There's no civilization on this planet.
Achieving proper governance is job #1
This article has so many flaws; I will go over them in order of presentation.
The planet is NOT dying; the planet will be fine if we stop destruction of the oceans. See my latest post on this topic, which took many hours to write, for the reading pleasure of only 88 readers. https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/the-total-eclipse-of-the-earth
Yes, humanity, a rogue species, is destroying the biosphere which is always in the way of civilization, a scab growing on this planet. Rogue species post: https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/limits-to-progress
The Keeling Curve illustrations perhaps intend to alarm people about climate change. Recent data-wrangling indicates that this planet was a lot hotter than even the extended top of that curve, for most of its existence. “A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature”, E.J. Judd et al. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705
Thus the frequent statements that “the planet is dying” are alarmist nonsense. The existential threats to humans are, in order of severity: Nuclear weapons/nuclear war, resulting from there being no genuine civilization on this planet; the proliferation of plastics into every part and level of the web of life; then lastly, the burning of fossil fuels which enables this over-population of the planet.
Climate change does not represent climate destruction; the climate is what it presently is, if you change it, it is now in that state. It is not a destructible entity, unless the Earth’s magnetic field collapses and the atmosphere is blown off (like Mars).
The chart on global energy demand is nice except that it should go back to the 1950s. And what was wrong with the 1950s? Life was good then, we did NOT need all this extravagance which has followed. People ask “what, do you want to destroy civilization and go back to the Stone Age? How about to the 1950s? For plastics we had bakelite, many small items came in flat metal boxes. Virtually no plastics. The use of fossil fuels ENABLED this massive population increase; both MUST be wound down in tandem.
In the slide “The solution to our problems is obvious,” the first two points are excellent, the last two are questionable. Fossil fuels are deliberately made cheap by governments which want votes. The whole economy revolves around the supply of cheap energy slaves. In making them artificially more costly, you untie a currency peg and destabilize your food supply, since farmers are in a pay-wall, or should I say a “sell-wall” and absolutely cannot pass along higher energy costs - they would just have to eat those costs.
Saying that Capitalism is an algorithm is the most naïve definition of it ever. Capitalism is the legalization of theft. The basic tenets of civilization are embodied in the Ten Commandments. Could Capitalism exist if “Thou shalt not steal” was fully respected? It amplifies the crudest aspects of humanity embracing individual greed and accumulation. It is about the polar opposite of Steiner’s Threefold Social Order, which, being in Switzerland, you can look it up at Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.
The “market economy” is absolutely incapable of solving any aspect relating to Nature: the economy is an externality to Nature, see: https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/lets-get-on-the-same-page-in-this (climate catastrophe).
The “market economy” has been tampering with environmental issues far too long, to wit: carbon offsets. Then the article falls off the rails, with the slide: “Global Climate Compensation.” Oh, sorry, that’s the name of your org! But it stinks. “We only need to agree on the price of CO2 emissions.” Wow, that’s easy! Not!
“All fossil fuel producers” - including Russian oil and gas in pipelines to China and India? Are you kidding me? So that the carbon signal is represented in all your toys made in China? Not! In what currency? Who keeps them from lying? You have no idea what has happened to the world economy and financial system in the past 3.5 years under the Biden admin. The US$ is no longer a petro-dollar. It is no longer the world reserve currency. The BRICS nations are going to push the Axis of Evil (USA-NATO-Israel) off to the side where they belong. You need to drop everything and read Jeff Rubin’s book https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/714717/a-map-of-the-new-normal-by-jeff-rubin/9780735246119 The economy as you knew it no longer exists, so prepare to reboot all economic notions.
Then there is the nonsense about redistributing the fund among the world’s nations. Through war zones? To the Taliban? You are presuming a civilization, which does not exist. Who exchanges the currencies? The exchange and inter-banking system has fractured and the global South no longer trusts IMF and World Bank. When a person with no experience in monetary theory starts pontificating about “guaranteed annual income” or “global yearly income,” my first question is “what is your currency peg?” The next would be “Don’t you realize that the financial system would eat that money for lunch, that such income level would be a new floor?”
For a simple notion of currency peg, and actually quite stable in value over time, think of a loaf of bread. I consider its value almost constant over time, remember I said “value” not price. Price varies by variation in the value of the currency, and by population level. You heard this here first: The number of units in currency assigned to the VALUE of a loaf of bread MUST increase with an increase in population. AND, if you hive out a chunk of the economy (raiding oil’s value) and try to turn that into free revenue, you have just increased the number of currency units assigned to one loaf of bread; thus the financial system has again eaten your lunch. Poverty, like climate, cannot be abolished since it is relative. Poverty (my definition) is “Sulking in a state of denied affluence.” Stop sulking! The “good life” of the global North was a MISTAKE; do not try to emulate us!
re: “Problem: It might actually work” The 200-300 companies around the world are NOT going to cooperate with this scheme, not to mention that they sell by long-term contract or by spot-price systems. That notion is totally impossible to achieve; the world economy is fracturing steadily away from any kind of globalization. “Business models that depend strongly on fossil fuels are invalidated.” Oh, like farming? A farmer CANNOT pass on increases in energy costs; they produce but not price, they are a special segment of the economy in which no wages are paid. See https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/can-oxygen-pricing-help-save-the (environment).
No regulation? Oil companies are going to hand over your fund without use of compelling force? Dream on. Yes, global North has caused the problem, but same as Marx’s dialectic, all people everywhere are both victims and beneficiaries. This massive human population cannot continue without fossil fuel usage; both must be wound down in tandem. We go build wells for them, sell them fertilizers, then wonder why they put 40 million people in postage-stamp-sized countries. That “goodwill” was a fallacy.
If a carbon tax at source, or in other words a fee for the privilege of carbon-mining (in forestry called “stumpage fee”), could work (remember I said “if,” but it can’t possibly work), the funds should go into a structure such as the UN Green Fund so it mainly goes to the global South as reparations, mitigation and adaptation, with the concurrent requirement that they end their quest of “development.” To pay part of the income back to people in the global North is a short-circuit, a bribe to encourage acceptance. Let them eat cake.
Here’s my letter to The Vancouver Sun, most of which was printed in their Sept 21 edition, page A17, at the bottom:
Dear Editors:
re: “No free lunch with climate change,” Vancouver Sun Opinion, 17 Sept, p A8
The notion of an ever-rising price on carbon to fight climate change remains an urban myth. Are there people who are too cheap or pigheaded to switch to an alternative fuel, that we must encourage them to do so with a price signal? The problem here is that there IS no alternative fuel in great-enough supply to replace fossil fuels, as Europeans are presently figuring out (see Jeff Rubin’s book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/714717/a-map-of-the-new-normal-by-jeff-rubin/9780735246119). This massive human population was enabled by fossil-fuel usage; to solve our predicament both must be wound down in tandem. A first step toward that end would be reducing the energy consumption of the global North which is typically 30x world-average. A high tax on all energy could push consumption in that direction. On a finite planet we cannot keep demanding more and more energy consumption; we need to find a simpler life more in balance with Nature.
In “GCC - a rational solution to our problems” - “We need to stop using fossil fuels, but we don’t know how quickly it can be done” Yes, we do - when we wind down either population and/or consumption, since the value [population times consumption] is inextricably tied to fuel usage. THAT is “degrowth.” “Democracy” is not a cure-all; in a democracy, the pickup drivers (who are armed), will NOT vote to impair their fuel supply.
It is a fallacy for people in the rich North to muse about “We should do this or that…” That notion is just so much malarkey. No such thought regimen can be implemented lacking a proper civilization, meaning a (global) society that has ended war as an instrument of policy many years ago. That also implies meaningful world governance and the total abstinence from international and corporate theft and covetousness. Achieving that is job #1; until then, all other thoughts and words are wasted.