Unleashing the Furies
There are big rumblings in the climate wing of the environmental movement. I felt them several weeks ago while reading this post (“Why are Obama and Salazar pushing a massive expansion of coal production”) and thread. Much of the anger from CP readers was directed at President Obama.
Comments ranged from looney (Obama is a manchurian candidate) to exasperation (Obama”doesn’t get it”). But two major themes emerged from the 100+ comment thread: 1) betrayal (Obama is “not the man I voted for” and 2) punishment, as reflected by this commenter:
All I can figure is that Obama wants to make sure that environmentalists never vote for another Democrat again for the rest of their lives.
I think it’s about time that we contribute to and vote for politicians who are on our side.
Which brings me to this current piece by David Roberts at Grist, headlined:
Nothing will change until greens mount some primary challenges and collect some scalps
Roberts suggests that Big Green groups shift their strategy from Inside the Beltway lobbying (on specific environmental causes and issues) to an overtly political, in-your-face approach. Leaving aside that this would require a fundamental revamping of mission statements by Big Green (which, given their corporate sponsorships and cozy ties to politicians, is not about to happen overnight), how would such a green political machine be funded? Roberts advises that
green groups all contribute to a common electoral fund. Build up, say, $300 million or so. Be public and explicit about what the money is for: not ads, not canvassing, not clever websites, nothing except primarying the next Dem who f*cks with them on a big priority issue like EPA climate regs. It’s just a big, loaded primary gun.
And then … use it. Take somebody out. My personal suggestion would be the loathsome Joe Manchin. Or if that’s too big a target to begin with, start smaller, with a few state attorneys general, mayors, even school board members. Collect some scalps and work up the food chain.
There is liberal precedent for this kind of scalp collecting and it can be summed up in two words: Ralph Nader.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for a legitimate (and rational) third party in U.S. politics that fits somewhere between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. But it doesn’t sound like Roberts is going down that road–yet. He just wants to see Democratic challengers that run on truly climate-centric positions. Well, good luck with that limited plank. I’ll believe it’s a viable strategy when I see global warming concerns reflected in grassroots emotion and organizing that such challenger candidates can tap into. Not a one day event.
Finally, let me ask: how does this scalp-collecting, “work up the food chain” strategy dovetail with the we-only-have-a-limited window to act on climate change warning that I’ve been hearing for years?
Grist
Take somebody out…. Collect some scalps
Well, let’s hope a nut doesn’t read this and decide to literally “take somebody out” or “collect some scalps”.
In the 2006 Canadian federal elecion, the Liberal Party proposed the “Green Shift”. This was part of a green takeover of a major politicapol party in Canada. The leader who proposed this is now a non-person in the Liberal Party and in the current election campaign nothing is heard of any green propsoal even from very left wing (by Canadian standards) parties, The carbon tax proposal within the Green Shift was a major factor in its rejection and no carbon tax is going to put in place in Caanda in the foreseeable future.
This Canadian experiecne should put this proposed green takeover of American politics in perspective
They are talking about running candidates in primaries, not a third party. Real model is what the tea-party types did. Not sure how that would help with dithering Presidential candidates.
Given usual democratic primary voters, are environmentally friendly voters a big enough block? Some evidence for it. Lots of the ground troops come from an environmental background.
However, I suspect, that the activists here might find themselves quite a ways removed from the democratic base. There is a reason the senator from West Virginia is coal friendly.
The real question is the threat of a primary challenge enough to change outcomes.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/climate-change-not-in-this-campaign/article1975493/
The URL points to a column by the greenest columnist in Canada about the aftermath of the green takeover of the Libberal Party in Canada during the last election. There is no green agenda in Canada after that defeat.
As Mr Kloor implies there is no real grassroots concern about global warming comparable to the actual tangible concerns shown about health, education or debt for example.
The Grist article acknowledges that green lobbying money has never been an issue, but only suggests that the money has not been better used, and so decides that targeting a single people is going to be a better investment of the 300 Mill+ washing around there. So Joe Manchin is named, I wiki and learn he is a Democrat not sufficiently onside, and so is deserving of this treatment.
The Grist article is missing the big fact that the green groups have been incredibly successful beyond their deserved merit for many years, in all continents, and in all arenas, without getting any public charter for their easily won legislation.
Yet it seems the attention they have garnered cannot be constructively built upon by them because even they themselves don’t know where to go. Once you have screamed fire! You get used to doing that, or just chunder on like a sophomore student about inequities. And so it should not be surprising then that people’s attention, especially the incumbent Democrats, may drift and want something more concrete. Like energy for example.
“It’s time to deploy Nixon’s “Madman Theory” — time for greens to demonstrate that they will shoot themselves in the foot if it means hitting the bastard on the other side.”
Which is talking about shaming the Democrat bastard, not the Republican bastard I assume?
Go for it I say.
Of all the malign lobby groups, I think it is about time the well fed green movement put a howitzer to its big toe just to make sure the bang is loud enough so not just the speciality concerns know about it.
Many more people need to know what the greens have done on our behalf 😉
Poor Ralph Nader…still being used as the scapegoat for Gore’s loss. Perhaps those in FL that voted for Nader could not stomach another coke or pepsi – and voted on their values in spite of the fact that no matter what, one of the corporatist candidates was going to be elected. I will admit that i had the luxury of voting for Mr. Nader b/c i was in a state that was overwhelmingly going for Gore. If i were in FL i would have reluctantly reached for the pepsi, even though i desperately wanted the fresh, clean glass of water.
Nader represents what is a supposed true democracy – a candidate that represents the interests of we the people. But in reality we live in an oligarchy – a gov’t that represents only the corporate and social elite. The oligarchy will never put a democrat or republican candidate in place that would not serve their interests. And that is perhaps why we voted for Nader – because we wanted to support someone that stands for a democratic society, a healthy society, a society where every day people choose and decide and are active in shaping their own communities. And not a society that provides the choices selected by the few. And if you still think there’s such a big difference b/t dems and repubs…l would like to hear your thoughts on Obama.
The green tea party – I like it – the other side can rename the red tea party (the obvious fiscal reference).
The remaining questions: hot or cold, sweet or unsweet.
Steve,
I’m not against holding politicians accountable or voters making decisions based on their core principles.
But if you want to know what ideological purity looks like when it grips a major party, one need only see the transformation of the GOP the past decade, especially this last voting cycle.
and i should add that there was plenty of discrepancies with the ballots, the recount was never completed, and the Supreme Court decided that Bush was the winner.
Sorry Keith, i didn’t see your comment prior to posting my last comment – that now seems quite out of context.
The ideological difference that i see b/t the two parties is that the GOP is much more vocal about supporting the rights and freedom of corporations.
Steve,
Agree on all points. What happened then was a perfect storm.
But let me remind you that Nader knew about Gore’s vulnerabilities in Florida and exploited them, and even campaigned there in the waning days of the campaign, if memory serves.
Nader got the Democratic scalp he was after. Make no mistake, hanging shads, a politically tainted SCOTOS decision, a terrible campaign by Gore all played a part. But so did Nader. He knew it was a close election. He campaigned where it would count most for him. Where he could do the most damage. He knew he could be a spoiler and he was.
Ah, I see we cross-posted again.
No doubt. The man has a huge brain and ego and he wanted to make an impact. That’s why he ran! He did not run because he wanted to help Bush win and Gore lose the election. And if he had bowed out – and threw his support behind Gore. Would we all be saying – if it weren’t for Ralph Nader, Al Gore would not have won the election!
Anyway – it’s very old news. The climate crisis is upon us, and as long as policy is driven by ideology and only uses science when it’s self serving – we are in for dark times ahead.
onward – and thanks for the discussion.
I’m confused on the most basic points.
Coal leases for 1 billion tonnes of coal in an area with an annual extraction rate of 450 million tons is not a ‘huge expansion’. It’s hard the make the case it’s an expansion at all. Unless we think we can live without coal by the year 2015 we need to lease years in advance so railroad tracks and other infrastructure can be put in place.
Keith and Steve – Get a room!harrywr2 – eh? coal.. eh? you are obsessed
Bill McKibben is the natural choice for the CP crowd. He has some name recognition and an organizing structure in place.
StuartR Says:
April 8th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
<i>harrywr2 ““ eh? coal.. eh? you are obsessed</i>
I find coal trends tell a more realistic story then much of the hyperventilating put out by the various parties.
I.E. The productivity of coal mines east of the mississippi river deliclined from more then 4 tons/hour to less then 3 tons per hour.
I can look at that number and put my pretend ‘utility company decision maker hat on’ and conclude that long term prices of coal are headed upward. Investing in a new coal fired plant east of the Mississippi may not be a good long term decision.
In fact a number of utilties in the South Eastern US that combined consume about 100 million tons of coal per year have already stated that there long term plants are to phase out coal and replace it with some mix of nuclear, natural gas an renewable.
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida will phase out coal based on economics.
Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine are likely to phase out coal based on economics. Nuclear is politically ‘challenged’ in New England…so what they will replace it with is a question.
Rhode Island and Vermont don’t burn coal.
California, Oregon and Washington will phase out coal based on NOx emissions. Idaho doesn’t burn any coal.
By my count that’s 13 states with a population of 100 million who will ‘take action’ on Climate Change regardless of whether or not they believe in ‘Climate Change’.
@ lucia
let’s hope a nut doesn’t read this and decide to literally “
I thought nuts are the primary target audience.
Yep. All coal declined from bloody cheap to – gee we need techno.
Or it’s coal schmoal or clathrates schmathrates.
In fact not all coal.
Carbon/Hydrogen bond fuels will be there forever. Even if we have to use fusion to make them 😉
@Tom Gray
The Liberal party in fact favours a Cap and Trade scheme, it’s just buried at page 46 in their campaign platform. As you point out though, they are conspicuously quiet about it.
The Grist article quotes Bill McKibben. I have a piece of advice to would be environmentalists looking for better success with the electorate: don’t take advice from somebody who thinks we should all move out of the cities and grow our own food. While Bill and other like-minded people may be alienated with modernity and would like to crawl back in the womb of some non-existent pre-industrial Eden, the average person is not so disenchanted. Dear Bill: It’s not a giant conspiracy that’s preventing you from wider appeal; it’s the fact that you often sound like Pol Pot.
Coal is extraordinarily expensive, unless one assigns no value to a human life or environmental degradation.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/true-cost-of-coal-power.html
NewYork
Maybe you could indulge me in my hypothetical scenario where a thousand coal power station suddenly where found built and appeared in Africa magically without having to beg permission from the world bank.
And powered hospitals that save peoples lives immediately
Tell me your / first gut feeling. And then tell me what you would do…
or indeed reference me some / comparison that we all can see on this very blog page how a value of human life works for you ?
You can get thing moving quickly if there is good will but there is no good will from the west – see New York J. Viva la Revolution
test test tested
kdk33 Says:
April 8th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
I agree and have no problem with the idea of it. The question is how effective will it be and will it resonate with growing number of self identifying indepents and moderates? IMO Democrats have currently created a broad coalition based on the moral imperative to “help the little guy”. When a majority of voters are fat, happy, and feeling good about the short term it is easy to get them to look at issues of equality, morality or the future. Like it or not the issue for the unwashed masses right now is economic. Take the feelings concerning the possible government shut down. Granted that might change if a shutdown starts making then feel inconvenienced.
Another point is how the possible concerns of how the reaction to the anti war crowd and how the idea of intervention has cause the democrats as a whole to contort and qualify.
StuartR Says:
April 8th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
“Maybe you could indulge me in my hypothetical scenario where a thousand coal power station suddenly where found built and appeared in Africa”
Known coal reserves in all of Africa total 33 billion tons. 30 billion of it in South Africa.
1,000 coal plants would consume 3-4 billion tons of coal per year. So they would run out of coal in 10 years.
The current price of steam coal at Richards Bay, South Africa is $120/ton which results in a 6 cent/KWh fuel cost.
The proposed coal plants to be built in South Africa were to be co-located with the major coal mines and burn waste coal.
The price of shipping coal by heavy rail overland is 3+cents/ton mile.
At $120 ton + transportation the rest of Africa is pretty much out of luck as far as using coal as an inexpensive energy source.
KK said
“Finally, let me ask: how does this scalp-collecting, “work up the food chain” strategy dovetail with the we-only-have-a-limited window to act on climate change warning that I’ve been hearing for years?”
During my years as a vociferous campaigner against AGW, almost every symposium I attended, and there were many, began with the immortal words ‘its worse than we thought’ and concluded with ‘but it’s not too late’. Eventually, in my apocalyptic zeal, I would openly scoff at the closing exhortations; of course it was too late.
While my views, and associated activity, regarding AGW have altered considerably, apparently this seeming disconnect continues unabated amongst the vanguard of the AGW movement.
I’m a Canadian and thus have no dog in any primary fight. But if I did, as a sceptic, I would fall to my knees each night and pray that the AGW folks were dumb enough to nominate as their leader Bill McKibben. And, to make it perfect, James Kunstler for deputy leader.
It would be tough to kill the AGW movement any politically deader than it is now….but that team could do it.
harrywr2
Ah! I see your point. Again the west is the bottle neck for development in Africa, but for no better reason than resource management. Except, mmm, China is not too shy about building hospitals and department stores in Africa without tightening a moral grip in return for some Dickensian moral finger wagging;)
We know we still have coal in the industrial revolution heartland of Britain which was mined for 200 years, and only stopped because North Sea Oil and and the politics of defeating a huge mining trade union made it cheaper to get it abroad.
The current price of coal is inflated because Oil is pushing it up. Use any app you can think of and watch the prices track each other. Does Opec have coal mines?
Me and Arthur Scargill will fight tooth and nail to ensure that the known minimum 1000 years+ deposits of coal are ship to Africa for a cheap price when they run out of their own 😉
I say to Roberts. Please do it. The public at large needs to see the anti-human agenda behind much of environmentalism. Tell the voters you will double or triple their heating bills to solve an imaginary problem. This would help to remove the fake facade of humanity that many environmentalist use to cover their real agenda of mucking up market economies and returning society to some imaginary “pristine” and simpler state in the past. (For instance, the despicable actions of the American Lung Lung Association of California in implying that CO2 was pollution that would harm lungs in the campaign against Prop 23 in California)
JD
StuartR Says:
April 9th, 2011 at 2:58 am
<i> We know we still have coal in the industrial revolution heartland of Britain which was mined for 200 years…The current price of coal is inflated because Oil is pushing it up.</i>
The cost of coal extraction varies dramatically. The relationship to coal prices and oil prices is that oil prices impact extraction and transportation costs.
Coal is extracted profitably in Wyoming at $14/tonne. In the US Central Appalachian region coal needs a price of at least $70/ton to be extracted profitably. This is a function of productivity.
In Wyoming coal mine productivity is 30 tons per hour.
In 1998 an average coal miner East of the Mississippi River in the US was producing 4+ tons per hour. It is now less then 3+ tons per hour.
UK Coal mines are quite productive by European Standards with a productivity around 1.5 tonnes per man hour which according to UK coal is 6 times the European Average. UK Coal has lost money the last 3 years despite historically high coal prices.
In China coal mine productivity averages 2-3 hours per ton.
There are lot’s of various interest groups, coal included that are very good at hiding the answer to the question, ‘How much is this going to end up costing me on my electricity bill?’.
IMHO If we focused more on ‘affordable’ energy we might find quite a few places in the world where ‘affordable energy’ and ‘clean energy’ are the same thing.
Unlike the German example of big subsidies for coal, wind and solar and big taxes on nuclear which results in a residential electricity rate of 22 Eurocents/KWh.
haryywr2
Well I read your very detailed response, but see nothing that contradicts my rather simple minded broad brush sweep implicit in the “1000+ years coal left before we even need to talk clathrates” statement.
Solar and wind is the worst way of getting energy for anything that you need right now. It is like trying to get sunshine from cucumbers – fun and different for a particular sector of society, but boring and useless and costly for the rest of us.
You don’t have to research much further than late 15th century and Cervantes to realise that when wind was useful was well before ready energy was available from fossil, and the current resurgence in wind is purely, totally, artificially, enforced, and dictated by fashion. It is as if the whole of society was forced to wear a beauty spot because fashion dictates. Except in this case, fashion is an unelected and enforced unspoken quantity rather than some side show we watch in Vanity Fair 😉
StuartR Says:
“Well I read your very detailed response, but see nothing that contradicts my rather simple minded broad brush sweep implicit in the “1000+ years coal left”
We do have a 1,000 years of coal left. No doubt about that.
We don’t have 1,000 years of inexpensively extractable coal left.
In 1998 an average coal miner East of the US Mississippi extracted 4+ tons per hour, it is now less then 3 tons per hour. With the exception of parts of Australia and Wyoming, this trend is global.
It’s just a simple fact of coal mining that the thickest coal seams, closet to the surface, near major population centers were mined first.
Since extraction costs are rising then other forms of energy will become cheaper.
I personally would not even consider building a coal fired plant unless I thought I had a 40 year supply of coal at $80/ton.
At $80/ton the fuel price for a coal plant is 4 cents/KWh.
My local nuclear plant has a fuel price of less then 1/2 cent/KWh, spends $50 million a year on improvements, sets aside money for waste disposal and decommissioning , still making payments on it’s original loans all for a wholesale price of about 5 cents/KWh.
Columbia Generating Station 2010 Budget.
http://www.energy-northwest.com/who/documents/2010Budget/Final%202010%20Columbia%20Generating%20Station.pdf
“I personally would not even consider building a coal fired plant unless I thought I had a 40 year supply of coal at $80/ton.”
OK, lets get frakking now.
Ooo! Do I hear an objection 😉