Climate and politics

November 13, 2019

It is, we have been told, (by the Deputy PM, no less), a “bloody disgrace” to talk about climate change during the current massive bush fires, because we have lost lives and property. However, the Coalition don’t refuse to talk about the drug problem after a group of people die from drugs; they do talk about terrorism if people are being fire bombed by terrorists; and they do pretend all sick refugees are criminals and cannot be let into the country.  They also don’t seem to have a problem with the Murdoch Empire’s attempts to blame the fires on apparently non-existant Green party policies or influence.

So why can they not talk about climate change, when there are horrific bush fires threatening people everywhere? Why do they say it is not helpful to lessen the cause of the problem?

The problem for the Coalition, is that they think it a “bloody disgrace” to talk about climate change at any time, unless they are pretending to be doing something.

Perhaps talk about climate change would lead to them having to admit they have been mistaken for a long time about climate, about water, about fossil fuels, about mining in or under water tables, about land clearing, and so on. Being wrong something the Coalition seems to find incredibly difficult to admit.

Who knows, if we talk about climate, perhaps we might start talk about whether their economic policies have done anything other than benefit very small sections of the population.

One crack and the whole thing might start falling apart.

Tags: ,
Posted in free markets economics, | Leave a Comment »

Even handed climate politics

November 13, 2019

In Australia we are in the midst of horrendous early bush fires, driven by drought and high temperatures…. They may be the most widespread we have had. It is estimated by the Rural Fire Services that 300 homes may have been lost There is political dispute as well: should we talk about climate change at this moment?

We have a classic example of the “both sides are equally bad” meme, being used to excuse and support the political Righteous in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning. To give more context the SMH is frequently denounced by the Murdoch Empire and the Right wing Coalition government as rabidly leftist.

The papers’ chief political correspondent, David Crowe, wrote that: “A crisis is supposed to bring out the best in Australians. For too many of our politicians, it only brings out the worst…. [the fires] should jolt politicians out of their tired games about who is to blame for the emergency.”

He mentions Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack ranting about “inner-city raving lunatics” who talk about climate change, but mentions “McCormack’s defenders say he was provoked by the Greens” – so its not really Mr McCormack’s fault.

He glibs over Barnaby Joyce saying two people died because they were Greens, and excuses him because later in the day he was tired from fighting a fire at his parent’s farm.

He then castigates Jordon Steele-John, a Green, for saying “You [the Coalition] are no better than a bunch of arsonists – borderline arsonists, and you should be ashamed…. Your selfishness and your ignorance have known no bounds for decades, and now our communities are paying the price.” (Crowe only uses parts of this statement, so the above came from another article and, according to some people, Steele-John was speaking in a parliamentary debate in which public money was being offered for new Coal power stations. I have not yet been able to check this as there is so much indignation about this statement.)

Crowe strangely does not remark that Greens and others have been frustrated by years of inaction and insult, only to see their predictions coming true, and still the government refuses to do more or less anything but insult people, stir up anger and then call for calm…

Crowe is then lined up to say that the PM Scott Morrison “rightly argued for a collective calm in the political rhetoric, while NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian adopted a no-nonsense approach to questions about the fires and climate change.” Ms Berejiklian was not quite that no-nonsense if you read her comments – she too did not want to talk about climate change, or what to do about it, either and suggested it was appropriate to shut up and help people, as if helping and discussing were impossible at the same time.

So, according to the “both sides are equally bad” meme, Right and Left are equally bad but the Right is much better…. Nice move.

Crowe keeps up the pressure on Steele-John writing…. “Using the fires to call for an end to coal mining is as cynical as any of the politics from the major parties. And anyone who accepts the science on climate change should also accept the science that says shutting down the Australian coal industry on its own would make no substantial change to future bushfire risk.”

Of course it must be “cynical” to propose that something should be done when the right still proposes nothing except penalising protests against companies who promote climate change.

However, it is true that due to the delays of the political righteous in Australia and the US stopping burning coal will no longer make things better.

However anyone who accepts the science should know that not stopping coal will make things much, much worse in the long run.

Strange that the idea must be crushed by this even handed approach……

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Problems of Transition 07: Neoliberalism and Developmentalism

November 9, 2019

Continuing the series from the previous post….

Of these two political and economic movements (Neoliberalism and Developmentalism), Developmentalism is the oldest, but has since the 1980s been blended with Neoliberalism. As powerful movements and ideas, they can form obstacles to transition.

Developmentalism

Developmentalism can be argued to have its origin in the UK with coal-powered industrialisation and mass steel manufacture, which formed a reinforcing positive feedback loop; steel manufacture helped implement industrialization and also increased military capacity to allow plunder of resources from colonies. Industrialization helped increase demand for steel. Fossil fuel energy was cheap with a high Energy Return on Energy Input. This loop provided a model for the ‘development’ of other countries, partially to protect themselves from possible British incursion.

While the UK’s development was developed alongside and with capitalism, capitalism was not essential for development, as was shown by developmentalism elsewhere. The earliest deliberate developmentalism was probably in Bismark’s Germany, followed by Meiji Japan, neither of which were capitalist in any orthodox sense. Japan rapidly became a major military power defeating both Russia and China. Revolutionary Russia also pursued developmentalism, and after the second world war developmentalism took off in the ex-colonial world becoming the more or less universal model for progress, or movement into the future, and flourished in many formally different economic systems.

During the 1980s, but especially with the collapse of European Communism, and the birth of the so-called ‘Washington Consensus’, developmentalism became more strongly tied to international capitalism, and especially neoliberal capitalism. We can call this ‘neoliberal developmentalism’.

Neoliberalism 1

As I have argued elsewhere, neoliberalism is the set of policies whose holders argue in favour of liberty in free markets, but who (if having to make a choice), nearly always support established corporate plutocracy and appear to aim to destroy all political threats to that plutocracy.

Developmentalism and ecology

Developmentalism was built on fossil fuel use, and economic growth through cheap pollution and cheap ecological destruction. It also often involved large scale sacrifice of poorer people, who were generally considered backward and expendable in the quest for national greatness. Sometimes it is said that in the future succesful development will mean less poisoning, destruction and sacrifice, but the beautiful future may be continually postponed, as it was with communism.

Developmentalism was also often ruthlessly competative in relationship to other states and the pursuit of cheap resources. Developing countries often blame developed countries for their poverty, and this may well be historically true, as their resources were often taken elsewhere for little benefit to their Nation. Many developing countries also argue that they have the right to catch up with the developed world, through the methods the developed world used in the past. It is their turn to pollute and destroy. If this idea is criticised, then it usually becomes seen an attempt to keep them poverty ridden and to preserve the developed world’s power.

Developmentalism is related to neoliberal capitalism via the idea that you have to have continuing economic growth to have social progress, and that social progress is measured in consumerism and accumulated possessions. However, after a point neoliberalism is about the wealthy accumulating possessions, it does not mind other people loosing possessions if that is a consequence of its policy. Both the developing and developed world have developed hierarchies which tend to be plutocratic – development tends to benefit some more than others.

After the 1980s with the birth of neoliberal developmentalism, the idea of State supported welfare and development for the people was largely destroyed as developing States could not borrow money without ‘cutting back’ on what was decreed to be ‘non-essential’ spending. The amount of environmental destruction, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions also rocketed from that period onwards, despite the knowledge of the dangers of climate change and ecological destruction. The market became a governing trope of development, as it was of neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism 2: The theory of Free Markets

In theory, ‘free markets’ are mechanisms of efficiently allocating resources and reducing all needs and values to price, or messages about price.

Theory does not always work, because large-scale markets are nearly always political systems rather than natural or impersonal systems.

Big or successful players in the market nearly always attempt to structure the market in their favour. Wealth grants access to all other forms of power such as violence, communicative, informational, legal, ethical, organisational, religious and so on. If there is no State, then successful players will found one to protect their interests and property. If there is a State they will collaborate with others to take it over to further protect their interests and property.

Everything that diminishes profit, especially profit for established power, is to be attacked as a corruption of the market and therefore immoral and to be suppressed. If people protest at not having food, or at being poisoned by industry, they are clearly immoral and not working hard enough. Political movements which oppose the plutocracy or its consequences may have their means of operation closed down, or find it difficult to communicate their ideas accurately through the corporate owned media. The market ends up being patterned by these politics.

For example, neoliberal free markets always seem to allow employers to team up to keep wages down, as that increases profit, and render Union action difficult as that impedes the market.

While these actions may not always have the desired consequences, the market, at best, becomes efficient in delivering profits, but only rarely in delivering other values. Thus people without money are unlikely to have food, or good food, delivered to them. Indeed those people may well be sacrificed to efficiently feed others who have both more than enough food and more disposable wealth, and hence who make more profits for the sellers.

Through these processes, there is an ongoing transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, increased by the power relations of plutocracy.

In plutocracies, it is normal to think that the poor are clearly stupid or not worth while, rather than they have lost a political battle, or been unfortunate.

Neoliberalism and ecology

If it is profitable to transfer the costs of ecological destruction onto the less powerful, and less wealthy, public then it will be done as with other costs. The cost and consequences of destruction will not be factored into the process, and this will give greater profit.

Even, leaving the natural world in a state in which it can regenerate becomes counted as a cost. If it is cheaper to destroy and move on, most businesses will do this, especially the more mobile wealth becomes. For example, I was told yesterday that on some Pacific Islands, overseas fishing companies bought fishing rights to sea cucumbers (which are extremely valuable given the prices I saw in some shops). They took all the sea cucumbers they could, threw the smallest onto the beach to die, and moved on, leaving the area more or less empty. They had no ties to the place, or to the regeneration of local ecologies. The whole ecology of the islands could collapse as a result of this profit taking, but only the Islanders suffer in the short term.

Likewise spewing poison is good for business as it is cheaper than preventing it. Neoliberal governments will support or even encourage powerful pollutors, if they are established members of the plutocracy, as President Trump is demonstrating nearly every day. These pollutors and destroyers have wealth and can buy both government support and politicians in general. They can pay for campaigns and propaganda. They can promise easy well paid jobs in their industry, and those people who were politicians and are now in the industry demonstrate the benefits of this position and are persuasive. Within neoliberalism, with wealth as the prime marker of success, the destructive business people are also considered virtuous and superior people, so the destruction they produce must also be virtuous.

In this situation, objecting to cheap ecological destruction, or proposing ways of preventing such destruction becomes seen as an attack on the powerful and on morality of the system in general.

One of my friends who studies neoliberalism, seems to be coming to the view that neoliberalism’s first political success came about in the 1970s through opposing the idea of Limits to Growth, and supporting ideas of capitalist expansion through endless technological innovation and creativity. This movement assumes that (within capitalism) desired, or needed, technological innovation will always occur, and be implemented, with no dangerous unintended consequences. This seems unlikely to always be true, and to be primarily based in fantasy and wish-fulfillment. It was also probably more attractive to voters than voluntary austerity. It allowed the continuance of ‘development’.

If this is the case, then neoliberals (rather than Conservatives) have been implicated in anti-ecological thinking from the begining.

The UK and Germany actually have Conservative parts in the mainstream Right, and they seem relatively happy with moving from coal into renewables – so we are not talking about every form of capitalism being equally destructive.

In Australia, neoliberalism is reinforced by the learnt dependence of the official economy on resources exports – whether agricultural or mineral, both of which have tended to destroy or strain Australian ecologies. Most Australians think mining is much more important to the economy than it is, expecially after all the subsidies and royalty and tax evasions are factored in. This visions of success implies that destruction is probably acceptable. Australia is big after all, and most people never see the sites of destruction, even if they have large scale consequences.

These processes have lead to a power imbalance in Australia, in which the mining sector calls the shots, and boasts of its power to remove prime ministers. It not only creates loyalty, but also terror.

Renewables, less cheap pollution, less cheap destruction of ecologies, less poisoning, are threats to established ways of ‘developing’, and to be hindered, even if they are ‘economically’ preferable, or succesful in the market.

In this situation, it is perfectly natural that other forms of economy, or activities which could potentially restructure the economy and disrupt the plutocracy, should be stiffled by any means available. In this case, this includes increasing regulation on renewable energy, suggesting that more subsidies will be given to new fossil fuel power, and increasing penalties for protesting against those supporting, or profiting from, fossil fuels.

In Australia, Labor is rarely much better than the Coalition in this space, as the fuss after the last election has clearly shown. It is being said that they failed because they did not support coal or the aspirations of voters to succeed in plutocracy, and they vaguely supported unacceptable ‘progressive’ politics.

Neoliberalism as immortality project

This constant favouring of established wealth, leads to the situation in which people with wealth think they will be largely immune to problems if they maintain their wealth (and by implication shuffle the problems onto poorer people).

At the best it seems to be thought that wealthy people are so much smarter than everyone else, that they can deal with the problems, and this success with problems might trickle down to everyone else. Thus wealth has to be protected.

These factors make the plutocracy even more inward looking. Rather than observing the crumbling world, the wealthy are incentivised to start extracting more from their companies and the taxpayers, to keep them safe. They become even more prone to fantasy and to ignore realities.

Conclusion

Developmentalism and Neoliberalism constitute the major forms of policy dominating world governance, and visions of the future.

In the English speaking world neoliberalism dominates. We have more totalitarian neoliberals (Republicans, Liberals, Nationals) and more humanitarian neoliberals (Democrats, Labour etc).

In the rest of the world, developmentalism can occasionally dominate over neoliberalism (ie in China), but the idea of economic expansion and a degree of emulation of the supposed economic success of the ‘West’ remains a primary aim.

Developmentalism and Neoliberalism both establish and protect ecological destruction for wealth generation and are among the main social obstacles to a transition to renewables.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Problems of Transition 06: Climate Change and Failing US ‘infrastructure’

November 8, 2019

The US is an example of the general case. Infrastructure tends to be failing, and climate change makes this worse. The costs and effects of failing infrastructure could make transition to a more resilient ‘sustainable’ society, even more difficult.

The first thing to understand is that US infrastructure (which includes roads, bridges, dams, airports, sea ports, drinking water, power lines, pipelines, waste storage, inland waterways, levees etc) is falling apart at the moment. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has been pointing this out for years.

In their most recent “report card”, issued in 2017, the ASCE estimated that the US needs to spend about $4.5 trillion by 2025 to fix the problem. They say this is a serious problem, requiring serious spending, and it is not going to get better ‘naturally’. As no one is getting ready to spend anything like that, the situation will continue to get worse, more costly to fix, and harder to fix. Patch up jobs merely mask the problem.

What climate change adds to this situation, is that it appears to be bringing more extreme weather events. This puts more pressure on infrastructure.

For example, dams and levees will have to survive more frequent, rapid and severe flooding and storm surges. Such storms are also likely to affect drinking water (also affected by mining and fracking, and possible lowered testing standards as money is taken away from Government based Environmental supervision). Storms in other countries such as Australia (I’m not a US resident, so I’m not up to date with US events) have already caused blackouts, through knocking down power lines; the more decayed the infrastructure, the more they will be knocked down. Roads and bridges also tend to get swept away by severe events. Research has already shown that gas pipelines are leaking badly – oil pipelines breaks are more visible and thus tend to get fixed – but more severe storms will increase both the rate of leakage and possible fire danger.

Rising sea levels, which now appear locked in as Antarctica starts to melt, will affect ports, and anything built on low lying land. This often includes oil refineries, and major cities that have grown around ports. Storms and storm surges are likely to increase along US coasts, especially down south as we seem to be seeing already in the Gulf of Mexico, and off-Florida. Whether people have been lucky so far, or whether the storms will generally avoid the coastline we will see with time. Relatively, small increases in water levels can drastically increase the damage from storm surges on low lying land, or up waste water pipes that dump into the sea.

Increased heat and drought, in some parts of the country, will increase wildfires, and we seem to have already seen this in California and in many other parts of the world – again Australia leads the way. Droughts also bring threats to food supplies and farm profitability. This can be compounded by privatized water supplies, which take water from rivers and deliver it to wealthy businesses – not all infrastructure is necessarily beneficial to everyone. Humans do not work well in runs of extreme heat (anything over 40 degrees centigrade), especially if they are already not well, and this will put extra strain on hospitals, not to mention families and incomes.

Changes in permafrost conditions in the Northern US, may weaken foundations, leading to built item collapse….

Furthermore, most of the US’s infrastructure (and everyone else’s) has been designed with the assumption that climate will remain stable. It is not designed for resilience under changing weather conditions. Even if it had been designed with this change in mind, it is extremely hard to predict what local conditions will become – climate is a complex system, and while we can predict trends we cannot predict specific events.

The US Fourth National Climate Assessment suggests that the US government “must act aggressively to adapt to current impacts and mitigate future catastrophes…to avoid substantial damages to the U.S. economy, environment, and human health and well-being over the coming decades” and “climate change is expected to cause substantial losses to infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century.”

It is highly probable that increasing destructive stresses on failing infrastructure will have harmful results.

The most obvious result is massive economic disruption, and disruption of transmission of vital supplies, such as water, food and energy. Modern Western cities are not designed to be self-sustaining; if they are cut off from supplies then living conditions will rapidly become difficult for most people. Places like Cuba where cities have been built around much smaller supplies of petrol, and less elaborate infrastructure, may be more resilient, but they are likely to be greatly affected by weather. Effects will not be uniform.

However, the cost of repairing this extra damage will add to the cost of repairing infrastructure in general, and add to financial stress and debt in government.

The extra cost of repair will probably take money away from transition to a more resilient, less polluting system. It could perhaps inspire such changes, as the old system falls down, but that depends on whether established power relations actively strive to stop transition and demand more of what their wealth has been built around. Current political behavior, does not suggest optimism.

Insurance companies are getting worried, and it will be getting harder to insure property in particular locations, and infrastructure is part of what makes a location, and adds to, or diminishes its vulnerability. “Insurers have warned that climate change could make cover for ordinary people unaffordable after the world’s largest reinsurance firm blamed global warming for $24bn (£18bn) of losses in the Californian wildfires”. This will increase the precariousness of life, for ordinary people, and add to their difficulties of making ends meet, especially under the likely new normality of extreme weather events.

You might want to see whether your own costs are increasing, or your local area is becoming uninsurable.

There is another form of ‘infrastructure’ which is often ignored in discussions of failing infrastructure. This is the natural ecology. The natural ecology provides many services we need vitally, but do not notice because they have been provided freely of human action (even if some of them have been charged for). These services include: oxygen supply, waste removal, drinkable water, food supply, and so on. Continual pollution, poisoning and destruction of this infrastructure in the name of development and profit, diminishes the ability of the natural infrastructure to deliver its services, which adds further stress to social life, and increases the likelihood of extra costs and disaster.

Climate change is a consequence of the destruction of this wider infrastructure, and adds to the destruction in a positive feedback loop. Again, the situation will not get better by itself.

Conclusion

Infrastructure (both human-built and natural) is falling apart in the first place, and not designed to face the added climate stresses we are all facing. It is likely to slowly crash, and the results of the crash may not be protected, or coverable, by insurance.

Refusing to consider the problem, which is what most governments are doing, because of the costs, will not make it better. Declining tax revenues (largely because of corporate tax evasion, taking profits overseas, and tax cuts for the wealthy) do not make dealing with the problem easier.

On the other hand, some governments seem to be actively trying to make the situation worse, by lessening restrictions on ecologically damaging behavior by corporations, and encouraging fossil fuel use and pollution.

Those governments are not acting in your best interests whether you ‘believe’ in climate change or not. Political action is required for survival.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

On conspiracy Theory 02

November 6, 2019

Probable Conspiracies

This continues from the previous post.

However, I’ve kept suggesting that conspiracy is normal. The question can then arise, what seem to be some major conspiracies, for which there is evidence? And of course my choices are influenced by my own politics.

Media support for the Right generally. One can think of the NYT spending more time on Clinton’s supposed crimes than on Trump’s real crimes. We can think of the way that Trump’s supposed rape of a thirteen year old was barely mentioned, when if this accusation involved Bill Clinton then, probably it would have been everywhere. Indeed we can check this probability by looking at coverage of the Epstein affair in which it was freely asserted that the Clintons had a reason to kill Epstein, but it was rarely pointed out that Trump had exactly the same supposed reasons for murdering him, and far more capacity as President. We can look at the Murdoch Empire, and its celebration of free markets, the Right, the Bush Jr. war in Iraq, its opposition to social services and so on.

As further support for this position, we can also think of the way that most of the media went with Trump and William Barr’s own summary of the Mueller Report, when this was an overtly surprising strategy to take. You go with the description of something likely to be critical of the President, which was completely made by the President’s allies? Was this just bias or conspiracy? or is there no difference?

The ideology of the mainstream media seems to verge from Humanitarian Right to Totalitarian Right, while they (conspire??? to) pretend that some media is horribly biased towards the left, to disguise this. That way, pro-corporate information effectively becomes unchallengeable, and that benefits corporate media owners and their class as a whole. Does this arise from conspiracy or accident, or because of similar ownership and aims?

Furthermore, a large number of studies suggest that most media downplays climate change at best, and is often actively hostile to the idea, or suggests nothing practical can be done, or that action would cost people money. These positions support those established patterns of wealth and power, which are challenged by the recognition of ecological destruction, and people have to be distracted from this. Other information we have like Exxon denying their own research in public to sell more oil, seems to support this position, but this might not involve acting in common with the media. People in the media could just be frightened of climate change, like a lot of other people, and not want to go too deep into its threats. Or perhaps they did not want to upset major sponsors.

Is the fact that a significant part of the population thinks the Media is left wing, evidence of a general and accepted conspiracy to delude people as to their real sources of oppression in corporate economics and power in a closed ecology? Or is it just the way things work?

Pro-Corporate Economics. We can think of corporate funding of think tanks which support climate denial, tax cuts for the wealthy, anti-union propaganda, ‘free market’ economics (which supports corporate oligopoly), consumerism and so on. This is so big its absolutely mainstream. But is it conspiracy, or just the normal workings of information in capitalism?

Did Mises and Hayek support their funders in principle, just happen to have theories which were useful to those funders, or tailor their theories to go along with the funding? We don’t know, but we can ask where they obfuscate, and whether their theories are worked out logically? Why, for example, do they never see wealth as a source of power which could corrupt the market? Why do they see hierarchy in business organisations as good, but outside business organisations as bad? Why do they try to prevent democratic regulation of a non-working ‘free-market’? Would thinking along these lines have threatened their funding?

There are the long trails of the Mont Pelerin Society and the Atlas Network, which have only existed because of corporate funding, although these organisations seem relatively unknown in mainstream conspiracy theory. Perhaps because they appear to operate in support of maintaining corporate dominance, and the function of most contemporary conspiracy theory is to support the capitalist elites? But is that another conspiracy, or is it the shallowness of contemporary reporting?

There appears to have been an active attempt to fund climate change denial, or ecological destruction denial, through these think tanks and corporate organisations, for the benefit of heavily polluting corporations. Is this conspiracy, or is it just the way corporate capitalism routinely deceives people to sell products, and avoid responsibilities for damage?

Through similar forces (or attempts to please powerful wealthy people), the mainstream left of contemporary English speaking politics have embraced “the market” as a marker of acceptability, and possibility. As a result they would probably have been considered right wing 30-40 years ago. But this swing to the right cannot be admitted. Is this a conspiracy, as well?

Support for Trump. We can think of the forces working for Trump’s election in 2016 and earlier, not just the media, but Cambridge Analytica (through Facebook directly or indirectly), Russian misinformation and so on. This may be multiple conspiracies, rather than one over-arching conspiracy, and it is of course hard to know what effect they had. However, given Trump’s narrow win, only a small effect would be necessary to be significant.

However, even if they had no effect, they could still be conspiracies. Conspiracies do not have to succeed to be active. And what is the difference between conspiracy and underhand political manipulation? This point also emphasises function; for instance, through the functioning of the electoral system, various third party candidates had the effect of helping Trump to win, by taking votes away from Clinton, even if they did not want to, or set out to do that.

If we are in conspiracy mode we can point to evidence suggesting this effect of third parties was not simply accident, or bad planning. How do we tell? I suppose by whether they do it again or not….? Or this idea could be a way of distracting Democrats from how badly they ran their campaign.

State based propaganda. The Russians also seem to be conspiring with the US Right to make it look like they are more than simple imperialists in Ukraine and Syria (or that the US is worse, which is irrelevant to their own position), and they seem to have lead the way in promoting the idea that George Soros is part of the Jewish/ISIS conspiracy or whatever, which now seems so much part of the US right’s conspiratorial outlook – probably because Soros is a successful business person who supports open societies, rather than closed free market cliques, or closed authoritarian cliques. These actions are so overt, its probably not a conspiracy, its just effective propaganda. The Soros idea probably reuses some of the old Jewish conspiracy motifs.

From the Mueller report and other sources, we know that the Trump campaign attempted to conspire with the Russians to influence the 2016 election, and we also know that Trump attempted to conspire to obstruct the course of justice, and dismissed people who he thought might be fair or hostile to him. We know that he attempted to force another head of State to provide information useful to him in the next election. He even publicly asked his supposed enemies the Chinese to do the same. We know that Republicans appear to be conspiring to obstruct any impeachment inquiry, cast doubt on its proceedings and cast doubt on evidence relating to Trump, and in this they are largely being supported by the media. They also appear to be using the mechanisms of the State (the ‘deep state’?) to obstruct the inquiry. We know that this impeachment inquiry is being portrayed as unprecedented, when Republicans attacked Obama and both Clintons without much in the way of evidence for years.

We also know that Republicans appear to be conspiring to gerrymander electorates and to keep out Democrats or left wing candidates. They seem to be trying to get ‘pure-left’ people to attack the Democrats in preference to attacking Republicans, and vote for third party candidates to keep the Republicans in power. Is this a conspiracy, or is this just politics as normal?

Hiding and distracting. Trump raves about witch-hunts and conspiracies against him. Are Trump’s actions and accusations, simply hiding his preference for environmental destruction, and giving tax cuts to wealthy people, especially property owners? Is this a conspiracy, or just Republican politics made plain? Its certainly important, but we can lose sight of it in other conspiracies – which itself may be a conspiracy. Obviously corporations who benefit from environmental destruction have much to gain from Trump’s policies, but the truthful slogan “Republicans: better at poisoning you” probably would have little appeal.

Paedophilia in Churches. We now know this happened. People in authority in Churches raped children repeatedly. Others knew about it and hid it. People who were known to have raped children were moved to places where their activities were not known, so they could rape more children. If anyone came to allege that people had been raped, or they had been raped, the full might of the Church was used to discredit them, and to protect the rapist. If someone did receive compensation then they would be sworn to secrecy. The aim seems to have been to do anything to protect the name of the various churches, and that involved protecting rapists, or preventing the presence of child rapists from being recognised. Whether people discussed what they were doing or not, or conspired in the ordinary sense of the word, is almost irrelevant. All the hallmarks of conspiracy were present. Power was used to oppress the relatively powerless, and was used ruthlessly.

After this Church based action, it is hard to disbelieve that conspiracy never happens amongst the powerful.

Conlcusion

Conspiracy happens, but it can be a bottomless pit, and easily manipulated, and serve to attack those who might help people.

Genuine conspiracies probably involve people who are naturally powerful, and attempting to retain their power and privilege against challenge. Fake conspiracies usually involve a misrecognition of power (such as saying academics, artists, scientists, gays, marginal religions etc. are to blame for everything) , but yet again people have conspired to replace the ruling classes, so it is sometimes difficult to allocate blame. However, if there is a choice between wealthy people conspiring to maintain their position, and a crowd of scientists, with different politics, interests and wealth positions, trying to displace them, then it would probably be safer to assume the conspiracy comes from the wealth establishment – as wealth buys all other sources of power.

Whatever you think, it would seem to be a mistake to ignore the importance of conspiracy theory, and possibly of conspiratorial action promoting that theory, in the contemporary world.

It also seems likely that supporters of parts of the corporate sector ally together to support the corporate sector, support pro-corporate economics, delay on acting on climate change, and support politics which benefits wealthy people. Organisations can also conspire to hide their own defects or immoralities. These distinct possibilities, should not be dismissed. They are most likely normal behaviours not strange extremes, or mere theory.

The abuse of an approach is not proof that the approach is always wrong.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

On Conspiracy Theory

November 1, 2019

You can easily be dismissed in academia for proposing conspiracy theory, indeed the very name is a dismissal in itself. However, this reaction also dismisses an important trope in modern life.

This post has frequently collapsed which is possibly evidence of conspiracy. 🙂

It continues in the next post

Plausibility of conspiracy

People naturally “team-up” to do things because people can do more together than alone, and coordinating the actions of different groups acts as a source of power, just as wealth adds to that power. Sometimes people join together without telling outsiders – although sometimes it won’t be hidden, the collaboration can just avoid publicity, perhaps through the group’s influence on the media, and perhaps because of fear of legal action. In these cases we can call it conspiracy, if we want.

As Right wing conspiracy theorist Gary Allen argued, we know relatively powerless people can produce great effects by conspiring (as with those people who organised the French and Russian revolutions), so why not accept that already powerful people could also conspire/collaborate with effect against other powerful people or against the populace?

Indeed we know powerful people team up to magnify their effect, in things like the “Minerals Council of Australia”, and the “Business Council of Australia”. We know that wealthy people subsidise news organisations to promote their ideals and politics, or to hide news that might disturb those ideals and politics. We further know that wealthy people subsidise think-tanks to support them, and provide “independent testimony” for their ideals and politics. Some of these wealth-founded media organisations, like Breitbart, and Fox news pretend to be reacting to left wing bias elsewhere and hide their embedding in elite wealth.

Conspiracy theory could always arise with investigation of how the ‘ruling classes’ go about ruling, rather than just being crazy stuff. The problem, then, is to identify that class and its actions plausibly. Before we move onto that problem let us consider a few other problems with conspiracy theory.

Problems with Conspiracy Theory

Popularity and persuasion do not equal truth The most obvious problem is that such theories can be very popular and very wrong. They can be promoted by agents of the powerful, to distract from the operations of those powerful people, and to motivate hatred against possible enemies, or because it is easier, quicker and more appealing to construct an imagined conspiracy, than to do real analysis, and to check initial bias.

As the people identified as being in a conspiracy are generally acting politically according to the conspiracy theory, then conspiracy theory tends strongly to be an arm of politics and affected by political bias and intention.

For example, it seems extremely unlikely there was ever a world wide conspiracy involving all Jewish people, or even some Jewish people, which aimed at taking over the Western World. I don’t know of any evidence other than a few obviously fake documents, and a few statements attributed to members of powerful and wealthy Jewish families, which may or may not be theirs, or which may be taken out of context. While inaccurate, the theory summarised in an acceptable symbolic form a lot of conservative nationalist problems with world capitalism. It was also based in a wide-spread anti-Semiticism which had been fueled by Christianity for a long time and so fitted in with existing pre-conceptions. As such it was obviously believable to many and the consequences of this theory were horrific, and enabled horroric acts to be carried out. This particular conspiracy theory still hangs around.

Are conspiracy theories themselves conspiracies? We may even ask whether this conspiracy theory was a result of a conspiracy against Jewish people, which aimed to make them scapegoats for problems, and use this scapegoating to gain power?

At a much lesser level, we can also think of many of the conspiracies that Hillary Clinton was supposedly involved with, from Pizzagate to the vanished emails, or the accusations she had people, who threatened her, killed. Nothing incriminating has ever come to light from the many and wide hostile investigations into her. Indeed, so little criminal activity has been revealed by people eager to attack her, that she may be the cleanest politician in US history. However, as a result of the promotion of these theories and inquiries, her name was blackened and many people in the US hate her in particular and use her as an exemplary example of a corrupt politician. Does this hatred result from a conspiracy to discredit her? Or was that ‘team-up’ an accident? While she may not have conspired, it may be interesting to ask why so many appear to have acted together against her – especially given that the failure of these investigations was not used to promote her integrity.

The consequences for the world, of the apparent conspiracy against her seem to have been pretty grave so far, and are likely to get worse.

This selective bias factor is also illustrated by the comments on a youtube video in which Noam Chomsky outlines the ways that the Right made climate change into a “liberal conspiracy” rather than a distressing fact. It seems that many people commenting were eager to accept Chomsky’s accounts of US foreign policy and military action, but thought he had sold out (or become part of a conspiracy) when he denounced the conspiracy to denounce climate change. People choose what conspiracy they believe in by their existing ideologies and biases, or by their loyalties to particular groups, not by the strength of the evidence presented.

As another example of how existing bias filters ‘facts’, Gary Allen, if I remember correctly (and I don’t have the book with me to check at this moment, but I will), argued that American capitalists subsidised Lenin. He then concluded that some wealthy people in the US establishment were Bolshevik communists, rather than concluding that (if these facts where correct) Lenin probably was doing what he was paid to do which could explain why the revolution was totalitarian and not liberatory. Allen was also celebratory that Americans had such common sense they hated communism, without knowing anything about it…. Nothing to do with US media propaganda, and the wealth elites, of course.

Other conspiracy people point to the mention of ‘Liberals’ as tools of the Elders of Zion in the Protocols to argue that modern Democrats and left-wingers are tools of international jewry, rather than bother to check that ‘Liberal’, in the days the Protocols were written, meant something more like modern Republican supporters of unrestricted capitalism, ie themselves – which would surely produce some dissonance for them. Again the bias, and group loyalties and hostilities, foreclose understanding and make links that are not likely.

People rarely ever seem to think that some conspiracy could be deliberately affecting what they think about the world at this moment. They assume their ability to track conspiracy is evidence of the conspiracy they are tracking. But, if conspiracy is a mode of politics, how can you trust the information you are using to prove conspiracy?

As implied earlier, we can assume that these supporters of the validity of the Protocols and Allen are part of the conspiracy they are supposedly denouncing; either operating as false flags, or being manipulated by those engaged in conspiracy…. and that demonstrates another problem with conspiracy theory: everything can be made to fit together neatly, by supposition and bias. This leads to another problem…..

Bias Expansion. This occurs when people accept a reasonable possibility of conspiracy and then expand it in areas which are less and less plausible.

For example, it appears that the QAnon movement reasonably argues that people with criminal aspirations, can come to power in hierarchies. These people are likely to have no empathy for others, threaten, lie, cheat, and be focused on their own power, rather than on robbing the corner store. This is plausible, we can see criminality or sociopathy in Religious organisations where we might expect otherwise, and in the management structures that we experience everyday. It is not quite so clear that these criminals always collaborate with each other. However QAnon extend this plausibility, and seem to argue that every person who they dislike is criminal and probably satanic (Hilary Clinton being a good example, because if you are pro-Republican she must be evil), and that President Trump is fighting for the American People against this criminality. Given Trump’s business record, and his actions against his enemies while in power this seems highly improbable. If he is fighting against criminals, it is probably to benefit himself or other criminals he sees as being on his side. However, the theory allows any criticism of Trump’s actions and policies to be dismissed as the work of criminals – Trump is not trying to obstruct the course of justice for example, but obstructing subversive criminals – and thus the theory supports bias in favour of Trump, which again leads to the possibility it is part of a pro-criminal-pro-Trump conspiracy.

I have also read the suggestion that QAnon is satire, directed at ‘ignorant’ Trump followers but, if so, many people (on both sides) take it as genuine. And if it is a satire, then for some people it might well be a satiric conspiracy.

Again people who suspect US foreign policy of being imperialistic, often end up extending their bias and supporting Russian intervention in Syria or Ukraine, when there is little to suggest that Russian interventions are any less imperialistic than the US, but it fits in with an anti-US bias.

There is no end.

Secrecy and projection Another problem with conspiracy theory, involves the fact that a conspiracy is usually secret and so it is hard to get evidence, but this secrecy also makes it easy to fake information (there are few sources that contradict the fakery), easy to interpret data however you want through projection (ie attributing your own vices to despised others who are not that visible) and to use the fakery politically because it seems right according to your existing biases which make the fakes seem plausible.

There is always so much happening in the world, that some evidence for anything you want to prove will probably exist somewhere, and can be linked through some mechanism to others. Such as, if people meet occasionally they must conspire together, or if people agree about something they must conspire together. However, people can agree independently of each other, and anyone can occassionally meet people they have little connection with. The FBI, the Intelligence agencies, the military and many lawyers and judges, may all agree that it looks as if President Trump is behaving in ways which will damage the US, without them having conspired together against him. They may simply agree as to the apparant facts. Just as scientists who think there is a climate crisis, do not have to have conspired together to come to that conclusion. However, if both cases if you believe that Trump is good, or that climate change cannot occur, then the conspiracy functions as an explanation for why others disagree.

Likwise, if you believe that the real reasons for US foreign policy is hidden, which is not unreasonable, and you believe that the US government hides contact with aliens (which a secretive organisation might do), then this secretive foreign policy could have something to do with the secrecy about aliens. Perhaps it is an alien inspired attempt to control the world. Perhaps President Trump (who is known for his tough stance against ‘illegal aliens’) is fighting hard against the aliens, or for the aliens…

And some people have no issue with making up evidence or accusations to support their bias (it must be true if it confirms the enemies’ badness), as seems to be the case with Clinton or Soros.

Assumptions of success Another problem of conspiracy theory is that it often assumes that conspiracies have their intended consequences, which makes them far more effective than normal political movements which fail all the time. A consequence of this is that conspiracy theories are often proposed to explain why the results of an action by the conspiracy proposer’s side did not work. This ‘proves’ that not only were the proposer’s theories correct, but the ideal results were foiled by deliberate evil, exonerating them from attempting to discover if they have innacurate theories and policies, or from making any changes to how they behave.

When one’s favoured side looses, is often a clear sign of conspiracy. Thus I read a lot of conspiracy theory alleging that US Democrats are criminals and evil because some established members of the party can conspire or collaborate together against ‘the Left’ and out-manoeuvre them. To me, this sounds like normal politics in action; calling it conspiracy when one faction defeats another is possibly going too far. Clinton was better at the numbers game than Sanders. But this is probably what we should expect, given that Sanders had only recently joined the party and had not built allegiances, and was probably seen as a something of an opportunist by many members of the party. It does not need active evil.

Again the question arises, who is making this apparently normal internal politics into a conspiracy? Why are they doing so? And are they participating in a conspiracy themselves? The articles alleging dirty tricks in the Democrats seem to aim pretty clearly to discredit mainstream Democrats and persuade people not to vote for them. This benefits the Republicans. So we can wonder if this news is a Republican conspiracy, planted amongst the Left, to split potential democrat Voters? Or are the Left doing it to themselves? The articles might benefit the Republicans without them being a Republican conspiracy: effect does not always imply intent.

One thing that might convince people these articles are a Republican conspiracy is that they seem part of the “both sides are equally bad” meme which, at the moment, benefits the Republicans, especially as nobody points out the problems of their internal politics to such a degree. Also it seems notable that when the Republicans do bad things overseas, the articles say the US is doing bad things, but if it is the Democrats doing bad things, then that is pointed out. But this is not proof, only suggestion. What would be required would be the incredibly difficult work of tracking the articles as they circulate, and who they are circulated by.

Given the massive choice of conspiracies, when I see conspiracy theories in action, I look at what people do with them. If they primarily attack one side of politics, and largely ignore conspiracies which suggest the other side of politics is bad, then I guess they are working for the side which is not blamed, whether deliberately or otherwise.

While people can claim certain allegiances, their selection of conspiracy theories may indicate others or have the effect of supporting those others. But this may not itself be conspiracy.

Conclusion of part 1

People may work together without conspiring, and without even knowing they are working together. This kind of effect happens all the way through complex societies. People make things, which help other people to act. People have similar ideas without ever talking to each other and so on. This is normal, but the interdependence probably can be manipulated.

Interdependence can suggest conspiracy, but it is normal without conspiracy.

However, it is also plausible that members of the Ruling Classes do conspire with others against each other and against those they rule. They may well make use of people who see an advantage in supporting them, or who think that their rule is good and justifies support. These people may not only conspire, but they may use conspiracy theory to hide their own conspiring.

This is not inherently implausible. As implied it is likely that the way the ruling class rules resembles conspiracy.

This discussion continues in the next post, on probable conspiracy.

https://cmandchaos.wordpress.com/2019/11/06/on-conspiracy-theory-02/

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Earth, Climate, Dreams: Dialogues with Depth Psychologists in the Age of the Anthropocene

October 28, 2019

Earth, Climate, Dreams is a new book being launched at Gleebooks in Sydney, by Analyst and author Judith Pickering on the 16th November 2019.

See http://www.gleebooks.com.au/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=318994

The book is a series of interviews with a range of experienced Depth Psychologists (primarily of Jungian heritage) and discusses psycho-symbolic and social responses to the Anthropocene.

Apart from the obvious topics of climate change and ecological destruction, subjects discussed range from discussions of Pilgrimage, to the aspirations of Dr. Frankenstein, to the collapse of Mayan civilisation, to colony collapse disorder in bees, to the cultural complexes of capitalism, to systems theory, unconscious forces, communication with the world, and the uses of dreams to gain insight into the world.

The book argues strongly that we need to engage with our psychological processes to deal constructively with the changes we are facing – otherwise psychological inertia, denial or other processes of repression and hostility are likely to win out. We are facing an existential crisis, with grave psychological consequences. This book explores possible ways to move beyond these psychological limitations and barriers.

Depth psychology proves useful in this quest, because it tends to focus on neglected aspects of life and assumes that individual psychology is at least partly collective, and works through creativity, imagination and symbol production. Our psyches are already alive and part of nature.

Depth psychology continually deals with problems that the conscious ego cannot understand, so this is especially useful for facing the paradoxes, complexities and dilemmas of the Anthropocene.

Readers who are already familiar with those being interviewed, will realise that this is quite a formidable and well published group of people. There is a lot of valuable experience here, made available in an approachable format. The main interviewer, Bonnie Bright, is a deep listener and contributor to comprehensibility of the conversations.

I’m only going to give very brief tastings of the interviews to give a feel of what people talk about, because you really need to read the book to get the full depth of thought here.

The book starts with a short introduction, trying to explain the basic terms and their dynamics: myth, consciousness, unconscious processes, image, symbol, dreams, the Self, complexes, separation and so on. It also suggests that the ways these forms are presented in our lives are conditioned by, and respond to, capitalism and developmentalism, but can lead to creative political, or other action.

The first interview is with Jeffrey Kiehl, a climate scientist who took up analytic training in response to the problems of communicating climate science. He argues against one-sided approaches to climate change (such as the purely rational), suggesting we need to use multiple ways of understanding and relating to the world. He emphasises the importance of acknowledging painful feelings about climate change, which can cause people to space out when faced with the data. He introduces the idea that dreams can contain awareness which speaks to problems in the world, and help us face them.

Susan Rowland is an academic literary critic who primarily looks at human relationships to nature and the gods. She discusses how the imagination can be part of addressing, and connecting to, ecological crises. She brings up the question of the imaginary relationship between gender and nature, and particularly the way that nature has been connected to the “feminine” and can be treated violently in our culture, and how it could be treated differently elsewhere. She explores this possible arc of creative difference through the myth of Dionysus and the experience of being broken into parts.

Stephen Aizenstat is the founding president of the Pacifica Graduate Institute and has worked with the UN. As well as talking with CEOs and government bodies, Aiszenstat is frequently asked into schools where he finds students have a strong sense of the fragility of the world, and become more fragile and grief struck, because of that connection. He discusses ways of dream tending as remedy, emphasising the importance of encountering the dream beings rather than interpreting them. This allows the dreams to become a source of strength and illumination. As he says: “At night, when our eyes are closed, something else comes awake.”

Susannah Benson, researcher and past President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, discusses the importance of dreams and long-term dream groups. Taken over time, dreams provide a way of orienting ourselves in the world, somewhat like a GPS. She quotes a Buddhist text: “A dream is as much an immediate reality as is the waking state and it is even possible to see the world more clearly in our dreams than in our waking state.” Dream groups help provide different perspectives on the dreams and can deepen our modes of listening to the hidden parts of the self, because the group can help break through our habitual perceptions and interpretations, thus providing more creative responses to problems. 

Jerome Bernstein, analyst and author, started his path working with Native Americans, learning from them and gaining his first religious experience at a Hopi ceremony. This has given him a sense of what might be missing in a suicidally oriented technological society. He suggests that we have a co-evolutionary process with the world as a whole. This process could work with us, if we were prepared to listen and act in a reciprocal way with it, rather than try to dominate or fix it. Getting to this place, requires the cultivation of what he calls a “borderland psyche,” which appears to be appearing spontaneously, in some people, in response to the crisis.

Sally Gillespie a researcher engaged with climate action points to the emotional difficulties we have, as a culture, with conversations about climate change. Anxiety, dread, terror, hopelessness, guilt and so on, build up making it a loaded and complicated area – even without considering the complexities of the topic. However, it can be possible to have such conversations in groups, and acknowledge these feelings and the dreams around the conversations. Feelings can then develop and energy become available for connecting personal with collective knowledge and action.

Robert Romanyshyn, analyst and author, discusses the ideas which lead to his book on Victor Frankenstein, the Monster and the Shadows of Technology. He treats the story of Frankenstein as a cultural dream, which can be worked through in many ways. Looking at the story helps us to see what we have left behind and forgotten, and this provides a context for understanding where we are now. This context helps us see another truth of things, and may allow us to imagine the future in different ways, and make a new framework for understanding problems of technology and environment.

Erel Shalit, analyst and author, begins by talking about memory as the basis of civilisation and the problem of handing memory over to machines. He points out that we also want to forget, as when we are gripped by trauma and keep remembering the same unbearable thing.  But with the forgetting we lose history, and in an information rich world, we can choose the information which pleases us, and lose that which might keep us safe. He discusses the difficulty of maintaining a balance between machines which intensify human mastery and machines which become masters, or devices which distance us from trauma causing destructive acts of the kind regularly carried out in the Anthropocene.

Michael Conforti begins by discussing the reality of psyche and its processes, especially the move from primary to secondary narcissism. Secondary narcissism marks the beginning of a moral psyche, in which you gain pleasure by pleasing and helping others. Primary narcissism leads to environmental destruction, as everything pleasurable becomes addictive and unending, with no relationship to other beings. He suggests addiction is an attractor, as in chaos theory, in which everything comes to circle, including destruction of nature. The remedy involves more care about psyche and its unconscious awareness.

Jonathan Marshall a researcher and author, talks about complex systems theory and how psychological processes are related to ecological and political processes in the world, and spill over into them. Repression of the world equals repression of psyche. This similarity and connection can make it difficult to know whether a transformation will be successful or not. Acts and policies, tied into fantasies, can be good up to a point and, after that, quite harmful. Every restorative action in the world is experimental and, to be effective, may require revision and modification.

Veronica Goodchild, is an educator, analyst and author.  She talks about ways of relating to the earth through pilgrimage and spiritual practice through attending to our imaginal relationships to nature, through vision, image and dream. “Your own imagination is connecting, as I see it, to the imagination of nature.” Such practices have helped her deal with her grief about world destruction, and participate in the processes of regeneration, human and natural, and to help others through similar processes.

Nancy Swift Furlotti discusses the religious and mythic culture of the Maya, detailing the stories of the Popol Vuh and their psychological meanings. She shows how Mayan religious and cultural practices had the side effects of destroying their ecology and hence society, despite the presence of warnings in their myths. Their temples are the biggest in the entire world in terms of mass, and the intensification of processes of building them appears to have cut off water supplies. This clearly has relevance for our own times, as we build the biggest temples of commerce ever seen while ignoring the effects on ecologies.

Bonnie Bright, the founder of Depth Insights, and interviewer for the book, is then interviewed by co-editor, Jonathan Marshall. She talks about colony collapse disorder in bees and uses this as an analogy to discuss “cultural collapse disorder” in humans. Both phenomena are vitally important. Without bees, food cropping will fail, and there will be further pressure on natural regeneration. While, if humans fail to bring their deeper symbolic experiences and inspirations back to others, then their culture begins to die, as it cannot deal with new challenges and becomes unable to relate to the changing natural world.

The final chapter contains a wide-ranging discussion between a number of the interviewees about the cultural complex and crises of capitalism during the Anthropocene. This discussion suggests some ways of dealing with the overwhelming grief and disorientation produced by facing into the destruction of the world by our own ways of living.

Some Pre-release Comments

“Depth psychologist Bonnie Bright and her colleagues help us understand that climate change is not just an environmental, economic, social or security challenge – although it is all of these – but a deeply psychological crisis that demands “a new psychological position and understanding.” A must-read for anyone wanting to better understand why we’re in our current mess and how to get out of it!”

Linda Buzzell, Co-Editor, Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind

“These interviews are, at one level, a fine tribute to Jung’s vision that the human psyche cannot be considered in isolation from the wider forces that govern life on Earth. But Bonnie Bright’s collection of dialogues also has a far more urgent relevance: the Anthropocene has now been unleashed and it remains an open question whether we can act in time to maintain a habitable planet. The answer will lie in a myriad of policy and behavioural decisions and underlying them all is the need for humankind to transform its notions of self-interest in the light of Earth consciousness. The interviews in this book are both signposts and beacons in that all-important journey.“

—Adrian Tait, Co-Founder, Climate Psychology Alliance

“Dreams open a portal to another way of seeing the world, offering access to the personal and collective unconscious. Dreams encourage the imagination to flourish. Sometimes, dreams can offer another way to approach seemingly insoluble problems. So this anthology arrives at the perfect moment, offering insights and inspiration in this time of climate chaos and global crisis, with contributions from leading thinkers in the field of depth psychology, science and education.“

—Mary-Jayne Rust, Co-Editor, Vital Signs: Psychological Responses to Ecological Crisis

“This work provides a unique perspective on the issue of climate disruption. Science has provided us with all the evidence necessary for immediate action, yet too little is being done too slowly to address this global threat. As Jung noted, in such times of deep disarray, perhaps we should ask the unconscious what to do. The dialogues in this work do just that. Here we are given an opportunity to listen to psyche’s concerns about our planet.”

—Jeffrey T. Kiehl. Participant in the book, Climate Scientist, Jungian Analyst, Author of Facing Climate Change: An Integrated Path to the Future

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Problems of Transition 05: The problem of pace and size

October 23, 2019

Follows on from: Energy Return on Energy Input

The Path to Transition

Full transition, with replication of all social activities and produce, may not be possible. We may not have enough non-ecologically destructive energy to make the equipment needed for the energy transformation because of EREI and the decline in safe fossil fuel consumption. The Transformation, particularly, may not be possible in a situation in which less developed countries are demanding the right to ‘develop’ living standards for their people which are equivalent to the living standards in the developed ‘West’ which are currently produced with huge levels of ecological destruction. Stopping this ‘catch up’ from happening is probably impossible without war or major catastrophe, even without coal power companies and government institutions, still trying to sell the developing world coal based energy, because they would rather destroy the world than wind down their businesses.

The situation is made worse because of the small amounts of truly renewable energy installations actually present in the world. By ‘truly renewable’, I mean energy which once burnt is not gone. (Yes, I am aware renenwable energy machinery is not renewable at the moment, only the sources such as wind, sun, hydro, geothermal heat, tidal action and so on; that is part of the problem and part of the reason the machines are needed). This means that we have an extraordinarily large scale transition to engage with; one that has only jut begun, even while expansion of fossil fuel usage, with its emissions and destruction, has increased.

The most recent figures from the IEA (2018 Key World Energy Statistics) suggest that the world’s primary energy supply is distributed by:

  • Oil 31.9%,
  • Coal at 27.1%,
  • Gas at 22.1%,
  • Biofuels and waste at 9.8%,
  • Nuclear at 4.9%
  • Hydro at 2.5% and
  • Everything else (solar, wind, geothermal) at 1.7%.

Clearly by far the majority of the world’s energy (over 80%, over 90% if you include biofuel and waste, which I would) comes from burning Greenhouse gas emitting fuels.

Despite the need for transition being clearly established since the late 1980s, with the Kyoto Protocol being declared in 1997 most societies have done very little to forward the transition. Indeed coal use rapidly increased after the Protocol was declared, making the challenge even greater than it would have been. The obstacles to successful transition are apparently huge.

As is repeatedly announced, the number of companies, or government instititions responsible for most of these greenhouse gases is small. 100 companies are responsible for about 70% of global emissions since 1988 and, possibly, over half the emissions since the beginning of the industrial revolution. So, in theory, it should be possible to control this. The recent decline in coal usage in many countries is also helpful, but is probably not enough, especially given the refusal of fossil fuel companies to promote their products and promote confusion about climate change, its causes and likely consequences.

Conclusion of the part

The size and difficulty of the task of transition is enormous. Social relations and EREI are likely to make the task onerous at best, and maybe impossible without some change in social relations and aspirations. Political action is important, and the transformation almost certainly cannot be left to the private sector alone, as it has so far depended on ecological destruction and misleading hype.

The reality is that the transformation is not happening fast enough, and may not be able to occur fast enough, to stop tumultuous climate change from occuring. We can only try to restrain the tumult and prevent it getting even worse in the long term.

Difficulty of transition is increased by already failing infrastructure.

Later parts of this series will discuss
Drawdown
and problems with indivudal forms of renewable energy

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Problems of Transition 04: Energy Return on Energy Input

October 23, 2019

Follows on from Technology is Social

Energy Return on Energy Input (EREI)
Understanding this concept is fundamental to understanding what is possible with energy technology. Basically, any production of energy takes energy to make. In the fossil fuel world, the ratio of energy input to energy output has been said to be of the order of 1:100. Even today when it has become much harder to find and extract useable oil the ratio is still around 1:20 or more. Easy to access fields of fossil fuels, with little energy use, and little ecological destruction, will tend to be consumed first. There are inevitably declining returns on EREI from resources, and therefore declining availability of energy, without some massive new source of energy being discovered, and this does not happen that often.

The closer the EREI ratio gets to 1:1 or lower, the more the amount of energy used to produce energy gets to resemble the amount of energy produced. The smaller the ratio, the less energy is available for free action, or action that is not tied into energy production. If the ratio goes below 1:1, then energy is essentially being wasted to make energy.

That energy is being wasted and consumed in order to make energy, does not mean the system cannot continue for a while, making things worse. Energy ‘non-production’ can be supported by the taxpayer (as the State considers it important for national functioning); by weird financial schemes or straightforward Ponzi schemes in which more and more people are persuaded to put money into the ventures while return declines (as many people suggest is the actual dynamic behind fracking); by taking energy from a better functioning part of the system; by using cheaper energy such as slave labour; and by increasing unrepairable environmental destruction. Just as we can pursue declining fish stocks with more energy and ruthlessness until they are all gone, so we can pursue low EREI until we collapse. Money acts as an ersatz source of energy as it allows human focus and activity stripped from reality but, eventually, if it does not have some relationship to available energy, the currency will collapse. The point is such practices suck energy from the necessary transition, and eventually disrupt the society in a probably catastrophic way.

Renewable energies, and any potential ‘clean fossil fuels,’ have much lower EREI, than dirty fossil fuels. Most of the renewables are also intermittant, So we need more of them and more energy production, than we needed of fossil fuel energy supplies – and again that takes lots of free energy.

This lower EREI severely limits what can be done and unfortunately, we need a truly massive energy transformation in a time of apparent declining energy availability (and particularly low ecologically destructive energy) to produce machines with lower EREI, which makes transition harder.

Continues in Problems of Transition 05: The problem of pace and size

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Problems of Transition 03: Technology is social

October 23, 2019

Follows on from: Technology as Fantasy

Some of these problems talked about in the previous post, occur because technology is not neutral, it is born into being, and designed, within existing social relations, social struggles, ecological relations and so on. Technologies will almost always be designed, and modified, to try and maintain or intensify relations of social power, and distributions of wealth. In capitalism, for example, work tools are rarely designed to give people more simple leisure, and indeed leisure tools like the internet or mobile phone, can be used to extend work hours ‘voluntarily’. Any technology with potential, become sites of social struggle.

Technology involves social organisation

In the current world, social organisation and disorganisation exists before new technologies are introduced. Sometimes we can easily think of social relations and organisation as a form of technology. Armies of soldiers are a different form of technology, to collections of warriors. The discipline of Roman troops and troop formation, generally proved victorious over warrior bands, even though the basic physical technologies were not that much different; swords, spears, shields, armour, bows etc. The pyramids were primarily built through the organisation of human action; without that organisation, they could not have been made. Irrigation systems require co-ordination and distribution systems, which usually imply allocation of power and authority. These various systems may, in some cases be primarily religious, magical or astrological – so again magic is overtly part of the technologies application. Capitalism grew together with styles of organisation of factories, offices, labour, finance, expertise and so on. Office machines and factory machines also grew within these frameworks. Technology as a part of, or enabler of, social relations, is also deeply implicated in power relations and hierarchies, and the struggles within them.

To repeat; technology arrives into a situation in which social struggles, conflicts, failures, successes and so on already exist. The technology is designed by at least one faction in this set of complex social relations, and is inserted into them. It is not always possible to clearly demarcate a technology from the social relations and organisation that exist ‘around’ it and ‘through’ it. Technology is social from the beginning.

Maybe, in another world, it is possible the internet could have become a tool of democracy but, in this world, it was born in a period of increasingly neoliberal capitalism, and was transformed by the victors of that struggle into a commercial, data collecting set of business oligopolies. It was used in the political struggles of the world, to promote neoliberal ideologies, to win elections, to increase surveillance, to arrest dissidents, to destroy other States, to find new ways of manipulating people, and so on. Its potential to be a tool of democracy was destroyed by those who wished to use it to support their own power.

The same problem of the effect of established, or victorious, social relations is relevant for renewables. If renewables are established within social relationships which already depend on sacrificing ecologies for pofit, then it seems likely that renewables will be used to continue that sacrifice.

This is not an issue that can be answered in advance of research, However, continuing sacrifice does seem a problem.

Sacrifice of some for the good of all.

Research in India shows that people can have their land stripped away from them for corporate renewable installations (possibly through fraudulent contracts, or simply by ignoring the existing use). The installations can render the land desolate through the use of mass concrete stands. The removal of agriculture, can lead to massive unemployment and skill loss, because renewables only require a small, relatively unskilled labour force to maintain. Water, in short supply to begin with, can be taken from the public to keep the panels clear of dust. Attempts by local people to establish their own renewable networks, can be destroyed by people developing national grids, who demand local homemade grids be taken down, as they disrupt ‘proper’ grids.

Research in Australia implies that standard corporate development practices flourish, with top down imposition of energy farms (in a similar way to the way coal mines can be promoted) which alienates local people, prevents discussion of the potential problems of the development, prevents people discussing the contracts they might get for land-use, and leads to envy because some people get large payments, and others get nothing. Again, this can destroy local small town economies, because the levels of employment are less. As with the internet, democratic practices can be sacrificed for profitability.

Likewise, support for these top-down installations often seems to suggest that people’s relationship to the land which they feel they are protecting by objecting to the renewable projects, is irrelevant, when we precisely wish to maintain nurturing relationships to land and ecologies to allow transition. Strategies of development seem bound up with the idea of sacrificing people or ecologies for the developmental “benefit of all”, or perhaps the benefit of some. Renewables can take on this need to sacrifice others as easily as fossil fuels – although established power relations seem to make renewables easier to object to successfully. This idea of sacrifice may need modification, but how?

Capitalism and industrial society, have depended on destructive technologies

Capitalist economies have routinely profited from cheap energy, cheap resources (ignoring environmental effects), and cheap disposal of pollution, waste and used or superseded products. At the moment, most recycling is not true recycling, as people recently found out in Australia; much of the process involved companies being paid to collect waste and then paying third world countries to make it their problem with the recyclable produce often used as land fill. Money was made but little was recycled.

This reliance on cheap pollution and low monetary cost for ecological destruction, leads to the common point about such societies consuming more resources and producing more waste in a year than can be possibly regenerated in a year. Obviously the longer this goes on, the less can be regenerated and the more living capacity that is destroyed. Therefore, the problem intensifies.

Solar panel manufacturing in China, until recently, was driven by capitalist priorities, it was made with cheap dirty coal energy, paid low wages, and emitted harmful effluent pollution, killing rivers and possibly local people – although this latter point can be disputed. However, these cheap panels did drive cleaner manufacturers out of business.

Mess of information.

Because capitalism depends on sales, information about technology and technological quality is primarily propagated through PR, advertising and hype. These factors tend to exaggerate the quality and capacity of developing technologies, in order to diminish the attractiveness of other available, or potentially available, technologies and attract sales. It certainly was routine in the software industry for programmers to declare that company sales staff would promise potential purchasers capacities the software could not deliver, which would lead to problems after installation.

The same problems occur both with renewables and clean fossil fuels. In particular clean fossil fuels never seem to have the deliverables they promise. The promises often seem to be attempts to lock in pollution, on the grounds that it might get better at some non-specified time in the future.

We also have the problems that corporations which depend on fossil fuels, and others, try to find the weaknesses or uncertainties in theories of climate change, and predictions of what is likely to happen. As we are trying to describe complex systems, such weaknesses will always be found. Sometimes this propaganda behaviour seems to have gone against the scientific advice that they accepted for their own business survival, as when they moved storage and processing facilities to higher ground. However, they have helped delay transition, promote the use of fossil fuels, and confused people as to what they are facing in order to continue to make sales and profit, rather than to wind-back, change, or profit from transition. In this sense, these corporations really do depend on destruction.

Capitalism, like many other systems, messes with information as part of its standard modes of operation. It disrupts the flow of accurate information which is necessary for its own survival.

Consequence.

Without some changes to social systems, the product which confuses people and distributes its costs and harms to the populace, rather than to the manufacturer, is likely to win out. This may be especially true in a period of rapid change, in which it is hard to compare quality and harms as they become more visible over a longer period.

Technology is social, not pure and abstractly technical

Continues in:

Problems of Transition 4: Energy Return on Energy Input

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »