If we need proof that our minds have been fogged by the Pied Pipers of
Corporate Capitalism(the corporate media's propaganda machine), this
is a fine example. What is complicated about *The *People controlling
*Public *Energy *Companies? We, the people, are the consumers, and
we, the people, underwrite the entire energy production from initial
research, development implementation and maintenance. Under Public
control the People decide the services needed to benefit all the
people.
And of course the Capitalist Private Corporations will fight like Hell
to hang onto their Cash Cow, Oil and Natural Gas. Who wouldn't like
such a sweet deal? The stuff is free for the taking, and the people
who use the refined products not only pay for all the cost of
production, but for the cleanup of the considerable waste. It's the
stuff Fairy Tales and wet dreams are made of! But it appears that the
Working Class, long dummied down by Corporate Mind Numbing Propaganda,
is finally stirring and beginning to stir. Even as Donald Trump and
his gaggle of Billionaire backers are desperately pushing us back to
America's Greatness, the good old days of Herbert Hoover, even as they
struggle, their house of cards...all Jokers...is crashing about their
ears.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/20/18, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://socialistaction.org/2018/02/18/union-group-argues-for-public-ownership-of-energy-systems/
Union group argues for public ownership of energy systems
/ 2 days ago
solar plant Spain
A power plant in Spain running on solar energy.
By CHRISTINE MARIE
As Bill McKibben and other climate leaders keep reminding us, the cost
of solar and wind energy keeps dropping. They assure us that if
government continues to incentivize private investment with guarantees
of profitable it would make these renewable sources competitive with
fossil fuels and lead to a green capitalism.
This thinking is based on a seminal 2006 paper by Nicholas Stern, former
chief economist at the World Bank. However, “Working Paper No. 10”
(http://unionsforenergydemocracy.org/resources/tued-publications/tued-working-paper-10/),
recently released by the Trade Unionists for Energy Democracy (TUED),
proves that the “Stern Review” was a pipe dream and urges labor
organizations to fight like the devil for an alternative course—public
ownership of energy systems run under democratic control.
According to the International Energy Agency and the International
Renewable Energy Agency (IEA-IREA), the investment needed to keep global
warming below the threshold of two degrees Celsius would have to double
the 2016 levels of investment to $600 billion a year and reach $14
trillion invested in solar and wind by 2030. The chances of this
happening, under the current paradigm of public-private partnerships
that guarantee profits and mitigate risk to private investors, according
to the “Working Paper No. 10” authors Sean Sweeney and John Treat, is
zero. In fact, they argue, based on a close study of the situation in
the UK, that the idea that we can reach safe levels of renewable energy
via aid to private profiteers is “the greatest policy failure ever.”
Public money, they argue, is already responsible for the vast bulk of
the world’s energy deployment. But it takes ever-increasing amounts of
public funds to actually get private industry to make even token
commitments to renewables in the midst of a capitalist crisis full of
risk for stockholders. The net result is that wind and solar today
generate just 4.6% of global electricity. In a world full of idle
capital, and a decade of government incentives, the current levels of
investment in a transition to renewable energy will doom us to an
unlivable planet. Sweeney and Treat explain that as long as there are
more profitable and less risky places to invest, private capital will
continue to refuse to be part of humanity’s effort to secure its home.
The historic task of decarbonizing energy generation, Sweeney and Treat,
explain, “will require virtually unprecedented levels of long-term
planning, coordination, and cooperation” that are completely at odds
with the way that capitalist markets work. “Ending the market that never
was by reclaiming energy systems open up an altogether different set of
possibilities and an entirely new energy transition scenario where there
can be full attention paid to the technical challenges without the
policy-afflicted distractions generated by obstructive and destructive
‘competition’ between different private actors and interests,” they say.
Perhaps, most importantly, they insist that “unions and their allies are
well positioned to challenge the myth that a transition to renewable
energy can be accomplished by catering to the interests of big companies
and private investors. The global labor movement can and should demand
and fight for a viable transition pathway—one that is anchored in public
financing, social ownership and democratic control.”
To popularize this vision, TUED has mounted an animated video explaining
the need for social ownership and workers control of energy on its
website. It is called “This is What Energy Democracy Looks Like and is
available at http://unionsforenergydemocracy.org/resources/video/. It is
designed to be show at union meetings and other gatherings of workers
and can lay the basis for the sharing of written arguments for the
nationalization and municipalization under democratic control.
What is missing from “Working Paper No. 10” and this introductory video
is a full discussion of just how the unions and unorganized working
people might successfully carry out a struggle to implement this
strategy. In the United States most union leaders limit their political
advocacy to positions acceptable to the Democratic Party and their
corporate backers. In order to educate the ranks and mobilize them in
numbers sufficient to put public ownership on the agenda, the union
leadership will need to break through this obstacle and chart a course
for “a living wage on a living planet” that is independent of both
capitalist parties.
After such a break, the labor movement will then need to also repair
their broken relationships with immigrant workers, with the Black and
Latino communities, with women, and youth. This vision will certainly
animate the best class-struggle fighters in the coming period.
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February 18, 2018 in Environment.
Related posts
Capitalism’s rape of the environment is basic to its system of exploitation
Trades versus ‘bottom feeders’
Capitalism cannot solve the climate crisis
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