> You've convinced me, Joe. No more wishy washy throwaway comments like > that one about Gore, that might boost the carbon tax ...
I'm glad we've reached agreement on this. I think it's an important issue facing the radical wing of the environmental movement. > > Is there, from your perspective, a concrete strategy for 'environmental > planning' - short of the ecosocialist revolution? Any prefigurative > politics you endorse? I'm not exactly sure what you're asking, because regulating carbon emissions rather than creating an artificial market in them seems relatively straightforward. But let me raise some general considerations. I strongly agree that there must be struggle for environmental goals now, and one should not simply say that planning under a future socialist regime will solve the problem. There should be a program of immediate struggle on these issues. I put forward a general view about what was needed in the article "The coming of the environmental crisis" (www.communistvoice.org/39cKyoto.html) and other articles listed at www.communistvoice.org/00GlobalWarming.html. The demands for regulation and control of pollutants, for economic planning that deals with the consequences of restricting pollutants and with the need for reconstructing the infrastructure, for planning that includes mass welfare as an integral goal, for the reversal of the privatization of the government and instead the development of democratic planning and mass oversight of various pollution sources, etc. are things that can and should be fought for today. Of course, in this generality the demands are something of a general framework, rather than a specific program. But I don't think it will be particularly hard to concretize the demands as needed to deal with various environmental struggles. And of course these demands are *not* in contradiction to the ongoing struggles against fracking, nuclear power, obsessive dam construction, etc. They're more in the nature of a general framework that, I believe, would help strengthen these struggles. An integral part of this program must be the development of a working-class section of the environmental movement. Today, there is a militant section of the environmental movement, and I think its actions are quite important, but it hasn't really achieved a conscious separation from establishment environmentalism. A working-class environmental program must put emphasis on bringing out the class issues in environmental control, must not regard regulatory agencies as "socialist" but instead emphasize putting the maximum pressure upon them, must demand that the masses are allowed as much oversight over environment regulation as possible, and must demand that planning to ensure mass livelihood is an essential part of economic and environmental planning. To avoid misunderstanding, I am *not* describing the "transitional program" to socialism. Serious transitional programs are for transitional times, and we are not on the verge of socialist revolution. Instead we face a lengthy period of seeking to reestablish a truly class-conscious working class movement. In the meantime, the Trotskyist version of the transitional program creates tremendous illusions about nationalization and government regulation, and these illusions will be particularly dangerous in the coming period. And this program is not utopianism either. At one time environmental cleanup in the US was performed by regulation: the market measures were developed as an explicit reaction against this. And the environmental crisis will eventually force a regulatory response from governments, even if only to deal with the results of climate catastrophe. The economic crisis too is throwing neo-liberalism into crisis. Regulation is coming one way or another, but it's a question whether it will be ever harsher and uglier and more oppressive, or whether it will achieve some useful things, limit environmental damage, and provide some relief for the working masses. -- Joseph > > Thanks, > Patrick > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l ----------------------------------- Joseph Green [email protected] ------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
