I'm continually surprised when I meet people who read this blog (and not only because some comment box contributors aren't crotchety 70 year old Trotskyists with long, yellow-stained beards like I thought.) This isn't false modesty - I mean, I can see the hit counter slowly rising. I just always assume it's the same dozen people visiting from different computers. Anyhow, I'm glad socialists and left-minded people find this a useful place to visit.


Thanks for dropping by

Greenwashing

It's an axiom on the left that there are no fast solutions to the ecological crisis. This is a healthy instinct: most proposed schemes - e.g. carbon trading - let corporations off the hook, allowing their governments to use a small amount of cash to continue polluting as usual. Electric cars are sexy, but you've still got all that carbon going into the lifecycle: mining, assembly, transport, not to mention road building and upkeep.

I'm also deeply suspicious of plans to solve the energy crisis. Nuclear power is safe in theory and dangerous as hell in practice; hydroelectric power releases tons of carbon by forests rotting beneath human-made lakes; let's not get into 'clean coal' or natural gas.


From Something Creative by Karen O

We need a revolution for a lot of reasons, but primary among them is that capitalism can't plan in the long term. If a firm doesn't profit big, quickly, another firm will drive it under. Capitalists treat the environment like they treat wages and health & safety: don't think about it - and certainly don't pay for it - unless someone's screaming bloody murder. Only when production is decided democratically, based on human need and not profit, will we be able to take into account the longterm impact of human activity on the earth, whose quarterly statements are measured in eons, not months.

But it's safe to say the environment is going to suffer a lot more - and us along with it - before we see socialism. So what half-measures can we take in the meantime?

Solar farms: "the use of mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays on a pipe or vessel containing some sort of gas or liquid that heats up to about 400C and is used to power conventional steam turbines." The sun "pours down the equivalent of 1.5m barrels of oil of energy for every square kilometre." Therefore, "covering just 0.5% of the world's hot deserts with a technology called concentrated solar power (CSP) would provide the world's entire electricity needs." The technology has existed for over a decade, it's cheap and safe, more like "using a magnifying glass to burn a hole in a piece of paper than any space age technology."


Still looks pretty space age to me

And this isn't another excuse to steal Third World resources; "CSP could supply 30% or 300% of future energy demand far more simply, safely and cost-effectively [than nuclear power]." So poor countries shipping their energy resources abroad, or without any clean, cheap energy sources to begin with, could electrify. They wouldn't be 'cutting off' the global north, so no one would invade (though the oil companies would get really pissed off - well, we'd have to nationalize them.) Lenin said communism was Soviets + electrification; we'd be halfway there already!

And as if providing the entire world's electricity needs wasn't enough:

The large mirrors create shaded areas that can be used for horticulture irrigated by desalinated water generated by the plants. Cold water produced for air conditioning means there are three benefits. "It is this triple use of the energy which really boosts the overall energy efficiency of these kinds of plants up to 80% to 90%," says [solar power researcher] Dr Knies.

The equipment can even be used as a gamma ray telescope.

It seems airtight to me. It's not socialism; people would still be exploited and oppressed. But at least there wouldn't be wars to keep oil prices high. Solar power is abundant: the technology requires an initial capital outlay but just maintainance afterwards, so there wouldn't be huge 'solar companies' devoted to exploration and mining.


Only the best electricity for the working class - Big Bill Haywood

But there would be a strong public sector to provide the necessary infrastructure. We could reverse desertification and global warming, poor people could get their own electricity and clean water. We'd buy time to make the revolution (undercutting the elitist argument that immiseration = radicalization. I'm a lot more radical in an air conditioned room.) Someone tell me I'm being naive here... what's not to like?

Read more about the pilot project at UC Davis.