Greens vs The Workers?

[elbows]

bit of a strange admission, tbh, how can you expect anyone else to take your posts seriously if you don't

actuyally i think on lots of threads you have made some pretty good observations, but on this one you come across as Lady Bountiful or like the middle class women during the war who attempted to teach the poor, baking,etc to make the cake go futher

Well I didnt say I dont take my posts seriously, although I do try not to take myself too seriously from time to time. All I meant is that I an liable to change my mind, to backtrack, or to hate my own choice of words, and my own misrepresentation of my own position. And there are often many excellent replies from others, which I try to absorb, and often help me to understand errors in my opinion.

Anyways thanks for the nice comment about some of my observations being good. Im reasonably sure that my interest in the green, energy & resource woes is likely to lead me into dangerous territory all the time, as I have a fairly gloomy opinion about how bad things will be, and will often discuss the likely consequences, rather than how things should be if we could bring more fairness to our system. Perhaps any decent ideology I may hold runs the risk of being totally gutted by trying to be pragmatic, but anyways on a thread like this about Greens vs The Worker, hopefully me putting my foot in my mouth can at least illustrate some points even if it doesnt win me any friends. If my poor choice of words see's me creating a strawman of my own position, then thats my fault and hopefully others burning the straw man can be useful.

 

[elbows]

OK are biofuels one possible front ina conflict between green & worker?

Because it seems like a fairly clear example to me. Will the poorest be denied food so that others are not denied the right to drive?

If the greens are against biofuels, and biofuels starve the poorest workers, but lack of biofuels deprive some workers of work or the ability to drive to work, are the greens working for or against the agenda of the workers?

It would be far more straightforward if this were only about climate change. Nearly every green policy would harm peoples standard of living, and all this harm would be seen as voluntary. But those volunteering would be those could afford to, and those who had no say in the matter and could least afford it, would potentially rise up against the green agenda, or at least make enough noise to scare government away from action. Green would never get beyond a percentage of the middle and upper classes doing some feelgood things.

Hmm I wonder when shortages come, how many people will think its a conspiracy by those with power to carry out a green agenda, to create artificial scarcity in the name of green, or profit, or just screwing the poor for the sake of it.

Alternatively if there are lots of workers who are fully clued up about the reality of resources, and accept that an emergency is occuring and that they too will have to be bear a part of the burden, and they see people of other classes &wealth levels also taking their share of the pain, then maybe there would be no big green vs worker conflict. Hey we could even start agreeing with lots of government policy if this was true and they responded to the real crisis with fairer policy with real teeth?

 

[elbows]

and what is the problem with CC technology.

Oh I just noticed how far I have gone from the original post of this thread, the thread title obviously got me going, sorry about that.

Carbon Capture technology might turn out to be great, but I would think some people with a Green agenda will be no fans of it because:

Its not proven to work on any sort of scale yet
Theyd rather see the money spent on genuine renewables
They are used to coal and mining being the bad guy, to embrace coal doesnt fit the turbine joy propaganda

I also have no idea how much of the green agenda and entities are backed by commercial green companies that have an interest in pushing certain technologies. Ive no idea how much this sort of thing may distort the picture, whereas with established mass energy sectors such as nuclear, the commercial influences on policy, lobbying etc, might be easier to spot? The fall from grace of biofuels will be very interesting to watch as we will see how much influence those who have something to gain from biofuels manage to have over policy decisions, in the face of the recent wave of negative biofuel stories in wake of the food price woes.

 

[free spirit]

Nearly every green policy would harm peoples standard of living, and all this harm would be seen as voluntary.

what?

How does insulating your house so that you can keep it warm for less money / energy use, or using energy efficient lightbulbs that light your house but also save you lots of money / energy, or having efficient public transport to use, or parks & green spaces in amongst the concrete jungle of the city, or solar water heating that again saves people energy and money, or lead free petrol that stops peoples health being damaged, or particulate traps on vehicles to block out the most harmfull particulate emissions that cause lung cancer - and particularly hit those in the most polluted inner city areas hardest, or making car tax free on the most efficient (ie cheapest to run) cars.... you get the pictue... how do any of those policies harm peoples standards of living?

 

[elbows]

Good well thats a classic example of me saying something completely wrong, and a really good reply coming back thats full of many useful examples. Long may my stupidity be the fertiliser for the good ideas of others.

So yeah I agree those things you mention could be done in a way that helped standards of living rather than hindered. At leas tin the medium term, because in the shortterm someone has to pay for it to happen.
Unfortunately there's no getting round the fact that they all have some sort of cost attached to them, and the share of pain is unlikely to be fairly allocated.

I guess we will get quite a lot of those things eventually. Im not moaning about government banning a lot of energy-inefficient bulbs soon. Does that make me an enemy of the poor because the bulbs cost more?

Before the last turbulent year or so, it looked like there was going to be a continual issue with green taxes being used to strongly discourage people from certain sorts of consumption. I guess that would be one of the main green government vs the people battles, tax always is. But now a lot of prices have gone up anyway for other reasons, to the level where people may cut back on some consumption to save money. They will still moan at any part of the price that is a government tax, and generally I dont think this is going to help many to embrace the green agenda with joy. But now governments cant control the commodity prices, and so cannot chicken out of that agenda, as its not fully in their control. All sorts of renewable & alternative things become economically sound on their own merits, without a green agenda being needed to make them artificially competitive.

Now looking at something like home insulation, at some point the economic investment in improving insulation will rapidly pay for itself, because of how high energy bills are. Loads of people can take advantage of this. But there will be many who havent the spare capital to make such an investment, or dont have control over the building in which they live. Government must do its bit here, and although I am not pleased about how much actual action our government takes these days, I expect more will be done in future.

 

[elbows]

All sorts of renewable & alternative things become economically sound on their own merits, without a green agenda being needed to make them artificially competitive.

Or to put that another way, things like oil have been artificially cheap for a long time, and value in general has become quite distorted. In a sustainable and realistic system, the sustainable solutons would obviously be the ones of most benefit, and a sane economy would attach the most value to such things, and encourage their adoption.

Affordability vs Reliability. The finite nature of resource not being reflected in the price of those resources until the truth becomes undeniable. Problem is that harnessing the genuinely renewable resources also has a price we arent used to paying.

I suppose if people could eventually come to believe that there is absolutely no way we can avoid paying much more for the essential in life, for a multitude of reasons, and that nobody has the power to magically fix this, that there is no choice in that matter, then we may get somewhere. Then the choice is not whether we all have to pay, but where we want to get to after years of walking with that burden.

 

[free spirit]

Good well thats a classic example of me saying something completely wrong, and a really good reply coming back thats full of many useful examples. Long may my stupidity be the fertiliser for the good ideas of others.

lol - sorry, this idea that environmental solutions are too expensive is just something that really pisses me off as it's not actually true in most cases, yet this seems to be a line that's being pushed by a lot of people.

Now looking at something like home insulation, at some point the economic investment in improving insulation will rapidly pay for itself, because of how high energy bills are. Loads of people can take advantage of this. But there will be many who havent the spare capital to make such an investment, or dont have control over the building in which they live. Government must do its bit here, and although I am not pleased about how much actual action our government takes these days, I expect more will be done in future.

I too am pissed off at the pitiful level of government investment in energy efficiency / renewable energy, however to give the government it's due, it already provides 100% grants of upto £2700 for anyone in receipt of benefits who either owns their own house, or rents privately to insulate their house, install energy efficient boliers, switch to energy efficient light bulbs etc.

and btw, the point has already been reached where investment in most energy efficiency measures, and solar water heating will rapidly pay for itself, and that payback time is only going to decrease with gas bills set to rise by 40% this year.

• Insulating an uninsulated loft will pay for itself in 2-3 years,
• cavity wall insulation 3-5 years,
• draft proofing 3-4 years,
• energy efficient lighting - depends on usage and type, but since they now cost around £1-2 if you shop around, payback time for replacing a 100 watt bulb is around 200-300 hours use per bulb so less than 2 months if you use the light a lot,
• solar water heating - 3-10 years (depending on diy / professional installation, system cost, hot water usage, system complexity, installation complexity etc)

and of course once it's paid for itself, it will go on to give you significantly reduced energy bills for the rest of it's lifetime - which for insulation is decades, solar water heating probably 20-25 years etc.

The real question is why would any sane person not want to do all of this - it will give a way better return on investment than any high interest bank account, particularly when you consider that energy prices are going to keep going up rapidly over the next few years / decades.

 

[steve0223]

The real question is why would any sane person not want to do all of this - it will give a way better return on investment than any high interest bank account, particularly when you consider that energy prices are going to keep going up rapidly over the next few years / decades.

just been looking at the Warm Front 100% grants thing, it's definitely a good idea. Unfortunately it's not 'anyone' in receipt of benefits. It's targeted at pensioners, those with disabilities and those with kids under 16. Still a start though.

The whole point about ecological measures being better value in the long run, is that this is entirely meaningless, like other posters are saying , if you don't have enough capital for this sort of investment. I think more people live a 'pay as you go' life than is realised.

incomes have polarised further in the UK over last 20 years, and savings apparently are the lowest since the 60s. there's all the mortgage debts, and also the drop in real wages over the past 10 years which coincided with the credit boom.

People are being forced into the same choices between ecology and livelihoods.

It would be interesting if there was a windfall energy / housebuilding corp tax to just pay for this shit, to make up for both the profits and the crappy housing stock they built.

of interest may be this article:'cold death by neoliberalism: the political economy of fuel poverty' by john foster which talks about housing stock, how the privatisation of UK energy system impacts us all now, and what can be done about it. We all want movement on this innit.

 

[durruti02]

as free spirit says .. it pisses me the greens allow themselves to be portrayed as anti's - anti work etc - i would gladly argue to swop coal mining.power stations for a massive energy conservation scheme ( that would employ millions more than mining ever did) fabricating and building windmills solar panels and wave generators ..

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I too am pissed off at the pitiful level of government investment in energy efficiency / renewable energy, however to give the government it's due, it already provides 100% grants of upto £2700 for anyone in receipt of benefits who either owns their own house, or rents privately to insulate their house, install energy efficient boliers, switch to energy efficient light bulbs etc.

I've often thought a really good idea would be for the government to ring-fence income from some of the 'green' taxes to provide free insulation, etc.

And on topic, it would obviously create a lot of training and jobs for people to carry it out as well.

 

[elbows]

So on that note, does anybody know if the double-glazing company boom in the 80's was due in any way to government money? I mean Im not even 100% sure there was a boom, but it seemed like there used to be a load a double-glazing companies & salesmen around back then, to the point where it became a source of some jokes. And I know there was some sort of insulation/energy saving agenda back then, after the oil shocks of the 1970's. And I recall a lot of adverts telling people not to leave the lights on?

 

[elbows]

I like this Urban Farming stuff:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7495717.stm

 

[treelover]

someone posted this in reply to a letter to Climate Camp from Dave Douglass, (NUM) it is quite crass, I wonder if this guy is in Earth First?

'Many of us work. Some workers are in highly-paid manual work (drivers of fuel lorries averaging £40,000/year, plumbers etc etc) or are in poorly-paid jobs that used to be considered middle-class, like teaching & nursing (£20,000/year). I know a carpenter who drives a fuck-off HUGE car, and regularly flies abroad on holiday, but that's ok cos he's 'working class'.
So what is class nowadays? Most of the real 'working class' are in other countries, doing the manufacturing jobs for our so-called needs. They are the truly exploited.
I live on less than £8,000/year and still live a luxurious existence compared to my exploited brothers and sisters abroad.
The thing is, climate change is affecting people in other countries - the poor and oppressed that make our stuff. So in that case, I agree that climate change is also a class issue, but not class in the traditional sense anymore.
I read on here that Coltan miners earn about £10/week. Don't know what UK miners earn but I expect it's a little more. I don't see why one section of UK workers should call a halt to protests at climate chaos. Adapt. We're all going to have to, sooner or later.'

 

[elbows]

It may be crass but there are a few good points buried in there, I just dont hold out much hope that such issues will be confronted or discussed easily. Class divisions obviously still riddle this country even if the nature of work & pay has changed a bit.

 

[roywilkes]

New Labour might use Clean Coal and Carbon Capture & Storage as a propoganda tool, and some union leaders might fall for it, but the government has no intention of making it happen. Nor will it ever be feasible. Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide — a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars to develop . “Beware of the scale,” he stressed. There are no techno-fixes to the crisis of climate change, only political solutions, and they will necessitate a radical and fundamental change to the structure of the entire global economy.

So the Climate Camp is right to demand that coal (and indeed all fossil fuels) should be left under the ground. But the people who are best placed to make that happen are those who work in the industry. That means we’ve got to win over those workers politically. We can’t by-pass them and shut things down from the outside by the heroic actions of a few well-meaning individuals.

What is needed is a workers’ plan for alternative production (along the lines of that developed by the Lucas Aerospace shop stewards in the seventies.) Workers will only have the confidence to take that step if there is a mass movement of sufficient social weight and political strength to ensure that the plan can be implemented. The job of both socialists and environmentalists is to build this mass movement, not to promote a divisive counter demonstration.

But can workers be convinced of the need to shut down their own industry? This is not how we should pose the question. The idea of capitalists closing industries under the whip hand of market forces is of course abhorrent. But we shouldn’t give up on the possibility of workers themselves organising to redirect their skills towards socially beneficial production. For us it wouldn’t be a question of closing down the coal industry, it would be a question of reorganising to produce other things (for example turbines for wind, wave and tidal energy, all of which are far more labour intensive than coal) with no loss of pay and substantially better conditions of employment. The Lucas workers certainly didn’t insist on their right to continue making armaments! They drew up an alternative plan for socially useful production and they demanded nationalisation so that it could be realised. That is the direction we all need to be moving in.

The Campaign against Climate Change organised a highly successful Trade Union Conference in February, which gathered together over 300 trades unionists from across the country. Greenman is right, it mostly involved public sector workers. But things are moving on, and the success of that conference puts us in a stronger position to engage with a broader range of unions, and this is starting to happen. There will be a second conference in February 2009. Let’s make it even more successful and let’s use it as an opportunity to develop the strategies we need to win.

 

[Idaho]

You are all missing the point as ever. Society and ideology, right or left is predicated upon economic growth, which creates jobs and pays people. Anything that challenges economic growth affects everyone top to bottom.

Not that I have any answers like...