Visions of Spring

As the UN Climate Talks  wound down with little progress made to address the most unique of crises in this time of global crises, Bolivian President Evo Morales wondered aloud that “if the leaders of countries cannot arrive in an agreement, why don’t the peoples then decide together?”

Uncomplicated and to the point, President Morales effortlessly put his fingers on the main tension that plagued the COP 15 talks last month. Mr. Morales directly spoke to the conflict between the delegates in Copenhagen whose approaches to climate change tended to be gradual in nature, and those whose strategies in tackling climate change addressed the urgent nature of climate change.

One could assume that when Mr. Morales speaks about “the peoples” coming together, he is referring to that latter group, people like Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed. Long considered to be one of the international community’s most outspoken leaders in speaking about the devastating impacts of climate change, Mr. Nasheed’s message at Copenhagen was clear. If drastic steps are not taken to reduce carbon emissions in the near future, the Maldives population faces great danger. With 80% of its geographic territory resting three feet or less above sea level, the Maldives people will likely be part of an estimated 200 million environmental migrants by the year 2050.

A member of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), the Maldives and the 41 other members of AOSIS delivered a clear, concise message in Copenhagen. They argued that while their environmental impact has been minimal, small states face disproportionate challenges in the face of increased carbon dioxide emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere by the world’s leading polluters.

“The peoples” also likely referred to vocal critics of the way that the talks were organized, such as Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping. Chairman of the Group of 77, a group of the world’s developing – and poorest – countries, Mr. Di-Aping responded furiously to a leaked draft of a text crafted by a group of individuals representing the US, UK, and Denmark and other developed – and wealthiest – countries known as “the Danish text.” Mr. Di-Aping, Sudanese by birth, reportedly reacted to a proposal that would grant $10 billion to Africa as part of the text by declaring that $10 billion “is not enough to buy us coffins.” He characterized the proposal as asking the G77 to “sign a suicide pact.”

Also seated at Mr. Morales’ hypothetical negotiating table would likely be young people. Arriving in Copenhagen with large numbers, youth delegations stepped to the forefront of the debate both inside and outside of the talks. Permitted entry into the Bella Center – where the talks themselves were held – young people made themselves extremely visible during the two week long event. Ascending on Copenhagen from every corner of the world, the young people in attendance had a simple, yet powerful message to their elders: their futures, and the future of unborn millions, were truly at stake in the negotiations.

The more than 1,000 young people attending the talks from over 100 countries gathered as part of an emerging international youth climate movement. Demanding an ambitious, binding, and equitable treaty following the conference, they injected the talks with a healthy amount of urgency.

Among the attendees at Mr. Morales’ alternative “peoples” conference would certainly include Morales’ longtime ally in the region, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Critical of the organizing of the conference, which saw developed nations meeting in closed door meetings at the expense of a more transparent approach to this worldwide problem, Mr. Chavez spoke eloquently to the COP 15 general assembly about the need to not only change the climate, but also about changing the system.

The system, Mr. Chavez argued, is one that precludes those most affected from the devastating effects of climate change from participating in the discussions to the degree that the world’s leading polluters control the conversation.

This gap in equitable participation is at the heart of climate justice, another theme from the talks more visible in civil society organizations rather than inside the conference itself. Climate justice is an approach to avoiding global climate catastrophe that pushes to strengthen the voices of affected people (indigenous people as well as people in developing nations in the global south living in areas that face an exponentially higher risk of displacement) in the dialogue surrounding climate change.

Unfortunately, the COP 15 talks ended with no binding treaty. Instead, the world is left with a vague accord that promises only the continuance of the same inadequate UN Convention on Climate Change. While more committed attempts to solve this most unique of global problems – one that truly requires an approach from the global community to identify itself as interconnected people rather than as competitors – were largely ignored, hope is not lost.

In the United States, a country that has arguably been the world’s leading stumbling block on the road to sustainable climate solutions, there has been slight progress. Last year, the House of Representative passed the first ever climate bill in American history. However, when it mattered most, the US again showed that it has much to learn from its less developed partners.

New alliances and voices from around the world were not only visible during the negotiations, but were audible as well. Delegates from historically underserved communities seized the opportunity to inform the world about the potentially devastating effects of climate change while collaborating together to magnify their intersecting struggle. Young people, people from Africa, South America, Asia and small island states were in many ways the focal point of the conference pushing solutions and proposals to literally save the human race from self-destruction. Indeed, this approach, moving towards international and equitable cooperation is no less than is needed at this point in our world’s history.

Author’s note: I originally wrote this June 21, 2008. Now that the Copenhagen Climate Talks have failed – with the “Copenhagen Accord” being a complete sham (no targets for emissions reductions, no enforcement, no monitoring, no legally binding procedures, etc… – all of which, if we didn’t take action ourselves from the grassroots to stop climate change, would be tantamount to genocide and mass murder – mostly working class people and people of the Global South) – I’m reposting this article. I think its more relevant now than ever before.Enjoy and comment!

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Early one morning, pulling the daily paper out of the mailbox, a small headline in the center front page caught my eye: “Utility finds foes to renewable energy line plan.”

The problem the article talked about was straightforward. We desperately need a green energy revolution – this goes without saying. San Diego Gas & Electric Co. wants to build a $1.5 billion solar power plant in the California desert which would provide clean power to half of the utility’s population, almost 750,000 people. Fair enough. So here is the problem: power plants need power lines, and SDG&E wants those power lines to cut through 23 miles of pristine desert parklands. Quite understandably, many people aren’t too fond of the idea.

It should not be surprising. Corporate destruction of communities and the environment is inevitable and endemic under capitalism. And for good reason – people have no democratic say in what companies do with their land and to communities and the environment. You would be hard pressed to find someone who does not want economic democracy. When asked, people always say they want a democratic say over the decisions which affect their lives. People want a democratic approach to our economic life, and when pressed, most people support either venues for public input or outright government regulation. Put aside democracy for a second, and consider how both methods involve an intentional and planned response to market chaos and tyranny. Government regulation prevents markets and corporations from completely destroying our society, while avenues of public input – which are usually very limited or a sham – prevent people from completely revolting against their economic masters by providing concessions to them. Both methods give a semblance of democratic checks on the naked tyranny of the so-called “free” market.

I advocate what I think is the only solution to this problem: the abolition of market capitalism as an economic system, and the establishment of a democratic and participatory economy with participatory planning to take its place. In short, I want to replace the system we call capitalism with real economic justice, freedom, and democracy. This is the topic I think we all need to start talking about.

Whatever one thinks about cutting through pristine parklands – especially considering the myriad of alternative locations and methods for construction – there is an irrefutable contradiction in our current economic system. Under capitalism, people neither have or ever will have a democratic say in the decisions which affect their lives. Development, economic growth, and the shaping of our economic future are all left up to people in corporate boardrooms with no connection to the lives of ordinary people. Every time there is a new technological development, no matter how it might improve our lives in the long run, ordinary people somewhere end up getting the short end of the stick. This usually revolves around one of the central tenets of capitalism, namely that someone else – virtually always the superrich and their mega-corporations – gets to define your economic future. Or more precisely, your economic hardship is the byproduct of the prosperity of the owning and coordinating classes. Markets have no mechanism to allow for democratic input – we could not have a democratic say in the economy even if we wanted to. In a market economy, the interests of the owners of society are always fundamentally opposed to the needs and aspirations of society’s poor and working people, which, in America, are disproportionally people of color.

What makes all this more tragic is that there are alternatives to the chaos of markets and class inequality. Democratic workplaces where all people have an equitable share of tasks (empowering, managerial, and more difficult work) can replace undemocratic workplaces where ordinary workers have no say in decisions and do only grunt work. Such workplaces could be collectively owned and organized to benefit our entire society. These democratic workplaces – along with community councils or governments – can network into local, regional, and national networks of councils – that is, our society can form economic institutions to democratically decide our economic future. Workplaces and worker-run industries could submit annual workplace plans for production. Community councils could submit annual plans of what they need and want society to produce. A process of negotiation – a sort-of economic conversation about what is needed and wanted for the year – would occur and, after a few rounds of back-and-forths between the councils, would lead to a plan for that economic year. The plan could be changed as needed throughout the year, but we would accomplish something truly remarkable: we would have a directly democratic way to decide what products we want to use that year, what we thus should produce, how to effectively and sustainably use resources and protect the natural environment, how to go about promoting growth, what technologies to invest in, how to protect human, civil, and labor rights, and how to have a more empowering and secure society and economy. It is not difficult to sketch out some of the possible democratic alternatives to society’s current chaotic institutions.

If green development is left up to big corporations, not only will they be resistant to it – coal and oil companies certainly will not give up without a fight – but it will be the rich, and not the rest of us, who will benefit from efforts to green our economy. As is evident by the San Diego power plant example, many corporations that do “go green” will do it out of a drive for power and profit, instead of ecological necessity and sanity. Even if that were not true, plans made in ivory-tower board rooms will never take into account the needs and ideas of our communities and families. Ordinary people will suffer from these failings. Areas of the natural environment will be destroyed, communities will be devastated, and much, much worse. Such devastation will happen without a clean energy revolution in a thousand other, and more destructive, ways. A clean and just energy revolution is needed more than ever, yes. But we can also have economic justice and democracy. And more, it is more than likely that we simply cannot solve the climate crisis without moving to economic democracy.

If economic democracy is a desirable aim, then it is necessary for environmental groups fighting for clean and just energy to put economic justice and democracy – namely democratic workplaces, social ownership of those workplaces, liberatory labor compensation norms, and democratic economic planning – on their agendas. A participatory economic future needs to be one of our central demands. We need to build such an economy from the bottom up. We need to fight for reforms which leave us stronger than we were before, lift up those who most need lifting, and move towards democratizing the economy. This is one of the most important tasks for our generation. It is our generational calling.