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Those on the political RIGHT are having a field day with a commentary written by a British-based American author Lionel Shriver. The article, titled "How Green Was My Garbage" was published this week in the Wall Street Journal and makes the startling claim that "Environmentalism has become the fashionable fig leaf to cover for extortion." (See appended)
Sadly, and speaking as a hard-core progressive environmentalist, I believe the claim is largely justified and, if anything, understated.
Almost a decade ago, during the Clinton/Gore era and long before the events of 911, I predicted that a particular brand of Free-Market Techno Environmentalism would some rise up and become a direct replacement for what I assumed would be the declining role played by the Military Industrial Complex as the primary engine of crony-capitalism. It turns out that I was only half wrong.
Free-Market Techno Environmentalism is quickly becoming a fig leaf that will do more to redistribute wealth to those who are already wealthy than it will do to solve pressing and real environmental problems.
Free-Market Techno Environmentalism will DELAY the day when genuine progress is made toward solving genuine environmental problems.
And Free-Market Techno Environmentalism will, or so I predicted, evolve into a tool used by those who rule the world to further advance what is fundamentally an anti-democratic RIGHT-WING pro-corporate-dominance agenda.
Right-wing bloggers and commentators will bitch and moan either reflexively and without thinking, or deliberately and with considered malice.
My fellow progressive enviros will look the other way.
As a result, the collapse of democracy, quality of life and environmental integrity will occur at an accelerated pace.
Here is a quote from the warning I issued almost a decade ago:
[So, in the waning days of this century we are witnessing the creation of the replacement for that venerable, WWII institution. With every passing month we will see new examples of federal subsidies being thrown at finding 'Technological Fixes' for our numerous environmental problems. Those problems of our own creation. While technological fixes may slow down the escalation of Global Warming, or food shortages, or air pollution, or those other maladies that threaten the sustainability of the human race, technological fixes, on their own will never solve the problem.]
Scott
--- begin quoted ---
May 5, 2007
COMMENTARY: How Green Was My Garbage
By LIONEL SHRIVER
LONDON -- As they campaigned for midterm regional elections on
Thursday, the biggest issue that British politicians met on doorsteps
was a load of rubbish. Specifically, one load of rubbish, where before
there were two. Pressed to meet European Union targets for reducing
landfill volume, many local councils now collect refuse only once every
two weeks. As flies and vermin gather while food scraps achieve a fine
perfume, residents have grown so enraged that bin-men are under
repeated physical attack.
The logic of fortnightly collections -- if you can follow it -- is to
encourage recycling. Lest widespread consternation over garbage seem
petty, fortnightly collections now emblemize a broader source of
indignation: the U.K. government's self-righteous "green"
justifications for reduced services on the one hand, and thievery on
the other.
Halving the frequency of waste removal conveniently saves money. A host
of other new "green" measures in the U.K. will make money: $200 fines
for poorly separated recycling, or microchips implanted in wheelie bins
to weigh residential refuse -- dragging Britain's surveillance culture
to a new low, and facilitating charges for waste disposal by the kilo.
Furious that they are already paying once for this service through
local taxes, some householders have ripped the microchips from their
bins.
The premier example of having to pay twice for the same dispensation,
all under the guise of environmentalism, is the British government's
proposal to bring in "road pricing," unveiled last December. This
literal highway robbery would charge motorists up to $2.56 per mile to
drive on roads whose construction they had paid for to begin with.
Announcement of the scheme stirred the complacent, slow-to-anger
British public to circulate an Internet protest petition that secured
1.8 million signatures.
And little wonder. Since the average British commuter travels 9.6 miles
each way, a nine-to-fiver in a built-up area would pay $50 a day for
the privilege of going to work. The Sunday Telegraph calculates that
even in moderately populated Yorkshire, where the first pilot programs
are planned, road-pricing would cost the average family $6,000 a year.
Even more cheerfully, December's advisory report pooh-poohed making
appreciable investment in public transport, nixing an unpleasantly
expensive high-speed north-south rail link. During rush hours, commuter
trains are already stuffed like links of sausage. But because "smaller
[read: cheaper] projects offer the greatest returns," Sir Rod
Eddington's transport report proposed only to improve signaling,
lengthen trains, and extend railway platforms.
Despite the "Sir," this is clearly a man who repairs rips in his suits
with duct tape. Rail travel in the U.K. is expected to rise another 30%
in the next decade. Presumably the millions of ordinary people priced
off the roads will all huddle on those little extensions to their
existing platforms.
Environmentalism has become the fashionable fig leaf to cover for
extortion. If a tax is "green" it is "for the sake of the planet," and
fairness doesn't come into it. Neither, apparently, does greed. Hence
Britain's petrol duty -- the fourth highest in the world at over $4 a
gallon plus 17.5% VAT levied on both the fuel and the duty ( in the
U.K., even taxes are taxed) -- has nothing to do with sticky fingers;
it's to confront the all-purpose bogeyman of global warming.
Mayor Ken Livingstone has installed a "congestion charge" for central
London. At $10 per day at inception, the charge has risen to $16 in
three years; the area covered by the charge doubled in February. Mr.
Livingstone further proposes that high carbon-emission "Band G"
vehicles -- not only SUVs, but smaller sedans like the Ford Mondeo --
be charged instead £25 per day, and be excluded from the 90% residents'
discount. That's fifty bucks -- every weekday, if you live or work in
the congestion zone, or $13,000 a year. Richmond council has followed
suit, tripling the cost of parking for Band G cars to £300 -- meaning
even outside of central London it will cost close to $600 a year to
park in front of your own house. But that's ok! It's for the sake of
the planet.
Britain pursues monetarily punitive policies to advance environmental
goals. Expediently, punitive fiscal policies line treasury coffers.
They not only disproportionately penalize the less well off, and
stultify economic growth; these fees, fines, duties, and charges
lurking on every corner also create a larger social climate of
oppression, resentment, and paranoia.
Lest we imagine that the British government never tries to manipulate
its citizenry into being good green campers by -- perish the thought --
making something cheaper, in his budget for 2007 Chancellor Gordon
Brown did dangle one carrot above the sticks. "Zero-carbon homes" will
henceforth be exempt from "stamp duty," a whopping tax of 1%-4% levied
on property sales.
But Mr. Gordon can afford the largesse. Journalists have searched out
the "zero-carbon homes" in the U.K. Guess what? There aren't any.
Ms. Shriver's new novel, "The Post-Birthday World," was released by HarperCollins in March.
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- Activism 
