Editor’s note: This commentary is by Paul Fleckenstein, a socialist and environmental activist from Burlington.
[T]here’s an unprecedented chasm between the defensive inaction of governments and the transformation to the zero net carbon emissions society and the planet need.
Last year’s Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change report called for a transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions at a pace and scale with “no documented historic precedent.” Brilliantly, youth and the Sunrise Movement organized school strikes. Extinction Rebellion led disrupting protests in London that forced Parliament to declare a climate emergency. Young activists interrupted Vermont’s do-nothing Legislature.
The proposed Green New Deal advances key questions about goals and strategies. It’s now possible to link up Medicare for All, the rights to housing, income, jobs and unions, to mass transportation and renewable energy. U.S. militarism, increased public ownership, and the problem of perpetual economic growth on finite planet also need to be addressed. Still, the Green New Deal raises ambitions on the scale and scope needed. As climate change acts as an accelerant on nearly every struggle, social conflict, and injustice, we need wide ranging participation in defining what the Green New Deal looks like.
Here are several propositions for climate strategy in Vermont.
Tax the rich. In an era where the number of billionaires who could fit comfortably in a Tesla (along with their chauffeur) holds more combined wealth than 50% of people in the U.S., progressive taxation and wealth redistribution is the popular and necessary way to fund a renewable energy transition.
Are carbon taxes a good strategy? They are the preferred option for business because they don’t change production patterns or threaten profits and corporate power. But there is also the question of whether they unite or divide the working class majority around climate change policies. Virtually no one I work with believes that state government would ever turn a regressive tax into policies where ordinary workers came out ahead. The mass “yellow vest protests” in France against President Macron’s fuel tax (sold as a green tax to curb carbon emissions) and neo-liberal economic policies helped me understand this.
Learn the lessons. We have to learn from the failed campaign for single payer health care in Vermont. The Democrats, reneging on election promises, ditched the plan because it was disruptive to business. The impressive statewide health care campaign won popular support, but militant lobbying is not the same thing as power. Politicians make pledges to get elected, but within the confines of capitalist parties will do little if it conflicts with what is best for business. Unless they are forced to act.
Organize for real power. The alternative to collective begging, is to disrupt business as usual. In 2018, West Virginia teachers rocked the country with a nine-day “unauthorized” and technically illegal strike that netted salary gains for all public sector workers. After years of backward movement and lobbying failures with a Democratic government, the teachers won against a newly elected Republican regime. Plus, it helped organize and build the power of unionized teachers. It also focused attention on the Democratic-orchestrated corporate tax cuts that drained hundreds of millions each year from the state treasury. Vermont labor is debating this strategic shift.
What do we do now?
• The Sept. 20 international climate strike is not just for children and students. If millions of workers join, it will be a decisive day of climate action that begins to tap into our class power to force governments to act. Climate and union activist Jonathan Neale provides an orientation to the necessity of strike action and how it can be successful here. We can begin now, raising and discussing the possibilities for public and private sector strikes, both with and without unions.
• We also need a new set of policy demands for the government, state and national, to make immediate reductions in carbon emissions. For starters, hefty taxes on the wealthy in Vermont, making up for the hundreds of million in lost revenues due to federal tax cuts, to generate funding for efficiency and conservation programs, and developing the green infrastructure necessary for significant reductions in carbon emissions.
• There are also the simple $15/hr now and paid family leave demands that the Vermont Democratic legislature just failed to take seriously. A just transition to an ecological society requires winning these demands—whether from the government, or unions directly from employers. In either case, we need to think about the how collective action and striking can succeed when voting is inadequate.
• A ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure should be state policy.
These could be a good start and help catalyze larger struggle for the society that we need. In the months ahead it is key to take action and to define what the Green New Deal should look like, and what are the strategies to win.
