Thoughts for the brain...

I am, I hope, about to have something of mine (a rewrite of the recent Another Green World post) put up on the IS Network blog. The point of the piece will be there is something to be said for socialists incorporating environmentalist politics in a non-utopian way.

Part of the difficulty of green politics is who is expected to put on the agenda, let alone into action. The piece ends with a set of suggestions, possible demands that can link improving quality of life to curbing greenhouse gas emissions to tangible action in the here and now.

The other problem with green politics is the scale of climate change. There is no plausible environmentalism-in-one-country. We’ve commented before on the potential risks and rewards geo-engineering, particularly the scheme for carbon dioxide removal via iron fertilisation of the oceans.

Another solution proposed is solar radiation management, the most realistic idea being spraying the atmosphere with particulates that reflect sunlight. It’s a very costly outlay but it’s familiar from nature. Very large volcanic eruptions have cooled the global climate many times. But the knock on effects can be drastic. Two African droughts in the twentieth century have been linked to eruptions in the northern hemisphere. 

Geo-engineering is no substitute for reducing greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere, but, given the late hour we will need some measures to ameliorate climate change. An environmental movement linked to the workers movement can bridge the gap between the huge ends and currently inadequate means. 

Another green world...

Using the non-pejorative sense, a utopian idea is an end without a means. One of the benefits of utopian, or perhaps thinking beyond immediate goals, is it can inform and refresh political activity. One of the sites I occasionally browse is the Long Now Foundation. As you can see it is quite corporate, and it’s very obvious the location within current social structure makes it utopian. Yet it's projects, from wildlife recording to language preservation to the general emphasis on planning and legacy are exactly the kind of things a communal society would be doing in earnest.

Here is a blog post about flood control, not the sexiest subject perhaps but given the fact of global climate change and how much of human settlement is based in low-lying areas it’s an important topic. The great investment the Dutch government made in flood control paid itself in a few decades. In order to allow residents to continue living in parts of the country the proposal is to convert farmland into flood land, another long-term project. The lives and livelihoods of affected farmers must be taken into consideration (I don’t know if they have been) but, apparently the cost-benefit ratio is worth it in terms of housing stock but I would guess also biodiversity.

I don’t like the term eco-socialism. It seems to me to be apologetic. The Green movement, judged on its own terms is not such a fantastic success, no more than any other movement. Socialists should incorporate environmental concerns without incorporating utopianism. The biggest difficulty for Green politics is agency. There are a number of ways in which environmental reform can be realised. Green politics can pull in several directions. Lest we forget, there is such a thing as eco-fascism though it’s usually an attack-term – Karl Max Schwarz anyone?).

Linking environmental concerns to working class agency of course starts with issues around the quality and cost of living, the first will be driven down and the second up as the legacy of climate change accumulates. Flood defence is one issue. Electricity generation is another. Why, in a country like Britain, with long hours of sunlight, consistent wind (Britainhas 40% of Europe’s wind energy but only generates 10% of wind-powered electricity) and three tidal rivers, do we not have cheap, clean and plentiful energy? Environmental concerns permeate issues such as transport, housing and food. It is still difficult to found a meaningful environmentalist practice though. Global climate change is an even bigger challenge than capitalist austerity. But solutions will need to come.

Ecology etc...

A fascinating article in today’s Grauniad, where a variant strategy of Iron Fertilisation as a coping/mitigating tactic in the fight against climate change is under discussion. This particular idea is also simple, by adding silicate dust to the ocean you encourage photosynthetic plankton to bloom, drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere/ocean system and locking it under the ocean floor, as the plants eventually die.

The silicate dust idea has advantages over iron fertilisation. Firstly there’s a lot more silica around than iron. If you’re outdoors you’re standing on some of it already, basic rock and earth. Silicate fertilisation of the ocean already goes on. It’s what rivers do when they reach the sea. There is also the added bonus that silicates are alkaline. Water acidification is one of the by-products of climate change.

There are a number of hurdles that this idea must surmount, legal and financial. There’s also the issue of how the silicate dust is made and transported, currently this would be largely by fossil fuel energy. It is also not a substitute for turning to renewable energy. Finally there is the issue over the knock on effects of altering the biology of the ocean such.

It reminds me of the revolutionary-frontier potential of Environmental Science. It’s a relatively young area of study that attempts to combine discrete sciences, biology, geochemistry, atmospheric science and so on. It was developed in the 60s and 70s and had reached the A Level syllabus by the time I was going through FE. The leading edge in other sciences, physics, genetics and so on, is small, even vanishingly small. Environmental science is different in that it deals with the tangible.

A complete understanding of the totality of natural relations, the aim of environmental science, would be as revolutionary as a as a complete understanding of social relations (in my opinion best described in Marx’s Capital). By revolutionary understanding I mean applied knowledge, knowledge in action, humanity transcending the limits imposed on it and achieving a higher level of existence.