Setting the Record Straight

The success of the world environmental movement in awakening people everywhere to the profound dangers that confront our planet is clearly driving the market fundamentalists crazy. In the wake of the success of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," the far right has launched a counter-offensive in which it has thrown everything, including the kitchen sink, at those with the temerity to propose aggressive public solutions to the environmental crisis.

Look at the succession of arguments put forth on global warming. First came the attempts to deny that the planet was actually warming at all. When this failed, the denials switched over to questioning the causes of global warming. "It isn't carbon-dioxide emissions," claimed the far right, "it's volcanoes or sunspots or cows or just a natural planetary ebb and flow."

When this argument also fell by the wayside, the right adopted a new approach. "Okay, the planet is warming and maybe it is the result of fossil fuel consumption, but hey, the rate is so slow that it's no big deal." Now that this tactic has also foundered, the right is attempting to play their trump card. It goes something like this:

"Well, global warming may be a problem, but all of the proposed solutions are far worse for our economy - especially for the poor." In other words, "it's not us or our energy company patrons that we're worried about; it's the poor little children of the Third World who won't get to experience the wonders of ‘economic development.'"

To find a recent example of this tactic, one need look no further than that most reliable of spokespersons for North Carolina's market fundamentalist think tanks, Raleigh News & Observer "correspondent" Rick Martinez. Here's Martinez in his March 5 column "Renewables are a pie in the sky":

"The renewable energy obsession is based largely on the belief that man's carbon output must be reduced to ward off the horrors of global warming. I don't deny the Earth is warming. I do dispute that it's one of the world's most pressing problems. Poverty, starvation and disease rank much higher in my book. And now it appears that the rush for renewable energy could be making these problems worse."

As evidence for his claims about renewable energy making things worse in the fields of "poverty, starvation and disease," Martinez cites two developments: the rising price of grain brought on by the recent growth in the demand for so-called "biofuels" like ethanol and the problems that can accompany the use of wind turbines. In this latter swipe, Martinez echoes the claims of a new report from his chums at the Locke Foundation (now there's an amazing coincidence) entitled "A Wind Power Primer: Emission reduction negligible for land-intensive, unreliable, noisy, ugly bird-killing turbines."

Surprising new causes

One of the most striking things about both the Martinez column and the anti-wind turbine piece is the appreciation that each displays for surprising new causes. Martinez, of course, has opined regularly through the years about the need to end or reduce government aid to poor people because of his belief that poverty is almost always the result of flawed individual behavior. Here's an excerpt from a column he wrote last year in which he claimed that the rush to judgment against the Duke lacrosse players was a result of societal prejudices against the wealthy:

"I don't instinctively feel sorry for every poor person I meet, most of whom are impoverished as a result of shortsighted personal choices. This lack of empathy is often interpreted as my being uncompassionate. Not so. I just don't see what's so noble about choosing poverty as a way of life."  

Now, however, he's all for taking government subsidies for biofuels and investing them in fighting "poverty, starvation, and disease" - that is, at least until his next column attacking public anti-poverty efforts.      

Similarly, the Locke Foundation has demonstrated about as much concern throughout the years for preserving wildlife and/or open space as George W. Bush has for protecting the Geneva Convention. The group's ironically named blog site, Environment NC, has featured exactly two posts on the topic of "animal protection" since its founding 13 months ago. One claims that there are too many polar bears in the arctic and the other decries the demise of horse slaughterhouses.

Setting the record straight

That spokespeople on the right are attempting to outflank opponents by espousing unconventional criticisms is not surprising. It can be an effective tactic. "Identify a small potential flaw in the other side's position and extrapolate like mad," goes the logic. The only problem in this instance, of course, is that in addition to being hypocritical and thus unbelievable, neither Martinez' column nor the Locke Foundation report ultimately proves its broader intended point about the supposed evils of renewable energy.

So, while Martinez does have a point to make - "biofuels" are almost certainly not the solution to what ails our environment and probably do not really even deserve the label "renewable" - it does not automatically follow that all truly renewable energy ideas are a "pie in the sky." Indeed, biofuels have been critiqued by large segments of the environmental advocacy community for years since they do little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions and may make matters worse. That fact, however, doesn't make all other sources of renewable and sustainable energy (solar, geothermal, conservation, etc…) "pie in the sky."

A similar critique for the anti-wind turbine report is apt. Is wind energy the perfect solution to North Carolina's electricity needs? Of course not. Nobody has said that it is. Wind energy does in fact raise issues of land use and impact on wildlife and visual pollution. On the other hand, these are not always insuperable problems. Several successful wind farms have shown this. Wind turbines can, however, be a part of the jigsaw puzzle that we must construct to escape the carbon-based energy trap.

The right's real motivation

No one on the market fundamentalist right, not even Martinez' most faithful readers or the Locke Foundation's deepest pocketed supporters, really opposes the environmental community's push for renewable and sustainable energy because they believe it will limit assistance to poor people or harm wildlife. The real reason for their opposition is much more deep-seated and is a byproduct of the following:

The construction of real, sustainable energy solutions on a scale capable of slowing the global environmental crisis is an enormous, life or death undertaking. It cannot and will not be accomplished unless humankind comes together to fashion intentional, large-scale, shared public initiatives. It is not a challenge that can be successfully addressed by the invisible hand of the "free" market.

What really burns up the far right when it comes to the environmental debate is the way in which reality gets in the way of their absolutist theories of modern life. For if they acknowledge the need for intentional, shared, public solutions and interventions, they must admit that unfettered markets are not always perfect. They must acknowledge that when humans make the short-term pursuit of profit and property their overriding moral imperative, bad things like environmental degradation often result. They must admit that profits (at least for some) and a poisoned environment spiraling out of control can readily coexist.

This, in turn, confirms what more and more Americans are coming to realize as they awaken from their country's decades-long sleep walk behind the market fundamentalist looking glass: The market is not gift from God. The market is an incredibly powerful human-made tool that society uses to create wealth for the common good, not an end in and of itself.

The real reason that the market fundamentalist right attempts to deny the world environmental crisis and to stop public action to address it is simple: they are afraid of exposing the inconvenient truth that their free market emperor is wearing no clothes.        

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 5:55 pm and is filed under Setting the Record Straight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.