From Today's Salon:
Establishment Dems are trying to take climate action while still satisfying corporate interests. That won't work.
Not long after the President announced he would travel to Alaska in August. the "front line of climate change", his administration issued the final permit needed for Shell Oil to have authorization to drill for oil in the Arctic sea near Alaska. This was done in spite of the administration's admission there is a high probability (75%) for a "significant oil spill in the area".
The sharp contradiction did not go unnoticed. “It’s perplexing and depressing, quite frankly, to hear President Obama say he wants to fix climate change but then approve Arctic drilling,” said Rebecca Noblin, Alaska director for the Center for Biological Diversity, in an AP story highlighting environmentalists’ concerns. “It’s like a doctor diagnosing a patient but then refusing to write a prescription.”
It’s a stunning disconnect, and it’s rooted in the neoliberal’s acceptance of the marketplace as reality-defining, with all the institutional limits from existing oligopoly-dominated markets baked in, regardless of how little those markets may resemble the textbook ideals. Grassroots environmentalists — moved by nature, facts and concern for future generations — see one kind of pragmatism: what works to create a livable future. Neoliberal environmentalists see a very different kind of pragmatism: what’s politically achievable, whether or not it actually solves the underlying problems. Fundamentally changing the rules, so that polluting oligopolies no longer control the system, is simply unthinkable for them. The tensions between the two types of environmentalists have rarely been so stark — but they’ve long been consequential.
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