A Chicago Tribune article from Feb. 22 is just one in a string of recent reports that technical progress on replacing fossil fuels, and signing grand international agreements are not going to be enough to stave off catastrophic climate change. Another story that came across my Facebook feed today illustrates how the pessimistic view once held by practically nobody but Guy McPhearson is now becoming almost mainstream. This is not exactly breaking news: for literally five decades a wide range of scientists, journalists, environmentalists, and philosophers have all agreed that there have to be fundamental changes in society in order to overcome both environmental and social problems.
And for just as long, those calls for fundamental change have almost invariably been remarkably nebulous. "Marshall Plan" "mobilize collective will" "creating new democratic institutions", "opening our minds to the possibility of a more just economic model", "replacing capitalism", "organizing" are a few examples of the "solutions" I've seen in just the past month or so. What I almost never see is any action items—any sort of specific guidelines and policies to push for right now to start moving us toward that better future.
So what would some specifics of path toward "fundamental social change" look like? Herewith are several specific items (liberally cribbed from the writings of Herman Daly and a few others who are not shy about suggesting specific political changes) that will at least begin to address the issue of basic structural changes that must be made if the technical progress on climate change is to have any permanent effect.
—. Revise tax code so that all citizens will recieve a yearly sum of $30.000 (UBI), irrespective of marital status. A tax will be applied to all other forms of income following a progressive scale from a base rate of 10% to a maximum marginal rate of 100%. The maximum rate will apply to income in any form greater than 10X the UBI. (This has been the omitted but crucial part of most recent discussions of income inequaltiy—although Keith Ellison has recently endorsed the idea). Capital gains and other forms of non-wage income will always be taxed at the same rate as wage income.
—. Return corporate tax rate to 35% and institute a financial transactions tax. It could be a low 0.2% like we used to have up to 1966, and is in line with a number of other countries today. But no exemptions for specific types of transactions. (Further modifications of the tax code to shrink the rentier part of the economy would also be desirable.)
—. Adoption of depletion taxes on natural resources. Obviously the prime candidates here are coal and petroleum (to encourage solar and wind power), but agricultural and food imports that include ingredients such as palm oil and soybeans are equally destructive to the planet and should also be discouraged through depletion taxes on all products that have them as ingredients. Since there are no "good" biofuels, no tax incentives whatever should be directed to this sector. Incidentally, cell phones and all those other devices that depend on rare earth mining should also have an appropriate depletion tax applied.
—. In a related area, elimination of agricultural subsides of destructive farming overproduction. Sugar cane farming in the Florida Everglades is a prime example.
—. In addition to continuing to fight for reproductive rights inside the United States, forced-birther fantasies like the Helms Amendment and the Global Gag Rule must be eliminated from all aspects of U.S. foreign policy. No endorsements or political support whatever should go to any anti-choice candidates.
Of course the reigning kleptocracy will fight tooth and nail against all of these changes. But they're fighting tooth and nail right now against all the limited and "realistic" proposals new floating about. Under the current perpetual growth ideology, we are running at least a half an Earth short for maintaining the current inadequate status quo, assuming our present responses to climate change were somehow adequate. Unfortunately, simply changing out the energy pack on the perpetual growth machine won't be enough to save us.
This is not to claim that efforts to change over to renewable energy technologies are unimportant and shouldn't a priority(although every alternate technology must be thoroughly examined for unintended consequences). But if we hope to get the "fundamental societal change" that most progressives seem to agree we need, here we have a series of specific actions that will (I claim) signiificantly improve our otherwise rapidly diminishing chances of human survival. And also improve the chance that we will have a world that's worth surviving in.