Sure, that would be the ideal basis from which to work, but often a good organiser confronts a quiescent situation where the mere act of naming the reform - in local vernaular based often on long historic (and oft-defeated) struggles - is a practical prerequisite for organising. Saul Alinksy had this method down to an art.
> and, in the process, acquire
> more radical needs and the wherewithal to get them met? In the
> absence of a clear decision by the crowds on the matter, this
> distinction between "market enviros" and the more radical brand you
> prefer seems to be entirely based on ideology. No?
>
Everything is based on ideology at one level; but 'entirely'? No, we have lots of evidence accumulated in SA and elsewhere that in practice, market-based climate strategies are a failure. As Doug says, sometimes - like now - we are short on troops for the big climate change battle, for the simple reason that not enough people are immediately threatened and the enemy is abstract.
That makes ideology all the more important because we're not talking about a good lefty organiser going with the flow of the mass. This is the key opportunity to work out what is wrong with the bogus solutions - cap 'n trade, offsets, most CDMs, Kyoto in general - and figure out what *would* drive the construction of a mass movement. It's rarely guilt, so forget trendy offsets. What's probably needed is much more rigorous linkages of climate issues to all the other concerns people have about the environment, government malfeasance, excess corporation concentration and power, market instability and so on.
Well, our Durban Group for Climate Justice - http://www.carbontradewatch.org/durban/ - is trying to work along these lines. The finest piece of writing on the false market solutions to climate change is Larry Lohmann's amazing edited Development Dialogue book, Carbon Trading, from Dag Hammarskjold last September: http://www.dhf.uu.se/FMPro?-db=pub1.fp5&-format=/publications/dd/apubdddetail.html&-lay=weblayout&-sortfield=pubyear&-sortorder=descend&-sortfield=pubissuewithoutcolon&-sortorder=descend&pubtype=development&-max=2147483647&-recid=66&-find=
And I'm expecting to hear Gar Lipow come in on this any moment, and will endorse whatever he submits...
Cheers, P.
(PS: our new book will be out next month on this:)
http://www.rozenbergps.com/index.php?frame=boek.php&item=858
Patrick Bond, Rehana Dada & Graham Erion (eds) Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society Negative Returns on South African Investments
Rozenberg SG 16,5 x 24 cm 224 pages € 24,50 ISBN 978 90 5170 654 3 NUR 740 Co-published with University of KwaZulu-Natal Press 978 1 86914 123 3 www.ukznpress.co.za 2007
With climate change posing perhaps the gravest threat to humanity in coming decades, and with free market economics still hegemonic, it is little wonder so much effort has gone into creating a carbon market, no matter how much evidence has recently emerged about its flaws.
A revealing pilot site, South Africa has initiated carbon trading projects with adverse economic, environmental and social impacts. South Africa pollutes at a rate twenty times higher than even the United States, measured by CO2 emissions generated by each GDP dollar per person, so the idea of trading for carbon reductions is seductive – and potentially lucrative. Current state policy is supportive and a former environment minister is a market promoter, alongside the World Bank, the Dutch government and big oil companies.
The most destructive effect of the carbon offset trade is that it allows us to believe we can carry on polluting. This crucially-needed book provides ample evidence of the trade’s other dangers to ‘beneficiaries’, with case studies of fraud, accounting tricks and maltreatment of people and the environment. - George Monbiot, Guardian columnist and author of Heat
Editors Patrick Bond, Rehana Dada and Graham Erion of the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society and the TransNational Institute have assembled a leading-edge collection of chapters by contributors Vanessa Black, Muna Lakhani, Larry Lohmann, Trusha Reddy, Heidi Bachram, Daphne Wysham, Jutta Kill, Michael K. Dorsey, and groundWork. The South Africa-Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development and Dag Hammarskjold Foundation supported this project
Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements
Introduction Patrick Bond, Rehana Dada and Graham Erion
Dirty Politics: South African Energy Patrick Bond
Interrogating Nuclear and Renewable Energy Muna Lakhani and Vanessa Black
The South African Projects Graham Erion, Larry Lohmann and Trusha Reddy
Low-Hanging Fruit Always Rots First: Observations from South Africa’s Carbon Market Graham Erion
Climate Fraud and Carbon Colonialism Heidi Bachram
World Bank Carbon Colonies Daphne Wysham
Prototype Carbon Fund Beneficiaries Larry Lohmann, Jutta Kill, Graham Erion and Michael K. Dorsey
Big Oil and Africans groundWork
Oil Companies and African Wealth Depletion Patrick Bond
Conclusion Patrick Bond
Appendix 1: South Africa’s Clean Development Mechanism Policy Appendix 2: Climate Justice Now! The Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading References