OMNI: Climate Memo Mondays, #44, October 11, 2021

 

44.  Climate Memo Mondays, October 11, 2021

Dick, Heinberg’s Power on Population Growth

Peakin, Meaning of “Metabolic Rift”

Aarjan, North Must Learn from Global South

RICHARD HEINBERG’S NEW BOOK POWER ON OVERPOPULATION/CONSUMPTION

     Heinberg has no doubt regarding the significance of population in two sections: “Overpopulation and Overconsumption” (pp,. 238-242) and “Population: Lowering It and Keeping It Steady” (337-41).    
      “Population growth makes every environmental crisis harder to address. . . .the more children we have now, the more human suffering is likely. . . .” (240-41).  “At the US average amount of consumption, we would need the equivalent of at least four Earths to sustain us” (241).  If we do not…rein in our power of population growth, we will face a series of snowballing crises that will disempower us….(242). 

     Our present efforts to stop and reverse population growth are “too slow to get us to, say, three billion by the end of the century” (citing Christopher Tucker’s A Planet of 3 Billion).  But here Heinberg adds a complication.   The collapsing birth rates from the “accumulation of endocrine disrupting chemicals” might cause our rapid extinction “even without ‘help’ from nuclear war or climate change.” (340-41).  We must drastically reduce population growth and (in the wealthy countries) consumption (“family size is likely the most important decision of your lifetime” 341), but we must also eliminate the chemicals that could over-reduce us!   

     An observations on these two sections of Power: The enormous importance he attributes to world population and northern consumption reduction is disproportionate to the small space he gives the subject. (His encyclopedic ambition, perhaps, as stated in his subtitle: “Limits and Prospects for Human Survival,” made depth impossible.)  Fortunately many family planning organizations like Population Connection are making contraceptives known and available throughout the world  (unmentioned by Heinberg), though like the other remedies to climate calamity discussed in the book, they have been drastically under-funded.     Dick 9-28-21

HEINBERG’S BOOKS in reverse chronology

Power.  2021.

Prosperity Without Growth?  2019.

Richard Heinberg and David Fridley.   Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy.  2016.

Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels (New Society/April 2015)

Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World.   2004.

:Other books:  Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future; The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies; Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines; and The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality.

 

What do we mean by metabolic rift?
Editor.  Mronline.org (9-28-21)

rs21 member Greg Peakin explains the concept of metabolic rift, and why it is an important tool for climate organizing today.

Originally published: rs21 (Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century) by Greg Peakin (September 24, 2021 )  |  - Posted Sep 27, 2021

Climate Change, Ecology, Environment, MarxismGlobalNewswireIPCC report, metabolic rift

“In the wake of the latest IPCC report, after many years of warning, the existential threat of climate change is at last receiving increasing attention. Later this year, representatives of nations will meet at the COP26 in Glasgow to consider potential steps which can be taken to halt the wrecking of the Earth. While the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the gravest threat to our existence, capitalism’s destructive impact on the environments we share with all other living entities is becoming more evident to everyone with each successive day. The impact society has had on the environment has gathered pace over the last few centuries, particularly since the industrial revolution.”  Human society via its chief economic system “has separated itself from its wider environment to create what can be termed an ecological rift, a gigantic gulf, that Marx called the metabolic rift.”     https://mronline.org/2021/09/27/what-do-we-mean-by-metabolic-rift/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-do-we-mean-by-metabolic-rift&mc_cid=c45d691652&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e        

 

The Global North isn’t ready for climate breakdown
Editor.  Mronline.org (10-2-21).

European responses to extreme weather demonstrate post-industrial nations have much to learn from people in the Global South, writes Aranyo Aarjan.   

Originally published: Red Pepper by Aranyo Aarjan (September 23, 2021 )  |  - Posted Oct 01, 2021

. . .Of course, climate change has already been here for a long time, its effects felt most acutely by the people in the Global South who have contributed the least to the current state of affairs. Yet in the face of unprecedented amounts of rainfall, multiple countries around the world, including some of the richest and most technologically advanced nations, faced deadly flooding in the month of July alone. It would appear that the Global North’s preparedness for climate catastrophe is also far from what many may have expected. . . .

The shocking levels of unpreparedness witnessed in Europe and North America in response to an extreme climate is perhaps a signal that post-industrial nations have much to learn from people in the Global South. Out of necessity, they have long established systems of resilience against the worst effects of climate change. . . .

In order for the global climate justice movement to be successful, leadership must come from those who have been most acutely affected by climate change. They are the ones who have the knowhow of withstanding its worst effects. It is crucial that any serious ecosocialist project centres around the idea of climate reparations: that nations in the Global North owe a great historical debt for their contribution towards climate change and must pay for it in kind by aiding countries in the Global South to decarbonise in conjunction with themselves. Because it’s not just the floods. This summer saw record-breaking heatwaves and wildfires across three continents, and every year since 2014 has been the hottest year on record. Our timeline for taking action is rapidly shrinking and it is clear that whatever action we do take must be truly global and truly revolutionary in scale.

Aranyo Aarjan is a freelance writer and organiser with Global Justice Bloc and a co-host of LEFT/OVER Podcast