Lethal Heating: 03/20/21

20/03/2021

A New Book Asks Whether Capitalism Is Compatible With Public Health. (The Answer Is No)

Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg says capitalism isn't designed to keep our societies healthy

Miniature people standing on a pile of coins. (Getty Images)

NOTE

Nicholas Freudenberg is Distinguished Professor of Public Health at City University of New York School of Public Health and Director of the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute.
Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from Rutgers University-Newark.

Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg thinks that capitalism is damaging to both human health and to the planet.

And after reading his new book, "At What Cost: Modern Capitalism and the Future of Health," it is hard to disagree.

The food we eat is filled with toxins. The planet is heating up uncontrollably. And that was true long before 2020: since last year, we have learned the hard way that liberal capitalist societies like ours are barely capable of addressing their most basic responsibility, protecting public health.

Dr. Freudenberg, who is a public health professor at the City University of New York School, has written a riveting and inspiring call-to-arms.

In his new book, he describes concrete ways that people can address the problems wrought by modern capitalism.

Although our conversation occurred before President Joe Biden signed his COVID-19 stimulus relief package into law, it is relevant to both that event and future efforts at reform.

I spoke with Dr. Freudenberg over the phone about reforming capitalism and the relationship of capitalism to health. (This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and context.)

Matthew Rozsa: Tell me a little more about the thesis of your book.

Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg: I think there are two key features. The first is that, in the last few decades, capitalism — the political and economic system that is in place in our country and in much of the world — has changed in ways that I think make it more damaging to human health and the environment. In the book, I try to describe some of those changes and how they've played out.

The second main thesis is that the current period — after the crises of the COVID pandemic, climate change, deaths of despair — provide an opportunity for our country to chart a different path around health and equity. I'm hoping that by analyzing what we've learned over the last few years about how we change damaging business and corporate practices, we could put together those people who've been working for a change, a more comprehensive approach to making those changes. I think those are the two main theses of the book.

Matthew Rozsa: You mentioned that you have six detailed ideas about how we should reform capitalism, as well as nine lessons for activists. What would those be?

Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg: Sure. The thinking behind developing these specific suggestions is to look for ways to bring together the streams of work that people who are concerned about healthcare, people who are concerned about food, people who are concerned about pharmaceuticals and healthcare, or climate change, can work together. I think the first of those is that, in many sectors in this country, we have a robust public sector that is already playing a role.

Food is a good example, where through the food benefit programs like SNAP and WIC and school food, through the procurement standards that cities and states have, we're spending taxpayer dollars on food. But there hasn't been a coordinated strategy to use that public sector to advance public goals. And because of the power of the food industry, they've often used that public spending for their own benefit rather than for the wellbeing of the population.

So I think to define precisely what the role for the public sector should be in food, healthcare, education, etc. would be a way to articulate a common vision that could bring together the many streams of activism and progressive reform working for change.

I think a second cross-cutting theme, that again many people have been working on, is to level the playing field. There has been a rise of corporate power that has come about as a result of their increased capacity to lobby and make campaign contributions. The Citizens United Supreme Court decision gave corporations an outsize voice in shaping policy, giving them in the view of many scholars who are looking at this really veto power over so many aspects of policy, including those policies that affect well-being.

And so I think campaign reform, lobbying restrictions, closing the revolving door, electoral reform are very much an issue these days. Those are all a second plank of a strategy to improve public health and, again, provide a cross cutting platform for those working for change.

Matthew Rozsa: When I think of capitalism's issue, the big one that comes to mind is that it seems ecologically unsustainable — like you can't have a planet that can support human life while we consume resources and pollute the environment as we currently do. That's true whether you're talking about the extinction of species, whether you're talking about greenhouse gas emissions, or similar phenomena. What are long-term economic solutions to that problem?

Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg: I would just add that, in many cases, what makes the current business models of many sectors unsustainable also through other paths harms human health. There's a double benefit — in the case of food, the ultra-processed diet of food that relies on industrially produced crops and big-scale agriculture that has produced a diet which have made diet-related diseases like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, the leading cause of premature death and preventable illness.

That's also the agricultural system that is contributing so significantly to carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. And similarly the transportation system, which relies on individual cars, has created what some people call transportation apartheid, making mobility available to people who are better off, but increasingly unavailable to people of color and poor people. It's that same transportation system that contributes again in very significant ways to carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.

I think one of the insights I gained from working on this book is that our big health problems are connected. Our food problem and our climate problem, our susceptibility to the COVID pandemic, those are connected. The disasters we've seen in California and Texas and the Gulf Coast, those also show the cost to human health as well as the environment from the policies we've been following.

I think the Green New Deal is an example of a policy package that puts the pieces together. And by emphasizing the message that making diminishing the climate emergency a priority, we also create new jobs. We also can give communities a bigger voice in shaping their economic future. I think we ought to be looking to similar policy packages around food, healthcare, transportation, etc. And those things will intersect and will also create the potential for a wide range of constituencies to support those measures.

The corporate world and the conservative elected officials have demonized Green New Deal, but I think if you look at popular support, public opinion polls show that the majority supports taking action to reduce climate change supports action, to create new jobs using public support to do that. We need to find new ways to bring together those majorities to have an impact in Washington and in the corporate boardrooms.

Matthew Rozsa: I think that's a very interesting point. I'd say the other major criticism that I and other people have of capitalism is the fact that it doesn't really seem structurally possible for capitalism to not create massive income inequality. I know that there are social democrats out there who believe that regulated capitalism can be more effective, but it seems like when you have a democratic system, eventually those protections for people in the working class get eroded and reforms get rolled back. I was wondering what your thoughts were about that.

Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg: What I write about in the book is that, especially the ways that capitalism has changed since — I start in the 1970s with the response to the reforms of the 1960s and 1970s here in the United States — capitalism has changed in ways that make it increasingly contributing to income inequality. The dominance of the financial sector, the rise of debt, the heavy emphasis on quarterly returns for investors and corporations, those things have all increased inequality.

Capitalism always generated inequality. The changes made after World War II reduced that tendency a little, but what's happened in the last period is that that's become increased. Now my thinking is that the vast majority of people in the United States and the world are harmed in some very direct ways by the current ways that capitalism operates.

And we don't need to immediately achieve consensus on what comes after the current form of capitalism. That's a very complicated and controversial topic. Of course we need to talk about it, but I think that the thought that we need to agree on what brand of capitalism or democratic socialism or some alternative is the ultimate goal, I think that distracts us from what can we agree on now to stop the most harmful aspects, to stop the pandemics, to stop the climate emergency, or begin to reverse them.

My recommendation is that all of us working to make this country and world healthier focused on what we can do together in the short and middle term. Through doing that, the longer term pathways will become clear. The long-term pathway isn't decided by intellectuals or even activists debating with each other. It's decided by what we do in practice and what works and then needs to be changed to work better.

I think if those of us working for change could move towards that mindset, we'd be in a better position to make substantial progress, especially with the opportunities from the defeat of Trump, the emergency imposed by both climate change and the COVID pandemic. We have a real opportunity and I'm hoping we can seize it.

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(USA) 5 Causes Of Climate Change: From Fossil Fuels To Capitalism

Mic - Vanessa Taylor

Shutterstock

In the midst of a global pandemic, some find it difficult to think about anything else. We're already living a once-in-a-lifetime event, right, so why should any other issue take political precedence? Unfortunately, the problems that existed before coronavirus haven't gone away. Climate change is one key example.

Before Donald Trump, the United States wasn't exactly the pinnacle of environmentalism. But under the former president, the U.S. took major steps back. Notably, Trump did away with numerous environmental policies and withdrew from the Paris climate accords. So when President Biden took office in January 2021, he inherited not only the ongoing pandemic, but a worsening climate crisis, too.

Although environmental issues haven't necessarily defined Biden's political career, his record on the subject isn't too bad. With Biden and Democrats now controlling the House and Senate, the party has no excuse not to take up climate change in earnest. But when people talk about climate change, the responsibility is often transferred to individuals. As a result, solutions tend to focus on things like: Don't go on airplanes, bike instead of drive, and etc.

So, what can the government actually do? While taking individual action isn't bad, focusing on that alone allows big players to shirk responsibility. They keep on with business as usual, while we're all too busy policing each other for using disposable straws. Really, the responsibility for climate change extends far beyond you and me. Let's break down some of the five major causes of climate change to see what I mean.

1. Fossil fuel extraction

This one probably doesn't come as much of a surprise. When most people hear "climate change," they have some sort of association with fossil fuels.

However, you might not be aware of just how bad fossil fuel extraction is. In 2017, the environmental non-profit CDP published The Carbon Majors report in collaboration with the Climate Accountability Institute. The report found that since 1988, just 100 companies have been responsible for over 70% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. Of those companies, fossil fuel producers are among the worst.

The report stated the fossil fuel industry "doubled its contribution to global warming by emitting as much greenhouse gas in 28 years as in the 237 years between 1988 and the birth of the industrial revolution," specifically calling out ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron as major players. It also said that if the fossil fuel industry keeps extracting at the same rate over the next 28 years, temperatures globally could rise by 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century — a catastrophic increase.

Now, why does the world need so much fossil fuel? Sure, things like the 276 million registered vehicles in the U.S. alone play a factor in demand. However, there are other entities that are guzzling up more fossil fuels than you and I ever could in our lifetimes.

2. The U.S. military

Yep: By "others," I mean, the U.S. military. The U.S. has one of the largest militaries in the world, and it's an absolute demon for the climate. In 2019, the Costs of War, a project from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, reported that the Department of Defense remains the world's single largest consumer of oil — even after reducing its fossil fuel consumption steadily since the early 2000s. In fact, since the global war on terror began, the U.S. military has produced 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

As if that isn't enough, The Conversation reported that in 2017, the U.S. military bought about 269,230 barrels of oil every single day. Burning all that fuel emitted over 25,000 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide. Overall, the outlet stated that if the U.S. military was a country by itself, its fuel usage alone would make it the world's 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

3. Mass agriculture

In 2019, the the World Resources Institute found that agriculture generates about 25% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. That's looking at food production and land-use changes, like plowing, although the majority of it comes from raising livestock. That same year, the United Nations warned that humans need to change their food production strategy dramatically in order to effectively combat climate change.

Now, there are some people see this and think: All right, eating animals is the problem, and anyone who keeps doing so sucks. I'm not one of those people. Plenty of Indigenous communities worldwide have historically eaten meat, and continue to do so, without it being a problem. The issue illustrated by these reports isn't that eating meat alone is bad; instead, the issue is with how the U.S. and similar nations approach agriculture and food production as a whole. If you took meat out of the equation, but kept food production and mass agriculture as is, you'd still see problems.

4. Deforestation

In addition to agriculture, deforestation is a major contributor to climate change. As the Rainforest Alliance broke down, deforestation is an issue because when we get rid of trees, we're removing an object that captures greenhouses gases like carbon dioxide. But in addition, the process of deforestation itself creates emissions. If you knock down a tree, all that carbon that it has been storing has to go somewhere, right? So say goodbye to the atmosphere.

Deforestation's link to climate change is perhaps best illustrated by the situation in Brazil. Last year, a study found that the Amazon rainforest could switch from being a carbon sink to a carbon source by 2035, because of climate change. And the Amazon isn't the only area suffering: Brazil's Cerrado region, which accounts for more than 21% of all land in the country and serves as a carbon sink, too, is also being destroyed by deforestation.

5. Honestly, capitalism

I've listed out some major players in climate change, but let's be real. Capitalism is the driving force behind each and every thing that I mentioned.

Capitalism is the reason that countries prioritize big business over people's lives. It's the reason that countries in the global south, who are the least responsible for climate change, continue to bear the brunt of its effects while a select few in the global north profit. As science journalist Matt Simon wrote in Wired, "Capitalism has steamrolled this planet and its organisms, gouging out mountains, overexploiting fish stocks, and burning fossil fuels to power the maniacal pursuit of growth and enrich a fraction of humanity."

Sure, we all have individual things we can do to lessen our carbon footprint. And certainly, we need to re-examine how we live our daily lives. We need to think about our relationship to the land, other people, and the non-human animal species who are also being devastated by this crisis. However, if we remain focused on individual actions, then we will be consumed by a monster much bigger than us.

Instead, we must be a collective, big enough to take on anything, while understanding that confronting climate change means that the U.S. and other Western countries must reimagine their economic structures overall. To put it simply: Ending climate change necessitates an end of capitalism.

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Carbon Offsets Offer A Fantasy Of Capitalism Without Crises

The Conversation - Robert Watt

Sarayut Thaneerat / Alamy

Author

Robert Watt is Lecturer in International Politics, University of Manchester

Governments, companies and sometimes entire sectors are increasingly proposing to use carbon offsets in response to the deepening climate crisis.

In theory, offsetting allows organisations to compensate for their own emissions by paying towards low-carbon projects elsewhere, but the practice has been mired in scientific problems and scandals, and it has been widely critiqued in the social sciences.

With the UK government now seeking to turn London into a global hub for the carbon offset trade, it’s worth asking why it is still so prominent. My research on what I have called the fantasy of carbon offsetting helps explain the situation.

Carbon offset credits are created when a standards organisation declares that a project has reduced or avoided greenhouse gas emissions (a solar farm that “replaces” a coal power plant, say) or instead has removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stored it somewhere (by planting lots of trees, for instance).

The standards body issues carbon credits, the project owner sells them, and they can be traded in the financialised carbon economy until the point when a buyer “retires” them. The buyer that retires the credit is said to have caused the reduction, avoidance or removal of a defined quantity of greenhouse gases – in this sense, their emissions have been “offset” by the reductions of someone else.

It sounds far-fetched, and it is. Grave uncertainties in the accounting process are exploited by project developers, overlooked by standards agencies, and forgotten by auditors. These actors all have conflicts of interest – developers want to sell more credits, while standards agencies and auditors want to gain market share. The resulting credits they certify are offered as a cheap means to appear green.

Many companies are pledging to use offsets to remove carbon in their “net-zero” climate strategies. A high-profile report launched at the World Economic Forum seeks to rapidly expand the market, and offsetting will be on the agenda at the next big UN climate summit, COP26 in Glasgow. Governments including Japan and Switzerland have set up bilateral offset schemes.

The international aviation sector plans to offset some of its emissions. Almost every day we are told of absurd new offsetting plans, like shipments of “carbon neutral” crude oil, or Canadian cows who will eat chemicals to reduce methane belches to offset emissions from tar sands in Alberta.

Alberta has one of the world’s largest deposits of oil – and one of the most destructive oil operations. LatitudeStock / Alamy

Its failures are already accounted for

To help explain the new hype around carbon offsetting and its return to a central position in climate policy, I argue in a new paper in the journal Environmental Politics that one of the reasons carbon offsetting continues is because of fantasy. According to a psychoanalytic approach to the critique of ideology – which has been advanced prominently by the philosopher Slavoj Žižek – fantasy is a means by which ideology takes its failures into account, in advance.

Fantasy helps explain why knowledge about intractable problems may not stop carbon offsetting: its failures are already accounted for within the ideological formation. To research this further, I linked psychoanalytic theory to transcripts of interviews that I conducted with 65 practitioners involved with carbon offset markets.

My analysis suggests that many of those involved recognise, at different levels, the gap between the spectacular portrayals of carbon offsetting and its deficiencies in practice. Awareness of this gap is managed through cynical forms of reasoning and knowledge disavowal.

Problems are known – but suppressed

Cynical reasoning involves knowledge that one is perpetuating an illusion or a problem, but doing it anyway. It sometimes involves laughter which mocks the predicament of the self. For example, one person selling offsets told me they only partly believe in carbon offsetting, and then laughed. Knowledge disavowal involves knowing about the existence of problems, but suppressing that knowledge. Those involved in carbon offsetting need not laugh at themselves all the time – disavowal also works for them.

Cynical reasoning and disavowal are not very disruptive to the social fantasy, which circulates through markets populated by experts who proclaim that offsets are genuine and legitimate. Figures of authority in the offset market – people with claims to expertise who talk about “high-quality” offsetting – reinforce fantasy. Doubts about offsetting are calmed, because even if one person does not (fully) believe, someone else will do it for them, in a process that repeats.

Furthermore, fantasy shapes our desires, so this account helps explain the emotions, enthusiasm and hype. On some level, people want to believe in carbon offsetting because it offers to rekindle capitalism’s promise that we can enjoy consumerism without being too concerned about ecological crisis, by delivering a seductive story of power and status in which somebody else cleans up the mess. Even if you are already an offset sceptic, we had better recognise that this fantasy runs deep.

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