REVIEW: Sparking A Worldwide Energy Revolution

My review of Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution appears in the current issue of Red Pepper magazine.

Can ‘green capitalism’ really save the planet? Leaders of the G20 countries certainly think so. They insist that through the market in renewable energy, new technological solutions and regulatory reform, it is possible to achieve both major reduction in CO₂ emissions and save the global economy.

Unfortunately, as Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution sets out to explain, there are one or two problems with this rosy picture of capitalism solving climate change on its own terms. To begin with, regulation has been an almost completely failure, as we saw with the collapse of the talks last year in Copenhagen and more recently in Bonn. It has failed not least because the bigger problem is the most obvious one: a system of production based on endless growth and expansion is completely incompatible with a long term reduction in energy consumption.

Technological fixes such as carbon capture or agrofuels, which essentially seek to maintain consumer demand and continued fossil fuel dependency, are an appealing way for rich nations to avoid making hard choices about their unsustainable consumption. Meanwhile, the growing energy crisis is resulting in huge profits for oil companies.

The result has been rising prices for basic necessities, the kind of environmental disasters we see in Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico and a greater number of economic refugees, who are either exploited as cheap labour or excluded entirely from the world’s centres of wealth. From this perspective, the battle to shape the transition to post-petrol world is just as much about class as any of the struggles that have preceded it.

Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution is not, as it confesses, a “book of soundbites”, not least because there are no easy answers. At more than 650 pages spread over 59 chapters, it is also a book that is almost impossible to read from cover to cover. Its real strength is as a comprehensive reference guide to the huge range of interconnected issues facing climate activists and to the struggles for the control of energy taking place around the world.

Its mix of essays by frontline organisations, academics and campaigners means that anyone looking for arguments about whether a ‘green new deal’ is really possible, or how a just transition for energy-sector workers might be achieved, or what the impact of privatised ownership of new technologies has been on indigenous communities, will find concise and thoughtful contributions.

Together, they help explain why long-term solutions are indeed possible, but ‘green capitalism’ certainly isn’t one of them. An essential book for the committed climate campaigner, then, but probably too dense and too overwhelming for anyone new to the subject.

Sparking A Worldwide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Post-Petrol World - Kolya Abramsky [editor] was published in July by AK Press

A ¾ Year Review Of 2010

It's now nine months into the year and I thought I'd share some details about you - the readership of this blog. In the first three quarters of 2010, there have been 38,052 unique visitors here, with 4,595 returning more than once (see above).

This does seem to back up the point I suggested in July, that most randomly drop by "for the same reasons that I read the sites listed in the 'Blogs of Note' column on the right of this page - because they are occasionally curious about an individual post". That turned out to be particularly true of one angry rant about the sainted Stephen Fry that was surprisingly popular. The smaller number of regulars, meanwhile, would seem to be either friends and comrades, those interested in discussions about policing in Britain or people who enjoy speculating about events in the borough of Newham (the most popular search query was "Wanstead Flats").

Blogging was a little slow at the start of the year and wasn't helped by the fact that throughout March, I was recovering from a very nasty traffic accident and had more important things on my mind. It picked up again with the mid-year decision of the CPS to do nothing for the family of Ian Tomlinson. But whatever the reason for visiting, thanks to everyone who has given feedback, although that often seems to happen over a coffee or a beer. Do feel free to comment on-line too.

Resisting Cameron's Big Lie

The New Left Project is running a series of essays on fighting back against government cuts, which started on Tuesday with The Axeman's Jazz, a extended discussion written by Richard Seymour, who edits the Lenin's Tomb blog and is a member of the Socialist Workers' Party. Seymour will eventually be given the chance to reply to other contributors and I have been asked to participate, largely because of a short article I contributed to NLP back in May.

The first response to Richard Seymour's essay came from Sunny Hundall of the website Liberal Conspiracy who, as a centre left Lib-Dem voter turned Labour supporter, essentially argues for an anti-cuts version of Tony Blair's infamous Big Tent - one that seems to share the same desire to sideline trade unions and the working class in order to placate the fickle sympathies of the corporate media. It is not a view shared in the contribution from Tom Denning of The Commune, who is deeply sceptical about a 'united front' with Labour MPs anywhere near its forefront. Denning argues instead for as movement built from below and focused on action through local anti-cuts committees. Meanwhile Andrew Fisher of the LRC makes the case that within any broad-based anti-cuts movement, it is vital that the left argues for "a socialist solution that transcends capitalism, rather than humanises it or regulates it, that seeks to defeat the Con-Dem coalition not do a deal with it". These are both arguments I broadly agree with.

My own thoughts appear today - the series will continue with others including Derek Wall from the Green Party.

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Resisting Cameron's Big Lie

Had he lived long enough to witness it, I’m sure neo-liberalism’s godfather Milton Friedman would have been proud of Cameron and Clegg’s coalition government, which, along with its rightwing media allies, has proven that in order to sell a lie, you just need to make it big enough and repeat it often enough.

It seems remarkable that only two years have passed since the public raged against the profligacy of the bankers and struggled to comprehend the staggering sums of money so hastily handed over to bail out the banks’ recklessness and greed. Back then, with the part-nationalisation of well-known high street banking names and the demands for a crackdown on the lawlessness of the Square Mile, it seemed almost possible to believe that neo-liberalism’s most precious tenets – its opposition to government intervention, its insistence on the virtue of deregulation and the dynamism of the private sector – could never recover credibility. But now look where we are: on the verge of the most ferocious programme of public sector cuts in living memory, cuts blamed almost entirely on the previous government’s ‘wasteful’ intervention and interference, a programme that threatens to transform and reengineer our society whilst we are still reeling from the shock.

In his article, The Axeman’s Jazz, Richard Seymour has set out at length – at some considerable length – many fundamental truths about the mess we are in. I can’t fault his analysis that a combination of stimulus spending, rising unemployment in a shrinking private sector hit hard by the recession and huge subsidies to the financial sector are the real reasons for the rise in levels of public debt, rather than allegedly extravagant government indulgences to the public sector and its employees. I agree, too, that pretending otherwise is a fairy story driven far more by ideology than by evidence.

Richard is also correct in assessing the difficulties that Labour faces. Having itself become a party that embraced free market liberalism, attacks on public sector workers and on welfare recipients, complete with a commitment at May’s election for its own massive cuts programme, the party does indeed now find that it has “few resources with which to criticise the Con-Lib cuts project” – a problem that will persist no matter who wins its protracted leadership battle.

Where Richard’s article is less convincing, however, is in its advice about how the coalition’s Big Lie can best be resisted.

Continues here

Struggling On - Red Pepper at 15

Fifteen years ago, when the magazine Red Pepper was launched, Britain had a Prime Minister perceived as weak and ineffectual facing constant questions about his leadership, MPs mired in allegations of sleaze and a revitalised opposition that had a new leader and was well ahead in the opinion polls. After years of dominance by one political party, it felt like the end of an era, one that would eventually be interred as soon as the government ran out of time and finally had to call an election.

But any similarities between the Major and Brown governments ends here. The big difference, of course, was that in 1994, the economy was gradually recovering from the recession of 1990 to 1992 and the Labour opposition could pledge to increase public spending on health and education. Now, in the midst of a new recession that seems likely to be far longer and deeper than before, all the Westminster parties are talking only about one thing – cuts in public spending.

If, as expected, the Tories win an election predicted for April 2010, the extent of these cuts may make the current situation seem like little more than the prelude to a new and far more frightening crisis. We face the possibility of both a period of mass unemployment and a government with few ideas about how to generate renewed prosperity and end the recession – other than allowing discredited bankers and investment companies to repeat the mistakes that led us here in the first place.

It’s a gloomy prospect, made more so by the left’s inability at the moment to make alternative ideas and voices heard amidst the clamour for cuts in spending. But as yesterday’s small but fascinating Red Pepper discussion meeting at Conway Hall highlighted, the uncertainty of the main political parties about squaring economic recovery with a growing movement demanding action on climate change, coupled with a real prospect of trade unions in the public sector actively resisting cutbacks, offers an opportunity not simply to react to events but to influence them.

But what kind of influence so are we striving for? One of the problems for much of the radical left has been to massively over-estimate the degree of influence it can hope to have in relation to its modest size. It’s therefore refreshing that Red Pepper, one of the few genuinely non-sectarian and open-minded but inevitably cash-strapped publications of the left, seems completely aware of its limitations. From the discussion I took part in on Saturday, this means providing a platform for campaigns that are invariably local (and are likely to increasingly focus on struggles in local government) and are therefore ignored by the rest of the media. It also means offering ideas and analysis that the corporate press never even considers putting forward.

One example - there has been considerable coverage in liberal papers like the Guardian about the Vestas dispute on the Isle of Wight and what this says about the commitment to ‘green jobs’. But what debate has there been about how these jobs could have been saved? What could be learned by looking again to experience from the past, like the alternative plan devised by shop stewards at Lucas Aerospace in the 1970s (covered in the next issue of Red Pepper)? This is where a hub for radical ideas can potentially become influential and essential reading.

If I have one real concern, it is that if the Tories win, the past has also shown a willingness on the left to take the least creative option of focusing all its energies on influencing and ‘fixing’ the Labour Party – to so very little effect. I’m old enough to remember all that wasted effort in the 1980s, which gave us what? Tony Blair and New Labour. This impulse certainly exists within Red Pepper, especially because of its occasional flirtations with the Labour pressure group 'Compass' and the magazine’s open endorsement of ‘left’ politicians like the police-appeasing populist Ken Livingstone.

I hope this is held in check, because a substantial number of non-aligned activists and campaigners not longer see Labour as a realistic part of the solutions we are striving for. For some, the Greens offer better prospects for change, whilst others are seeking far more radical alternatives or are focusing on campaigning to force local and central government of any party to listen and respond to public pressure.

Dismissing this as a ‘left counter-culture’ that isn’t 'influential' or speaking to a wider audience, a popular refrain from many Labour left-wingers, simply won’t wash any more. Failing to debate and develop vibrant alternatives to the accepted political orthodoxies is one reason why new ideas have often emerged from elsewhere, from outside the mainstream - and why the traditional left has failed to have any influence on events with such depressing regularity in the past.

AND LATER YESTERDAY EVENING

Loop Ellington entertain at the party in Manor House to celebrate the fortieth birthdays of my friends Debbie and Supriya. It's a shame I had to leave early to cycle home, but at least I just missed last night's almighty downpour.

War as Parable – An Experiment in Storytelling

“Your people are dying”, said the storyteller, “because their leaders are forgetful. Soldiers from the Kingdom of the Archipelago have passed through from time to time for more than a century and a half, and yet your rulers can’t even recall events from twenty years ago.”

“But sometimes I am forgetful too, for there is much history to tell, so many soldiers from so many nations. So gather closer to the fire and I will tell you a little more of the Ashvakas. Perhaps then you will understand.”

“A story begins with its people”, said the storyteller. “The Ashvakas live in the land of the White Mountains and as cavalrymen and breeders of horses, there were few to equal them throughout the region.”

“For many decades after your armies had returned home, the emperor of the Ashvakas ruled a country that stayed out of the wars fought by the other kingdoms. Gradually, inch by inch, he also allowed the people freedoms that had been denied by his forefathers, although never that many: his family continued to hold on tightly to the levers of power.“

“Then, after forty years, one of the princes of the royal family, the emperor’s brother-in-law and cousin, decided to take control, when the sovereign was away from the White Mountains, by proclaiming himself President. For four years he ruled, until he too was overthrown, this time by the rebels who had supported him but had been thrown into jail for their efforts. As is often the way with such insurrections, the President and his family were executed.”

“The rebels looked north for support to the Kingdom of the Bear, who shared their hatred of the most popular religion of the Ashvaka. Indeed, not just their religion: it was a rigid, unyielding hatred of all religion, or any opposition to its own faith. The new government in the land of the White Mountains ruled using many of the ideas and methods of their northern allies, which angered the more fervent of the faithful, especially the tribal leaders who lived in the countryside.”

“So there was further rebellion, met with ever-greater subjugation, which led in turn to the desertion of much the government’s own army. In desperation, the leaders invited the Kingdom of the Bear to help them. And so its armies invaded.”

“But far away, across countries and deserts and seas, the powerful Kingdom of the Eagle began to send arms to those who fought against the Kingdom of the Bear, which was its greatest enemy. The influence of the Kingdom of the Eagle was vast and even though the land of the White Mountains was many thousands of leagues away, it sought victory – and perhaps, too, a little vengeance for past defeats.“

“The armies of the Bear fought hard, nevertheless, but their greater strength was no match for those amongst the Ashvakas who fervour was strong and who knew the White Mountains so well. After six long years, the leader of the Kingdom of the Bear grew impatient and demanded an end to the fighting within one more year, but it was not to be. Many fighters from other lands had joined the new rebellion, with help from the Kingdom of the Eagle and those who paid tribute to its power. And after two painful years, nearly a decade after its arrival, the Bear’s armies were gone. Indeed, before too long, the Kingdom had vanished too.”

“Unhappily for the Ashvakas, however, what followed was not victory, but a period of darkness."

"The Kingdom of the Eagle seemed to lose interest in the land of the White Mountains once its enemy had been defeated and soon there was a new war, this time between victors who were riven by dissent. Already so many had died, but when the government that had defeated the old emperor’s brother-in-law finally fell, the Ashvakas’ capital, a beautiful city, came under terrible fire, with one warlord pitched against another, each one fired by righteousness, each one shifting their alliances and each one pillaging the city, slaughtering families and raping women, forcing the covering of women’s faces and the burning of schools.”

“Thousands fled, nine-tenths of the great city was destroyed and all unity was forgotten. But now a new alliance was emerging – one from the kingdom to the south. Seven murderous years after the Kingdom of the Bear was a distant memory, the violence, destruction, and chaos that had followed gave rise of the puritanical Scholars, who took power in the ruined capital and forced the warlords to flee to the White Mountains to the north and east.”

“Although schooled across the southern border, these new rulers were welcomed at first by many who were tired of so much suffering. But their new laws were medieval and severe in their hatred of pleasure, of women, and of the sacred places of those who did not share its own beliefs. For five years the land of cavalrymen and breeders of horses closed itself to the outside world, its rulers forcing the covering of women’s faces and the burning of schools, giving refuge only to veterans of the war against the Kingdom of the Bear, those who sought their continuing sanctuary and fought at their side. Only rarely did the Scholars venture out to trade with the more powerful kingdoms of the world.”

“And still those who were tired of so much suffering found no respite, for the fighting continued, both within the country of the Ashvakas, with its neighbours and beyond."

"The Kingdom of the Eagle was amongst whose anger was aroused – and once again it showed its infinite reach. But this distant nation soon discovered that it was not alone in the extent of its purview, which brought forth the full measure of its fury for the terrible deeds inflicted upon it and blamed on the Ashvakas’ foreign guests. In desperation, an offer was made to hand over those held responsible, but it was to no avail.”

“And so, although not one of their countrymen had attacked the Kingdom of the Eagle, the Ashvakas faced further misery, another war that drove the Scholars away into the White Mountains and drew the warlords back into the benighted capital.”

“The armies of the Eagle fought hard, just as others had done before them, but their greater strength could still not bring a quick victory against those knew the White Mountains so well. Distracted elsewhere, they allowed their adversaries to rebuild their army. And so more armies joined them, including your soldiers from the Archipelago, once more to a country where so many had fallen so many years before.”

“And as time has passed, it is sad to think for whom and for what they are dying. For new laws that are medieval and severe. For the old warlords who have grown fat on their corruption and those hands were stained with the blood of their countrymen.”

“But equally saddening, it is the Ashvakas who are dying in greater numbers, killed by one side or another.”

“A whole generation of Ashvakas have known nothing but war and destruction. They have seen rebels and warlords and scholars and kingdoms, seen them come and go and sometime return again. And yet those who know the White Mountains so well are capable of waging war without end, it seems, made possible by the intrusion and support of powerful forces from beyond their borders.“

“A story ends with its people”, said the storyteller. “A people who have suffered enough from the meddling of outsiders.”

“And yet you ask why the Ashvakas want you to leave, want all those who have blighted their lives to leave and want an end to the relentless interference. You ask why they fail to show more gratitude when you continue to fight in their name and to die so unnecessarily down in the plains?”

"But I ask you. Would you not feel the same if you had suffered as much?