Abundance

The climate change crisis is a serious issue that veers into many political spheres. Even to maintain the climate the world already has, damaged though it is, requires more than inaction. One option for trying to preserve the climate, popular in some corners of the left, is a concept called “degrowth,” which Klein and Thompson describe as

an anti-materialist philosophy that holds that humanity made its fundamental errors hundreds of years ago, trading the animism of our ancestors for Christianity’s promise of dominion over nature. The problem is not simply greenhouse gas emissions or microplastics. It is Cartesian dualism and American-style capitalism and everything these systems of thought and practice have taught us to value and prize and want (57).

Degrowth seeks to recenter a holistic view of the world that does not place growth on a higher level of value than life. When it comes to climate change, degrowth seeks to shut off or scale down destructive areas of production, including military investment, fast fashion, meat and dairy production, and advertising. There is an appeal in this view, Klein and Thompson assert, but the issue stems from the struggle to collectively identify the destructive aspects of the global production system. For example, many people would oppose shutting down the production of dairy and meat, even though it is terrible for the environment, and humans thrive on a vegetarian diet.

Suggesting the elimination of the meat and dairy industry would be politically ruinous, illustrating the challenges of implementing degrowth in the current political systems. People’s greed and the societal prioritization of growth, production, and consumption make degrowth difficult to put into practice. Even if climate-friendly energy sources, such as nuclear fusion, were widely developed and deployed, people would still utilize them in ways harmful to the climate. When climate-friendly legislation is enacted by governments, such as taxes on detrimental energy sources or increases in energy cost, people often protest, demonstrating the risk of a future of “populist authoritarians who drill and burn their way to false prosperity” (62).

“We Just Burned It”

Heating is a problem solved for many in the contemporary world, but not for all. Energy inequality is a problem, as Klein and Thompson state that “energy is the nucleus of wealth” (62). Those without access to clean energy rely on burning wood or charcoal, and this air pollution kills millions per year. People who are energy poor suffer from air pollution more, and as communities become energy-rich, they clean their air and water. The pace of greenhouse gases is not inevitable, as different countries have different rates of emissions (the United States emits 15 tons of carbon per person per year, while France and the United Kingdom emit less than five). The quality of life of someone in the US versus someone in the UK would not be drastically different, despite the difference in emissions. What is different between these countries is the sources of power. It is now more than plausible to power countries and economies on clean energy, and to build the clean economy of tomorrow, people must build the clean economy of today.

Electrify Everything

To reduce climate change, everything needs to run on electricity. To make this shift, consumers will need to replace over a billion machines in the coming years. Producing all these electric machines is a manufacturing challenge, and people need to be made to want these machines, illustrating an advertising challenge. Switching over to electric alternatives needs to be subsidized and advertised to encourage people. The grid also needs to switch away from fossil fuels and over to green sources of energy, like solar and wind energy. However, these sources of energy require more land, which is also a challenge to support. Once the electricity is generated, it must then be moved long distances, which requires the construction of an integrated energy grid. Despite the cost of these green infrastructure changes, making a greener world is worth it. It does not matter what is spent, but what is built.

California’s No-Speed Rail

Klein and Thompson explore the failed attempts to implement a high-speed rail system in California. The idea was first floated in 1982 by Governor Jerry Brown, but voters only approved the construction of the first segments in 2008. In 2009, President Barack Obama attempted to stimulate the economy by reinvesting government resources in various construction projects, including the California high-speed rail system. By 2018, however, nothing significant was built, and ambitions were cut to instead build a line between the agricultural centers of Bakersfield and Merced instead of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Klein visited the site of this rail construction and talked with the people there, discovering that the issue with high-speed rail construction is not construction, by the political negotiations. The United States has an issue with how much it spends versus how much it gets. For example, the US spends $609 million per kilometer of rail, while Germany only spends $384 million.

The Construction Puzzle

Construction in the 1970s increased dramatically in productivity. However, construction today is less productive, and the average construction worker today accomplishes less than the average construction worker in 1970. While economists struggle to solve the question, those in the construction industry view the increasing complexities required in construction as the root of the issue. More bids, more paperwork, and more extensive safety measures slow down the rate of construction and require more workers to accomplish the same amount of work.

The Organizations of Affluence

Economist Mancur Olson suggests that the more organized groups a society has, the more fights over distribution, lobbying, complex regulations, and inter-group bargaining it will have, leading to greater difficulty in finishing complex projects. Affluent and stable societies have more negotiations, and therefore more negotiators, which Klein and Thompson state is a good thing, as negotiation allows for people’s voices and opinions to be heard. This is why China builds railroads faster than California, as China does not require debate with the judiciary to take certain actions. Olson’s error, though, is not seeing how some groups seek to make money while other groups have altruistic aims and are the “engines of social progress” (82). Affluence is a gift that comes with a cost. Those who can navigate the complexities of an affluent society are rewarded and incentivized.

Nader’s Raiders

In the 1960s, a lawyer named Ralph Nader published a book condemning the car manufacturers’ resistance to safety improvements and proclivity to blame individual drivers for rising road deaths. The book was a sensation and led Lyndon B. Johnson to pass numerous legislative acts to increase road safety. Because of his success, Nader began mobilizing teams of young activists to push against big business and government. Nader sought to both criticize and tame the government, building an “arm of liberalism designed to relentlessly sue the government itself,” fighting for more legislation (like environmental protection laws) and more opportunities to sue the government itself (87). Nader had great success in making environmental change, but he also crafted “democracy by lawsuit” and a liberalism that viewed the government as the source of many problems (88). This increased the number of lawyers and lawsuits in the United States. Nader sought to criticize the government and to reshape it for the better, but the same laws the processes he utilized for environmental causes could also be utilized for detrimental outcomes.

Liberalism’s Lawyers Problem

The right has begun to utilize Nader’s techniques to weaken the government, burying it in paperwork, proceedings, hearings, disclosure demands, and lawsuits. In 2017, Republicans proposed (but failed to pass) the Regulatory Accountability Act, which forced the government to open a comment and opinion period to allow the public to cross-examine the agency attempting to pass a piece of legislation. While good in theory, the act would have created an overwhelming burden of compliance for legislators. Law professor Nicholas Bagley published a paper titled “The Procedure Fetish,” which stated that liberal legalism and liberal government have become process-obsessed instead of outcomes-oriented. The government had convinced itself that its legitimacy could be earned through adherence to endless rules and restraints rather than accomplishing things. Bagley stated that “inflexible procedural rules are a hallmark of the American state” (91). At the core of the many procedures of government are concerns surrounding legitimacy and accountability.

The system the United States developed has led to decisions being made by the judiciary that would be made by bureaucracies in other countries, a result of the general mistrust Americans have toward their government. Americans wanted their government to act with power without giving them the power or authority to do it. The United States is a legalistic nation, with lawyers at the top of the political system, as many politicians have attended law school. When legal training becomes the default training for politics, legal thinking becomes the norm, and so does its adherence to process instead of results. The complexity explored by Olson is easily navigated by lawyers, and the United States now has a political system that requires lawyers to navigate it. Legitimacy stems from the perception that the government is capable and fair, not from procedures. The government is failing at legitimacy because of failures like the California high-speed rail system.

The Green Dilemma

The Green New Deal requires the construction of massive new infrastructure. In the past, environmental laws of the 1970s represented a “Grand Bargain,” in which a cleaner environment was worked toward while development was slower and expensive due to the litigation that often ensued. This generally turned out to be a good deal, as most air pollutants were greatly reduced while surface water quality improved. The bargain is broken now; in the 1970s, people were building too quickly and heedlessly, and now people built too little and are paralyzed by procedure. The current laws make it as easy to block a wind farm as an oil refinery, so new laws are necessary. These blockages make it slow to construct green infrastructure, and building faster is necessary to avoid a climate catastrophe. No individual law can address this issue; a change in political culture is necessary to meet climate goals.