I’ve got to sift through my pages of links and snippets that I have in word. I’m a slob with my computer stuff. :p
I’ll try and get some of it cleaned up and post more later. I’m glad you posted, I had all but forgotten some of this. And some of it I wasn’t aware of.
It is funny how these things seem to be a stepping stone to the next thing— somehow all connected into a grand design.
That is why I found these articles rather fascinating...
www.fpif.org/articles/the_next_marx
*snip*
This Marx will produce not a manifesto for the middle class. Rather, the new synthesis will fuse economics and environmentalism in a way that fundamentally reorients both disciplines. Marx pioneered political economy; Marx 2.0 will pioneer planetary economy. It’s not just about greening capitalism, as if enough solar cells and Prii will save the world. Our current economic system has reached its planetary limit.
The confusions of our political classification system suggest that we stand at the verge of a new era. The task is not, as The Economist, the Financial Times, Francis Fukuyama, and Newt Gingrich all believe, to save capitalism or the middle class. The stakes are much higher than that. The rising waters will overwhelm Left and Right both. The future might be “storm socialism,” as Christian Parenti argues in TomDispatch, with big government expanding to deal with big weather.
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www.tomdispatch.com/post/175494/tomgram%3A_christian_parenti%2C_big_storms_require_big_government/#more
Why Climate Change Will Make You Love Big Government
A Secret History of Free Enterprise and the Government That Made It Possible
By Christian Parenti
*snip*
But don’t expect the present “consensus” to last. Global warming and the freaky, increasingly extreme weather that will accompany it is going to change all that. After all, there is only one institution that actually has the capacity to deal with multibillion-dollar natural disasters on an increasingly routine basis. Private security firms won’t help your flooded or tornado-struck town. Private insurance companies are systematically withdrawing coverage from vulnerable coastal areas. Voluntary community groups, churches, anarchist affinity groups — each may prove helpful in limited ways, but for better or worse, only government has the capital and capacity to deal with the catastrophic implications of climate change.
*snip*
Storm Socialism
The onset of ever more extreme and repeated weather events is likely to change how we think about the role of the state.
On the other side of the coin is the Federal insurance programs and Federal disaster relief which is getting more and more ridiculous every year. There is the Army Corps spending billions on flood control which often "saves" a couple of farms (which would be better off flooded and renewed) at the expense of higher water downstream. There are people's greed and stupidity that lets them rationalize that it is not their fault for building on a floodplain, but someone else's.
It is certainly possible that one offshoot of global warming may be higher rainfall totals. If true, it is a negative feedback (u.e. the water cycle increase causes net cooling). I don't think it is profitable to argue against the need for well engineered flood control whether floods are frequent or infrequent because floods will happen regardless of climate. But we are talking about a relatively small land area at risk. But there is absolutely no reason to jump from that need to a requirement for carbon control. That is simply ludicrous, insane, stupid and probably done with malicious intents.