Green Capitalism and Global Warming : Melbourne Indymedia

Many Australians are assessing their lives and are trying to implement changes that will decrease their personal greenhouse emissions. Although these individual efforts should be applauded, they will have a minimal impact on global warming. We find ourselves in the current predicament because of a system of production that has dominated economic activity around the world for centuries.

Capitalism is an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods is dependent on invested private capital and the creation of profits. Monopoly capitalism - the dominant economic model in the world today - has resulted in both money and power being concentrated in the hands of a very small minority. An economic system based on the creation of profit for a minority, irrespective of the human, social, cultural and environmental costs for the rest of the world, is an unsustainable recipe for disaster.

Green capitalism - the solution that is currently being offered to avert global warming - is an oxymoronic solution. Capitalism, irrespective of its green tinge, is based on the creation of private profits for a minority. Continuing to promote and support monopoly capitalism in times of scarcity will only compound the effects of global warming. What may have been a successful economy model in times of abundance has no place on a planet with finite resources and increasing population growth.

To successfully tackle global warming we have to create an economic system that can deal with the problems associated with scarcity. To ensure our survival as a species, we need to abandon an economic system based on the creation of profits irrespective of the human, environmental and social costs, and embrace one based on the satisfaction of real, not manufactured human needs.

To create such a system, we must take into account the historical lesson that human survival in times of scarcity is based on - cooperation not competition, sharing resources among the whole of the community not leaving resources in the hands of those who traditionally exercise power, and allowing everybody not just a minority to be involved in the decision making processes in that society.

FURPHY

The Prime Minister's love affair with nuclear energy proves the old adage that 'love is blind'. Every time I hear Mr. Howard wax lyrical about the positive attributes of his new ideological squeeze, I cannot for the life of me see the same attributes he sees. Unlike the Prime Minister, I am not blinded by love for what he laughing describes as the clean and green solution to global warming.

If all stops were pulled out and the government and the private sector invested heavily in nuclear power, greenhouse emission levels would only decrease by a third, because nuclear power can only produce electricity and the production of electricity contributes to about 30% of current greenhouse levels. Uranium, unlike the sun, is a finite resource and without uranium, nuclear power plants are little more than interesting museum pieces that highlight the folly of a bygone era.

The infrastructure needed to create nuclear energy is an expensive highly centralised affair. Nuclear plants could be targeted by terrorists and would be targeted during times of war. Putting the future of a nation in a couple of dozen highly visible nuclear power plants does not make very much sense.

Irrespective of the assurances that nuclear power plants are safe and the issue of waste disposal has been solved, the reality is that all human endevours are prone to mistakes and the nuclear half life of the waste products of nuclear power plants continues to be 250,000 years. It is possible if all the assurances we have been given about the safety of nuclear power plants turn out to be incorrect, the human race will be paying for those mistakes for the next 250,000 years.

Despite the Prime Minister's assurances about the economic and greenhouse benefits of nuclear energy, it is not a viable solution to global warming and will cause more problems than we currently face.

"TRUST ME"

The Prime Minister, faced with electoral oblivion at the end of the year, has embarked on his 'trust me' electoral ritual. Faced with a public that is becoming increasingly tired with his government's neo conservative agenda, Howard and his Ministers are once again using fear as their primary electoral strategy.

Forced to confront the issue of global warming because of scientific and global pressure, the Coalition government has embarked on a campaign of fear. Not fear about the inevitable consequences of global warming, but fear about the short term economic costs to the corporate sector.

Howard is the least trustworthy Prime Minister since Billy Hughes. His political track record is built on lies and obfuscation. His political track record - never, never a GST, children overboard, no one will be worse off, core and non core promises - is built on a litany of lies. Anybody who still trusts John Howard is living in a parallel universe. In many circles in Australia, John Howard's name is synonymous with lying. Parents admonish their children when they lie by telling them to stop telling 'Johnnies'.

The Coalition government's global warming and carbon emissions policies are the type of policies you would expect from a government that chooses to sell its citizens tickets on the last train to hell, rather than warn them about the dangers of taking that last train ride. Australians, who continue to trust a government that refuses to acknowledge the writing on the wall about global warming, are writing their own and the community's epitaph.