extractivism

By Kooper Caraway, Larry Prencer, Haedon Wright, Braxton Wright, et. al. - Worker Solidarity, February 22, 2022

By Simon Pirani, Larry Lohmann, and David W. Schwartzman - People and Nature, February 17, 2022

This publication brings together articles that appeared on peoplenature.org about the role of fossil fuels in capitalist society, and the meaning of “energy” and related concepts. The discussion covered issues about the transition away from fossil fuels, and away from capitalism.

The first article, by Simon Pirani, discussed the way that energy has been turned into a commodity under capitalism, and asked whether and how it could be decommodified. The second article, by Larry Lohmann, argued that the very concept of “energy” had to be challenged more robustly. Further contributions followed, from Larry, Simon and David Schwartzman, who writes on solar energy. The last two articles have been published today, here and here.

While none of us think the last word has been said on these issues, we hope that the discussion will be taken up, and maybe taken in other directions, by others. With the pamphlet we hope to make our conversation accessible to a wider readership. If you wish to contribute, please email peoplenature[at]protonmail.com.

Read the report (PDF).

By Marie-Sol Reindl - Open Democracy, February 11, 2022

Don’t be fooled by Shell’s green rebrand. The company is still deeply undemocratic and destroying the environment.

It has been a turbulent year for the oil and gas giant Shell.

Last May, Dutch courts ruled that Shell must drastically reduce its carbon emissions. In October, ABP, a major shareholder, divested from the company. The following month, the firm announced plans to move its headquarters from the Hague to London and drop its iconic prefix, ‘Royal Dutch’ (the company is now just Shell plc). And, in recent weeks, it has come under fire for its mammoth 14-fold increase in quarterly profits, having made $16.3bn (£12bn) pre-tax profit in the last quarter of 2021, while gas prices surged across Europe.

Now, as Shell presents itself as a global leader in the green energy transition, it is still actively investing in new oil and gas drilling.

But that is not the company’s only problem.

For a start, Shell’s profit-maximising business model is deeply undemocratic, benefitting top management and shareholders at the expense of communities around the world. The firm has also not reckoned with its colonial past and severe human rights violations, while its privileged access and influence over political decision-making processes are an obstacle towards building a democratic and green energy system. And, finally, its investment in ‘innovation’ is primarily dependent on gas and carbon capture, which keeps the world locked into a fossil fuel future.

While many agree that ending fossil fuel extraction is necessary, questions remain over how to dismantle oil and gas giants such as Shell. These companies will certainly not stop polluting of their own volition – so governments and civil society must take strategic action to force them to do so.

Can this be done via carbon pricing, bankruptcy, strategic litigation or nationalisation? When assessing these mechanisms, it’s critical to consider how – and if – they would reckon with the corporation’s colonial legacy and safeguard labour rights to build a fairer and regenerative energy system.

By various - War on Want, February 4, 2022

By various - War on Want, February 4, 2022

By Todd Smith and Magdalena Heuwieser - Tipping Points, February 2022

By Yonah Freemark, Billy Fleming, Caitlin McCoy, Rennie Meyers, Thea Riofrancos, Xan Lillehei, and Daniel Aldana Cohen - Climate and Community Project, February 2022

The transportation system is the connective tissue that transforms pockets of communities into a networked society. It links home, school, work, and play. It drives economic growth, social mobility, and employment opportunities. 

The transportation sector currently emits more carbon pollution than any other sector in the US economy. The automobiles we drive, the trucks, trains, and ships that deliver our goods, the airline flights we take, and other transportation activities account for about 28 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions. The passage of President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is replete with new funding for state and local highway expansion, and seems likely to further exacerbate the sector’s emissions. More than 120 years after electric vehicles briefly achieved popularity in the 1900s, petroleum products still power over 91 percent of today’s transportation system. Americans collectively drive more than three trillion vehicle miles per year, most of those as a single driver in an automobile. Life in the United States is organized around personal automobiles powered by petroleum. For a Green New Deal in transportation to be possible, that has to change. A climate-safe future requires a swift and just decarbonization of the transportation sector, a major expansion of public and active transportation, and the parallel decarbonization of the electricity sector.

Transportation often exacerbates social inequity and racial injustice within and between communities. Its infrastructure speeds the movement of those who are better off, to the detriment of those who are most in need. In far too many communities, governments, planners, and engineers prioritize vehicles over people and efficiency in travel time at the cost of quality of life. Choices made by elected officials and transportation agencies about how funds are allocated at the federal, state, and local levels have played a major role in reinforcing these outcomes over the past century.

In 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – the centerpiece of President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework. It provides substantial new funds for intra-city public transit, intercity passenger rail, and new electric vehicle charging infrastructure. It also includes $7.5 billion in new discretionary funding for innovative transit projects in the RAISE program (formerly BUILD and TIGER), along with new incentives for roadway repair and maintenance. However, the bill also allocates $350 billion towards new road and highway projects that will be administered by state and local departments of transportation. Much of this funding is likely to be spent on highway expansion projects. In short, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is poised to invest in a small number of innovative, low-carbon public transit projects alongside a massive new investment in roads and highways – locking in higher emissions for the sector than those that predated the bill. In other words, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act could invest dramatically more on highway expansion than on innovative, low-carbon public transit projects. That dynamic has to change.

In this report, we propose a series of critical opportunities for new transportation-related policies to improve equal access, mobility, and opportunity in our transportation system, reduce emissions, support global climate cooperation, and develop long-lasting infrastructure and workforce development strategies on a changing planet. We argue for a move away from past policies that encouraged the release of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants while furthering social inequity. Crucially, this report aims to shift the conversation surrounding the transportation sector and decarbonization from focusing exclusively on electric vehicles and high-speed rail to addressing the many disparate parts of America’s transportation system. This includes a focus on intra- and intercity rail in addition to high-speed rail; an approach to electric vehicles that pairs supply-side policies (e.g. manufacturing tax credits) with a more progressive demand-side approach that benefits low and middle-income households with few public transit options instead of wealthy, coastal city residents who tend to purchase high-end luxury electric vehicles (e.g. Tesla).

Instead, the transportation system should be viewed as a strategic lever for investing in good-paying low-carbon jobs, justice, and a decarbonized economy. We build on the important progress Congress members have made through their introduction of bills such as the Moving Forward Act to identify a series of policies that would further that ambition.

Read the text (PDF).

By Dan Bacher - CounterPunch, January 28, 2022

The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the most powerful corporate lobbying group in Sacramento, claims that there are 368,000 jobs in the oil and gas industry in California.

“The oil and gas industry is a vital part of California’s energy mix,” WSPA stated on their website. “As a leading economic force and major employer, we proudly contribute to communities across the state, providing more than 368,000 jobs in CA.” www.wspa.org/…

But a just-released Food & Water Watch analysis counts just 22,000 jobs in the industry in California, based on Department of Labor statistics — and says this total has dropped 40 percent over the past decade.

“Overall, oil and gas production account for barely one-tenth of 1 percent of all employment in California,” the analysis revealed.

WSPA spent a total of $4,267,181 on lobbying California legislators and officials in 2020 and $8.8 million in 2019 as thousands of oil and gas drilling permits were approved by CalGEM, the state’s oil and gas regulatory agency: www.citywatchla.com/…

The research from the environmental organization Food & Water Watch debunks fossil fuel industry claims about job creation throughout the U.S. showing that “overall employment has suffered even as production has increased.”

“When Gov. Gavin Newsom announced modest plans to phase out permitting for new oil production in California, industry advocates freaked out,” according to the analysis. “The Western States Petroleum Association claimed that the oil industry supports close to 368,000 jobs in the state. That is surprising since, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 22,000 Californians were involved in oil production in 2020, down 40 percent from the industry’s peak in 2012. In the Golden State, oil and gas production accounts for barely one-tenth of 1 percent of all employment.”

The analysis notes that one of the most misleading aspects of industry jobs analysis is the conflation of direct jobs with indirect and induced jobs.

“Direct jobs are positions directly within a given industry. Indirect jobs are those within the supply chain that supports that industry, while induced jobs are positions supported by wages from both direct and indirect jobs. Indirect and induced jobs account for nearly 75 percent of the top-line numbers that some oil and gas companies are referencing. Misattributing these jobs to the oil and gas industry itself distorts the size and scope of the industry’s payroll,” the analysis noted.

As the state continues to suffer from devastating fires and drought and salmon, Delta smelt and other fish species continue on the path to extinction, both the state and federal governments continue to approve oil and gas well permits in California.

By L. Michael Buchsbaum - Energy Transition, January 27, 2022

Following advice from the World Bank, most of Romania’s coal mines started shuttering in 1997. But this pivotal sector’s collapse left hundreds of thousands unemployed with few resources to help them transition to new careers. Only now, as the nation’s last underground mines prepare to close and Bucharest plots their lignite phase-out, are so-called “Just Transition” retraining programs and other projects finally being implemented. Next in the on-going Romanian Power Move series, lead blogger and podcaster, Michael Buchsbaum, reviews the nation’s rocky steps towards a “just” coal transition.

Romania’s black heart: Jiu Valley

After more than a century of mining, by the late 1970s some 180,000 miners were still busy wringing coal out of 14 mining complexes throughout Romania’s Jiu Valley. That changed dramatically beginning in 1997 when – following the restructuring programs imposed by the World Bank – many of the nation’s mines started closing. In a short time, some 90% of the region’s jobs were gone.

Though older and mid-career miners could retire early, as the sprawling mining operations closed, many young people fled. Since the region’s mono-industrial towns were built to house the coal miners who fueled the local economy: good work for most meant getting out. Some 40% of Jiu’s population did just that in the decade before Romania joined the EU in 2007.

“This lack of alternatives was the main issue that brought about negative consequences in the community,” related Roxana Bucata, a journalist and first year PhD candidate at the Central European University in Vienna focusing on energy transitions.

Throughout 2019 and 2020, as a Master’s student studying Just Transitions, Bucata traveled to the region to research how coal’s continuing demise was impacting the Jiu’s population.

Her interviews with local residents found “a general lack of trust towards any kind of authority or regional national union trade management. There’s been a lot of damage here,” she continued.

Now at the end of 2021, less than 4,000 miners are still pulling coal out of the valley’s four struggling deep mines. And with at least two more closures looming in 2022, most remaining workers are just hoping to stay on long enough to qualify for pensions or early buy-outs.

“We need something to replace mining jobs with,” Lucian Enculescu, the leader of the Livezeni ‘Libertatea 2008’ union said to the Guardian recently. “Anything.”