I just got off the phone with a Congressional staffer, who couldn't quite focus on the issue we were supposed to discuss because she is working overtime on the floods in the Midwest. So I turned on cable news, and found out that the floods are plastered all over, much as the wildfires in California were in October of 2007. And just like 2007, the major environmental groups are AWOL on the most covered climate event of the year so far.
Here's an answer to a vexing question for lots of liberals. If you want to know why there is no action on global warming, do the following simple exercise. Turn on cable news right now, or do a Google News search for floods. Here are some news headlines you might find.
Environmental Defense has sent out an e-mail to Senate staffs and Senators specifically calling out this blogger for attention and calling for advertising coordination between Senators and Environmental Defense in support of the Lieberman-Warner Coal Subsidy Act (CSA, mistakenly called the Climate Security Act), to respond to advertising, here at DKos and elsewhere, by Friends of the Earth in their Fix or Ditch the Lieberman-Warner Global Warming Bill campaign.
I just got this email from Environmental Defense about their massive clusterfuck coal subsidy bill to 'deal' with global warming. They combine a nice defensive whine from Barbara Boxer and ED's Fred Krupp, as well as a pitch for Senators to buy blogads. I like how the criticism from Friends of the Earth is forcing the other side to actually start organizing. That's kind of neat.
If you ever thought that Democrats care about substance and/or policy while Republicans care only about spin, think again.
"Given lemons, aren't they making lemonade?" suggested an aide to one liberal Democratic lawmaker. Referring to the energy package's central role in the newest message strategy, the aide added: "It's an issue that polls very well with the American public, and frankly, the fact that energy got gutted doesn't really matter."
I've been meaning to blog more about climate change politics, but there's so much there, so I wound up getting into this 'I'm going to write one mega-blog post' and then never got around to it. So I'll just give a general framework and then blog shorter posts in the future.
The essential problem is greenwashing, which is environmental groups granting credibility to figures that don't deserve it, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Newt Gingrich, in order to seem more credible. Gingrich, with his new 'Contract with the Earth' book, is now considered a 'moderate' with regards to climate change, simply because he admits it's happening and despite his long record fighting against dealing with climate change and slashing spending on the technology he now says is the answer.
And yet Gingrich is being embraced. All DC-based green groups are guilty of allowing this to happen to some extent, though NRDC is probably the most insidious, while Environmental Defense is the most corrupt. Senator Barbara Boxer is a particularly bad actor here, pushing a massive transfer of wealth from consumers to business known as the Warner-Lieberman legislative package, which is partially authored by NRDC and the business community.
Meanwhile, the IPCC came out with a grim projection of climate change scenarios, and the first Presidential forum on energy and climate change was held last week. There's a huge amount of momentum and energy in the global warming arena, but the combination of cowardice by DC-based groups and their unwillingness to hold bad actors accountable means that people like Arnold Schwarzenegger are being lauded as leaders on transforming society towards a more sustainable path while cutting mass transit funding.
The science is getting much worse, though there are new groups emerging that could take over from the corroded Beltway model of failure. It's very similar to lauding John Ashcroft as a leader in civil rights litigation for standing up to Bush on wiretapping. The desire to greenwash and call a person a leader when they cheaply say 'global warming is happening' is the essential institutional problem.
I realize this is all very vague, and it's mostly just my impression from reading and talking to a variety of stakeholders in the green community over the past few months. I'm going to try to go into more specifics going forward.
UPDATE: If leaders Carl Pope, Fred Krupp, Frances Beinecke, or Brent Blackwelder have comments on this, I'll happily update my post.
When there's a major environmental disaster, it's interesting to see how the major environmental groups think through their response. And one small tell is what they put on their websites. So let's take a tour.
It's Getting Hot in Here has as its top blog post titled 'Megafires in California Force Evacuation of 1 Million'. Step It Up has a blog post hidden down the page on the fires.
Websites do not tell the whole story. The Sierra Club after all has a press release out on the Wildfires, and that's good, except that the press release is defending the Sierra Club from right-wing attacks. And one of two of NRDC's press release yesterday was 'Environmental Victory in New York Harbor Dredging Court Battle'. Now it's possible these groups don't update their websites with their priorities, but I doubt it. And given the interesting social media coverage of the fires, that seems like a poor choice, if indeed it is a choice.
When California is burning down due to extreme drought and unusual winds, and there's drought across the Southeast and new and much more pessimistic scenarios on carbon emissions, perhaps this is something environmental groups might want to jump on.
When an emergency like this happens, it's possible to make a large discontinuous leap in the political system. It's possible to say 'throw out last years projections, we have to stop emitting carbon now and use the money to build new global warming proof infrastructure.' Put a sense of the Senate resolution in there that carbon emissions are extremely dangerous, if you don't have a plan ready. 9/11 changed everything because the right was ready. We weren't ready when Katrina happened. Thankfully, though, we'll have more extreme weather to contend with so it's not hard to plan for it.
I'm excited that Environmental Defense is now saying publicly, in response to criticism from Matt Stoller and me, that it "has not endorsed" the Lieberman-Warner bill and that it "will work to strengthen the bill, particularly to achieve the deeper long-term emissions reductions scientists tell us we need to avoid a climate catastrophe."
That's great, but I must note it's a sentiment that was distinctly lacking from the statement ED put out in response to the bill, which mainly offered a passionate defense, or the fund-raising letter it sent out to activists (thanks Roger Smith for posting this). True, it did include one line that said, "This bill is a good start in that direction [of 80 percent emissions deductions], and we will continue to work in that direction." But the clear implication was that they would push for those commitments through some future legislative mechanism.
Environmental Defense continues to attack and undermine the excellent Energy Bill, which Bush has threatened to veto.
A few years ago, liberal provocateurs Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus wrote a provocative essay called 'The Death of Environmentalism' (PDF), arguing essentially that the 'environmental movement' operated as a narrow set of interest groups. Focusing on the need to protect the environment, instead of framing arguments around values, translated directly into a stunning loss of political power over 30 years. They put forward the notion that investment choices are the key drivers of a new movement, and the essay in general had remarkable parallels to Crashing the Gates in terms of describing an ossified advocacy structure. This argument has basically taken fundamental root throughout the group that was once known as the environmental community, and it seems to be working.
And now, in Kansas, thanks to Governor Sebelious and the recent Supreme Court case declaring carbon a pollutant, Kansas Department of Health and Education Secretary Rod Bremby rejected a permit by Sunflower Electric Power Corp to build two new coal-fired power plants. It's the first case which takes into account that carbon will soon be regulated by the EPA.
The AP has a wonderful timeline here. It was a mix of organizational competence from the Sierra Club and EarthJustice, Attorney Generals from around the country, hundreds of people showing up at multiple local hearings, and a Governor willing to listen to reasonable arguments.
Innovative approaches like Step It Up and Architecture2030 are emerging to drive the movement orientation of carbon reduction, as well as creating the capacity for the economy to move to a carbon neutral frame. Businessweek is running 'Sustainability Rankings' for business schools (Stanford is tops), and sustainability specialist employment fields are stretched ridiculously thin. On the social front, norms are emerging faster than anyone could possibly track them, from facebook applications like 'Greenbook' to the carbon offset business.
The move in Kansas to cut off coal investment will have ripple effects throughout the country and the world. It's not clear where the new energy supplies will come from, though the wind lobby in Kansas made a difference, and when I met with Tim Walz he spoke of rural sustainable energy as a new growth driver.
I'm impressed. A switch flipped on the new carbon neutral economy a few years ago, and we'll see how far and how fast we can take it.
Senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner tomorrow will introduce comprehensive, bipartisan climate change legislation that would cap and cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions while protecting the economy and American consumers.
Global warming legislation expected to be introduced tomorrow could provide giveaways worth hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars to polluting industries, according to an analysis of a draft of the legislation conducted by Friends of the Earth.
This is, in a sense, the same old strategy question that comes up all the time. Do you, like FOE, act as an outside agitator, draw lines in the sand, and try to pressure the political process? Or do you, like ED, worm your way inside the process, schmooze the big players, and strive to insure that the final bill is as good as it possibly can be under the circumstances?
If you say "we need both," gold star for you.
I love David's writing, but I don't agree with this as a matter of politics. Insider-outsider strategies are critical to move policy, but what Roberts is describing is not an insider-outsider strategy. He is describing a parasite. Environmental Defense is justifying a large corporate give-away under the rubric of environmentalism, and the rest of the green community is letting ED get away with it.
In terms of the policy, Environmental Defense is alone here. The green groups are remarkably polite to each, as most of them started in the 1970s convinced that protecting the environment was a value system. At the time, it might have been. Today, the question is how to manage a commons, and these groups just don't agree with each other. There is no movement around the environment anymore, there are progressives, corporatists, and deniers, all fighting over a large multi-trillion dollar and rapidly shrinking commons. The lack of robust internal debate among green groups means that ED's Fred Krupp can nonetheless speak for 'the environmental movement', scoop up his corporate money, and throw everyone else to the curb.
A letter on carbon allowances implicitly protesting the bill came out in September from Clean Water Action, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Audubon Society, the National Environmental Trust, the National Tribal Environmental Council, the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Oceana, Physicians for Social Responsibility, The Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and the Wilderness Society all agree, to a greater or lesser extent with Friends of the Earth. They don't like the bill, or the giveaway, but judging by tomorrow's coverage, you wouldn't know it.
ED is using its brand as an environmental group to push against progressive solutions to global warming. In prisoner's dilemma parlance, it is 'defecting' from the rest of the community to get what it wants, which is insider influence and corporate money. The argument from ED will be that corporations are part of the solution, which is of course true, though not in the way they mean.
We're long overdue for a real green fight. And if these groups won't do it, ED is going to win until there's an internal revolt from the progressive dissidents within and outside of the environmental community.
All you did in your reponse to Matt Stoller's informative, specific criticisms of cap-and-trade carbon limits was repeat vague cliches about the "market" finding solutions. You addressed NONE of the specific problems identified with big pollutor-supported cap-and-trade system.
What is your response to the following points made in the Shapiro paper that Matt linked to?
1. Cap-and-trade programs also create a serious potential for private financial manipulation absent under a carbon tax approach. The national and international trading of billions of dollars of permits will attract large financial institutions eager to manage their trading on major security markets, create new derivatives, options, calls and other, financial instruments based on the permits, and collect commissions on both sides of every transaction. The large-scale trading of permit-based securities will create
opportunities for corrupt firms to try to manipulate the private market in these permits, as they have in other commodity markets such as natural gas spot contracts and futures.
2. "Once a cap-and-trade agreement determines that a country's emissions should be reduced by a certain percentage relative to its current emissions or to its emissions in some previous base year, the country may
be able to meet its target ***without taking any steps if its economy slows***
3. The third important difference is that cap-and-trade programs are more difficult to administer and more vulnerable to evasion, corruption and manipulation than carbon taxes. ... By creating tradable financial assets worth tens of billions of dollars for governments to distribute among their industries and plants and then monitor, a global cap-and-trade program also introduces powerful incentives to cheat by corrupt and radical governments.
Of course as a lobbyist for major pollutors that pretends to be an environmental activist, I doubt these are actual issues for you. I note that your "chief economist" and advocate of "cap and trade" is an "advisor" to such notable friends of the planet as British Petroleum and the People's Republic of China.
How much money did he get paid for this work "advising" BP and the Chinese Government?
Could your advocacy for investment bank-friendly cap and trade system have something to do with your funding from investment banks, hedge funds, and the corporate law firms that work for them?
I'm excited that Tony Kreindler of Environmental Defense is taking advantage of the right to respond feature in response to my post yesterday titled the 'Biggest Corporate Giveaway in History to Come This Fall on Global Warming'. There's a furious fight right now that will erupt in the fall over global warming bills, with competing legislation in the form of the industry friendly Bingaman proposal, the DLC-ish Lieberman-Warner proposal, and the progressive Sanders-Boxer bills in the Senate (the companion to Henry Waxman's Safe Climate Act in the House). This is an urgent debate, and Environmental Defense tends to take the most corporate friendly line on environmental policy issues. For a complete list of the environmental non-profits, see HillHeat's excellent round-up.
Matt,
I want to start by saying thanks for giving climate change legislation the attention it deserves as we approach a critical time in Congress. Given the urgency of the global warming problem, the momentum for action, and the onrushing political calendar, our top priority is getting an effective climate bill passed and getting it done this year.
From our perspective, effective climate legislation means a comprehensive, mandatory cap on carbon that reduces U.S. emissions 80 percent below current levels by the middle of this century. Environmental Defense strongly supports cap and trade, but it all starts with the cap -- an enforceable limit on carbon that guarantees enough cuts to help avoid the worst consequences of global warming.
On Friday, I'm going to speak on a panel at the Center for American Progress called 'Wiring the Netroots'. My basic message is going to be that the global warming problem is both a climate crisis and a political crisis, and that solving the political crisis is going to require an acceptance of the fact that a substantial part of the so-called environmental movement is not on board with a progressive value system. There are two visions for our global future, and the one we need to head towards is a sustainable society with distributed power grids, localized agriculture, and a much more even distribution of wealth and power. Building a coalition around this vision of a 'Sustainable Society' is the job of the next forty years of progressive organizing.
