The More Climate Changes the More We’re Screwed
Posted April 11, 2007 on 7:01 pm | In the category Environment, Global Warming, Uncategorized | by KiwiAmong the decisions at last months EU summit two were related. Related in that way that allows one to see between the lines. Allows one to read the political sub-text that is usually meant to be obscured.
The big publicized decision was the EU ordering member states to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2020. This decision also required specific methods to reach that mandate. (Tho some of the new members grumped — saying they had hoped to leave micro-managed state planning behind when they escaped the USSR— maybe climate change required a bit of extra discipline.) Anyway,among the specific steps to be taken is forced replacement in each nation of a percentage of carbon-intensive light bulbs with more eco-friendly (and expensive) ones.
Well. okay.
But then came the–less publicized– related decision. A 100% tariff on imports of these
eco-friendly bulbs was extended to 2020. Seimens, the German manufacturer has a virtual lock on the EU market. It can pocket the excess profit europeans are forced by law to fork up.
So the sub-text comes into focus.
Eco-terrified Europeans are demanding climate change action. EU authorities are giving it to them. So to speak. Climate change policy comes with baggage europeans aren’t asking for. The baggage from the left is increased central control of european local decisions. The baggage from the right is increased protection of corporate profits.
The capitalists and the authoritarians are immediate big winners. And, hey, maybe there’ll actually be some climate change benefit by 2020. European’s will have to wait to see on that one. Mean time they pay up and shut up.
If this were just a one-off thing confined to the EU it wouldn’t be worth blogging. But maybe there is a universal theme? A sorta cynical global political manipulation of popular terror over climate change? A charade in which the left and right seem to fight each other but you and I are the only ones getting bruises?
In the US there is a worrying coalescence that looks remarkably similar. The Washington Post today reports on a climate change debate between Kerry and Gingrich that was billed as a “smackdown fight” but degenerated into a love-in. Trees were being hugged by left and right alike.
So what? Nothing, really. Except that as voters we want to be careful what we ask for.
Europeans asked for action on climate change. What they’re getting is poorer and less autonomous.
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I don’t know if the EU is still doing this, but some time ago they were getting involved in telling French how to bake bread, Italians how to cure hams, everyone what defines proper cheese, etc. Build a bureacracy and they will find things to order you to do – or not to do. In Chicago it is against the law to serve foie gras; throughout America it is against the law to drink if you are 20 years old; if you are in a specific high school in Connecticut you cannot put on a play about the Iraq war without passing muster before a kangaroo court of school administrators. If you are a school librarian and purchase a book with the word “scrotum” in it you are liable to be fired. Always these things are done for our own benefit – a benefit that we are not allowed to define ourselves.
But Kiwi puts a nice twist on these trends – as they go on, the capitalist right and the authoritarian left will see opportunities for collaboration – likely to the cost of all of us.
Comment by Jeff — April 12, 2007 #