GLOBAL CAPITALISM AND CLIMATE CHANGE BBooookk 11..iinnddbb ii 55//3311//1122 88::5511 AAMM Globalization and the Environment Series Series Editors Richard Wilk, Department of Anthropology, 130 Student Building, Indiana Univer- sity, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA, or [email protected] Josiah Heyman, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Old Main Building #109, University of Texas, 500 West University Avenue, El Paso, TX 79968, USA, or [email protected] This AltaMira series publishes new books about the global spread of environmental problems. Key themes addressed are the effects of cultural and economic globaliza- tion on the environment; the global institutions that regulate and change human re- lations with the environment; and the global nature of environmental governance, movements, and activism. The series will include detailed case studies, innovative multi-sited research, and theoretical questioning of the concepts of globalization and the environment. At the center of the series is an exploration of the multiple linkages that connect people, problems, and solutions at scales beyond the local and regional. The editors welcome works that cross boundaries of disciplines, methods, and locales and span scholarly and practical approaches. Books in the Series Power of the Machine: Global Inequalities of Economy, Technology, and Environment, by Alf Hornborg (2001) Confronting Environments: Local Environmental Understanding in a Globalizing World, edited by James Carrier (2004) Communities and Conservation: Histories and Politics of Community-Based Natural Resource Management, edited by J. Peter Brosius, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, and Charles Zerner (2005) Globalization, Health, and the Environment: An Integrated Perspective, edited by Greg Guest (2005) Cows, Kin, and Globalization: An Ethnography of Sustainability, by Susan A. Crate (2006) Global Visions, Local Landscapes: A Political Ecology of Conservation, Conflict, and Con- trol in Northern Madagascar, by Lisa L. Gezon (2006) Globalization and the World Ocean, by Peter Jacques (2006) Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global Environmental Change, edited by Alf Hornborg, John McNeill, and Joan Martínez-Alier (2007) The World’s Scavengers: Salvaging for Sustainable Consumption and Production, by Martin Medina (2007) Saving Forests, Protecting People? by John W. Schelhas and Max J. Pfeffer (2008) Capitalizing on Catastrophe: Neoliberal Strategies in Disaster Reconstruction, edited by Nandini Gunewardena and Mark Schuller (2008) World in Motion: The Globalization and the Environment Reader, edited by Gary M. Kroll and Richard H. Robbins (2009) War and Nature: The Environmental Consequences of War in a Globalized World, by Jurgen Brauer (2009) Computing Our Way to Paradise? The Role of Internet and Communication Technologies in Sustainable Consumption and Globalization, by Robert Rattle (2010) Global Capitalism and Climate Change: The Need for an Alternative World System, by Hans A. Baer (2012) BBooookk 11..iinnddbb iiii 55//3311//1122 88::5511 AAMM GLOBAL CAPITALISM AND CLIMATE CHANGE The Need for an Alternative World System Hans A. Baer A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Lanham (cid:129) New York (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK BBooookk 11..iinnddbb iiiiii 55//3311//1122 88::5511 AAMM Published by AltaMira Press A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom Copyright © 2012 by AltaMira Press All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Baer, Hans A., 1944- Global capitalism and climate change : the need for an alternative world system / Hans A. Baer. p. cm. — (Globalization and the environment series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7591-2132-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7591-2134-8 (ebook) 1. Climatic changes—Economic aspects. 2. Globalization. 3. Sustainable development. I. Title. QC903.B14 2012 330.12’6—dc23 2012016730 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America BBooookk 11..iinnddbb iivv 55//3311//1122 88::5511 AAMM Contents Preface vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 The Impact of Climate Change on the Environment and Human Societies 11 2 The Capitalist World System and its Contradictions 39 3 The Capitalist Treadmill of Production and Consumption as a Generator of Greenhouse Gas Emissions 57 4 The Inadequacies of Existing Climate Regimes for Mitigating Climate Change 117 5 Why Green Capitalism Is Insufficient to Mitigate Climate Change 149 6 A Vision of an Alternative World System: Toward Global Democracy Based on Social Justice and Environmental Sustainability 185 v BBooookk 11..iinnddbb vv 55//3311//1122 88::5511 AAMM vi / Contents 7 Toward an Ecological Revolution: Progressive Transitional Reforms 213 8 Grassroots Responses to Climate Change: Internationally, Nationally, and Locally 245 9 Conclusion 293 Resource Guide 307 Bibliography 313 Index 347 About the Author 353 BBooookk 11..iinnddbb vvii 55//3311//1122 88::5511 AAMM Preface O ver the course of the past several years, a growing number of anthropologists, as well as other social scientists, including soci- ologist Anthony Giddens (2009), have turned their attention to climate change or global warming. Roncoli and Magistro (2000) had urged anthropologists to examine global climate change as part and parcel of the anthropology of climate variability, a phenomenon that includes droughts, hurricanes, and other in- stances of erratic weather patterns. While archaeologist Brian Fa- gan (1999:76) is correct in his seemingly dismissive assertion that “global warming is nothing new for humanity,” the magnitude of warming that the planet has been experiencing, particularly in the past several decades, and that the vast majority of climate scientists predict will occur throughout the present century and beyond (even if it could be checked by monumental preemptive measures) is on a magnitude never experienced by humanity, in part due to the fact that there never have been so many people inhabiting so many places in our fragile biosphere. He has been discussing the impact of climate change, albeit of a more natural form than an anthropogenic one, on human societies for some time. Of investigations into climate change in more recent times, a notable effort is an anthology titled Anthropology and Climate Change: From Encounters to Actions, edited by Susan A. Crate and vii BBooookk 11..iinnddbb vviiii 55//3311//1122 88::5511 AAMM viii / Preface Mark Nuttall (2009). This book is a welcome addition to the still- emerging anthropology of climate change. Yet, a major short- coming of this book, and of most of the anthropological work on climate change thus far, is that it fails to view climate change as yet another contradiction of global capitalism with its treadmill of production and consumption heavily reliant on fossil fuels and its commitment to ongoing economic expansion, regardless of the social and environmental consequences. In Global Warm- ing and the Political Ecology of Health, published shortly before Crate and Nuttall’s anthology, Merrill Singer and I adopted a critical anthropological perspective in examining the impact of climate change on health. This present book seeks to go beyond that earlier one in delineating the roots of climate change in global capitalism and the systemic changes needed to create a more socially just and environmentally sustainable world sys- tem that would move humanity toward a safer climate. In this effort, my approach is more that of a historical social scientist who happens to have a PhD in anthropology than of an anthro- pologist in the conventional sense of the word. In this effort, I have been guided by the work of an array of political ecologists and eco-Marxists, particularly John Bellamy Foster (2000, 2009) (an environmental sociologist trained in political economy at the University of Oregon and the editor of Monthly Review), Joel Kovel (2007), Ariel Salleh (2009), and contributors to the journal Capitalism Nature Socialism. BBooookk 11..iinnddbb vviiiiii 55//3311//1122 88::5511 AAMM Acknowledgments My scholarly interest in climate change or global warming be- gan in the hot summer of 2005 while working on the first edition of Introducing Medical Anthropology (AltaMira Press, 2007) with Merrill Singer. In chapter 7 of our textbook on “Health and the Environment” we included a section on “The Impact of Global Warming on Health.” Indirectly this small effort led to a book titled Global Warming and the Political Ecology of Health (Left Coast Press, 2009), the sixth book that we had done together. Merrill and I became acquainted as graduate students in late 1975 in the anthropology department at the University of Utah and we have remained close friends, colleagues, and comrades in the struggle for social justice and environmental sustainability ever since, despite the geographical distance that separates us with him residing in Storrs, Connecticut, and me in Melbourne, Australia. Since coming to Melbourne, I have become a friend and col- league of Verity Burgmann in the School of Social and Political Sciences. We have written a book titled Australian Climate Politics and Climate Movement (Melbourne University Press, 2012). I owe much to Verity as an immigrant and soon-to-become Australian citizen in acquainting me with Australian politics and social movements. Both of us are partisan observers of the Australian climate movement. ix BBooookk 11..iinnddbb iixx 55//3311//1122 88::5511 AAMM