“We were never modern”
“Why is it cold so early this year?” The short holiday had just ended, but winter had already arrived, and it was only October, so he hurriedly took out thick quilts and thick clothes from the closet. After days of high temperatures, climate change has once again made us feel physically.
Before the holiday, Dan Du shared the first half of a book list focusing on ecological issues. These books describe to us the situation of the ecological crisis, the threats to human beings, and the social system problems behind the ecological crisis. Today, I will share the second half of the book list, and continue to reflect on the human behavior that caused the ecological crisis and hindered the solution of the ecological crisis.
These books point out the limitations of international climate change negotiations and new energy technological changes, if they do not shake the concept of man-to-man and man-to-nature domination, and do not challenge public concerns in the name of “private” or “market order” Distribution logic, without changing the governance model parasitic in energy consumption, we cannot truly solve the ecological crisis.
So what should we do? The list also features the practice of ecologists and environmental activists, who propose to build local grassroots and trans-regional connectivity movements, explore ways of using energy that are run by local communities, and more. In short, in defending our living environment, we need to take concrete actions.
Where does the ecological crisis come from?
where to go (below)
Written by: Xiao Wu
#1
Power in Global Warming:
The new politics of climate change and the reshaping of environmental inequality
What is causing our Climate Injustice today? The book begins with a record of the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference: On the final night, Venezuela’s chief negotiator, Claudia, slams her fists on the table to get the attention of the Danish president. Her hands were scratched and blood poured out. But she still did not forget to express her dissatisfaction. She and many other developing country representatives believed that the Copenhagen Accord was a very unequal framework. Compared with the “Kyoto Protocol”, the Copenhagen Accord also gave up efforts to strengthen the mandatory constraints of international law, but only formed an obligatory document. Even the decision-making process for the agreement violated UN procedures.
It’s a microcosm of years of global leadership addressing the climate crisis: a quarter-century of international negotiations on climate change without a set of effective agreements, and what we’ve experienced is a long period of buck-passing, setbacks, defeats and wrangling. Those countries with the poorest and least carbon footprint records tend to be hit hardest by climate warming, but they lack decisive power in meetings; while those with the richest countries and groups (eg G20, G7) despite anthropogenic climate change The main manufacturer of China is still heavily subsidizing the fossil energy industry, and using its dominance in intergovernmental institutions to shirk its responsibilities instead of investing enough to compensate for energy transition and ecological disasters in other regions.
But this book is not content to portray a simplified North-South split power structure, but instead points to the formation of more complex and pluralistic climate political coalitions since 2009 and their rivalries and alliances . In the traditional southern countries, which are usually regarded as “underdeveloped”, there is a huge emission gap (Emission Gap) between the BRICS countries (BASIC) and other southern countries. The BRICS countries are committed to securing more emission credits for themselves before the global carbon peak and reaching a deal with the largest cumulative carbon emitter (the United States), freeing them from tying-up constraints. The Association for the Independence of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC), the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Least Developed Countries Group (LDC) are moving closer to the European Union (EU), which has pledged to reach 40% carbon by 2030 emission reduction targets. This is not only a game about the distribution of interests, but also a competition between different countries for international discourse and geopolitical power.
This book also points out that it is not enough to rely on procrastinating international climate conferences alone. It is no longer possible for a divided governance system to cope with the growing crisis . A lobbying group of fossil energy giants has further weakened the climate conference and shifted focus to attempts to create a market for carbon emissions. Since 2009, the UN climate regime has taken a marked neoliberal turn. Specialized environmental NGOs often maintain close ties with the state and business corporations, and thus advocate a moderate path of improvement—what they have to do is to reconnect with disadvantaged and marginalized groups and to support the movements of these victims. Several authors argue that we can ultimately save ourselves only by reforming the UN agency itself, restoring its credibility, and building grassroots, cross-regional linking movements everywhere.
#2
Carbon Democracy:
Political Power in the Oil Age
During the “Arab Spring” that swept North Africa and the Middle East in 2011, some observers noted that the less oil-producing countries, the more intense the struggle for democracy. By contrast, of the eight largest oil producers in the Middle East, only Libya has seen protests. Many American analytical writers have called the link between the oil-rich countries of the Middle East and the undemocratic political system the “oil curse.” But the author argues that modern democracy is not just an idea, but a systematic project based on the extraction, distribution and use of energy—a new governance technique that involves the production of new political subjects and the obedience of the populace. Thus, the authors argue, the process of converting oil into huge government revenue is not the cause of today’s problems with democracy and oil, but rather the result of the particular way in which political relations arise from the production and supply of energy. What this book is about to describe is the mechanism by which carbon-democracy as a political form is formed in the process of producing and using carbon energy .
The massive mining and use of coal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries enabled large-scale machine production and the construction of modern cities. It is from coal mines, factories, railways, and modern city life that mass popular politics arose. And oil production in the Middle East has been involved in the process of capitalist globalization from the very beginning. Western oil companies initially teamed up to delay the creation of the Middle East oil industry in order to maintain their monopoly interests. Politicians increasingly used control of overseas oil as a magic weapon to weaken democracy at home—from the Marshall Plan in the 1940s to the Thatcher government’s suppression of the powerful British coal miners’ union in the 1970s and 1980s. During the First World War, European imperialist countries supported undemocratic forms of governance, such as supporting proxies, in order to gain the recognition of the governed in the Middle East for a continuous supply of raw materials. In Iraq, although the establishment of the oil industry has opened up the possibility of organizing democratic politics, the political organization of energy extraction has made progress very difficult.
Documentary “Oil Earth”
The book also points out that today’s major industrialized countries are oil-consuming countries. Citizens in these places depend on oil and other fossil fuels to develop an energy-intensive modern way of life. However, this life is not sustainable. Proven oil reserves are rapidly depleting, and carbon emissions from oil consumption are contributing to global warming and ecological disasters. Not only that, but since the middle of the 20th century, a distributive logic that eliminates public concerns in the name of “private” or “market order” has assigned governments an entirely new domain of domination – the “economy”. In the name of “economic” governance, it becomes impossible to open up other political alternatives. And this “economy” is based on a large amount of low-cost carbon energy (petroleum). The resulting methods of material calculation (such as the technical way that oil companies try to hide real oil reserves and keep oil measurements secret) make unlimited economic growth possible. And control over economic growth provides a new rationale and model of population management for today’s carbon democratic governance. But this political form is dematerialized and denaturalized, thereby obscuring the fact that the crisis has come.
At the end of the book, the author quotes Bruno Latour as saying, “We have never been modern” . No matter what kind of technical contradictions, there are always “socio-technical contradictions”. The debate about energy technology is also about what kind of technology we want to live in and what kind of social organization we want to live in. Because we have always inhabited a mixed world where there is no pure nature, technology or human beings. Rather, it is imperative to understand the energy base generated by our flawed democratic institutions and to lay out the corresponding energy organization for a better social system.
#3
Who killed Berta Cáceres?
Dams, Assassination Squads, and an Indigenous Defender Who Fights for Earth
Berta Cáceres is a well-known indigenous eco-activist in Honduras. From 2006 to 2016, Cáceres participated in and led the collective action of the Renca Aboriginal community against the construction of the Guarcaque dam. The dam joint venture, involving a Chinese construction capital giant and the World Bank, violated international and local laws from the very beginning, rushing into construction without consulting local indigenous peoples. Not only that, but environmental permits and energy contracts are quickly approved without adequate evaluation. This implies that the dam project has received the mandate from the top government and business leaders. The Renka people worry that the construction of the dam will alter the ecology of the local river and endanger their traditional way of life. But these issues do not seem to be included in the developer’s consideration.
An anti-dam movement, involving Cáceres and led by the Renka, began. On one side are Cáceres, the Indigenous Peoples and her network of actions, the Council of Organizations of the People and Indigenous Peoples of Honduras (COPINH), and on the other are the Honduran dam construction company DESA and the top government. But Cáceres gradually discovered that the project was endorsed by members of the country’s most powerful clan, the Atalas, and that DESA’s leader and security chief were former U.S.-trained Honduran military officials who had worked in Education in secret institutions that suppressed uprisings.
When Cáceres first met the book’s author, Nina Racani, in 2015, she said: “The army has an assassination list, and my name is at the top. I want to live, but the assassins are This country has total impunity. When they want to kill me, they do.” In 2015, Cáceres won the Goldman Sachs Environment Prize, known as the “green Nobel,” her daughter thought it would be. To keep her from being assassinated. But less than a year later, Cáceres was shot dead in his apartment.
Berta Cáceres
The author of this book, Lacani, not only describes Cáceres’ childhood and youth through the wave of left-wing movements and recounts her career as an activist, but also through the in-depth investigation of the murder, recalls the Honduran ruler’s life in the United States. The bloody history of the government-supported suppression of popular uprisings and the mutual exchange of benefits with the empire describes the horrific situation in which the entire country committed systematic crimes and let the murderers go unpunished through secret security agencies and assassination teams trained by the United States. In 2018, after years of delays, the killing of Cáceres was brought to court under pressure from international public opinion. In 2019, several criminals who were directly involved in the killing were sentenced to prison terms. However, the power groups and criminal networks behind it remain unpunished. Murder is still happening. At least 24 land and environmental activists have been murdered in Honduras since April 2016. Between April 2016 and November 2019, 340 environmental activists were killed across the Americas. These numbers are staggering.
#4
Free Ecology:
The emergence and collapse of hierarchies
Bookchin is the founder and advocate of social ecology. First published in 1982, the basic thesis is that ” the idea of man’s domination over nature stems from the real domination of man by man “. In Bookchin’s view, human society in the pre-literate era, as an organic society, did not have a subsequent hierarchy. Instead, people of different genders, ages and tribes practice a “unity of differences”. This kind of society is spontaneous, non-coercive, and egalitarian—and, of course, to a large extent it may be a sustenance of hope. And only after the demise of this organic society and the emergence of hierarchy, the relationship of domination and subordination was established between human beings and nature.
Under the guidance of such thoughts, Bookchin believes that in order to solve the contradiction between man and nature, we must go back to the generation of human social hierarchy to find the answer . The existence of hierarchies is even older than the birth of class societies and states. Therefore, from the perspective of social ecology, we should not only seek new energy technologies, but also achieve fundamental changes in social organization. That said, not only do we need small distributed solar and wind technology, organic gardens, but we also need energy usage that is run by local communities. Even, we need to decentralize the city, establish a commune system that implements direct democracy, and achieve a high degree of self-sufficiency, rather than a centralized power structure.
Although, since the book’s birth, some have called it “utopian” social commentary. But Bookchin does not seem to shy away from his roots in the left-wing utopian tradition. In fact, his writing, on the one hand, seeks to root the radical possibility of liberal ecology in the analysis of history and social relations; Bringing artistry into hard labor, as impossible as it may seem. But this book has undoubtedly inspired many ecologists. In 2005, Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan studied liberal ecology while in solitary confinement in a Turkish prison, publishing the Kurdistan Democratic Federalist Manifesto, calling on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party to implement social ecology concept. This has brought the book back to people’s attention and reading.
#5
People Power:
Recycled Energy Commons
In this book, the authors powerfully debunk a delusion created by renewable energy: by simply replacing coal-fired power plants with commercial solar farms, we can sustain expanding energy consumption and continue successfully overcome the climate crisis. The authors note that while governments in many countries tout large-scale investments in renewables by public finances and energy companies, renewables still account for only 6.4% of global electricity generation, and the pace of the transition from fossil fuels to renewables Slowing down everywhere. There is already a lot of evidence that the operation of carbon trading markets does not work to reduce emissions either.
In the author’s view, the leadership of the energy transition cannot be left to energy companies. This is not only because the fossil energy giants are hindering this process, but because the capital-led energy transition still victimizes poor and marginalized communities. For example, the number of wind turbines and solar arrays needed to meet the power needs of Western countries means a lot of land. But some communities have already been forced to surrender large amounts of land for these renewable energy installations and lose their homes – as we saw in Alcarràs, the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival . This process is similar to the imposition of oil pipelines on Indigenous communities in Canada and the United States in the past.
The movie “Alcaraz”
The development of renewable energy also does not mean the elimination of extractivism. The non-ferrous metals needed to make wind turbines and solar panels still depend on extraction from many poor countries, and the workers of those metal mines are often subjected to cruel cruelty. Exploitation, lack of labor security – but it is because of this that raw material prices are kept down. The authors remind us that seeing renewable energy as the savior of the climate crisis is a technological determinism. Remember that the slave trade between Africa and the New World by European powers was also carried out using sailboats powered by wind energy. Thus, renewable energy is not a natural advancement.
In addition, a centralized grid dominated by energy companies and the state does not have natural advantages. Even the power monopoly companies sometimes take racist blackout measures for some communities out of profit. In recent years, citizens of several U.S. cities have launched public power campaigns to bring power companies under municipal ownership. The authors highlight the possibility of an alternative community-run distributed grid. For example, the German village of Feldheim built its own smart grid, achieving complete energy self-sufficiency and autonomy. There are also many examples of energy cooperatives in some cities in the United States. These communities can draw power from the national grid according to their own power situation, and can also send excess power back, but can also be completely separated from the national grid when necessary. The authors also argue that democratic control of energy could allow residents to use less energy. And this is critical to tackling the climate crisis.
#6
Ecosocialism:
A radical alternative to capitalist catastrophe
This book is a collection of essays on ecosocialism by ecological activist Michael Löwy. In the first chapter, he argues that ecosocialism is the only viable alternative to current disaster capitalism. Ecosocialism asserts: “Only a collective and democratic reorganization of production systems can…meet real social needs, reduce labor hours, curb useless and/or dangerous production, and replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources.” In order to achieve this With the vision, Marxists must change their own production fetishism, and ecologists need to supplement the systematic critique of capital so as not to become complicit in the current predicament.
And Löwy’s approach is to combine short-term goals with medium- and long-term goals. In the short term, reforms to ban water, soil, toxic substances in the atmosphere, reject the debt system and neoliberal restructuring imposed on countries around the world, and take measures to address unemployment, such as reducing working hours. He also called for the introduction of an ecological tax, advocated the expansion of public transport, and opposed the marketization of emissions through carbon trading. In the medium and long term, it is necessary to allow workers to regain possession and control of the means of production, and to establish a global horizontal democratic planning.
Later parts of the book also deal with the productiveist tendencies of Soviet bureaucratic socialism, the current inability of the European Social Democrats and the Green Party “red-green coalition”, the false demands and compulsive consumption created by capitalist advertising, and The Ecological Struggle of Latin American Indigenous Peoples. In an introduction to the ecological struggles of Latin America’s indigenous peoples at the end of the book, Löwy shows how to connect the current struggle for environmental reform with the long-term goal of revolutionary transformation . In the case of the Forest People’s Union to stop the destruction of the Amazon forest, socialist and union organizer Chico Mendes has united agricultural workers and indigenous communities in a campaign against multinational corporations and local landmasses owner’s movement.
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