Essay by Eric Worrall
According to University of California Professor Eve Darian-Smith, more government is the path to freedom. Building more renewables would protect us from Russia and President Trump.
Rising authoritarianism and worsening climate change share a fossil-fueled secret
Published: April 27, 2022 10.17pm AEST
Eve Darian-Smith
Professor of Global and International Studies, University of California, Irvine…
In my new book, “Global Burning: Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis,” I lay out connections between these industries and the politicians who are both stalling action on climate change and diminishing democracy.
…
Corporate capture of environmental politics
In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to protect the public’s interests, including from exploitation by corporations. They do this primarily through policies designed to secure public goods, such as clean air and unpolluted water, or to protect human welfare, such as good working conditions and minimum wages. But in recent decades, this core democratic principle that prioritizes citizens over corporate profits has been aggressively undermined.
Today, it’s easy to find political leaders – on both the political right and left – working on behalf of corporations in energy, finance, agribusiness, technology, military and pharmaceutical sectors, and not always in the public interest. These multinational companies help fund their political careers and election campaigns to keep them in office.
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In “Global Burning,” I explore how three leaders of traditionally democratic countries – Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Scott Morrison of Australia and Donald Trump in the U.S. – came to power on anti-environment and nationalist platforms appealing to an extreme-right populist base and extractive corporations that are driving climate change. While the political landscape of each country is different, the three leaders have important commonalities.
Bolsonaro, Morrison and Trump all depend on extractive corporations to fund electoral campaigns and keep them in office or, in the case of Trump, get reelected.
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What can people do about it?
Fortunately, there is a lot that people can do to protect democracy and the climate.
Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and reducing the destruction of forests can cut greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest obstacles, a recent U.N. climate report noted, are national leaders who are unwilling to regulate fossil fuel corporations, reduce greenhouse gas emissions or plan for renewable energy production.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/rising-authoritarianism-and-worsening-climate-change-share-a-fossil-fueled-secret-181012
Why does it have to be renewables?
Wouldn’t building nuclear power plants also cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce Western dependence on hostile foreign powers?
Why couldn’t the USA copy the successful French Nuclear Programme? There is no doubt nuclear power is safe, and works, because successful conversions to nuclear have already happened. For example, in the 1970s, France replaced most of their fossil fuel plants with zero carbon nuclear power, and still get most of their electricity from nuclear power plants.
No need to rely on hostile foreign powers if you embrace nuclear – Australia and Canada are major global Uranium exporters.
But being an international studies professor, I’m sure you know all this already.
Professor Darian-Smith, if greenhouse gasses and dependence on undemocratic energy suppliers are your primary concerns, shouldn’t every possible option to resolve these problems at least rate some discussion?
I think we can all guess the answer to that question.
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The first LIE is that the named politicians ran on an “anti-environmental” platform.
I, for one care, about the environment, but I do not believe we are facing catastrophe if we in the US don’t go to net zero emissions. Nor do I believe that the mild past and forecasted warming will result in a “tipping point” of any sort.
The rest of the essay is another pseudo scientific diatribe based on a false premise.
More to the point, the “renewable energy” push IS “anti-environment,” far more so than using fossil fuels.
How many acres of rain forest have to be bulldozed for “biodiesel” plantations, how many acres of trees clear-cut for “wind farms” and “solar farms,” how many birds, bats and insects must be killed by wind turbine blades or roasted in “solar plant” kill zones before there is any admission of the complete stupidity of pursuing this non-solution to the imaginary “crisis?”
In my new book, “Global Burning: Rising Anti
democracymarxism and the Climate Crisis,” I lay out connections between these industries and the politicians who are both stalling action on climate change and diminishingdemocracyMaxism.********
Professor Darian-Smith needs a proofreader to review what she writes before she writes this stuff.
I re-wrote one of Prof Darian-Smith’s other assertions:
More importantly, why do we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions at all?
Oh wait, we don’t.
+5% this year alone 🙂
I suppose the new pretext would be: less dependency on Russia.
“Extractive Corporations”
Bumper sticker: “If it wasn’t grown, it was mined.”
Everything, everything you eat, wear, or touch, everything.
By demonizing extractive corporations, you are demonizing everything. The negativity against humanity is total.
Corollary: “If it was grown, it probably was grown with the use of something that was mined.”
We should actually be thanking the petroleum drilling industry for engaging in a hugely capital intensive business with enormous financial risks to provide a product that makes our lives so much more pleasant and livable. And, an industry from which governments make more money in the form of taxes than the industry itself.
Now compare that to the renewable and green economies 🙂
Who contribute those “benefits” poverty, misery and suffering.
The natural course of things is for government to grow, and liberty to yield. Government is the solution to a scant few problems and is the source of many, many more. Anybody with a basic understanding of human nature and history understands this; it is just ignorant/childish to think otherwise.
The title professor no longer means what it used to. It is now akin to calling oneself a self absorbed propagandist for socialism and societal collapse. Critical thinking used to be a qualification and now it is a barrier to academic advancement.
You have reminded me of a joke(?) I heard my first year of college, 60 years ago: A PhD is a person that has gone to college to learn more and more about less and less until they know obsoletely nothing at all. Upon which they are conferred the degree “Doctor of Philosophy.” [May not be the exact wording.]
Huge amount of projection by Darian-Smith – left wing/eco-activist politicians take their marching orders from special interest groups not the general population who will be impoverished by the “energy transition” to the neo-dark ages.
Activist politicians lie about the effects of co2 to create a fake crisis and demand emergency powers – ergo climate change is a direct threat to democracy.
“In democratic systems, elected leaders are expected to protect the public’s interests, including from exploitation by corporations. “
Er no.
“No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.” – R. Feynman
There is a subtle but important difference.
That’s a great quote. Here’s another one: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” United States Supreme Court in the case of West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnett.
“The Revolution won’t happen with guns, rather it will happen incrementally, year by year, generation by generation. We will gradually infiltrate their educational institutions and their political offices, transforming them slowly into Marxist entities as we move towards universal egalitarianism.” – Max Horkheimer (Philosopher and Sociologist who was famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the ‘Frankfurt School’ of social research.)
Are all Progressives Braindead Zombies. Japan lost the war when they ran out of oil. The two bombs were just fireworks to signify the end of the war. Any modern nation that is dependent on offshore source for fossil fuels should just raise the White flag. Thera is no way a modern civilization can exist, live, prosper and continue without fossil fuels, at least until we discover and implement some new form of energy. This hazard switch to renewable by outlawing fossil fuel will end democracy and surrender the us to China or Russia’s control. Renewable Energy is not that fuel. The stored energy density is not there and no present brainstorm is within fifty – one hundred years of being there. If every seat on an airplane had a stationary bike turning a generator the total energy generated by the passengers would not make up for the energy needed from the added weight. Can only gain a few hundred calories per hour per passenger. Do the Math.
When I graduated from HS, and bored of college, I joined the Navy and became a Nuclear
Operator. The buzz in NPS was that in less than 20 years there will be Fission Reactors in the subs and carriers! Every 10 years it is still in 20 years and I first heard that 60 years ago. A nation without Fossil fuels will cease to exist. Making all Military equipment operate on “Renewable” energy will make that nation the first to go down. Only possibly Renewable Alternative is something like H2 or a purely synthetic fuel with a higher energy density
than present fossil fuels. And My Great, Great, grandchildren will be dead before then!
And I do not like H2! if the operators had not started the RCS pumps when they did and started them 8 or 12 hours later. Nuclear power would be a forgotten subject today. The pressure in the containment building from the explosion, started by the breaker closure, was above the Design and Test pressure. And it got there in a very few seconds, not over 10 or 12 hours like the Verification Test Pressure. Worse, a H2 flame from a small leak, is essentially invisible.
I’m thinking you meant fusion reactors. There are nuclear powered carriers and subs…
” Professer” Eve ?… more like propaganda minister I would say
Greentard propaganda minister ,, be specific 🙂
In most cases these days, just replace “Professor” with “Indoctrinated Leftist” and you’ll have things straight.
This bothers me:
“EDF has been informed of the increase in the concentration of certain noble gases in the primary circuit of reactor n°1 of the Taishan nuclear power plant”
https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/information-relating-to-reactor-ndeg1-of-taishan-nuclear-power-plant
It could be caused by vibrations in the coolant flow, and could be a design issue for the EPR and not just an incident with the reactor exploitation.