How do we know when a climate leader is authentic or when they are just running interference for a corrupt status quo, pretending to care for people and the planet?
Climate celebrities like Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Al Gore and Michael Mann show up empty handed, time after time. Are they the Climate Misleadership Class (CMC)?
A group of people have positioned themselves as thought leaders on climate change. I used to like them and have learned a lot from them. But I now consider them to be a massive distraction.
The people I’m talking about include Al Gore, Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein and Michael Mann.
I can’t know their intentions. But I can watch their actions and listen to their rhetoric. A disturbing picture emerges.
Nobody is perfect. But these people appear to be verbose and militant crusaders for a corrupt status quo.
I call them the Climate Misleadership Class (CMC).
Instead of taking a risk and confronting the powerful, the CMC rides a few safe hobby horses like solar power, wind power, electric vehicles and LED light bulbs.
Because of their silence on issues where they should speak out, they appear to be aligned with the world’s biggest pillagers of the planet and the biggest feeders at the public trough, including those who profit from war, mining, mass incarceration, deforestation, big agriculture, and a domineering worldwide empire.
The CMC are standing idly by as these high carbon pillagers go unchallenged.
The specific focus of this article is WAR AND MILITARISM. I had to narrow it down.
Here is what we need from our climate “leaders.”
Oppose war
We need our climate leaders to oppose war, almost categorically. Not that a country cannot defend its borders or defend its citizens. But US militarism is not about defense. It is about offense. It is about aggression.
War starts with an idea
We need our climate leaders to understand that war starts with an idea, usually a bad idea. War starts with the idea that we are the indispensable nation; that the world would spin out of control if not for our incessant meddling in every corner of the globe.
War starts with the idea that we are under threat. These threats are always exaggerated. It’s the Hitler of the Month Club. Every world leader with the US Empire’s target on his back is said to be just like Hitler.
War starts with the idea that we are morally superior and that we are defending freedom and democracy all over the world.
And war depends on the idea that politicians and talking heads in the media are telling us the truth about our enemies, not an endless stream of lies.
American Exceptionalism
We need climate leaders who can see through the myth of American Exceptionalism, the idea that the United States has a special role to play in the world.
We are not just another sovereign country obligated to respect the sovereignty of other countries. We are the leader of the free world. We have special privileges.
In truth, the US carries on endless wars of aggression, for example, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. The body counts in these wars number in the millions. But we are the good guys. We are the liberators.
But the US overwhelmingly has supported dictators and authoritarian regimes around the world, for example Suharto in Indonesia, Pinochet in Chile and the royal family of Saudi Arabia.
We need climate leaders who are not fooled by the lie of American exceptionalism.
Military bases
We need climate leaders who question the need for the US to maintain 800 foreign military bases, far more than the rest of the world combined.
What are the carbon emissions associated with this “empire of bases”?
Why is the CMC (the Climate Misleadership Class) not talking about this?
The purpose of these bases is to support rapid deployment of military force anywhere in the world. The purpose is not defense. They are “defending” corporate interests. That’s not defense. That is offense, almost always.
Threat inflation. Create a bogeyman for profit
Here’s how you make money in America. You scare the holy shit out of people. Then you sell them weapons. You find a bogeyman, someone who is too big for his britches and is sitting atop coveted resources, like oil.
Then you report the news in such a way as to make the bogeyman look really threatening.
The better you do this job, the more fear you create, the more weapons you can sell.
That’s the Hitler of the Month Club. There is always some new Hitler we are supposed to fear and loathe and violently oppose. And we need to bring their country “democracy.”
The part where they exaggerate the threat is called “threat inflation.”
This describes the Cold War. The Soviets were always weaker than the US. They routinely expressed interest in de-escalation and arms control. After World War II, their country was decimated. They would like to have spent their money on something other than an arms race that they could not win.
But the arms race was very profitable for American corporations, like Boeing and General Electric. So we had an arms race, a red scare, the McCarthy hearings and the ever-present threat of nuclear Armageddon. We still have the ominous threat of nuclear war, and for no good reason.
Why are our climate leaders not saying, “may cooler heads prevail”?
The media and politicians also use threat inflation to manufacture consent for the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on Iraq and the war on Libya.
We need climate leaders who are not fooled by all this.
Where are they?
Half our “Science” spending goes to the military
We need climate leaders who speak out against the waste of our scientific resources on warfare. According to Clifford D. Conner in The Tragedy of American Science, half of our scientific funding is dedicated to militarism.
Where are the climate leaders who are standing against this waste and corruption?
Department of Peace
We need our climate leaders to join with former Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich in calling for a Department of Peace.
Why not? What if we worked as hard at making peace as we do at making war? Peace is an art. Diplomacy is an art. Negotiation is an art. Peace takes time and effort. And it takes respect. You have to respect the sovereignty of other countries.
That’s what’s missing. The US does not respect the sovereignty of other countries. If we respected the sovereignty of other countries, we would not practice endless wars of aggression and endless military coups.
Why are our climate leaders not demanding that we respect the sovereignty of other countries?
What causes war?
We need our climate leaders to understand what causes war. What causes war is a domineering, extractive empire.
According to Chalmers Johnson, in his book Dismantling the Empire: “The United States possesses less than 5 percent of global population but consumes about one-quarter of all global resources, including petroleum. Our empire exists so we can exploit a much greater share of the world’s wealth than we are entitled to.”
If we extract more than our fair share of wealth, it makes you wonder where poverty comes from.
Are we spreading freedom and democracy?
We need our climate leaders to see through the myth that the United States is promoting “Freedom and Democracy” in the world. If we were promoting Freedom and Democracy, we would not have such cozy relationships with so many autocratic regimes around the world. If we were promoting Freedom and Democracy, we would not have deposed democratically elected leaders and imposed repressive dictatorships as we did in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1965), Chile (1973) and Honduras (2011), just to name a few.
In his book The New Climate War, climatologist Michael Mann mentions Russia 90 times. All of the talk about Russia is disparaging and full of bravado. The reader is supposed to experience loathing for Russia, Russians, Russian bots and (of course) Vladimir Putin.
Bill McKibben goes out of his way to argue that Russia is a “petro state,” as if the US is not a petro state. We are the number one producer of oil. We are one of the leading consumers of oil. We use our military to control the oil rich Middle East. But we are not a petro state.
What’s with all the moral outrage, and what purpose does it serve?
Shouldn’t cooler heads prevail?
We need an honest moral assessment of our country.
When the CMC (the Climate Misleadership Class) promotes narratives that say Russia is the bad guy on the world stage, do they sincerely believe that Russia’s misdeeds outweigh those of the United States?
In what way? Over what time period? In which decade? On what continent?
Why do the CMC ignore the history of their own country? Why do they not speak out against the domineering and violent foreign policy of the country in which they have a vote and a voice?
The Charter of the United Nations
The Charter of the United Nations is the founding document of the United Nations. It is an agreement which every nation must sign in order to be admitted to the United Nations. It is also a treaty that the United States has signed. As such, it is part of the law of the land, because our Constitution explicitly states that when we sign a treaty, the provisions of that treaty become the law of the land.
The Charter of the United Nations provides, in part: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
The United States violates this treaty every day and has done so since 1945, when the treaty was signed. We use force and the threat of force against the territorial integrity and the political independence of other countries all the time.
Every invasion and every coup is a violation of the UN Charter. Every threat of force is a violation of the UN Charter.
We need climate leaders who understand that we are in continuous violation of international law and our own Constitution and that, therefore, we have no moral authority to wag our finger at other countries for not following the rules.
No moral authority
How is our country supposed to be a climate leader on the world stage if we are in constant violation of international law? How are we supposed to have moral authority to tell other countries that they should play by the rules?
We are also in violation of this treaty when we arm one side or the other in a “civil” war.
And we are in violation of this treaty when we train “security” forces, i.e., death squads in Latin American countries. We have done this on a large scale and continue to do so, as part of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the School of the Americas, renamed by its critics “School of the Assassins.”
We are also in violation of this treaty when we threaten the use of nuclear weapons, as when Donald Trump threatened North Korea and Hillary Clinton threatened Iran.
So … who are we kidding? Should climate leaders not demand that we follow our international commitments, first, before blaming “climate deniers” and “petro states.”
Wars of offense versus wars of defense
We need climate leaders who understand the difference between a war of offense and a war of defense. One is illegal. The other is absolutely illegal.
At the interpersonal level, you are allowed to defend yourself. You have a right of self defense. But if you are the aggressor and you kill someone, you are a murderer.
At the international level, you are allowed to defend your citizens and your borders. But if you wage war and you are not defending yourself, you are waging a war of aggression. It is the international analog to murder. In fact it is mass murder.
These are harsh words. But the question is whether it’s true and whether it matters. The next question is whether it informs our thinking, or our vote. And the next question is whether we can tolerate climate leaders who position themselves as humanitarians, while lying--to themselves and others--about the biggest humanitarian issues.
Make peace a priority
We need climate leaders who can imagine a world in which the United States stops waging wars of aggression.
We need climate leaders who make peace a priority in their activism, their journalism and in their advocacy of “The Science.”
In a functioning democracy, I wouldn’t have to say this. In a functioning democracy, this wouldn’t be such a strange or unusual idea.
But alas …
Latin America
We need climate leaders who understand US history as it relates to Latin America, and are willing to call for an end to wars of aggression, such as those waged against Panama (1989), Nicaragua (1980s) and Guatemala (1954), just to name a few.
End embargo of Cuba
We need climate leaders who are willing to call for an end to “sanctions” (i.e., embargoes). They are fundamentally violent and repressive. This includes the 60 year embargo of Cuba, as well as ongoing sanctions against Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Every year for 31 years, the United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to call for an end to the US embargo on Cuba. Of 193 member nations, the United States and Israel vote alone against the entire rest of the world.
We need climate leaders who recognize that these sanctions are inhumane and antidemocratic and serve no valid purpose.
Pentagon budget
We need climate leaders who will call for a dramatic reduction in the Pentagon budget, which currently stands at $842 billion. To compute the true annual cost of war, you have to add nuclear weapons, Veterans Affairs and a portion of the interest on the national debt.
That amounts to about $1.5 trillion, by most estimates. Divide $1.5 trillion by 331 million Americans and you get a cost of war of $4,531 per person. That’s $18,000 per year for a family of four!
Where is the CMC when it comes to speaking out against this obscene waste and corruption?
Naomi Klein, a rare exception
To be fair, Naomi Klein, in her 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine, offered an appropriately scathing critique of US involvement in the war in Iraq. She exposed endless corruption on the part of war contractors. She described how the military carefully guarded the Ministry of Oil, while allowing priceless antiquities to be stolen from museums and sold on the private market. And she talked about the doctrine of “shock and awe” which allows “disaster capitalists” to take advantage of the victims of war.
But that was 2007. Her 2014 book This Changes Everything, offers only the most tepid critiques of the war machine. For example, she asserts that we would have a lot of money to spend on the energy transition if we only took 25% from the military spending of the top ten military spenders.
Now there’s a fearless critique!
The military will never be clean, green or renewable
We need climate leaders who understand that there will never be a carbon neutral bomb or a net zero fighter jet or a clean and renewable aircraft carrier.
But instead of critiquing the Pentagon, climate godfather Bill McKibben, gave the Pentagon a “tongue bath” in this article:
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/06/27/the-pentagons-outsized-part-in-the-climate-fight/
In the article, McKibben claimed that the carbon emissions of the Pentagon are not that big of a deal, compared with American consumers.
And besides, writes McKibben, “the Pentagon, when it speaks frankly, has the potential to reach Americans who won’t listen to scientists.”
So the Pentagon has a valuable role to play as PR for the climate movement.
But, I don’t buy the premise. The premise is that “climate deniers” are the problem, not the Pentagon or the liberal elites who would rather alienate working class voters instead of offering them something, like healthcare or a living wage, in exchange for their support on climate policies.
It’s a partisan blame game. It’s partisan because it’s the liberal elites casting shade on working class conservatives, i.e, climate deniers. That’s the narrative, anyway.
Instead of playing the blame game, why not give working class conservatives, moderates and non voters something to vote FOR?
The Middle East
We need climate leaders who will call for an end to US domination of the Middle East. Why not let the countries of the Middle East control their own natural resources? Let Iraq and Libya have their own form of government, free of U.S. meddling, not to mention a deadly invasion. And let them sell their oil on the world market.
Do we believe in free markets, or don’t we?
Let the countries of the Middle East nationalize their oil industry, if they want to. At least let them use oil revenues to benefit their own people. That turns out to be a cardinal sin. The US has never allowed other countries to develop on their own terms or use their natural resources to benefit their own people.
Before being invaded, Iraq and Libya each had done a decent job of creating a middle class and providing healthcare, education and infrastructure such as roads, sanitation and clean water. All that went away with our invasions.
If you don’t like their rulers, okay. But did the people of Iraq prefer a US invasion to Saddam Hussein? And did the people of Libya prefer a US invasion to Muammar Gaddafi? Does our distaste for a leader give us the right to destroy a country???
Why does the CMC (Climate Misleadership Class) not constantly remind our leaders of these criminal invasions? They were not mistakes. They were crimes. And they had the support of leading Democrats, who are supposed to be slightly better than Republicans on climate.
Whatever …
I’ll take your word for it …
Lesser of two evils. Yea. Right!
Historical literacy
We need climate leaders who are more than barely literate as to our history in Latin America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. If they were more than barely literate, what would they do? Would they support an ethical foreign policy and oppose an unethical foreign policy?
This is uncertain. It depends on whether the CMC are ethical people.
Ethics
Do we have climate leaders who are ethical? Well, that depends. Do they ever stand up for basic ethics? Or are they just calculating their carbon numbers?
Are they pressuring our government, our corporations and nonprofits to do the right thing? Or are they just obsessing on their favorite gadgets and arguing about which is the best techno-fix for climate change?
Bill McKibben is a Methodist Sunday School teacher. I’d like to ask him whether US foreign policy follows the Golden Rule. And should it?
Do we do unto other countries as we would have them do unto us? Isn’t that more important than whether the Pentagon uses LED light bulbs, or whether the Pentagon “believes in climate change”?
Conclusion
It was “painful” to limit this article only to war and militarism. There is so much more to talk about that the CMC (Climate Misleadership Class) is not talking about.
I promise to include these issues in future articles:
Why does the CMC not talk about industrial agriculture, which is an all-out assault on our soils, causing them to emit prodigious amounts of carbon. This could change easily, with any leadership.
Why does the CMC not talk about trade deals (mistakenly called “free trade agreements”) which are bad for labor, the environment and local economies, all of which should be of concern to the CMC.
Why does the CMC not talk about mining of metals, which is carbon intensive and ecologically catastrophic and is the seedy underbelly of the push for “renewable energy.”
Why does the CMC not talk about labor markets and labor rights which, as designed, tend to maximize both worker exploitation and carbon emissions. Think of the carbon footprint of people who have to work long hours, drive to multiple jobs and eat fast food on the fly. If the CMC wants votes, here they are. The working class has all the votes. Go get them! But does the CMC want to court the labor vote, or is that against their religion?
Why does the CMC not talk about the rapid growth of prisons, policing and surveillance, which demand ever greater quantities of steel, concrete and high tech equipment, and which are hungry for carbon intensive mining products such as rare earth metals?
Why does the CMC not talk about the war on drugs, which creates violence, victimizes average people and serves as a cash cow for criminals who happen to wear military and police uniforms, e.g., Oliver North of Iran Contra fame. You haven’t heard half of the Iran-Contra story, unless you’ve read Dark Alliance by Gary Webb.
We could go on. The question is this: Are the CMC just yanking our chain? Are they just posing as reformers? Are they there to make us think that something is being done for people and the planet? Are they just there to defend business as usual?
You want to give people the benefit of the doubt. I want to give the CMC the benefit of the doubt. But at some point they have to stand up for people and the planet, at some risk to their careers and their social status.
By comparison, it takes no integrity and no courage to stand up for profitable corporate products, like solar panels, wind turbines, LED light bulbs and electric vehicles.
Great piece. The bigger challenge is to understand from whence the information structure for this kind of thinking flows. How does The Matrix work on this? And what are the resonances? Here is the big one -- war is the result, fundamentally, of dichotomous thinking -- single solution processing, with the intent of power and control. Those mindsets flow to CO2 as a single dial control for climate, attached to whatever actions are required to ostensibly achieve it. No metacognition, no multiple factors. Once we get to the point where we realize the problem is actually of psychosocial development, we can start making progress. Hell, once we actually realize that there is an evolutionary scale of psychosocial development, that would be a start.
I'm a space alien that's found your messaging. It's pretty good. There is an underlying informational structure -- none of this just comes from nowhere.
Powerful article. I totally agree. Thank you!