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Noam Chomsky: A Green New Deal Can Create Jobs and Livelihoods
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoBut it probably won't fix the climate: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13563467.2019.1598964 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13563467.2019.15...
- metacritic12 7y agoIf we give up trying to combine green with growth, I would bet the people of most countries choose growth over green.
- buzzerbetrayed 7y agoPointing out the green new deal won’t fix climate change doesn’t mean you’ve given up trying to fix climate change.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoDuring times of extraordinary economic stress, the government should be acting as the employer of last resort [1] (which it's currently performing indirectly with programs such as the PPP, paying people to not work). This is likely to not be enough to bring many of the jobs back that will be lost from the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking that into account, if you're going to employ people regardless so that you don't have millions of hungry homeless citizens (which is not good, obviously), the most pressing work for them to perform would be that related to decarbonizing the economy (referring to both fossil consumption and CO2 emissions). This isn't only an environmental and climate change issue, but also a national security imperative (unless we intend to allow OPEC to dictate our economic wellbeing for another 40 years). It's too early to tell if we can "fix" climate change (we might only mitigate the worst of it depending on the atmospheric CO2 PPM high water mark we land at) but if we're going to implement extraordinary socioeconomic policy, we should head in the right direction and adjust as needed along the way. Many can be trained to install solar panels and wind turbines, to upgrade electrical infrastructure, to install EV charging stations, or rooftop solar. These are all jobs that you cannot outsource to a developing country, jobs that have traditionally paid a reasonable wage. We're going to spend the money we're printing [2] anyway, we might as well give success an honest shot. There are much worse ways we've spent trillions of dollars our economy has produced, or that we've borrowed from a future that couldn't consent to said borrowing [3]. We're already on the right path [4], it’s time we deliberately choose to succeed. "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." -- JFK [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Relief https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Relief [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL (St Louis Fed: Federal Reserve Total Assets) [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/20/us-spent-6point4-trillion-on-middle-east-wars-since-2001-study.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/20/us-spent-6point4-trillion-on... (America has spent $6.4 trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001, a new study says) [4] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/23/842807177/pandemic-shutdown-is-speeding-up-the-collapse-of-coal https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... (NPR: Pandemic Shutdown Is Speeding Up The Collapse Of Coal)
- bhupy 7y agoWhy does the government have to be an employer of last resort? The government isn't particularly good at deploying labor in an efficient way or directing them to the most productive ends (see: the economic calculation problem). Instead, it's probably better for the government to be the salary provider of last resort, via some basic income (universal or otherwise) or a negative income tax, and then imposing steep taxes on externalities.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoThis is a fine end state to target between now and some point in the future a UBI is palatable to the electorate. But we're talking about what is feasible today.
- bhupy 7y agoAre you suggesting that reconfiguring our economic system is more feasible than introducing a new redistributive welfare transfer on top of the existing economic system? Keep in mind that we already have a negative income tax in the US: the Earned Income Tax Credit. We're really just talking about expanding that.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoYes. You’re up against deeply seated belief systems.
- bhupy 7y agoI guess we’ll have to agree to disagree here. I think that modifying the Earned Income Tax Credit (which was introduced by Nixon, then expanded by Reagan) by further expanding it, and then removing the employment requirement is a way easier sell to Americans than fundamentally shifting towards central planning.
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- chrisco255 7y agoWho knows what's going to happen with the climate? No one, because the climate is a chaotic, non-linear, dynamic, multivariate system. Right now, as we speak deep sea thermal vents are leaking geothermal heat into the oceans. Underwater and aboveground volcanoes are erupting. One good solid eruption and you can have a whole year without a summer (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer). A string of Mount Tamboras or one good super volcanic eruption could plunge the earth back into a deep glacial period for the next 100,000 years. You pair the above with the geomagnetic reversal that's going on (https://www.space.com/earth-magnetic-north-passes-prime-meridian.html https://www.space.com/earth-magnetic-north-passes-prime-meri...) along with the really deep solar minimum period that's likely to dominate for the next few solar cycles (https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/04/10/experts-predict-the-solar-cycle/ https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/04/10/experts-predict-t...)...and who knows? One thing I know is CO2 may push the temp ceiling slightly higher but it doesn't provide any kind of floor for base temperature (see Mars).
- nomel 7y agoIn my mind, this is like putting a candle under a rope that's holding an anvil above your head and saying "We don't know how thick the rope is". Regardless, we know there's a flame there. Let's at least try to move it away a few cm, if possible, since that's the only thing we have control of.
- chrisco255 7y agoNo it's not. It is the nature of chaotic systems. In chaotic systems, the uncertainty in a forecast increases exponentially with elapsed time. Hence, mathematically, doubling the forecast time more than squares the proportional uncertainty in the forecast. This is why, despite our best efforts and 50 years or so of Moore's law increases in computation, we still cannot predict the weather beyond 10 days with any sort of accuracy. Likewise, I have no idea what the Lyapunov time is for the climate, but it's certainly smaller than 80 years. If human beings had any sense at all, we'd accept that we cannot control the climate and we'd do well to prepare for either a warmer or cooler climate. In other words, we should be adaptable. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_exponent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_exponent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
- bigbob2 7y agoOur current systems definitely won't fix the climate. I think I would take probably over definitely.
- claydavisss 7y agoMany of the newly unemployed lack the skills to build infrastructure. I doubt many of today's workers could even bear the brutal physical labor done by public works crews during the depression. This is a result of moving to a service economy - tens of millions of people who know how to be polite and cheery
- nomel 7y ago> The Green New Deal moves us in the right direction. You can raise questions about the specific form in which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey introduced it. But the general idea is quite right. I really wish the "Green New Deal" wasn't mentioned in these pushes for the future. I don't think there was ever agreement on what the "general idea" of it was, and I don't think it deserves any credit for the few good ideas that it did contain. Sure, it's recognizable, but not necessarily in a good way.
- dougmany 7y agoThe general idea is to have large government funded works programs to transform our way of life from fossil fuel based to renewable based.
- hmmokidk 7y agoThe new deal created the middle class in America, rescued it (very lately) from the Great Depression, and set it up for the post war prosperity that made America what it is today. I think the idea of a green new deal is to do that again, as well as save us from the climate grave we are digging ourselves into. In my mind it is poetry.
- valuearb 7y agoThe evidence for the New Deal accomplishing any of those things is virtually non existent. For example, the 1937-38 downturn was nearly as bad as the 1930 one, and the economy wasn’t restored until WW2 started.
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- dopu 7y agoI find it incredibly unlikely that we are going to be able to avoid the brunt of climate change. Mass flooding is going to happen and countries like Bangladesh will be swallowed up by the sea. Refugee crises are going to happen at unprecedented scales and there will likely be wars. Even the paltry GND, which is almost certainly not going to be instituted, would not prevent this. This was inevitable under capitalism. As a system that requires constant growth, it is incredibly brittle and does not lend itself well to long-term, sustainable planning. The only question for me now is: how do we best prepare ourselves for the upcoming crisis, such that we might be able to construct an equitable, sustainable society out of it? Crisis doesn’t guarantee revolutionary change — but it can if we're organized properly.
- jariel 7y agoInteresting to see an anarcho-socialist calling for one the biggest government interventions in history.
- js8 7y agoIsn't this what you want, though, humans to make rational decisions towards solving problems, rather than stick with their ideological position?
- hinkley 7y agoBut how can I dehumanize and dismiss them if I do that??
- jariel 7y agoIt's not dehumanizing to point out the fact that life long, globally recognized leading figure of a particular ideal is recommending a massive intervention which stands in total contrast to his own convictions, especially if he himself doesn't bother to elucidate on that fact. He's making his own, obvious contradictory conclusions, can't blame the messenger.
- analbumcover 7y agoOne of the points Chomsky makes frequently is that anarchism (at least in his view) is not opposed to any and all power structures. Legitimate ones can exist but they need to justify their existence.
- jariel 7y agoAlmost anyone would assume that authority has to be derived legitimately, as a matter of common sense.
- analbumcover 7y agoHere is a discussion with Chomsky on the topic. https://chomsky.info/20020322/ https://chomsky.info/20020322/
- kevmo 7y agoBernie Sanders would have been so good for the American capitalist economy. He is the only one who would have after the monopolies, which would help level the playing field that is currently just consolidating into big companies. The social safety net would also spur a lot of new business creation. I am not very confident about America's ability to handle global warming disasters in ten years.
- gotoeleven 7y agoIf its too difficult politically to get the green new deal passed, maybe a smaller step that we can all agree on would be to require that everyone break one of the windows in their home every month. This would create thousands of high paying window repair jobs.
- mulmen 7y agoThis gives me the setup for my quarantine dystopian future novel. Roving gangs of “handymen” throwing rocks through windows then offering repairs for a fee.
- iron0013 7y agoWe already subsidize tons of essentially valueless jobs, from propping up the coal and oil industries when they can’t compete in the free market, to paying farmers to plant corn for ethanol that no one needs. Those subsidized industries actively harm the planet. Why not subsidize equivalent jobs that work to reduce harm to the environment instead?
- golemiprague 7y agoI would rather not subsidise any of them, and anyway, finding some solution now to a problem that might or might not happen in the future is a waster of time and money. They can't even model the current virus but want to destroy the whole economy for some future problem based on even more complicated system that they probably can't model properly. I would rather wait and see how things develop and then deal with it when it comes without huge minus in the bank from all kind of useless subsidies and "new deals".
- mrfusion 7y agoTwo wrongs don’t make a right?
- nugget 7y agoIsn't a better analogy that we have invented some new type of window glass that is the future for all homes, but there isn't overwhelming demand in the free market for it yet (due to price incentives); therefore, we should break some legacy old-glass windows every month (and subsidize their replacement with new-glass) to support and accelerate (inevitable) adoption?
- scythe 7y ago>If you eliminate the massive subsidies that are given to fossil fuels, renewable energy is probably already more cost-effective. Because there is a lot of subtlety in the way we contrast subsidies with normal tax deferrals, it may be clarifying to consult this fact sheet from EESI, which is a successor of the Environmental Study Conference caucus originally in the US Congress: https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costs https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subs... >Well, what’s the difference between the Green New Deal of today and the New Deal from the 1930s? Several things. One thing that’s different is large-scale labor action. It wouldn't be a Chomsky essay without a paean to the labor movement. I think that the "Green New Deal" is the wrong name. The "New Deal" was a principally economic initiative. Climate change affects the economy, but climate change is really about physics. The appropriate analogy would be to the Manhattan Project, not the New Deal. (Nuclear technology has also had a massive effect on the economy!) One unfortunate consequence of the naming trend "Green New Deal" has been an excessive focus on economic remedies which overshadows the most important scientific advances. Recently the most important advances have been in the production and price of lithium batteries. There are approximately 500 trillion pounds of lithium in the ocean, as well as many cheaper sources on land. The lithium iron-phosphate chemistry is not dense enough for use in cars or portable electronics, but on a cost basis it is quickly eclipsing all other forms of energy storage. At present, the development of this technology is limited mostly by low demand, which is utterly ridiculous when you consider that the widespread adoption of grid-scale energy storage is absolutely essential to there ever being a near-zero-carbon electricity market. The other key technology that needs to be developed further is the heat pump. Heating buildings with gas accounts for a large fraction of our carbon emissions and can't be easily replaced by Joule heating because the electricity requirements are so large. Therefore the near-zero-carbon replacement for gas heating must be some variety of heat pump, be it vapor-compression, magnetocaloric or otherwise. The current commercially available air-source heat pumps are limited to a minimum outdoor air temperature of about -20 C, which means that they are not viable for year-round heating in many large global cities, including e.g. Chicago, Moscow, Harbin, et cetera. Ground-source heat pumps by contrast have high installation costs which increase with the desired power output. Improvements in one or the other are needed to reach the necessary endpoint where nearly all of the human population can stop relying on gas heating.
- valuearb 7y agoGive me billions of dollars to hire people to dig holes in the desert and I’ll create a lot of jobs, and you’ll get, a lot of holes in the desert. The “job creation” benefit myth needs to die. Some jobs are bad jobs, some have little or no economic value. Green New Deal advocates need to focus on the economic benefits of these plans, such as a healthier population due to less pollution, saving economical important properties from flooding, maintaining healthy fish stocks, etc, etc.
- iron0013 7y agoFunny how this argument is rarely leveled against the defense industry, the vast proportion of which is at best boondoggle busywork and at worst outright grift.
- valuearb 7y agoAnd it should be, because it’s equally valid. Having Boeing build F-35s instead of 787s lowers our standard of living.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoI just don't understand the rhetoric here. The climate disaster scenario is > everything is expected to change: the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the landscapes we see, the oceans, the seasons, the daily routine, the quality of life. Our children will have to adapt or become extinct. They will have to dress differently, behave differently, live differently. Sounds bad! I'm open to ideas on how to prevent such radical disruptions. But the author suggests that we need to end fossil fuel consumption, reconfigure our economic system, reconsider what it means to have a decent life, and eliminate our desire to consume lots of goods and services. Shouldn't we expect a comparable amount of disruption from these huge changes?
- yodsanklai 7y agoConsuming less goods and services doesn't sound as bad as drinking poisonous water and breathing toxic air. I think our children will experience both scenarios anyway (they already do in poorer countries).
- bhupy 7y agoEnding fossil fuel consumption is at least somewhat relevant to the stated problem...but reconfiguring economic systems? The Greeks couldn't construct a better horse than that.
- nickik 7y agoThe original New Deal was quite clearly designed for that as well. It was not about improving the economy, it was about chaining society and achieve political dominance.
- bhupy 7y agoRight, it is totally orthogonal to the climate, and is already the subject of a forever-long debate over how we ought to organize society. You're going to have a hard time fixing the climate if you also attach with it a completely unrelated laundry list of desired left-wing policy (not even trying to knock left-wing policy). It's functionally equivalent to adding a corporate-gender-diversity quota to the Coronavirus stimulus.
- nickik 7y agoThe New Deal has such a ridiculous glorified position in the view of the left. Of course it was a total failure and thankfully rules unconstitutional. The US had the deepest Great Depression, deeper then countries that didn't do a 'New Deal'. You can pin-point the start of the recovery to the leaving of the gold standard (literally in the month by month producing you see it jumping). It was actually the New Deal that stopped the bounce back. The politicians behind the new deal saw the Great Depression as an opportunity for social revolution, not as an economic recovery program. It is no secret that many of the primary architects behind the New Deal were strongly inspired by early socialism and fascism. Further I would say Noam Chomsky has absolutely zero credibly in any topic related to economics. He is a weirdo socialist and we could go down 3 levels deep of what type of socialist exactly he is, but needless to economics and political science would agree that his ideas are not practical. So why take a advice from him on this. You don't need a 'New Deal' you need to apply your budget and countries strategy with the long run goals you have and make good investments. The New Deal was the exact opposite, it was the embodiment of 'lets throw shit on the wall and hope for the best' often doing massive damage in the process. Mass slaughtering of pigs and destruction of other foods being the most absurd examples of such idiocy. The Blue Eagle program might be the worst regulation ever passed in American history. The list goes on. Depending on what exactly you want to achieve, their are far, far better solutions then having the government bureaucrats blow billions of 100s of billions on politicians pet projects. Its totally contrary to how good government contract is done. Just as with the original New Deal this Green New Deal is not about achieving results. Its is about achieving social and governmental revolution along the principles that the authors believe in.