We must think big

Our poor battered world is beset by

multiple crises. There is mass poverty,

and growing inequality within and between

rich and poor countries. The financial disaster

which began with sub-prime mortgages has

spread inexorably throughout the US and

elsewhere, threatening to plunge the global

economy into a prolonged period of stagnation

as severe as the Depression. Most ominous of

all, climate change and species destruction are

accelerating faster than most scientists, much

less governments, thought possible.

These crises feed back into and intensify

each other. After years of irresponsible

“innovation”, huge financial institutions

are bailed out by the public purse and top

management takes the money and runs,

while millions lower down lose their jobs

and often their homes. Seeing the housing

balloon shrivel, speculators stampede into

commodities markets, spurring the rise
of food and energy prices. Dramatically

higher prices for staples plunge another

150 million people globally into destitution.

Resource-poor communities grab what they

can, fell trees, kill animals and over-exploit

the little land they have, but the rich cause

far greater damage with their dinosaur-like

ecological footprints.

Piously pretending to reduce its carbon

dioxide emissions, the US devotes more than

a third of its corn and soya land to agri-fuels,

pushing food prices further skyward. Global

warming and the fury of the storms it provokes

hit the poor and the poorer regions of Earth

hardest, just as the Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change (IPCC) long foresaw.

So is there an escape route? Yes, but not the

one well-meaning environmentalists have

long advocated. Sorry, but “we” can’t save the

planet even if “we” halve our energy use by

tomorrow. I’m not suggesting that individuals

should not make every change they can, but

they should not harbour any illusions that

personal behaviour, however carbon-virtuous,

can do the trick. The worst offenders will not

desist and voluntary measures are ineffective.

Scale is the problem, and our task is to

promote a quantitative and qualitative leap in

the scale of environmental action, recognising

that big can be not just beautiful but crucial if

we hope to avert the worst.

Is such a leap possible? Is the planet

salvageable as long as international capitalism

prevails, with its focus on growth and profits

at all costs, predatory resource capture and

footloose finance? As a wise man said: “All

for ourselves and nothing for other people

seems, in every age of the world, to have been

the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”

That was Adam Smith in the Wealth of

Nations, not Karl Marx.

If Smith was right and our “masters”

continue to display both greed and avarice,

must we organise world revolution before

we can hope to save Earth? Is there a single

point of attack? If so, please tell me the name

of the tsar and the address of the Winter

Palace. It’s not to be found on Wall Street,

which not only survived 9/11 but seems to

have captured the US government, despite

a radical winnowing of the major firms. Nor

would anyone welcome the political systems

that shrouded those vast areas where

revolution did occur. Somehow, though,

because our present system seems bent on

catastrophe, we need a third way between

red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalism and a

worldwide uprising as unlikely as it is utopian.

There is a historical precedent. When the

Allies faced fascism in the second world war, it

was as dire a foe for them as climate change is

for us. The US had not yet fully emerged from

the Depression, but it had in Franklin D.

Roosevelt a president who understood what

was required. Under his guidance, the economy

was shifted to a war footing in an amazingly

short time. My native city, Akron, Ohio, the

“rubber capital of the world”, switched to

producing tyres and equipment for the army

and air force. Every other industrial centre

also switched to meet military needs. Chief

executives became prestigious “dollar-a-year

men”, paid that symbolic sum by the treasury

for meeting government quantity and quality

targets. Many framed the cheque like a badge

of honour.

Yes, there were still worker-management

conflicts, but on the whole it was a time of

opportunity, especially for women and

minorities. Workers were well paid, everyone

pitched in, “victory gardens” were cultivated,

children used their allowances to buy war

stamps, petrol was rationed. The country had

never been so united before – or since. The war

pulled the country out of the Depression at

last. It was Keynesian economics, named after

British economist John Maynard Keynes.

A similar effort is required to fight

environmental meltdown and it would be less

difficult than it sounds. The political point is

that ecological Keynesianism is a win-win

scenario that could provide something for

everyone. People are generally way ahead of

governments in recognising danger, and they

tend to build coalitions to convince politicians they will vote for whoever takes a specific
crisis as seriously as they do. Politicians

can win on a Keynesian environmental

programme because now, as then, it promises

a society of highly skilled, highly paid quality

jobs and renewed export opportunities.

But where is the money to come from for

this? The world is actually awash with money,

the problem is getting at it. According to

US financial services giant Merrill Lynch,

10 million people worldwide are sitting on

$40 trillion of investable cash. Banks must

be told that in exchange for the bailouts they

must devote X per cent of their loan portfolios

to environment-friendly products and

processes at below-market interest rates.

They can make up the difference by lending

to big greenhouse polluters at 10 per cent.

Stringent standards for new buildings have

to become the norm, while older ones can be

retrofitted on easy terms; families and

landlords can be offered financial incentives

for installing green roofs and solar panels –

and sell excess energy to the grid. Research

can be oriented towards alternative energies

and strong, ultra-light materials for aircraft

and vehicles. Technically speaking, we already

know how to do these things, although some

clean solutions are still more costly than dirty

ones. Mass-produced, that could change.

The environmental crisis provides an ideal

opportunity to get the global financial system

under control. Taxing international currency

transactions and other market operations

needs only political determination and some

software. Debt cancellation for poor countries

promised by the G8 for a decade must happen,

with the requirement they contribute to the

global effort through reforestation, soil

conservation, and the like. Tax havens would

have to go. Half of all world trade currently

passes through them; they allow rich people

and corporations to stash trillions in assets

that could provide governments with at least

$250 billion a year in tax revenues.

What about reluctant or hostile executives?

Let’s create an ultra-exclusive Order of Carbon

Conquerors or Eco Heroes, give them shiny

green-gold silk rosettes for their buttonholes,

banners for their energy neutral homes, and

fanions for their efficient, lightweight cars.

We could even pay them $1 a year. Wouldn’t

th
at be nicer than another war?

Published in the New Scientist, Magazine issue 2678, 15 October 2008

© Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Susan George is Chair of the Board of the Transnational Institute. Her latest books are Hijacking America: How the religious and secular right changed what Americans think , and We the peoples of Europe.