Peter G. Prontzos: Save the Earth and vote

By Peter G. Prontzos

There is no environmental crisis, and global warming is just “a socialist plot”—at least according to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, when he was denouncing the Kyoto Accord.

But while Harper’s many sins are serious—ignoring child poverty, sending Canadians to fight in Afghanistan, attacking women’s rights—perhaps the worst one will turn out to be his minority government’s efforts to block any meaningful action to protect nature from the ravages of capitalist greed.

Not only have the Conservatives done everything in their power to block environmental action in Canada, but they have also put up roadblocks against all international efforts to protect the Earth.

Their actions at the Bali conference and at last year’s summit in Copenhagen, for instance, were so obstructionist that prominent University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver stated that Canada’s actions were even worse than that of the Bush regime.

British author George Monbiot agreed, writing that Canada was “the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement."

No one knows if there is enough time to transform the global economy into one that is democratic, just, and sustainable. But as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, while we don’t know if our efforts will avoid tragedy, we can be sure that inaction will guarantee more disasters and increased suffering.

Even if there is enough time, this window will not last long. Both the Worldwatch Institute's Lester Brown and NASA scientist James Hansen, for instance, argue that we only have months, not years, to save civilization from climate change.

In such a dire situation, what we do in the immediate future could make all the difference. We must develop strategies that will have the greatest impact as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that citizens around the world will rise up and take their future in their own hands, creating societies that are based on ecological economics, and truly democratic. Such a development is highly unlikely in the near future.

Susan George put it this way: I do not see how even the most convinced, most determined people could replace, much less overthrow capitalism fast enough to carry out the necessary systemic change before a runaway climate effect takes hold.

There is a third possibility, however—a growing environmental movement that puts pressure on governments by using a multitude of tactics, including the ballot box, to demand an immediate Second World War-type mobilization to deal with the systemic crises.

Working within global capitalism is the option that is (probably) most likely to buy enough time for more significant actions. This “ecological Keynesianism”— massive government programs to protect the natural world—would create employment in sustainable industries and promote a plethora of ecological initiatives (local food production, public transportation, energy conservation, and so on).

However, even people who understand the seriousness of the situation often do nothing about it. This is partly due to distractions (“Keep you doped with religion, sex and TV," according to John Lennon), the demands of busy lives, a sense of confusion, or feeling hopeless.

Above all, the corporate media, like most political “leaders” (including Harper), give the impression that there is no crisis and that lifestyles in North America can continue in more or less the same fashion.

It will be “business-as-usual”. Don’t worry, be happy. Above all, keep consuming more stuff!

A major challenge, then, is to get people to understand that life as we have known it in the last century is over; it is unsustainable, and one way or another, our societies and our way of living will have to change dramatically.

Just because countries like Canada and the United States have a very limited "democracy”, it doesn’t mean that elections are irrelevant.

For instance, the fear of electoral defeat was a major factor in the refusal of the Liberal government to participate in both the invasion of Iraq and the U.S. “Star Wars” program.

Even the militaristic Tories have said that Canadian troops will not fight in Afghanistan after next year, primarily because they would certainly lose the next election if Canada did not end its combat role.

The lesson is clear. Politicians who continue to ignore the threat of global warming should be made to understand that their irresponsibility will not be tolerated.

As Bill McKibben recently wrote: "We need to be able to explain to them that continuing in their ways will end something that they care about: their careers. And because we’ll never have the cash to compete with Exxon, we better work in the currencies we can muster: bodies, spirit, passion."

Electing people who are actually serious about protecting the environment is, of course, even better than having to constantly pressure political opportunists.

But even those already on side will need lots of support to counter the power of the oil industry and other corporations which benefit from lax environmental regulations. That is why other forms of action—organizing, letters to the editor, demonstrations, media reform, and above all, public education—must continue and even intensify.

Still, none of these tactics provide such a direct—and easy—route to those in power as voting does.

In many ridings, even a small increase in “environmental” voters would be enough to throw out many of the deniers and other dinosaurs.

When it comes to political parties and the environment, it is clear to me that the New Democrats are clearly the most progressive in English Canada, even “greener” than the Green Party. That’s one reason why I ran twice as an NDP candidate.

For those who say that the NDP is not green enough, one approach would be to join the party and work within it to make the New Democrats an even stronger advocate for an ecological economy.

As sincere and intelligent as Elizabeth May is, her Green party has no chance of playing a significant role in government. Worse, the more people who vote Green, the more the environmental vote will be split, and the easier it will be for Harper to form a majority government.

As for the Liberals, they sometimes talk the talk, but their environmental record, from Chretien to Martin to Ignatieff, has been mostly rhetoric.

In any case, the most important thing that Canadians can do is to work, inside and outside of the political system, to make all parties realize that they have to be serious about the environment if they want to have any chance of winning elections.

When I interviewed to Murray Bookchin in 2001, I asked the founder of social ecology if participation in elections might be justified if it made a vital difference. For example, had Al Gore been president, Iraq would not have been invaded—and perhaps a million people would not have been killed.

Bookchin’s response to this question, regarding a system that he once called, “the cesspool of bourgeois parliamentarianism” was simple and undogmatic: “You do what you have to do.”

It is important to stress that the present crisis is also a great opportunity, and that life in an ecological society would actually be much better than it is now.

As Bookchin understood back as the 1960s, we already enough wealth, knowledge, and technology to solve the environmental crises, create a more humane society, end war, and to eliminate global poverty once and for all—if we decide to take democracy seriously, get organized and take control of our own lives.

When discussing environmental threats, it is therefore essential to also present realistic reasons for hope and practical actions that one can take, individually and in groups, in order to prevent people from feeling helpless and overwhelmed by the severe challenges that we face.

Obviously, voting is not enough. The key to a successful ecological movement is Bookchin’s concept of “unity in diversity”. In this moment of extreme peril, people need to organize movements that focus on common values and work together in principled ways if we are to have any chance of avoiding ecological apocalypse.

Elites never “gave” people the right to vote. Because voting has the potential to empower citizens, it had to be fought for. So whatever else you do to prevent environmental catastrophe, don’t forget the power of your vote.

After all, that’s what Harper wants you to do.

Peter G. Prontzos has been a social ecologist since he first read Murray Bookchin in the 1970s.

Comments

9 Comments

pjmora

Aug 13, 2010 at 9:03pm

Vote for Peter Prontzos on www.nowpolling.ca
Vote for independent candidates who don't obey the party line, but the will of their constituents.
Vote for your most important social issues of the moment.
As Peter says:"voting has the potential to empower citizens,"
Are yo ready for Direct Democracy?
Try www.nowpolling.ca

Laara WilliamSen

Aug 13, 2010 at 9:04pm

Reading Peter's article I am deeply reminded of the people's power. What we do or don't do does make a difference. For instance in Germany, all consumers decided to leave their "packaging" at the stores and this soon brought about a more environmentally friendly change in packaging. Just imagine if we all stopped shopping for prepackaged foods and purchased only local foods. Or if we just stopped purchasing oil and gas and found other ways to transport ourselves. We have the power to make an immediate impact. I do agree with Peter that the NDP is the only political party that truly has a "Green Plan.' They are also the only political party that is capable of restoring some sanity in our country. We are in the 11th hour and need to keep awakening citizens to the absolute need for an ecological society. Our votes do make a difference.

CWM

Aug 14, 2010 at 11:12am

Hey Peter, As I read them, your comments suggest that Bookchin would have encouraged people to support bourgeois politicians if that seemed expedient to them for some reason ("you do what you have to do"), but I don't think that is correct. He consistently argued that activists must first prioritize the ends, and then consider the means, and he *never* supported established parties.

Drina Allen

Aug 14, 2010 at 5:28pm

ditto that - I also ran for the NDP because there are always people in the party that are looking for REAL solutions that educate ALL and INCLUDE all for consideration in those solutions - no SIMPLISTIC answers to global questions - simple local grassroots actions growing into their global complexity fostered by good government - check out Sustainable BC paper from the STANDING Committee on the Environment. Cheers Peter!

Stephe K

Aug 15, 2010 at 9:18am

CWM, Bookchin obviously said otherwise in the interview in 2001.

seth

Aug 15, 2010 at 10:56pm

Unfortunately Peter it turns out that the NDP, Greens and ole Stevey "Brimstone" Harpo are all effectively on the same page when it it comes to the unnecessary deaths of three million souls worldwide every year from coal pollution and the billion or so more that will perish when your combined policies inevitably drag us over that imminent civilization ending climate/peak oil precipice.

Nuclear power is the only possible in time solution to these issues. James Hansen, Stewart Brand and James Lovelock - fathers of the environmental moment - all see it but like the wilfull uneducated children you are refuse to listen.

Brimstone and of course el Gordo are so beholden to their owners at Big Oil that they refuse to cut out any of those very lucrative GHG's that generate so many campaign donations. One could make the case that Brimstone knows that nuclear power would end the Global warming/peak oil apocalypse but that would be a very bad thing. He is so looking forward to the Shout.

A worldwide investment in 10000 mass produced nuclear reactors paid for by ending expensive fossil fuel use, would eliminate most air pollution saving millions of lives annually, end the global warming/ peak oil problem within a ten year time frame, provide a huge job producing boost to the economy, and require only a small part of our industrial capacity. The fossils fuel mainly petroleum is so expensive and the mass produced nuke so cheap that payback periods of three years or less are probable.

Canada will need 150 ACR-1000 reactors to end its fossil fuel use.

None of your not so renewable alternatives can replace coal today and without some major breakthrough will not be able to for many years. Nuclear can replace coal right now and is doing so in Asia. With a small percentage of our financial and industrial capacity coal and all fossil fuels could be replaced within ten years, with a WW2 type effort.

Nuclear has the support of fascists (outside of our religious ones) and deniers even Repugs as well as a significant percentage of progressives. Fascists/deniers/repugs work very hard to shut down renewables. Only nuclear is politically possible.

It is the opposition to nuclear of low information greenies that leads to the delay in that nuclear conversion, and the deaths of millions every year and billions when the crisis hits.

Makes y'all an enemy of Gaia.

The Liberal party of Canada and Michael Ignatieff support Canadian Nuclear power. Canada's future requires you support them if only for this reason.

seth

Logic...

Aug 16, 2010 at 6:04pm

Peter, the same argument you make for Green voters to vote NDP (because they'll never have influence), is the same that could be made for NDP voters to vote for the Federal Liberals in the next election...

You can take the idea even further - If Jack Layton had read that 2001 interview with Bookchin, we'd still have the Kelowna Accord, Nationalized Daycare, funding for women's rights, unbiased funding for NGOs, and perhaps even some action on Kyoto. Find fault with the Libs all you want, at least they were not climate change deniers.

Instead the NDP went for broke, torpedoed the Liberals at every chance, and let the Conservatives have a free ride. Four years later, what resulted was not an NDP gov't, not even a whiff of Official Opposition. The NDP got a larger share of the seats, and front row tickets to watch the most regressive PM in history rip up years of progressive victories. I do not think that is exactly what Bookchin had in mind.

JOHN BILLSTROM

Aug 21, 2010 at 11:02am

Firstly Canada is not a democracy it is a monarcy, the Queen is on are money. If you are not aware of this fact you are not right about anything else. Even global warming activists do not claim we have months to solve global warming, they say we have 10 years (the same as they said 30 years ago). But if you want to reduce pollution then reduce Canadas population or go after the largest polluters India and China. But wasting money on a global warming fraud makes no sense. Spend money on schools or elininateing poverty instead.

Bill Piket

Sep 19, 2010 at 4:48pm

Both the Liberal and the Conservative Parties are too tied to big business in this country to depart from business as usual. The Conservatives may differ in that they are in the pockets of the oil industry headquartered in Calgary and are particularly inspired by their admiration for the American right, but the Liberals have a clear record of doing as little as possible about anything at all if they can possible get away with it. Neither will help us with our urgent crisis unless perhaps a Liberal Government were to need the parliamentary support of the NDP or Green Party in a minority situation. That's how we got medical care, and that's the only way are realistically going to get action on the environment.

Having said that I would agree that the Liberals would not actually go out and aggressively oppose world wide action on climate change the way Harper's cretins did.