Red--Pink--Green

It was just two weeks ago at the Japy Gym, a left-wing haunt in the east of Paris, that the four slightly scruffy-looking characters on the left were photographed together. They are (l. to r.) Clémentine Autain, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Cécile Duflot, and Pierre Laurent, leading figures in, respectively, FASE (a red-green movement), the French Left Party, the French Green Party, and the French Communist Party. The fact that they posed together here, at a rally for Alexis Tsipras on the eve of the Greek elections, became itself a news item in French political circles inasmuch as factional differences tend to keep them at some distance from one another. The Tsipras campaign, though, along with the depleted condition of the French Left and the dire prognosis for European workers seeking sustenance in the depressed, deflated European economy, managed to bring them together, along with some dissident left-wing Socialist Party members seated nearby. Why is this news?

Consider Mélenchon. A former Socialist minister (under Jospin), he was for many years a conventional socialist (pink, rose in French), but as the Party moved into the center and abandoned Marxism, he split to create the Left Party (Parti de gauche), which then teamed up with Laurent's moribund Communist Party to make the Left Front. After years of steady Communist decline, the Left Front rebounded with Mélenchon's Presidential candidacy in 2012, winning 11% in a multi-party first round.

Apart from serious organizational jealousies, though, the red and pink factions of the Left Front face a large policy contradiction: the Parti de gauche is eco-socialist, environmentally centered, questions the wisdom of indefinite growth and looks to local, sustainable realignments to build the economy of the future. Laurent's PC supports a solidly productivist platform: maximize growth and share out the proceeds with the producers.

Enter Duflot. Former Secretary of the French Greens (Les Verts) recently allied with Hollande's centrist Socialist government and Minister of Housing--a major post--in return for her party's support of Hollande, Duflot left the government, along with several left-leaning Socialist ministers, to protest its rightward drift. She and Mélenchon appear  increasingly together, ideological soul-mates articulating a new, ecologically informed, small-is-better, grass-roots community-based socialism that is more red than the Greens, and more green than the Reds, so to speak. It also isn't very fully articulated as yet.

But here are a few points of note: First, this is a talented group. Mélenchen is a powerful orator and charismatic (though polarizing) politician, Duflot a rapidly rising star, Autain a natural conciliator and high-profile feminist spokesperson. And Laurent? In some ways the odd man out, he runs the most disciplined organization on the far left, controls many local offices, carries the legacy of a venerable tradition, and--key point--needs the revitalized worldview of his green frenemies to avoid the descent into irrelevance that has threatened the PC for twenty years. Is this the basis for a red-pink-green alliance that will enter the electoral lists with a substantial following from all three sources?

Second point: this combination, or variants of it, is very present in Syriza, the meteoric far-left party that has just assumed power in Greece. Elements of it reappear in Podemos, the movement that is polling ahead of everyone in Spain as it prepares to hold elections later this year. On the evening of Tsipras's victory, Italy's Nichi Vendola, who runs a small party called SEL (Left Ecological Freedom) called for a broad red-pink-green front to unite Italy's scattered left movements as its Democratic Party, formerly socialist, moves like Hollande's government toward the center-right.

As Naomi Klein notes in her recent book This Changes Everything, the climate crisis cannot be successfully addressed within the capitalist world-system. America offers no road out of that system, but Europe still has an anti-capitalist political tradition. It also has had for decades a serious Green movement that wins elections and sits in governments. Can those traditions, red, pink, and green, come together to make a united front against the doomed neo-liberal consensus of the mainstream parties? Tsipras is a first small step. The guys in the photo know it--that's why they're there, together, looking for ways to take the next bigger step together. A lot is at stake as they make that effort.

Good news, bad news ...

Significant new polling data holds good news for the US position as we prepare ourselves for Paris. While frightening numbers of Americans have continued to believe that all this climate stuff is a hoax, or at best a mole hill, rapidly rising numbers of people---including a near-majority of self-identified Republicans!--are beginning to shed that view. The numbers are sliced a lot of different ways, but the upshot is that some 80% of people polled think the problem has serious implications for their future well-being, and two-thirds say it will influence how they vote. Is this the breakthrough in American sensibility we have been waiting for?

Well, not so fast. Of these newly sensitized citizens, most still consider it a lesser problem, not as big a deal as, say, beheadings by the so-called Islamic State in Syria. And while Republican candidates are on  notice that simple denial will possibly lose them votes even among traditional Republicans, they are finding that "I'm not a scientist," i.e. don't worry me with this arcane stuff, about which I am agnostic, is still a perfectly satisfactory answer. That's good for them, because the vast trove of campaign funds managed by the Koch brothers' interests will be withheld or worse, used against any candidate who dares consider climate change an actual problem. So Tea Partiers in particular, and Republicans generally, just have to hem and haw and the issue apparently won't do them any harm, according to the rather in-depth political part of the survey.

Progress? Yes, but we still have a long road to travel before there is any political pressure for America to present a strong position in Paris.

India: the Next Bump on the Road to Paris

Can President Obama leverage the power of his office to bring about a meaningful agreement in Paris? In his State of the Union message last night he seemed to say so, and the agreement with Beijing this fall was certainly a step in that direction. Next up ? India, world's third largest carbon polluter, on track to be the very worst in a matter of years, and the most perfect storm by far where size, poverty, and primitive energy infrastructure merge to make clean energy conversion a distant hope.

All that notwithstanding, Obama will sit down with Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi this weekend, with climate goals foremost on the agenda. Which? We might hope for encouragement, even tangible support for India's promising solar sector, and indeed there may be movement on that front. More likely, though, Obama will be there to broker what are called "lucrative" deals between American nuclear power contractors and India's somewhat desperate, we-can't-afford-to-be-choosy government. With several hundred million people lacking electricity, and many millions more experiencing brown-outs, India needs massive solutions to lift its population out of dire poverty and fuel its projected growth.

Is it a good idea for Obama to go shilling for GE and Westinghouse's nuclear contracts?  Many of us would say that more nuclear is never a happy solution. But if it becomes the means for India to sign on to a meaningful accord in Paris, and more to the point, if India's almost inevitable growth surge draws on this non-carbon-polluting technology--whatever its other costs--we may have to agree that it's the best of what's possible. And we might also thank our President, who has played a waiting game in so many ways, but whose 'fourth quarter' presidency is showing some real movement.

Yes, Mr. President, "We should act like it..."

President Obama made us wait, but he finally said some strong words about the climate issue. Long on the diagnosis, I'd say, but vague on the treatment. Still, he did pledge to lead the way, and that means making some large (but unspecified) proposal in Paris. Here's what he said:

"... And no challenge – no challenge – poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change. 2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record. Now, one year doesn’t make a trend, but this does – 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century.

I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists; that we don’t have enough information to act. Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But you know what – I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities. The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it. 

That’s why, over the past six years, we’ve done more than ever before to combat climate change, from the way we produce energy, to the way we use it. That’s why we’ve set aside more public lands and waters than any administration in history. And that’s why I will not let this Congress endanger the health of our children by turning back the clock on our efforts. I am determined to make sure American leadership drives international action. In Beijing, we made an historic announcement – the United States will double the pace at which we cut carbon pollution, and China committed, for the first time, to limiting their emissions. And because the world’s two largest economies came together, other nations are now stepping up, and offering hope that, this year, the world will finally reach an agreement to protect the one planet we’ve got."

Words to remember next December.

If We Build It ...

This is an inspiring story in this morning's Times: Denmark's prescient advance toward carbon-free energy meets the determination of Mainers to replicate their success.  The focus is the small (44 sq mi) island of Samso, whose wind turbines, biomass plants, and some geothermic make it a net energy exporter--most of the time. Interest in Maine starts with other islanders--Monhegan is taking the initiative--but also others: the Island Institute, the College of the Atlantic, some other small communities.

Of course no two places are alike: Denmark brings regulatory practices such as high fossil fuel and energy taxes that are anathema to Americans, and islands are perhaps easier to form into communities than mainlanders. Still there is much to learn at Samso's homegrown institute. Perhaps for the rest of us Americans who don't live on small picturesque islands in Maine, the big question is captured in this quote:

The Americans were skeptical that they could replicate the Samso experience back home, where clean-energy policies and subsidies are neither as consistent nor as strong as in Denmark. “How do we transfer success under the Danish regulatory structure to projects in the U.S.?” read one. Another wondered, “How to translate-encourage Danish energy conservation pragmatism/culture to American ‘comfort’ culture.” 

 There's the challenge: can we translate the "conservation/pragmatism culture" of a Denmark to the comfort-driven shores of North America--and fast! More than any technical details, the Danes are perhaps pointing us the way to that essential truth.

Senator Sanders Plays Truth or Dare

In a Senate crowded with climate change deniers, coal-heads, or "I'm-not-a-scientist" agnostics, Bernie Sanders (Socialist, Vermont) has found a marvelous way to cut through the crap. Seizing on new majority leader McConnell's promise to allow open debate, Bernie has introduced an amendment to the Keystone pipeline bill that would require senators supporting the bill to acknowledge the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change. They could (and no doubt will) still vote to support the pipeline, but in so doing they would have to admit to its destructive effects.

Of course senators can (and perhaps will) defeat the amendment ... and go on record as refusing to believe what 97% of climate scientists agree is a real fact. Will they? From the viewpoint of Republicans (and some Democrats) heavily subsidized by the fossil fuels industries, it's a Hobson's choice: offend their major contributors, or take a stand against Science, Reason, and our collective future. It will be a vote worth watching.

Thank you, Senator Sanders, for framing this issue with such clarity. At this date the vote on the amendment isn't scheduled, but the moment of truth should come in the next few weeks.

Methane: Can Executive Authority Save US?

Here's a syllogism for disaster:
1. The rest of the world will hardly limit its greenhouse gas emissions if the largest per capita polluter, that's US, refuses to do its share.
2. International treaties on this and other issues must pass through Congress--and till January 2017 at least, ours is dominated by deniers, creationists, coal-mongers, and other political criminals who will NEVER pass a reasonable package of energy measures.
3. Ergo, the Paris conference is steaming toward a giant iceberg called 'US intransigence' and changing course doesn't seem like an option.

Into the path of this collision steps President Obama, who pledged to address the Climate problem, failed early on, and seemed to forget about it. No more. First he gathered executive authority to make a start at least at coal emissions controls, and now he is taking on the methane producers in the extraction industries. Will it work? Republican adversaries in Congress will oppose it every way they can, but they may fall just short of the 60 votes they need in the Senate. Industry officials are hoping for something so general and watered down as to be useless. The devil will be in the details as they emerge this spring. But this announcement has to be encouraging to advocates all over the world.

Post-mortem: a few words about the Paris murders

Sharing the immediate horror of the first attack, I soon tweeted a "JeSuisCharlie" to register my solidarity with the murdered editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo, with the freedom of expression they pushed to the limit, and with all of us, who deserve to live our lives without fear of being gunned down by thugs with different beliefs. Hours later I read a short interview with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who claimed a longstanding friendship with the murdered cartoonist Cabu, and suggested that the destruction of Charlie Hebdo was something like the death of May'68, or what was left of it. I felt a similar sense of loss, as though their irreverence, their reckless insolence, their challenge to every piety had been an artifact of another time, now irrevocably gone.

As I read more about the magazine and its staff (I had never read Charlie Hebdo, though I knew its cartoonists' work), I stand by that solidarity, and extend it to the police officers who were killed and the Jewish hostages also killed in the kosher supermarket--victims all of a brutality that has no place in civil society. But I'm not so sure about my ready sympathy for Charlie Hebdo itself and its promiscuous mission. I looked back at the infamous caricatures of Mohamed, with exaggerated semitic features and exposed genitals, and thought: how different is this from the cartooning style of the propaganda ministry of the Third Reich? I read an interview with some kids at a collège in the neuf-trois: asked how they felt about the minute of silence that had just been observed for the Charlie Hebdo staff (this was before the supermarket murders), one said he was willing to show respect for the murder victims but not for the magazine. After all, he said, it insulted my religion. Why should I respect it when it showed no respect for me or my culture?

Finally, I feel that the millions of French citizens, marching for their republican values of secularity and free speech, carrying aloft their symbolic pencils, are not wrong, but a bit myopic. Free speech is a value, arguably not as absolute as some would claim, but so is tolerance. Looking at the rising levels of support for the FN, I fear the worst. Liberté is a fine republican value, but fraternité will take you further in the long run.

That said, I intend to return in subsequent posts to the Climate Change issue, which threatens us with civil breakdown on a wholly other scale ...

The Road to Paris Takes an Unforeseen Detour

History will surprise you. I decided to begin this blog as a year-long project to follow and report on the preparations for the Paris Climate Change conference in December of 2015. This seemed worth doing because, frankly, I don't think our species will survive much longer unless greenhouse gas emissions are greatly reduced, and increasing atmospheric temperatures checked--and soon! No one knows if it may be too late already, but it seems certain to me that unless serious commitments emerge from Paris this year it will most certainly be too late by the time another international movement is built on this ashes of this one. So really, people, listen up--this is The Big One.

Why me? I bring no special knowledge to the problem, just a newspaper reader's awareness of how the problem has evolved. I haven't been a Climate activist (though I did attend last fall's march in New York), and I sift the scientific data as best I can. I do bring a strong interest in the politics of France, Europe, and the European Union to the table. So I thought a useful role might be to gather information here about the EU countries as they prepare in their various ways to put national and EU-wide proposals on the table in Paris. Partly because Europe, with its historically strong Green parties and a certain historical wisdom grounded in tragedy, has been in the forefront of the global awareness on this issue, partly because with its 28 members, each somewhat autonomous, it brings a plurality of approaches, my hope is that Europe will offer a fruitful set of examples for the rest of us.

Such was and is my plan for this blog. And now for the surprise: since Wednesday, 4 days ago, Paris has been the scene of several brutal terrorist attacks, the site of massive demonstrations in support of national solidarity, free speech, or simply "humanity," but also the epicenter of a renewed debate on a whole set of essential questions not immediately related to the Climate discussion: immigration from less to more developed countries, relations between the Muslim world and the West, relations among diverse populations, including Muslims and recent immigrants, in societies where they represent a growing minority, and so forth. It feels odd to write about "The Road to Paris" without mentioning the extraordinary circumstance Paris finds itself in as I write. Therefore I will post a separate set of thoughts on the current situation in France, in Paris, as best I can follow it from Boston. Then I hope to resume my original intention, but the questions related to Islam in the West may continue to steal my attention. We'll see.