006 by William Blum Not always so easy though. ... reachable, that is, through the relentless drench of spin everyone's constantly bombarded with, silent noise. Which is probably also a large factor in the views of the uber-right: their opinions aren't even their own, they're just implants from the opinion manufacturing industry. Actually it's worse than that. I said this a couple of years ago: ... what gets implanted is entire belief systems. It has little to do with facts or truth or rationality, it's emotional, it works by making people want to believe stuff (then they argue against the facts all by themselves). Three brands: political, corporate, and military, often all at once. But its grip isn't as deep and total as they like to think it is, or how would you explain Occupy Wall Street, for instance. Even the uber-right are capable of waking up, IMHO. They're probably good people at heart, most people are. But again it's not easy. I've run into climate change deniers here a couple of times, and there wasn't much I could do about it, short of a futile argument. Bill Blum's right. I wonder what they'd say about the Arctic shipping routes story I just posted. Magic it away I guess, poof - gone. All best Keith On 12/11/2011 10:01 AM, Keith Addison wrote: Heartland Institute - SourceWatch http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute -- http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate Capitalism vs. the Climate Naomi Klein November 9, 2011 There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. big snip Wow! That was bang-on! Those of us who have been on this list a long time have discussed this issue before. Without a fundamental restructuring of our economic model--away from large, centralized, subsidized industrialization--to small, localized economic independence, it will be impossible to deal with the issues that have caused so much social inequity and environmental destruction. But as long as the free markets are the only solution subtext goes unchallenged, as long as the unbridled avarice of our current model is promoted as the ONLY good, the ONLY ideal, the ONLY way forward, our individual efforts to live in closer harmony with the environment will make little headway. What I find particularly annoying about this whole discussion is that sentiments like the one I've expressed above are ridiculed as hand-wringing by the uber-right, while solutions imposed by a legal framework on the larger society are ridiculed for promoting more government. So then, what does the right propose? Business as usual, of course! It's like the man whose doctor tells him that he's suffering from lead poisoning, only to hear from
