Note what is happening in Puerto Rico where the governor is using the
devastation wrought by two hurricans plus the rape of the island by hedge funds
in order to privatize a non functioning electrical system and turn the public
schools into charter schools. Remember New orleans? Remember Naomi Klein's
Shock Doctrine?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2018 10:48 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Union group argues for public ownership of
energy systems
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-o
wnership-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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