Why you have to be red to be green

Roz Paterson Posted by on March 20, 2009. Filed under One World,Roz Paterson. Posted with the tags:
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If you died tomorrow, would climate change grind to a halt?
Well, there you have it.

OK, I’ll put that a little less obliquely.
If you died tomorrow, your carbon footprint would reduce to zero, right? Would the fact of your utter negation, on the carbon emissions front, be enough to avert future environmental disaster?
Not likely, missus.

And that just about sums up the futility of acting individually in the face of what is a huge and universal problem.

Even if all the people who care deeply about climate change took themselves off the planet, it wouldn’t be enough. We have a massive, collective problem and our response must be massive, and collective, or we’re screwed.

Which is why the tactics of the Scottish Green Party, with its focus on the narrow forum of Holyrood, tinkering round the edges of political decisions that have already been taken by more powerful parliamentary forces than them, and personal actions, such as replacing traditional tungsten light bulbs with low energy ones, can be so frustrating.

The fact that the party failed to endorse the SSP’s Free Public Transport policy, combating it with a messy hotpotch of stuff about re-regulation of the buses and more investment in public transport, suggests that the Greens may be more interested in the Greens than the planet.

So is there any common ground between us and the Scottish Greens? There is, but its limited.

We’re shoulder to shoulder against the needless and costly construction of yet more motorways, we want the junk food pushers out of our schools and off our tellies, and we surely all support their latest mission to see every home in Scotland properly and freely insulated.

But otherwise, the socialist approach to green politics is quite different from that of the Scottish Greens.

Our approach is informed by our belief in collective action.

Take the Free Public Transport policy, where buses, trains and ferries would be subsidised to the hilt, using tax-payers’ money, so that members of the public, including tax­payers, could get around sustainably and for free.

It is a policy based on the idea that we all pull together, and find a solution that works.

And for a solution to work, it must include everyone, including those who are isolated, on low incomes, less physically able, young, old, non-UK passport holding…
And it must be cost-effective.

In fact, buying back our public transport system from the private racketeers, and transforming it from a bunch of loose strands into a joined-up system that links everyone everywhere, would be cost-effective, in that everyone could get where they needed to be, when they needed to be, and in the savings from cancelling motorway building projects, and the greatly reduced need for medical treatment for road accidents, and vehicular emissions-related diseases.

Oh yeah, and it would be good for the environment too.

There’s nothing actually wrong with the Greens’ call for re-regulated buses and so on, though the congestion charge principle is controversial – it’s just that it’s all over the place, and as such, ducks the issue of whether we can live as we currently do, whilst also reducing carbon emissions.

The fact is, we can’t, and the Greens don’t say it because they fear being unelectable.

Likewise, their bid to ban junk food vending machines in schools is quite right, but surely free, nutritious school meals for everyone, sourced from local suppliers, is much greener, much better, much more likely to both support local, sustainable farming and keep our kids out the cardiac ward?

But would the middle-classes, who vote Green on their second vote, while voting in some gas-guzzling mainstream party with their first, be comfortable with such radicalism? Alas, the Greens appear unwilling to take the risk.

But radicalism is necessary, and the green left is the only area where radical solutions are being discussed, and actively campaigned for.

We need free school meals and free public transport, and we need them yesterday. A few more bikes on the road won’t save us.

We also need insulation for all, and on top of that, good-quality, affordable homes to rent. In other words, council houses with windows that don’t leak, and aren’t up for grabs in the right-to-buy.

And we need clean energy, but we also need it to be part of a publicly-owned utility.
Why?

Not just because the idea of paying the likes of Scottish Power through the nose for what is rightfully ours – the wind and the waves surely belong to the people? – but also because a company that operates on the profit motive is not keen to see us conserve energy.

Think about it.

They want us to use lots of the stuff, to run round the house switching on the lights and boiling kettles like there’s no tomorrow!

Which there won’t be, of course, if we “save the planet” the free market way.

Socialism is a means of organising ourselves in such a way that everyone benefits, equally, justly, and forever.

Environmental justice is an integral part of that.

If we fail to curb our emissions and bring a halt to climate change, we fail our fellow man, in the Nile Delta, Bangladesh, Burma, the Arctic Circle and the Australian Bush, where not just the way of life, but life itself, is finally under threat.

It’s not enough to “do your bit” the conventional way, through recycling your papers and unplugging your telly at night, and ignore the bigger picture.

Which is not to say that it is anything less than laudable to recycle your papers and unplug your telly at night. Even better, give up your car and go vegetarian, wear second­hand clothes and holiday at home. If we all did this, we’d be halfway to climate stability already.

But we must do more, and that means all of us.

Which is what socialism is all about, and why you have to be red to be green.