An interesting thing happened a few years ago: green got big. Saving the environment became all the rage in even the most conservative of quarters (i.e. the G8). Reducing emissions, tackling climate change, encouraging the use of alternative energies—a new day had truly dawned for humanity. While certain intellectually challenged sectors of the American Right, in particular, continued to maintain that this whole “climate change,” mercury in our drinking water, destruction of the Amazon Rainforest thing was all part of some elaborate communist plot, most of the international community agreed that it was, genuinely, a serious issue; one that posed a serious threat to the welfare of all people on this Earth.

And then the global economy collapsed. Not because of this communist plot, mind you, but because that’s what capitalism does. It collapses, on a regular basis. If we just take a look at the 20^th century, for instance, we see major economic downturns in 1901, 1907, 1910-11, 1929 (you know, the big one), 1973, and most of the 1980s and 1990s in rotating fashion across the US, Europe, Russia and Japan. The 21^st century began with the collapse of the so called “dot-com bubble” which was followed by a wave of corporate scandals of fairly epic proportions (Enron, WorldCom, Tycho etc). The 2000s had been shaky at the best of times, but it wasn’t until 2007 that the floor well and truly gave out. As of 2010, the crisis has yet to be subdued and a number of advanced capitalist countries stand on the brink of collapse (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain—the so called PIGS economies).

So, capitalism, which had always been a failure for the working and impoverished peoples of the world (i.e. the vast majority of humanity), once again had an explosive bowel movement. Unfortunately, this time it wasn’t merely a few billion people that would suffer as a result—it might be the entire population of the planet, as a whole. Suddenly, climate change as an issue disappeared. The focus, once again, became saving the market from itself. Banks needed be bailed out, oil companies needed to be given more favourable tax breaks and regulations needed to be scrapped for all our fellow corporate “citizens.”

In one, sweeping moment even the illusion of “hope” in the ability of the capitalist system to reform itself, to pause, to reflect, to attempt to save that which sustains life itself…washed away. The environment would have to wait. The market was the entity which needed saving. The very thing that had brought the Earth and humanity to the brink (and, arguably, well past the brink) of annihilation was to be saved. Trillions of dollars would be invested in preserving an economic and political system which had failed like clockwork for every generation since its inception; both in daily practice and in seismic episodes, experienced by the entirety of the globe at once. Capitalism, the single most destructive force in history would have to be saved, they told us.

The idea that “market-incentives” could be used to save the environment, to resolve the problem of climate change was quickly unmasked as farcical in one, simple gesture. Presented with a choice between saving humanity itself or preserving capitalism—the world’s leaders, both political and corporate, chose capitalism. The monolith would be resurrected once more.

Another irrelevant gathering of these global elites, these walking criminal syndicates is set to take place in Toronto over the next few days. We have been told that the environment is not a priority, nor are social issues such as maternal health and women’s rights or poverty or education. The priority is “stabilizing the world’s financial system(s).” The stone heads, as it were. No expense will be spared to protect these dignitaries as they meet to carve up the rotting carcass of a planet in its dying throes.

The billion dollar security budget, the razor wire, the surveillance apparatus, the riot police and private security forces—these are merely the symptoms of a rot far, far deeper. Capitalism is a cancer and our species seems to have developed a terminal case thereof. Our leaders and our states have failed and failed and failed again to act in the face of certain environmental and social collapse if this system is allowed to continue on unabated. We, ordinary people, must organize, must oppose, must resist, must challenge, must seek to undo this system like every generation before us has. Except unlike they, we must do so with the knowledge that if we fail to act now it may very well be the last opportunity anyone will ever have to save what remains of this planet.

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I take issue with the the city’s PR claims of sustainability, livability, an urban sanctuary and our awareness of our impact on nature.

I don’t care what kind of international awards we get for livability based on whatever contrived cosmopolitan criteria. We have a homeless crisis, an affordable housing crisis, an irrational worship of cars, a defunding of transit and green living alternatives, a glaring lack of useful green space on the east side, fervent disdain for pedestrians and people on bikes and a glaring lack of the word “upscale” in the description of how we’ve gentrified industrial land into “beautiful modern upscale neighbourhoods” just like Shanghai, as if they’re a model to emulate. How much does it cost to buy on Concord Pacific lands or the Olympic Village?

Our greenwashing civic spin is reaching across the Pacific Ocean to a degree that we should be watching more carefully.

Vancouver Pavilion Experience

The Vancouver Pavilion introduces the communities, the people and the ideas that earned Vancouver the reputation as the most livable city. Vancouver, like Shanghai, transformed industrial land into beautiful modern neighbourhoods between hosting Expo in 1986 and the Winter Olympics in 2010. The name “Urban Sanctuary” reflects the way the city enjoys nature and is aware of its impact on nature.

Vancouver warmly welcomes you to visit our small pavilion with big ideas about modern wood design and sustainable, livable communities.

via Blog | Open Dialogue – City of Vancouver.

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Unions began by people focussing their political will. Our future lies in reinvigorating this social will to action. We have the capacity to engage our communities, help people see their interconnectedness, and motivate responsible planning for a sustainable future.

The State of the Unions

Unfortunately, however, despite the existence of refreshing exceptions, the union movement is under profound stress due to the following reasons:

* Union density has been declining for over a generation;

* Governments and corporations have declared unions a critical enemy to their neo-liberal agenda, which aims to minimize the role of the state – our public institutions and elected governments – and maximize the role of private business;

* Demographic shifts indicate that many of our core activist members will retire from their jobs and our unions, taking with them core activist wisdom;

* New members replacing retiring workers are open to the superficial charms of neo-liberal messages since they have been raised in an era where cuts to social programs are the norm and the social legitimacy of unions has been under assault;

* Because the fabric of society is no longer so infused with unionism, union members do not necessarily fully know what unions are for or how they need to accomplish their goals, and;

* We too often contract out our political activism, letting organizations (political parties, unions and other NGOs) do the political work for us after we contribute donations or dues to the cause. This reduces our willingness and capacity to actually practice democracy.

The State of the World

Having watched the failure of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, I am now asking: How are we going to re-frame our local, national and international economies to put human beings first, ahead of corporate profiteering – all to avert climate breakdown?

A destabilizing global economy, peak oil, and the ecological consequences of tar sands exploitation threaten to change the economic playing field. Pushers of privatization, deregulation, regressive taxes, and de-funding government services essentially assert individual values over community values and action. This challenges our solidarity.

Unions embrace individualism as well when they raid each other for relative power gains in a zero-sum context, instead of organizing the unorganized and mobilizing members for political action. Conservatives attack our solidarity from the outside while we undermine it and our bargaining power from the inside.

So, in this context, the union movement can no longer take for granted an established, respected place in society from which to act. It must re-engage with its current and new members on a core philosophical level to help build a foundation of social, economic and political values.

But how do we do that in a rapidly changing world? We embrace the new world.

Systems of organizing and activism are changing rapidly. After the prime minister literally phoned in his second parliamentary proroguement in December, a grad student in Edmonton started the “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament” Facebook group. It collected 225,000 members within weeks, and it led to nation-wide rallies in late January this year. This surprised party politicians. Left far behind the crest of that organizing wave, many of them merely showed up at rallies as citizens. After Parliament resumed, the group transformed itself into Canadians Advocating Political Participation. While using Facebook, Twitter and text message mobilization (a new feature of U2 concerts, even) is no panacea, the use so far of this social media has demonstrated that there are new ways of directly mobilizing political sentiment. Unions need to recognize that the ground is fertile for facilitating political action among their members, their families and communities. Mobilization is still happening, just not inside traditional organizations. We need to join that movement.

At the same time, money works differently now, and we should take advantage of that. Now that corporate and union donations are no longer allowed in federal politics, unions can devote resources to educating and politicizing their members so they can directly engage in politics – with their money and their time. In the end, this will also enrich members’ relationships with their unions, creating stronger organizations.

Unions can also help frame climate dialogue. Activists young and older are increasingly alarmed at the lack of meaningful political action being taken to avert climate breakdown. They don’t necessarily see political parties as organizations that are progressive enough, or powerful enough, to make a difference. Unions have a valuable opportunity to sponsor a dialogue on ecological and climate issues. Some have already taken up this challenge. More than just defining and debating the scope of green jobs, unions can re-establish their historical place as community mobilizing organizations leading a new vision for how we will design our communities, in this case to avoid climate crisis.

Our past really is our future. The labour movement’s origins in the coalescing of political will into a movement – the union movement – is the very kind of union mobilization and activism we need in the 21st century. We must re-establish our place in socially progressive communities. We have been missed and we need to take part again.

The above is from my commentary piece in the current issue of Our Times, Canada’s independent labour magazine.

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So should I be seeing if anyone wants to contribute here beyond me?

The first question is whether it’s worth seeing if anyone has pieces to contribute to this site. It’s not like anyone can’t already set up a blog at WordPress in less than 2 minutes. So people would have to see value in contributing “here”. And there’s nothing to preclude someone from contributing here AND wherever else they live online and off the interwebs.

Then the question is who should be contributing?

6 years ago when I started this site, I asked friends who lived on various spots on the political spectrum to contribute ideas with the idea of creating some comment dialogue among contributors, like a virtual salon. It never took off. Maybe because it was 6 years ago and not now. Or maybe it was because I don’t believe in the effectiveness of a left-right political spectrum and instead prefer a 2D or 3D spectrum like at PoliticalCompass.org so a left-right paradigm may have been doomed to fail.

I don’t have a richly developed sense of what “kind” of people ought to contribute to this site beyond a few things: not crazy people, not racists or bigots, not folks who would get the RCMP visiting me in my home to discuss what contributions I approve. I certainly don’t think that only people I agree with should be contributors. That’s just not worth anyone’s time.

I put it out to the community of you folks.

So if you are inclined to contribute more than just comments to this site, think about it. Toss your ideas into a comment in this post about creating a contributor community here. Send me emails. Tweet me. Figure it out to whatever extent you wish. I don’t have all the answers, or any answers necessarily, though I do have inclinations.

Let’s see what the crucible burns for us!

• June 29, 2010 -- Campaign Stops Corporate Voting in BC Municipalities, Probably (0)
• May 18, 2010 -- Pettiness: the Defining Quality of Politicians? (3)
• June 21, 2009 -- Ignore My Copyrights (0)
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I know it is irresponsible for any sensible person to adopt the radical left wing stance that big corporations always care about profits and that they’re the root of all evil, but after watching BP handle the oil spill this past month and you have to start wondering if a large corporation, when their main source of revenue is hazardous material like crude oil, had any intention of being responsible when it comes to handling their product or have any concern about how it affects ordinary people if an accident occurred.

via My Can Of Contemplation: Maybe Corporate Irresponsibility ISN’T Just a Leftist Fad….

BP clearly sucks. But we are all complicit because oil is the lubricant of our society. The oil disaster is a wake-up call for all of us. Corporations by definition and legal mandate “always care about profits” to the point that any charitable or socially responsible acts are goodwill, hence profit, generators. As legal persons corporations are defined with the goal of maximizing shareholder wealth.

BP saying they’ll pay for the cleanup is hilarious considering how Exxon has not paid for the Valdez spill.

1. CAN the leak even be plugged?

2. CAN the damage be cleaned up at all?

3. Does even BP have enough money to pay for it?

My guess is “no” to all three questions. Technology will not save us. The precautionary principle does, however, have a lot to offer here.

The reality is that we as a society are inclined to give BP a free ride on this one to avoid completely weaning our society off oil and leaving the oil in Canada’s tar sands.

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Canada and the U.S. will set common standards for regulating greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty vehicles, Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced today.

via Prentice: Canada, US will align regulations on truck emissions :: The Hook.

Some time ago Canada embraced worse pesticide standards so we could harmonize with our fellow deregulation addicts in the USA.

Neoliberals love to seek level playing fields, which usually means stripping away anything that fetters profit maximization. Environmental standards are pesky. They come from society enacting its will through government to limit the damage that profit-mad corporations can heap upon our world.

So when right wing governments get into power, they try to align their regulations with key trading partners, but not to enhance regulation by matching better standards, but by eroding the higher standards so we can remove barriers to competition with others.

This is a race. A race to the bottom.

So with these new truck emissions standards to come in, my default assumption is that they will dilute more effective standards. I’ll be looking for more expert analysis of this announcement.

My other concern is the principle that I don’t want my country aligning its policies with those of other countries, even if we trade so heavily with the USA, which may not be the wisest thing to do in the near future, but that’s another story.

Policy independence matters.

But a larger concern is the nonsense climate breakdown policy we have that this change pursues: “Reducing emissions in this sector will help us achieve our 2020 target of a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels.”

That’s just a crappy target. Forget about 1991 emissions levels, forget Kyoto, forget what kind of drastic reduction in GHGs we need to pursue as the industrialized world. This is a pathetic target designed by Alberta tar sands interests, climate change deniers and neoliberal Christian Armageddonists.

In the end, whenever your read about policy harmonization, you should immediately watch how we’re all going to get screwed.

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Yes?

No.

Maybe?

I’m honestly afraid to say yes, but I fear it is so. Below are some sobering conclusions from the Gaian theorist, 90-year-old James Lovelock, on our species’ prognosis. I agree with him profoundly. And if you want to be inspired about the road through this swamp, read a bit about political psychology at the end here.

Let’s begin.

“I don’t think we’re yet evolved to the point where we’re clever enough to handle a[s] complex a situation as climate change.”

“The inertia of humans is so huge that you can’t really do anything meaningful.”

He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level.

via James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change | Environment | The Guardian.

Here, Lovelock is talking about our collective ignorance of systems theory. We don’t understand that we belong to something large and complicated and interconnected. We are deluded, thinking we’re individuals who can separate ourselves from our environment, particularly when it turns sour.

Freakish bubble bee population declines concern some people because the price of honey may go up. In reality, they are somewhat critical in all of us…eating food. Even community newspapers are recognizing the fact of the hive crisis, but they can’t go more than one level of analysis to the point of exploring the implications of the immediate consequences.

If you don’t get it, or somewhat get it and want to spend 45 seconds reflecting more on systems theory as a systemic approach to re-visioning your life and interrelationships, read about it here.

Now do something about it with some understanding of political psychology, but first read about pianos falling upon your head. My favourite comment about the Lovelock article:

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In pictures: Green technology through the ages | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

A Detroit Electric, an early electric car, travels a mountain road from Seattle to Mount Rainier, circa 1919

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1.20.01, eight months before 9/11 helped destroy rational linearity in politics.

Java will save us. Not the bean, not [much] the computer thing, nor the shark, chicken or Russian cigarette, but the awesome instrumental song that appears on Hugo Winterhalter‘s The Best of ’64 lounge album, though it wasn’t a “lounge” album then.

In a fit of political cynicism, I hooked up my record player and went immediately to find my Winterhalter collection to accompany the neighbourhood’s invasion of cherry and apple blossoms driving an early spring.

Java will save us because I have such fond memories as a child of this tune. I don’t recall any of the context other than the fact that I have loved it for decades. The linear rational actor in my mind would be frustrated by not remembering, but the systems theorist in my mind revels in the mere presence of an element of meaning.

It is the collection of small things in life that pull us through doldrums. This week the House of Commons slimly passed a motion further delegitimizing selfish prorogation. Also, there are 3 motions in the Speaker’s office pursuing the government on contempt of parliament for not turning over to parliament documents describing how our government participated in torture in Afghanistan.

This is why I like minority parliaments.

But when I think about the paradigm shift in mindsets that is occurring around us while we’re distracted by the political cynicism, we need to look to Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper [CRUSH] and Canadians Advocating Political Participation [which came from the massively successful anti-prorogation Facebook group].

These two groups are examples of how linear, modernist thinking–particularly in political parties–is so 20th century. The world is evolving quickly. Evolutions in technology and communication like the interwebs are changing how we exist in society and the nature of relationships we exist in.

Political parties are sooooo far behind, they basically just sent some politicians to CAPP rallies on January 23rd to put in face-time, but they are not on the cusp of the organizing wave.

And this brings me back to Java. Listen to the 2:20 of bliss here.

Stop what you’re doing and do a little jig.

Then if you want to know what is killing linearity of thought and politics and social organization, read about systems theory. My friend asked me for a primer on it last night. I referred him to Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics and his Center for Ecoliteracy.

If you dream of social, economic, political or any kind of change, you likely are looking to be a paradigm mechanic: twisting screws, rebuilding the carburetors of our world. You also likely are dabbling in some manifestation of systems theory. If so, read this great review of its paradigm below to see how much you can already check off as your m.o. and then see what other elements of the paradigm can augment your stance today into tomorrow.

Then listen to some more Java, then think about whether the software platform incarnation of Java adds as much to this idea as the mood of the 2:20 in the tune, because it might.

And revel in being a paradigm mechanic, because if not for us, we’re stuck in a 20th century model that seems to long to morph back to the good old days of the 19th century!

From A Systems Perspective | Center for Ecoliteracy.

Systems thinking presents a different lens through which to understand the complexity of the world.

Thinking systemically entails a number of shifts in perception, which lead to different ways to teach, and to different ways to organize institutions and society. These shifts offer opportunities for teachers to present material in more holistic ways, in context rather than as isolated facts, consistent with the way students encounter the natural and social worlds in their own experience.

Systems thinking is one of the consequences of our guiding principle, “Nature Is Our Teacher,” discussed in the Explore section of the website. We note there that a systems approach helps young people understand the complexity of the world around them and encourages them to think in terms of relationships, connectedness, and context. We also highlight the shifts in perception that accompany systems thinking, and discuss their implications for educators.

These shifts are not either/or alternatives, but rather movements along a continuum:

From parts to the whole
With any system, the whole is different from the sum of the individual parts. By shifting focus from the parts to the whole, we can better grasp the connections between the different elements. Instead of asking students to copy pictures of the parts of a honeybee, an art teacher takes her class to the school garden. There they draw bees within the context of their natural setting.

Similarly, the nature and quality of what students learn is strongly affected by the culture of the whole school, not just the individual classroom. This shift can also mean moving from single-subject curricula to integrated curricula.

From objects to relationships
In systems, the relationships between individual parts may be more important than the parts. An ecosystem is not just a collection of species, but includes living things interacting with each other and their nonliving environment.

In the systems view, the “objects” of study are networks of relationships. In the school or classroom, this perspective emphasizes relationship-based processes such as cooperation and consensus.

From objective knowledge to contextual knowledge
Shifting focus from the parts to the whole implies shifting from analytical thinking to contextual thinking. This shift may result in schools focusing on project-based learning instead of prescriptive curricula. It also encourages teachers to be facilitators and fellow learners alongside students, rather than experts dispensing knowledge.

From quantity to quality
Western science has often focused on things that can be measure and quantified. It has sometimes been implied that phenomena that can be measured and quantified are more important—and perhaps even that what cannot be measured and quantified doesn’t exist at all.

Some aspects of systems, however, like the relationships in a food web, cannot be measured. Rather, they must be mapped. In the classroom, this shift can lead to more comprehensive forms of assessment than standardized tests.

From structure to process
Living systems develop and evolve. Understanding these systems requires a shift in focus from structure to processes such as evolution, renewal, and change.

In the classroom, this shift can mean that how students solve a problem is more important than getting the right answer. It may mean that the ways decisions are made is as important as the decisions.

From contents to patterns
Within systems, certain configurations of relationship appear again and again in patterns such as cycles and feedback loops. Understanding how a pattern works in one natural or social system helps us to understand other systems that manifest the same pattern.

For instance, understanding how flows of energy affect a natural ecosystem may illuminate how flows of information affect a social system.

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I first knew Bata shoes as a kid taken shopping to try on new shoes. As a teen I learned about the nexus of globalization and apartheid with Bata as a model, since they were operating in South Africa. Thomas Bata said, “We expanded into Africa in order to sell shoes, not to spread sweetness and light.”

Not only was it neoliberal globalization’s low-wages that lured Bata to they shift production overseas decades ago to take advantage of cheap labour, foreign competitors also helped force the closure of Bata’s domestic shoe production in Batawa in 1999.

But now Sonja Bata is trying to redevelop Batawa, Ontario into a post-industrial community, it is clear that she hasn’t read Jeff Rubin’s book, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, on how peak oil will end globalization and force us to spend far more time developing bioregional social, economic and political communities.

She has partnered with design students from Carlton University, encouraging them to get all radical in creating a new vision of a community with artists, urban farms, research incubators and even a microbrewery. While these ideas reflect a healthy respect for a mixed community, since her model is post-industrial she may be in for a surprise when oil goes back up to beyond where it went last year and the global human supply chain constricts.

What will likely be needed in Batawa is for her to open her factory to make shoes again, not convert it into condos.

So, it is more than a little ironic that she is planning to miss out on developing some appropriate infrastructure for the community upon globalization’s decline.

While Bata is now in the gentrification business, the Globe’s Gordon Pitts correctly writes, “the region needs jobs, not fanciful ideas,” as a local Quaker Oats plant recently closed.

Ultimately, Bata’s vision and paradigm are hopelessly obsolete. In discussing the process of Batawa’s gentrification, she says redeveloping the factory is a symbol: “we have to get that done.” Destroying the factory’s capacity to manufacture products local certainly is a symbol, but it’s a symbol of a business model which will become more irrelevant every month the price of oil creeps back up.

But that’s not the only problem with paradigms involving Bata. Carlton characterizes its partnership with Bata as a university-community collaboration. Bata is a corporation with a real estate gentrification agenda. They are not a community. They don’t speak for a community. They are, in fact, hampering the Batawa community’s resilience to transform its local economy to a more sustainable one.

The relationship is really a public-private partnership with public university design students subsidizing the creative function of a corporation. It would be far more appropriate for the design students to be remaking Batawa in a way that will allow it to function in the transition we’ll be encountering when oil prices rise.

Instead, they are creating a community that will have no place in our near future.

They should be recognizing that bioregional social, economic and political units will be the sustainable size of communities since getting products from outside local zones will require expensive transportation. Bioregional communities will have to be as self-sufficient as possible to ensure that what they do trade will provide real value to justify the costs.

At 82, Sonja Bata may not be able to properly envision what our communities will require in a future with peak oil, climate change/breakdown, discredited deregulated and privatized neoliberal capitalism and declining globalization.

The key to managing such a profound paradigm shift is for all the rest of us to have more foresight than her. What the world needs now is the sweetness and light of sound community planning.

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Energy shock and oil myths

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First case:

An Opposition party usually wins when enough of the electorate desires a change in government. So far, there is little evidence to suggest that is the case in this province.

via Are the days of mass political rallies over?.

Little evidence? How about this from an Angus Reid poll last month:

“Amongst people ‘absolutely certain to vote’, the governing party is only two points ahead of the NDP (41% to 39%).”

“The BC election may well be determined by the turnout levels of supporters for each party.”

…

“Overall, 51 per cent of respondents across the province say it is ‘time for a change of government in British Columbia’ while only 34 per cent feel that the current government should be returned to office. When Gordon Campbell’s name was added to the question, only 30 per cent of respondents thought ‘Gordon Campbell should be re-elected’ while a majority (54%) said it was time for a different premier.”

Second case, when he is talking about the NDP’s opposition to the awful carbon tax that discriminates against people without adequate transit, people living in cold places, the climate since it’s part of Campbell’s plan to reduce way too few GHGs way too late, and all of us since by the time the tax is fully present, it will be no longer revenue neutral, but a regressive tax:

Here’s a tidy piece to ponder the issue more than Keith Baldry seems to have: End of Public Power in BC?

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Here is an absolutely amazing piece that reviews some truly sound points!

Tapping Our Wild Rivers Can’t Fix Climate Change

via Tapping Our Wild Rivers Can’t Fix Climate Change :: Views :: thetyee.ca.

Tapping Our Wild Rivers

Can’t Fix Climate Change

M’Gonigle of UVic: ‘Power down!’

Veteran enviro says no to Tzeporah Berman’s ‘PowerUp’ logic.

By Michael M’Gonigle
Published: April 20, 2009

TheTyee.ca

A week into the provincial election the person grabbing headlines is not a politician but an environmentalist. Tzeporah Berman helped lead the Clayoquot protests of ’93 and then protect the Great Bear Rainforest but lately she’s been slamming the NDP for opposing the carbon tax while throwing her weight behind a huge new energy strategy embraced by the Liberals: run-of-river (RoR) power production.

And she’s pulling a lot of others with her — while getting many others fired up in disbelief and anger.

Berman and her influential allies want us to believe that only by harnessing renewable “green” energy can we reduce global warming. And that the time for debate is past; now we must just do it.

I’m one long-time environmentalist who couldn’t disagree more.

As one of the founders of Greenpeace International, EcoJustice, Smart Growth BC, the Dogwood Initiative, and other B.C. groups, I embrace real solutions to our environmental challenges, including climate change, and the movement to make them happen.

But in pressing for run-of-river, Berman and allies are only accelerating us down a doomed path that will destroy precious natural ecologies in British Columbia without making any significant dent in global warming, and undermine the work of many environmentalists in the process.

There is a far better course of action, however, that would not divide environmentalists but excite them and motivate the larger citizenry. Let me explain.

At first glance, run-of-river power seems pretty benign. Without recourse to large dams, RoR diverts stream water into turbines, and then returns it to the river downstream. In many rural areas, such projects have been in operation as small-scale sources of power for generations.

But as proposed in B.C., RoR is on a far larger scale. And its numerous side effects are now well known: Destructive construction in wild rivers and intact habitats, new roads and penstocks carved through wilderness areas, long transmission lines.

The list of concerns for RoR in B.C. goes on: the potential privatization of up to 500 streams and rivers, the realization that the systems will work well only during spring run-off, the gold rush mentality that has identified some thousands of potential sites across the province, the industrial scale of most of the projects, and the government/industry push that eschews careful planning by removing local decision-making authority.

Recently Berman’s new organization, PowerUp, held a well-attended meeting in Vancouver to promote RoR on a massive scale in B.C. Berman gets lots of support from power companies, political leaders and climate scientists, including UVic’s Andrew Weaver who, in a Vancouver Sun article, attacked “so-called environmentalists” (like me, I guess) who don’t agree with “what science shows to be necessary.” He dismisses as “outlandish” and “insidious” our concerns for protecting wilderness rivers and aesthetic viewscapes. We haven’t done “the math”; proposed policies “are very well understood.”

I would call this state of mind climate myopia — where climate change is essentially treated as the only environmental issue we face that, if we could somehow solve it, would allow us to get back to business as usual. Old growth forests, overfishing, fish farms, wild rivers? Back burner issues. We have to focus on climate change or else it’s all over.

All right then, let’s focus on really solving climate change — and why Berman and her allies are dead wrong.

Don’t raise supply, lower demand

As a “solution,” an important distinction must be made here, for RoR is a so-called supply-side solution, one to produce more energy. And even here, B.C.’s green energy won’t displace existing local sources of carbon-emitting energy because the power is destined for export to California. Despite this, a group of high profile environmentalists wrote in The Sun of the need for this new power because “our electric cars are going to have to get juice from somewhere.” These advocates do acknowledge the need to promote solutions on thedemand side by conserving energy. They note approvingly that the province plans to meet “more than half of BC’s new electricity demand with efficiency.”

Supporters of “alternative energy” also argue that it will create new “green jobs.” But what jobs? Construction workers in remote camps blasting rights-of-way through grizzly habitat to build RoR facilities on undeveloped rivers to provide seasonal power for export to Los Angelites who can now crawl in their electric cars guilt free along the freeway?

Environmentalists have long been fond of saying that the economy is a subset of the ecology. But not Berman’s brigade whose RoR strategies take the economic growth trajectory (and its accompanying energy trajectory) as a given. At best, Berman calls for “more sustainable development.”

But wait. Is “more sustainable development” about new electric cars, newpower supplies, new energy exports, efficiency to meet new demand? Is there not a problem here? In a country with some of the highest per capita energy usage levels on the planet, where is the discussion of seriously reducingenergy demand overall and doing it for the long term?

Increasing efficiency and generating new “alternative” sources of supply will never get us past the climate crunch because they confront a central contradiction: continuous economic growth that will just swallow up whatever gains are made, all the while upping the environmental impacts.

Can someone please explain how we can get past this contradiction except byreducing total energy demand, and developing economic strategies that will allow us to do so permanently?

Naming the problem

Taking the problem of economic growth seriously will not make you popular with the mainstream. But doing so actually offers tangible lessons. Here are three obvious ones:

1) We should not embark on destructive new supplies until demand reductions have been exhausted — to death.

2) We should not look at just simple efficiency gains in existing processes but at whole new ways of designing our economy that inherently reduce energy flows.

3) We should consider new sources of supply only later and only where each renewable watt is directly tied to retiring an old carbon-based one.

So the climate emergency may not be about building more river utilities after all. Maybe we would do better to work together to stop new infrastructure investments like the new 10-lane Port Mann Bridge, a bridge for more cars, and without light rail. And to do this as part of a full-on campaign to refashion the whole face of urban transportation not just in the Lower Mainland but worldwide.

But this doesn’t fit with the one truth that all political leaders agree on: we must keep the growth machine on stimulants.

A new model of development

These leaders have successfully exported this ideology to places like China, the most populous place on earth. With China’s commitment to a coal-fired future of ever increasing production and consumption, exports and trade, a car for every household, one must ask: What have we unleashed here? Is there any vision of development that is both as universal and as inappropriate to the survival of the planet as this?

Talking about how we might get past this ideology and its contradictions is a taboo. But no one was talking about Wall Street’s duplicity a year ago either. It took a collapse for that.

For B.C., this contradiction has a very specific import: given China’s growth trajectory, what sense could it make to compromise one of the great river regions on the planet for minimal practical effect? It IS one atmosphere after all.

Climate scientists do not like to think about this. But when you do, you see the second, and more difficult, “inconvenient truth” of climate change — the limits of a model of development that depends on always more growth, and more energy to fuel it. That is to say, the PowerUp strategy.

Just as global warming was until recently marked by widespread denial, so too denial of the problematic of growth economics is omnipresent today.

Confronting the tough truth of economic limits by actually trying to think and work past the growth paradigm opens up great possibilities. Call it the strategy of “growing into no-growth.”

Instead of blasting in new supply projects to fuel electric cars, why not talk about how to build “car-free” cities? Here we might start to save the earth, and save money too. After all, if a car costs about $10,000 per year to own and run, a “demand reduction” strategy could reduce not only energy needs, but financial burdens on people. A strategy with a “double dividend,” long term.

Instead of seeking more profits from power exports to California, why not work like crazy to reduce our food imports from that distant state with a massive commitment to enhance local food production right here? The same energy reduction benefits would result, and creating a true green economy (literally).

Who’s being ‘realistic’?

The retort, of course, is that such ideas aren’t politically realistic.

Not so, says one of the gurus of energy planning, Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba. On the contrary, he argues that the history of creating new energy supply systems has shown that the challenges are so enormous that “none of the promises for greatly accelerated energy transitions will be realized.” Message: it’s the renewable energy folks who aren’t realistic.

Meanwhile, the distinguished American geographer David Harvey points out in an April 2 interview in DemocracyNow! that the global economy was worth $4 trillion in 1950 and is now at $56 trillion. With all hands on deck to stimulate it way past even that, and to do so for as far into the future as anyone can contemplate, we are hitting the “limits environmentally, socially, politically…. In other words, we have to think about a zero-growth economy.” Message: it’s the whole economistic agenda that’s unrealistic.

In the competition of unrealities, I will throw my lot in with those who would create new political possibilities. At least we would be working with the feedback we are getting from nature, not continuing to work against it.

Environmental politics for this century

To ensure the success of avowedly green energy projects, governments in British Columbia and Ontario now promise to pay big subsidies for more power, and they have rewritten provincial legislation to prevent local communities from deciding whether they want these development proposals. In contrast, in the United States, the federal government is looking at new forms of neighbourhood governance that might refashion all forms of resource and energy use at the community level.

Actually empowering citizens to try out new things where they live entails a form of what Harvard law professor Roberto Unger calls “democratic experimentalism.” DemocracyNow! calls it “deep democracy.” Not here.

For citizens in this province, a choice presents itself. Does climate change demand an impossible technological response to “power up” new sources of energy to fuel an impossibly expanding political economy?

Or does it demand an active democratic response that can inspire a new movement to “power down” into a calmer economy, and a livable future?

When you push past our collective denial, most people know the answer here. But they don’t know how to do it. As the climate clock ticks, this is the real work to be done.

PowerUp? No thanks.

PowerDown? Sign me up!

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via Lord Stern on global warming: It’s even worse than I thought – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.

As governments continue to craft optics-friendly greenwashing plans while ramping up highways construction, etc., I keep reading reports that estimates from as little as 2-3 years ago were too conservative as new data shows accelerating climate change effects.

Nero fiddled and we’re worried about how to afford a new car during this economic crash!

Stupid.

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In a world where the deregulated global market capitalist regime is imploding, there is wide open space to re-frame the local, national and global economy in a socially and economically just way.

An off-shoot of this progressive agenda is the celebration of authentic community where people/consumers/citizens can get out of their cocooned homes and participate in the cultures of community.

What better way to do it than in this event?

Details:

SATURDAY MARCH 21. rhizome cafe, 317 e. broadway

* 6:30 – 7:30 pm: artists of colour showcase. please bring $ and support their creations! (tshirts, crafts, prints, posters, art and more) Free food served during artists showcase (on us and Rhizome)
* WITH: Louis Cruz, Tania Willard, Afuwa Granger, Riadh Hashim, Angela Sterritt, Gord Hill, Kat Norris, People’s History of Kanada posters, Café Ramona and products made by Zapatista Mayan women, and more.

* 7:30 – 9:30 pm: wicked performances and inspiring words includes spoken word, storytelling, children’s songs, hip hop, comedy, musical performances, and talks! Enjoy dinner and drinks from Rhizome’s delicious menu
* WITH: George Ciccariello-Maher from OAKLAND!, Kat Norris, Aysha and Sahara, Carnegie Community Action Project Choir, Hari Alluri, Reem Alnuweiri, Ros Salvador, Sinag Bayan Filipino Cultural Collective, Priscillia Mays, Gupreet Kambo, Alaaeldin Abdalla, and Lindsay Bomberry.

• June 29, 2010 -- Campaign Stops Corporate Voting in BC Municipalities, Probably (0)
• June 4, 2010 -- Interested in Contributing to Politics, Re-Spun? (0)
• May 18, 2010 -- Pettiness: the Defining Quality of Politicians? (3)
• June 21, 2009 -- Ignore My Copyrights (0)

My audio podcasts have been audio versions of my editorials as well as interesting chats with people I know being/doing/thinking/feeling interesting things.

And now that bandwidth restrictions are virtually passe, video podcasts are just so simple now. All my audio and video podcast conversations have extensive indexes of topics. See below for the first two video podcast chats to watch.

You can review past audio podcasts through searching here: http://politicsrespun.org/?s=podcast

You can also access past and current audio and video podcasts at the following sites. Even though iTunes isn’t terribly oppressive, I’m prefering Miro lately, as it’s open source:

iTunes

Pick it up straight in your iTunes at itpc://dgivista.org/pod/Vista_Podcasts.xml.

Miro

Click subscribe below to keep up in Miro, the new wave of open source bliss:

The first video podcast chat is with Colin Mills and Ameena Mayer, followed by Rachel Marcuse.

June 2008 conversation with Colin Mills and Ameena Mayer, topics:

Introductions: Colin Mills, Ameena Mayer, Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Colin on…

- the process on his photography
- perfect versus meaningful art and paralysis
- accepting failure
- learning curves
- the problem with money in art
- 1 of 1 versus mass “production” and paralysis
- Stephen on the new Karsh self-portrait stamp
- truth is bullshit
- Princess Sophie as a beautiful person or a focus of security guards, and what is true
- painters’ freedom versus photographers’
- photography is not about truth
- impressionist photography
- Flickr mode
- Stephen on the Classical Joint in Gastown 20 years ago and watching/listening to jazz without glasses on and seeing a different colour aura over each musician’s musical contribution…and how it’s like Colin’s impressionist photography
- truth as crispy and blurry
- deciding how to photograph concerts in the moments and anonymity
- on Utah Phillips dying at 180

A critique of the absolute lack of community in North American culture by Ameena…

- GM popcorn sucks, organic popcorn is good
- disconnecting social networks
- let’s blame capitalism, the internet and our lack of valuing relationships [excepting romantic ones]
- and it’s not just her, it’s endemic
- addictions, social alienation undermining our tribal nature
- the growth of capitalism and globalization, the isolation of the individual consumer, workaholism, hyper-individualism, less selflessness
- Colin suggests we may be creating capitalism because we want to live this way: greedy; with some manipulation from Madison Avenue
- Colin on the 1972 40-ish hour documentary “The World at War”: fewer material possessions with depression followed by war
- friendship as less reciprocal
- younger adults are more workaholic than in earlier times
- we are busy because we have a hole in our lives
- Colin asks whether economic anxiety may be a social reality, not a choice
- technology and the internet are replacing more “traditional” human interaction, like the phone or having coffee with something
- we don’t make the luxury of time by choosing to forego distraction
- a tangent is vetoed
- it returns
- Colin on the self-consciousness of believing he grew up under a microscope
- difficult figuring out how to reconcile my relationship with the rest of the world versus self-obsession
- college students live in a fishbowl too, or is it just our trained narcism?
- the iPod generation is symbolic: I, I, I
- why don’t we have a sociologist in the room tying all this together

- beer break

Lack of community, continued…

- self-absorbtion is against our intrinsic human nature
- the nuclear family is bad
- we need ways of seeing the world beyond our solipsism
- our elders are also noticing less mutual human consideration
- Colin on CHiPs, Disney and Hymn Sing: how choice contributes to narcism and narrowing of awareness
- Stephen on why my.yahoo.com is bad, ultimately the celebrated entrenchment of ignorance
- freedom = ignorance
- hyper-specialization of interests leads to social dislocation
- wearing headphones in public
- how we actually talk to our neighbours on snow days
- socially, we are now less interdependent
- romantic relationships might be economic arrangements
- or is it avoiding alone-ness
- our absence of extended family cripples us as a spouse can’t fill all the needs that an extended family could
- yard sales as community building
- intentionally spending time with friends
- [drifting into the next topic, the Follies of Technology]
- female body mutilation, extreme makeovers, etc.
- all the flavours of feminism [many of which are mutually exclusive]
- What Not to Wear: fashion and sincere self-concept counselling, but is it feminist or anti-feminism?
- the Lululemon world
- how women’s poor clothing choices sadly can hamper their career success
- recognizing we can’t control other people’s impressions of us
- Ameena asks the boys how much sexual attraction motivates the desire to have a relationship

Ameena ties it all together: feminism, social isolation, community, marriage, different values, loneliness…

- the challenges to meaningful relationships create a desperation to be noticed [Letty agreed]
- communities of ideas have replaced communities of propinquity
- why arranged marriages can work, unlike how much we need to try so hard
- LavaLife: the solution to arranged marriages?
- folk versus popular cultures and how they affect us as individuals
- reflections on cyberpaths: socio/psychopaths stalking women in dating websites
- why Colin argues that we should be focussing blame more on individualism than societal features
- the cats show up: aren’t they precious

Technology, Facebook and video podcasting

- Ameena argues that video podcasting is kinda pathetic
- Colin argues that we don’t lament the absence of writers in our rooms when we read
- then we try to define what video podcasting IS in our culture, and what it is supposed to be
- we get a bit judgemental, I’m afraid
- what do Facebook “friends” mean to human connections?
- Facebook friends versus networking usefulness

December 2008 conversation with Rachel Marcuse, topics:

Rachel Marcuse, December 28, 2008, Foundation restaurant on Main Street at 7th Avenue in Vancouver.

- Coalition of Progressive Electors, a Vancouver municipal party

- youth engagement and facilitation

- grassroots community and political organization and development

- the whole Obama thing: top down versus people-centred; concern about overblown expectations and lack of populist follow-through; being a blank slate of “change”; participatory democracy and accountability; packaging over substance;

- reforming the political process in Vancouver, BC and Canada: ideas instead of personalities; re-framing citizens’ views of what politics is; apathy versus irrelevant effort; apathy versus electoral disengagement and indifference; apathy in middle aged people as opposed to the youth; why proroguing is not well understood

- break: the arrival of chocolate fondue

- beat boxers are so talented, Thundering Word Heard, Montmartre Cafe, Cafe Deux Soleils, the poetry slam, George Bowering versus T.Paul Ste. Marie

- democracy’s arrival in Canada with the end of majority governments: how this isn’t a constitutional crisis but a constitutional flowering, Stephen Harper’s lies about how the parliamentary system works in order to scare citizens enough so he can keep his job, anti-Quebec racism in western Canada, the Bloc Quebecois helps Quebec flourish as a culture without needing to focus on separation, the ease of stereotypes

- political populism, hope and progressive growth in Canada, Vision Vancouver, COPE, BC NDP, Venezuela: people deciding to lead; Jack Layton’s outside chance of becoming prime minister last month; Dion and Ignatieff; the Liberal ruling birthright/arrogance; electoral reform in Vancouver [ward system] and BC [proportional representation, BC-STV]; decentralizing politics to communities; electoral reform needing to happen at the right time; Social Credit in BC; Obama at the 2004 Democratic Convention and timing

- social change through speaking to people’s self-interest in improving society: livable communities; improving society can’t happen with sound bites but by engaging people and introducing a new paradigm; Gordon Campbell pulling a Shock Doctrine response to the meltdown as if he used Naomi Klein’s formula; shopping to save the economy is unsustainable; re-education people out of blind obedience to Milton Friedman

- how do we mobilize and catalyze people to becoming more socially engaged: building relationships and visions; mobilizing youth and adults; Disney sweatshops; working with young people as a way to confront cynicism; youth who care about social change and resent previous generations’ mistakes they must live with; Craig Kielburger; how young people are disempowered, doubly so when they work for social change; losing builds resilience; David Chudnovsky; social change requires celebration to keep us going; work-life balance in activism and saying no; hope, common sense, pacing and self-knowledge; Greenpeace, protests, martyrdom; CCPA and Check Your Head and mentorship; Fraser Institute indoctrination programs

- the future: indulging imagining a functioning utopia and what we want our communities to look like; capitalism is not eternal, particularly because of finite resources; spanning communities to synchronize work for social, political and economic change; focussing on change that really matters right now while keeping a long-term plan; the value of being interdisciplinary; there is no real failure when groups engage with each other; the Open Space workshop model, its advantages and frustrations; Open Space as a metaphor for empowering citizens’ involvement in politics; Don Davies, Jack Layton and a community meeting at Collingwood Community Centre on politics and the economy;

- how the Foundation restaurant’s expansion is a good sign for culture and community on Main Street in Vancouver.

• June 29, 2010 -- Campaign Stops Corporate Voting in BC Municipalities, Probably (0)
• June 4, 2010 -- Interested in Contributing to Politics, Re-Spun? (0)
• May 18, 2010 -- Pettiness: the Defining Quality of Politicians? (3)
• June 21, 2009 -- Ignore My Copyrights (0)

And today, Canada Day 2008, on our nation’s 141st birthday, we should take stock. A barrel of oil broke $140 today and gasoline in British Columbia passed $1.50/litre. The International Energy Agency stated today that we are now in the world’s 3rd oil shock, worse than both in the 1970s.

These are harbingers of what?

We are besieged by neoliberalism as free market ideologues engage in rampant privatization of our infrastructure and health care system, gratuitous corporate welfare schemes at the expense of human welfare and human security, neglect of our first nations peoples to a criminal degree (a great Canada Day for them!), tax cuts to lure the economically desperate middle income and working poor to the right despite the resulting crippling of our social safety net, keeping women’s wages at 71% of men’s wages (down from several years ago when it was 72%), a new norm of double income households that have less purchasing power than 35 years ago, the revolving door between government and business being replaced by an archway that allows a general milling about on both sides, and generally the rich getting richer as the poor are getting poorer, all while the World Economic Forum defines and coordinates the New World Order.

But while the leaders of the 1,000 richest corporations and the most powerful governments meet every January at the WEF in Davos, Switzerland to issue their fiats around the world, the World Social Forum meets to plan alternatives that put people before profits. This is particularly critical in these days of looming peak oil and water, ecological crisis and the unlikeliness that the industrialized world (made up of us billion or so out of the 6.7 billion people on earth) can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 90% in the next generation to stop the climate mayhem.

Indeed, BusinessGreen.com reviewed George Monbiot’s Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning and concluded that his recommendations to save us: “are so far from the political and business mainstream it is hard to imagine them being adopted in 50 years, let alone 20, but, as Monbiot constantly reminds us, the threats posed by climate change are so serious the alternatives could prove even more unthinkable.”

But where do we go from here?

I think back 20 years to the original free trade agreement with the United States. A fascinating national coalition emerged called the Pro-Canada Network, where people rightly recognized the neoliberal free trade movement as a mortal threat to social cohesion. Whether democratic socialist or social democrat or some version of groups interested in social and economic justice, Canadians gathered together to fight for things like Medicare, then barely 20 years old.

That was the last time such a massive neoliberal agenda was put forward with any sense of democracy as the federal election swung on it. Chretien signed NAFTA despite campaigning against the Tory free trade regime. The MAI, FTAA, and SPP are now all pursued anti-democratically and under the radar as much as possible.

Today we need a new kind of Pro-Canada Network. We need to ask ourselves what should our Canada look like. We need to figure out what values the social, political and economic face of our land should orbit. And we need to figure out how to get there from here.

So when Canada22 formed at a workshop in Vancouver on very sunny Earth Day 2006, we embarked on that.

Canada22 is all about envisioning how we will guide our national life over the next 7 generations into the 22nd century. We are an umbrella organization that links people and groups together to fight for social economic justice, locally, nationally and ultimately globally. We link groups with the same social economic goals so we can work together more effectively and combine resources, insight and ideas.

With members in 12 Canadian cities, we are now ramping up our chapter organization to be pro-active in fighting for the Canada we want…and it will be a fight, as anyone working in social and economic justice circles well knows.

And while the neoliberal free marketeers seek to destroy any communitarian efforts that reduce private profitability, we need to take advantage of this time of flux to re-assert what community is all about. And while the World Social Forum and related meetings are critical for creating synergy and vision, we need to take those ideas and implement them in our local, provincial and national social, economic and political arenas if we are to re-frame what our communities and nation will look like as the looming peak oil and water and climate crisis stop looming and start affecting the breadth of our lives. And we need to force political parties to enact our vision.

Feeling the pulse of change is a difficult thing sometimes. Being the pulse of change is harder still. But on days like today when Canadians celebrate ourselves, we truly need to ask ourselves what kind of change we must embrace in our next generation. When my children become adults our world will be far more symbiotically healthy, or it will be a victim of decay from our selfishness (except for the hyper-rich who will be immune from the climate havoc to come).

How high does a barrel of oil have to get before we embrace the reality of our future and do something before our apathy victimizes us all?

Being the pulse of change is Canada22. Get involved at http://Canada22.org!

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McCain Plans to Almost Double U.S. Nuclear Reactors

Lorraine Woellert Thu Jun 19, 9:23 AM ET

June 19 (Bloomberg) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain will push to almost double the number of nuclear reactors in the U.S. as part of a broad plan to address the nation’s energy woes.

OK, #1 appears to be the nucular lobby, assuming they still pronounce it that way now that w.Caesar is a lame duck.

On the second day of a two-week tour to promote his energy security proposal, McCain told an audience in Springfield, Missouri, yesterday that he would increase research in so-called clean-coal technology and push to add 100 new nuclear reactors, almost double the 104 nuclear plants now in use.

And #2 seems to be McCain having swallowed the clean-coal Kool-Aid.

“I will set this nation on a course to building 45 new reactors by the year 2030, with the ultimate goal of 100 new plants to power the homes and factories and cities of America,” McCain said. “This task will be as difficult as it is necessary. We will need to recover all the knowledge and skills that have been lost over three stagnant decades in a highly technical field.”

McCain’s remarks build on a speech in Houston on June 17 in which he laid out the elements of his energy plan. Central to that plan is expansion of offshore drilling for oil and natural gas, a proposal that is under fire from his Democratic rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, and environmental groups.

And strike 3 would be big oil [is there small oil anymore?]

“One obstacle to expanding our nuclear-powered electricity is the mindset of those who prefer to buy time and hope that our energy problems will somehow solve themselves,” McCain said, noting that Obama’s home state of Illinois has more nuclear reactors than any other.

Oh yes, and Obama is personally responsible for all the nukes in Illinois. Right.

Clean-Burning Coal

McCain, an Arizona senator, also vowed to spend $2 billion on research into clean-burning coal.

“This single achievement will open vast amounts of our oldest and most abundant resource,” McCain, 71, said. “It will deliver not only electricity but jobs to some of the areas hardest hit by our economic troubles.”

And GHGs that I don’t want to even begin to calculate.

McCain’s energy plan also includes spending on renewable resources such as wind and solar power.

Right. Probably not to the tune of $2b that clean coal will get.

McCain was joined at the forum by Michael Chesser, chairman and CEO of Kansas City, Missouri-based Great Plains Energy, and Greg Boyce, chairman and CEO of St. Louis-based Peabody Coal, the largest U.S. coal producer, who said a patchwork of state and federal regulations are hampering their ability to build new power generators.

“We need to have a regulatory compact in place,” Chesser said. “There are definitely things you could do as president to facilitate that environment.”

McCain also touted his environmental bona fides at a fundraiser in Chicago last night. In a 10-minute film preceding his appearance at the Drake Hotel, McCain made an appeal to outdoorsmen.

“Our ability to hunt and fish and enjoy the great national treasures of America is something I’d like to preserve,” McCain said in the film. “I’m committed to preserving the enjoyment of the great national treasures of the most beautiful nation in the world.”

Why is he talking about Canada now? :)

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I can’t remember the details but I had just been learning about peak oil. Petrochemicals have a large role in the fertilizers that enable the population of the industrialized [OECD, minority] world to eat food to the degree that supports our massive population. Apparently there was something in Harpers about that some time ago. I’m still scared to read it.

And since most of us at the lunch were generally political economists, we often discussed how to derail the global trade regime: IMF/WB/WTO. Since Hugo Chavez has spayed and neutered the IMF by paying off most of Latin America’s loans to it and since the WTO Doha “Development” (sic) round of negotiations has stalled leading to neoliberal defections toward regional trade initiatives, the regime may be collapsing on its own, thank you very much.

But one thing came up that day at lunch when I was trying to address how to cripple neoliberal globalization, and that was how peak oil will make prohibitive the costs of transporting materials around the world to be processed by workers in jobs outsourced from the industrialized world into products shipped to us in containers on those big boats. The economics of it all depends on a price of oil that is not quite so high as today’s $135/barrel. Or not even so high as the $70 barrel 2 years ago [yes, the cost of a barrel of oil has doubled in the last 24 months].

When peak oil grabs us by the throat and prices rise, the global supply chain will become less cost effective. Our runners and bananas will begin to have costs that assert them as the luxuries they really are. Economics will become more local, both in food from bioregions, but also products and services.

One friend at lunch that day said they’d just find another way to power the big boats. Nuclear power perhaps. Or maybe clean (sic) coal. Ok, he didn’t mention clean coal, but both it and atomic manipulation are somewhat impractical for varying reasons.

So we’re left with the end of globalization that comes not from policy decisions based on educating the populace to demand our representatives (sic) alter the global trade regime. It comes from the end of cheap fossil fuels.

My friend’s nuclear answer sounded plausible, but I had a hard time being truly swayed by its possibility.

So yesterday I read at Report on Business [see below] that I was on the right track.

And while the piece mentions that NAFTA could encourage outsourcing to Mexico instead of Asia, and by implication that a fully mercantilist, protectionist Canada may not be imminent, our latest globalization prime minister did recently scuttle a deal to sell off MDA’s Radarsat to an American firm. In the end, realists are realists.

And while we may not all be ready to go out and buy our yurts and embrace a bioregional lifestyle outside of metropolitan centres, we are one step closer. And if oil hits $200/barrel this Christmas, we’ll have to re-assess the situation with a little more intensity.

The soaring cost of fuel is whittling away at the cheap-labour advantage enjoyed by Asian exporters, giving Canadian firms a welcome edge in their fight to win back business from Asian competitors.

Two bank economists argue in a report released Tuesday that because of higher fuel costs, shipping a standard 40-foot container from Shanghai to the east coast of North America now costs $8,000 (U.S.), up from $3,000 in 2000 when oil was just $20 a barrel.

That higher cost is passed on to North American consumers, making goods from China and other Asian places more costly compared to the offerings of domestic North American producers.

Some Canadian manufacturers are already noticing the effect.

High fuel costs are expected to have a dramatic impact on trade patterns, as businesses look for supplies closer to home

“It’s helped us because it’s harder for the Asians and others to ship over here,” said Barry Zekelman, chief executive officer of Atlas Tube Inc. of Harrow, Ont.

He said that after taking 30 to 40 per cent of the North American market for some steel tubing products, the Chinese have now “virtually disappeared” – partly, though not exclusively, because of the costs of transporting a heavy product such as steel across the Pacific.

Jeffrey Rubin and Benjamin Tal of CIBC World Markets Inc. say higher oil prices are reversing the world-is-flat effect, in which lower trade barriers and new technologies like the Internet made it cheaper to move goods and services from developing Asia to the markets of the rich world.

“In a world of triple-digit oil prices, distance costs money,” they write. “And while trade liberalization and technology may have flattened the world, rising transport prices will once again make it rounder.”

Mr. Rubin and Mr. Tal say the steel sector is a prime example of the world-is-round effect.

Chinese steel exports to the United States are falling by more than 20 per cent year over year. China’s costs have risen because Chinese producers have to bring in their iron ore from faraway places such as Australia and Brazil, then ship the finished steel to the United States. As a result, U.S. steel producers actually have an advantage over Chinese rivals.

“Rising transport costs have already more than offset China’s otherwise slim cost advantage, giving U.S. steel a competitive advantage in its own market for the first time in over a decade,” the economists write.

They say higher transport costs are affecting other “freight-intensive” sectors such as furniture and industrial machinery, too. These goods now account for 42 per cent of total Chinese exports to the United States, down from 52 per cent in 2004.

In fact, if oil prices had not risen so quickly and transport costs had not soared so dramatically, growth in Chinese exports since 2004 would have been 30 per cent stronger than the actual figure.

Of course, the rising cost of goods from China is hardly happy news for many Canadian companies that source parts from Chinese factories, sell imported goods from China or have their products assembled by Chinese workers.

They suggest that “instead of finding cheap labour half way around the world, the key will be to find the cheapest labour force within reasonable shipping distance of your market.”

While Canadian companies could benefit, the bigger winner will be Mexico, they say. “Look for Mexico’s maquiladora plants to get another chance at bat when it comes to supplying the North American market,” they write.

Shipping costs to and from Asia have risen so much that they have eclipsed tariffs as a barrier to global trade, Mr. Rubin and Mr. Tal say, calling the cost of moving goods “the largest barrier to global trade today.”

“In fact,” they say, “in tariff-equivalent terms, the explosion in global transport costs has effectively offset all the trade liberalization efforts of the last three decades.”

When oil was $20 a barrel, transport costs were equivalent to a 3-per-cent tariff rate; now it’s above 9 per cent.

Aggravating the problem is the fact that modern new container ships travel faster than old bulk carriers and so use up more fuel, doubling fuel consumption per unit of freight over the past 15 years.

“This is an environment in which shipping from the Pacific Rim may not make sense any more,” Mr. Tal said in an interview.

“If you’re thinking, ‘maybe we should bring in a container from China,’ you should think again.”

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