My response to Richard Heinberg's latest article on 'energy transition'
The following is a response to The Renewable Energy Transition Is Failing, by Richard Heinberg.
My own view is that when we say "the energy transition" we ought to mean by the phrase, mainly, the phasing out of our very high-intensity energy (and materials) material and economic culture, replacing it with an economy rooted in sufficiency rather than luxury. We can also mean by the phrase the adoption of some replacement of current energy sources with so-called 'renewables,’ but we should keep in mind that all such replacement requires fossil energy and exhausts scarce resources, while also resulting in ecological and human health harms associated with mining.
"The notion of voluntarily reining in economic growth in order to minimize climate change and make it easier to replace fossil fuels is political anathema not just in the rich countries, whose people have gotten used to consuming at extraordinarily high rates, but even more so in poorer countries, which have been promised the opportunity to 'develop.'”
While the degrowth movement -- which advocates for deliberate reining in of economic growth -- remains small in size and impact presently, it's a growing movement, and is likely to grow considerably over the next several years, as more and more people are waking up to the truth of our situation. But the present degrowth moment, in my opinion, is hampered by the fact that its strongest presence is within academic circles, rather than the broader public, and by the fact that the movement tends to overwhelmingly focus on public policy (government) and has little to say about how society could organize transformationally outside of the politics of the state (government).
Given that COP-27 has just passed, and that once again it achieved essentially nothing toward ghg mitigation (following a similar failure recently in Glasgow), a growing number of us are concluding that governments simply cannot be relied upon to seriously address the ecological and climate emergency (the overshoot crisis). Some of us are actively imagining and discussing options for a non-state mode of political engagement which simply bypasses the politics of nation states and intergovernmental bodies, such as the United Nations and its IPCC. It is in this non-state mode of politics that I have the most hope for our future. But it can't happen without a rather dramatic shift in imagination and thought, and so requires us to have a conversation. That conversation will inevitably have to draw upon the anarchist tradition for inspiration and insights. So it's about time we begin to understand that the propaganda image of anarchism as anti-democratic and violent ... simply isn't historically true. Anarchist thought is rich with a discourse of non-state political engagement, and so its lineage of thought will be important as we refuse to allow illegitimate governing bodies to hem in our options while foreclosing the possibility of real ecological and climate mitigation.
What we need here is to essentially shatter the Overton window - Or, if not shatter, certainly we ought to open it so we can let some breeze into this stale air house we're in together. Altering this window will require effort. And the effort is one of imagination, thought, and conversation.
Courage, my friends!
The quote you include as part of your post here really does say it all. The idea of an “energy transition“ is actually wryly amusing. As Americans, we are weaned, and encouraged to think that the only answer is “more“ of everything. People are not about to curb their appetites for material goods or comfort in any way. “I’m an American, I want the world, and I want it now” seems to be the byword.
In a summary of a survey I saw in the last several months, most people are not willing to contribute more than a dollar a month to an imaginary utility bill in order to “save the planet.“ We Americans are too busy demonizing immigrants, LGBTQ people and those on the margins, whose future equality might somehow damage our own bloated sense of white male privilege and entitlement.
The “Overton window“ (itself, a libertarian construct) has been stretched, opened, and bulldozed so far to the right (by libertarians and other associated neo-Fascists, billionaire fan boys and corporate sucks), as to be virtually useless as a metaphor for the range of acceptable political discourse,. What the right so readily calls “the left“ used to be the center right in this country. I know, because I’m old, and I remember. (For a bit of amusement, look at the Republican party platform that Eisenhower ran on in 1956.) Nowadays, a “socialist“ is anyone whose politics are to the left of hunting the homeless for sport.