Coal baron Sen. Joe Manchin’s decision to block his own party’s clean energy program represents a huge setback in the fight against climate breakdown. This is especially true when you consider that the United States is the only major country without a national climate policy. Of course, this sad state of affairs is not merely due to the likes of Manchin, but to the overall reactionary nature of the country’s political and economic landscape, as Noam Chomsky highlights in this exclusive interview for Truthout. In fact, the dark forces in the United States can stifle change even when the planet’s future is at stake. But Chomsky argues that, as in the past, organized activism — engagement on the ground — can offer a way out even from the most exceedingly onerous conditions.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus in MIT’s Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He is also Laureate Professor of Linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Head in the Program in Environment and Social Justice. Chomsky is a world-renowned scholar and a public intellectual who is regarded as a national and global treasure by millions. He has published more 150 books in linguistics and political and social thought. His most recent books are The Secrets of Words(with Andrea Moro; MIT Press 2022); The Withdrawal of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and the Fragility U.S. Power(with Vijay Prashad; The New Press 2022); The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Social Change (with C. J. Polychroniou; Haymarket Books 2021).
Keep in touch
Never miss the news or analysis you care about.
C.J. C.J. Polychroniou: The United States is, according to all accounts, doing a terrible job in addressing the climate crisis. The U.S. ranks in the Environmental Performance Index, which was created by Columbia and Yale universities. 43rd among 180 nationson performance indicators related to climate change, environment health, and ecosystem viability. In fact, the U.S. is the only major economy without a national climate change policy, and Biden’s push for a clean energy program is all but dead, thanks to the determination of a single senator to protect his own portfolio investment over the future of the planet. On top of that, the Supreme Court has restricted the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. will not achieve its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% from 2005 levels by 2030. The question that is most important to me is: Why is the U.S. so bad at addressing the climate crisis? There must be more to this story than the influence of the fossil fuel industries.
Noam Chomsky: There are many more. In the Supreme Court EPA ruling, some indications as to what is going on were provided. First, the court had no reason to consider this case. It was a 2015 proposal that was never implemented, and is no longer in force. Presumably the court went out of its way to select the case as part of a long-term campaign to undermine the “administrative state” — that is, to undermine public capacity to restrict rapacious and in this case destructive private power. Or to put it more vividly, the capacity to restrict what Adam Smith called the “Vile Maxim”: “All for ourselves and nothing for other people,” the maxim that seems to guide “the masters of mankind … in every age of the world.”
In his day, the masters were merchants and manufacturers of England. Now, they are private institutions that have become increasingly concentrated during the neoliberal attack against the global populace. Not only are the fossil fuel companies among them, but other economic stratosphere members will also benefit from the dismantling the administrative state and a significant intensification of the neoliberal-class war. That’s what we are likely to see in the days ahead if the GOP, with its extreme subordination to private wealth and corporate power, extends its already substantial hold over the society.
It will be a temporary victory, however. There are good reasons the business world has repeatedly called for regulation and other forms state intervention in the past to protect itself against the ravages from uncontrolled markets. The not-very-hidden principle underlying the Vile Maxim is that you, the “unpeople” of the world, are to be thrown into the market to find some way to survive. We, the masters, are entitled to a lot of protection from the state.
The need for a “visible hand” is vastly more urgent now as the world hurtles towards destruction of organized human life, with the narrow window for survival being closed by the masters and their servants in the political system, basking in the applause of the most enthusiastic proponents of the Vile Maxim.
That leaves unanswered the deeper question: Why is the U.S. so “uniquely bad”? It hasn’t always been so. That’s important to remember. What is happening today is chillingly reminiscent of the 1930s, when the global state capitalist system was collapsing, with many “morbid symptoms.” Gramsci’s phrase, writing in Mussolini’s prison cells. The U.S. was a beacon to hope back then. The U.S. was helping to open the door to social democracy while Europe was falling into fascist darkness. This was due to the influence of a militant labor movement and a sympathetic administration.
While there was no doubt that a lot of the business world was opposed to these developments and waited patiently for the chance to restore the business rule that has always been so strong in the U.S. for historical reasons we have already discussed. The conflicts were put to the background by World War II. When the war ended, the campaign to dismantle social democratic heresies was undertaken with vigor, but didn’t become triumphant until the neoliberal years, aided by neoliberal ideologues fresh from their service in Pinochet’s vicious dictatorship.
The fate of Biden’s energy program carries lessons as well. Although the program was far from sufficient, it was a major step above anything that had preceded it, thanks to the Sanders movement and major activist campaigns. The final blow was indeed delivered by coal baron Joe Manchin, who had been chipping away at the program steadily and finally declared that he’d accept nothing meaningful.
Manchin gave his reasons: His concern over the deficit as well as inflation. Hardly credible. On the deficit, one way to address it is by reversing the radically regressive tax cuts of the neoliberal years, culminating in Trump’s one legislative achievement: the Donor Relief Act of 2017It is, as Joseph Stiglitz described it, a huge gift for the very wealthy and corporate sector, which in turn, stabs everyone else in their backs. For the GOP, that is a red line that can’t be touched (along with funding the IRS to enable it catch wealthy tax cheats). Manchin continues to follow. No taxes for the rich. One of the great achievements of neoliberal policies must be preserved: Billionaires now pay a lower tax rate than workers for the first time in a century.
What about inflation? There’s no credible argument that relates Biden’s climate program to the worldwide inflation. And if Manchin had concerns about this, he’d be calling for a windfall tax on corporate profits, cutting the bloated Pentagon budget, reversing the sharply regressive tax changes of the neoliberal years, and lots more.
Most Democrats are deeply dissatisfied with Biden’s overall approach to the climate crisis, according to a Pew Research Center reportThis information was released last week. This is especially true among young Americans. It leaves hope that the course of the nation can change in the future. In any case, couldn’t the case be made that the Democrats’ sweeping plan to tackle the climate crisis was destined to fail if they tried to accomplish this through backroom deals rather than taking the cause directly to people and communities across the land?
This and other failures in his legislative program are unfairly attributed to Biden. The primary reason for this failure is Mitch McConnell’s strategy: Block any legislation that could help the country, blame the Democrats for the harsh outcomes, retake power, and increase the harm to the population while enriching the constituency that matters. It works.
A popular-based party dedicated to the common good would have organized across the country, at grassroots. That’s not the modern Democratic Party. Would it have made any difference at all? It’s hard to say. It could have, for instance, affected the Republican voting base that is now under the control of their denialist leadership, and the divine Trump. Remember the polls that showed that respondents were able to choose from 29 issues that are important for the next election. moderate Republicans picked climate change as 28thThe rest were 29th. That’s not easy to break through.
It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible. It’s useful to recall the Yellow Vest slogan: You privileged people are worried about the end of the world, we’re worried about the end of the month. When people are concerned about how to survive in their precarious lives, there’s not much use telling them that scientists, who they distrust anyway, are predicting dire consequences down the road.
This message should never be lost. People care about the grandchildren. It should also be accompanied by a demonstration of how you could have a better future and better job by transforming from the destruction of the environment that sustains your life to creating one. Right now. I can refer again to Bob Pollin’s outstanding work, both scrupulous analysis and direct engagement on the ground.
President Joe Biden stated that he will use his presidential power to address the climate emergency. Although every president since Washington has used executive power in different ways, it is not clear what Biden intends to do with climate policy. For example, he could issue an executive decree to stop the approval of any new fossil fuel infrastructure projects or ban federal fossil fuel leasing or drilling. He has been pushing for more oil production since the beginning and has approved more permits for oil-and-gas leasing on federal lands in 2021 that Trump did in his first year as president. Who is he kidding about using executive orders to address the climate emergency?
There is an excuse for not approving more production permits and permits. It was ordered by the right-wing judiciary. You can debate whether or not the excuse is valid. The reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock even closer to midnight by reversing the limited efforts to move toward sustainable energy. One can debate the extent to which that decision was made. The range of executive orders is limited, and the court might again resort to its “major questions” doctrine to accelerate the race to catastrophe, as it did in West Virginia v. EPA.
We can only draw one conclusion with fair confidence. Humanity is headed for a dark fate unless a mass movement is created that is strong enough to break through all the barriers.
The Pew Research Center report mentioned earlier shows that a majority of Americans support planting a trillion trees in order to absorb carbon and giving tax credit to businesses who develop technology to capture and store carbon. This confirms past Pew surveys that have shown similar public views about climate policy. This suggests that the Green New Deal vision is still not mainstream. What has gone wrong if this is true? What does this say about the possibility of implementing the Global Green New Deal, first launched in 2009 by the United Nations Environmental Project?
The two favored policies have a common feature: no reduction in fossil fuel use — or reduction in profits for the fossil fuel conglomerate (the producers, the banks, the corporations otherwise involved in poisoning the atmosphere). It is much more difficult to convey that we must act now to face the imminent challenge, which is right before our eyes these scorching hot days. The more we delay, the more impossible the obstacles will be, the more suffering and cost. We can see what’s gone wrong. There’s no secret about how to steer the Titanic away from the icebergs. There’s still time.
I’ll reiterate something so obvious it shouldn’t even have to be articulated. This must be a shared effort across all countries. It is crucial that all great powers work together, no matter how difficult it may be at the moment. It is concern for the most vulnerable and suffering victims. Although they are not responsible for the crisis created by rich people in rich societies, they will be punished more severely than any other. It is concern for the species which enrich the earth, but are being destroyed due to our ignorance and cruelty towards our common home.
