http://www.grist.org/article/can-the-climate-bills-death-help-build-a-living-climate-movement
http://tinyurl.com/climatepirates
Can the climate bill’s death help build a living climate movement?
The Rising can defeat the pirates of the new age By Gar W. Lipow on
Grist Sunday Aug 7 2010
David Roberts, probably as close to an official voice as Grist
magazine has, blames the climate bill failure on five obstacles: 1)
The broken Senate, especially the filibuster, 2) The economy, 3)
Republican obstructionism, 4) Centrist Democrats, 5) Obama. Brad
Plumer at the New Republic chimes in with what is pretty much a me
too.
Matt Yglesias is less specific, but argues: "In terms of what
political advocacy organizations can be reasonably expected to
achieve, the climate change groups have been extremely effective. But
a whole set of other problems related to the economy have dragged
their program down."
In short, the odds were against passing a climate bill. The failure
wasn't the corporate environmentalists fault. Of all the mainstream
environmentalists, Bill McKibben almost gets it, gets it halfway:
> For many years, the lobbying fight for climate legislation on Capitol Hill
> has been led by a collection of the most corporate and moderate environmental
> groups, outfits like the Environmental Defense Fund. We owe them a great
> debt, and not just for their hard work. We owe them a debt because they did
> everything the way you’re supposed to: they wore nice clothes, lobbied
> tirelessly, and compromised at every turn.
By the time they were done, they had a bill that only capped
carbon emissions from electric utilities (not factories or cars) and
was so laden with gifts for industry that if you listened closely you
could actually hear the oinking. They bent over backwards like Soviet
gymnasts. Senator John Kerry, the legislator they worked most closely
with, issued this rallying cry as the final negotiations began: "We
believe we have compromised significantly, and we're prepared to
compromise further.”
> And even that was not enough. They were left out to dry by everyone -- not
> just Reid, not just the Republicans. Even President Obama wouldn’t lend a
> hand, investing not a penny of his political capital in the fight.
> The result: total defeat, no moral victories.
McKibben deserves credit for finally noticing what was tried didn't
work. No really, he does. Some on his part of the political spectrum
think deal making and compromise is all there is to politics. The deal
making just has to be done better next time.
At the same time, it was really foolish to depend on deal making in
today's political climate. Blaming defeat on institutional barriers
and unreasonable opponents invites an answer from an early scene in
"Pirates of the Caribbean" where Will Turner complains that Pirate
Captain Jack Sparrow has cheated in a sword fight. And Jack Sparrow
calmly replies "Pirate". If you complain that Republicans, and right
wing Democrats, and big corporations care more about short term
profits than the fate of civilization, they could rightfully reply
"Conservative".
Cap-and-trade itself is an example of the failure of deal making with
conservatives on the climate issue. When the Clinton administration
took office in 1993 it offered a market based approach to fossil fuel
pollution, a BTU tax. A variant on a carbon tax, a BTU tax would have
taxed heat value rather than emissions. This would have lowered the
impact on coal compared to oil and natural gas, but would have raised
the price of all fossil fuel in the long run. Since the revenue would
have displaced corporate income taxes, it would have overwhelming
benefitted the rich. In short, it was a perfect conservative policy to
tackle fossil fuel pollution, and one that many conservatives had
loudly advocated for. But when actually offered the chance,
Republicans, and conservative Democrats, and corporate campaign donors
overwhelmingly opposed it, and used it as a campaign issue to defeat
Democrats.
This story has a second chapter. The international Kyoto protocol to
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was
negotiated in 1997. Originally it was expected that the new protocol
would simply strengthen and add teeth to existing convention, with
national targets for the rich nations, penalties for failing to meet
those national targets, and funding for voluntary action by poor
nations. There was some talk of a carbon tax to reinforce these other
features. But, on behalf of the Clinton administration, Al Gore
parachuted into the negotiations, and (with the help of the EDF and
other conservative environmental organizations) persuaded other
nations that there was no way the U.S. would sign on to any treaty
with national targets if there were penalties for non-compliance.
Instead he sold an elaborate trading scheme as a way to get the U.S.
on board What is more, the horrible Clean Development Mechanism
counterfeit offset provisions of the treaty were also included as a
way to get the U.S. on board, in spite of the fact that just prior to
this, the U.S. Senate had rejected any Kyoto style treaty 95 to 0!
Unsurprisingly the concessions Gore won did not result in U.S.
ratification.
The mainstream environmental movement begins to look rather like
Charlie Brown, eternally letting Lucy hold the football so he can kick
it, eternally surprised when Lucy pulls the football away, and he
tumbles down into the dirt and grass.
And it is not as though that was the last case where the football was
pulled away. McCain ultimately opposed the McCain-Lieberman bill. To
take a non-environmental example, Democrats weakened the stimulus bill
to attract the support of Republicans who ultimately voted against it.
So when Lindsey-Graham turned against the climate bill he helped
draft, it should have been no surprise.
The conservative movement has a long history of opposing anything that
would make life better in the USA. Conservatives opposed women getting
the right to vote after WWI. They opposed the creation of Social
Security, the minimum wage and all the other programs that help
mitigate the effects of the Great Depression. Conservatives opposed
anti-lynch laws, they opposed the civil rights laws that ended Jim
Crow. They opposed environmental protection. I think the position of
conservatives can best be understood through analogy to a 1981 John
Carpenter film.
Escape from New York was set in a future New York City (in distant
1988!) which had been turned into a giant maximum security prison.
Reactions to its cartoon violence, cynicism, B-movie sensibility and
badly concealed idealism vary from love to hate to mockery. But I
suspect that when the modern conservative movement sees the metropolis
where Snake Plissken's adventure is set, they see the world they
aspire to create. A world where you have nothing you don't buy or take
by violence? Check. A world ruled by roving violent gangs, like
Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq? Check. A world where women are
property? Check.
Conservatives lie routinely, and when they make deals their word is
garbage. That may not apply to ordinary people who take conservative
positions, but among conservative leadership, whether politicians,
political consultants, or pundits and media figures there are almost
no exceptions.
What did "mainstream" environmentalists think they would achieve
through negotiations with people whose goal, whether they know it or
not, is to create hell on earth? Heck on earth?
Read the rest (and see the links) at:
http://www.grist.org/article/can-the-climate-bills-death-help-build-a-living-climate-movement
http://tinyurl.com/climatepirates
--
Facebook: Gar Lipow Twitter: GarLipow
Grist Blog: http://www.grist.org/member/1598
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