How Green New Deal is My Valley?

This post for ‘We Need to Talk About Bevan’ was written in part with the dulcet sound of water lapping at its foundations. While I live on the wrong side of Offa’s Dyke for an avowed Bevanite (i.e. not in Wales) water has flown downriver (as it is wont to do) and flooded the town in which I reside.

Environmental catastrophe is one of those areas where reasoned debate at first seems as superfluous as the amount of river that has found itself outside its traditional confines. ‘Something must be done' all agree but the nature of that ‘something’ is where legitimate debate may be found.

As ever there are those that make plaintive pleas for ‘common sense solutions’. I have seldom found sense to be common either in terms of being base or being plentiful. All too often ‘common sense’ is the preferred raiment of the reactionary and the disingenuous. The traditional calls to slash foreign aid in exchange for domestic flood defences may be found in comments sections in the expected quarters – for many there is a decidedly finite percentage of the budget which should be devoted for the alleviation of human misery. In accepting such a premise, they overlook the more just (and indeed lucrative) areas of cracking down on tax avoidance and similar.

Yet even if funds are to be found we are constrained as a society by the economic system in which we find ourselves. Our response is framed in terms of monetary profit and loss. Intriguingly it is those self-same drivers that have contributed to the establishment and exacerbation of the climate crisis. Environmental destruction is not the purpose of a number of industries per se of but it appears for some to be an acceptable by-product. Bobby Kennedy (“Catholic lad done good” as he will forever be deliciously deemed by certain sections of the Irish Catholic diaspora) observed that the USA:

“Have a great gross national product, now soaring beyond $800 Billion a year. But that counts air pollution […] It counts the destruction of the redwoods […] The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children”

In addition to the establishment of appropriate flood defences and even the investment in environmentally friendly industries we must radically alter the fundamental drive of our economy. Not just its ownership (as a good Bevanite I am an enthusiastic advocate of such a change…) but the purpose of that ownership. When framed not just in terms of fiscal gain but societal benefits environment orientated initiatives become not just palatable but urgently apparent. This in turn can be used to reinvigorate those areas where private investment has since shifted away. As Bevan observed regarding industry in his own constituency: “If the social cost of transfer were added […] the economics would work out differently.”.

Now seems the right time to talk about Labour for a Green New Deal (LGND). For clarification I have no affiliation with LGND other than concurring with a number of its aims. LGND goes further than the platitudes often proffered in times of crisis. It is the ‘something’ in ‘something must be done’. Its radicalism lies arguably not in its individual headline aims but in the comprehensive and integrated manner in which they are formulated. LGND embraces a number of key Labour areas including public ownership, employment, internationalism, and of course environmental considerations.

An element of the Labour Green New Deal that finds particular favour with myself is its acknowledgement of the role of Trade Unions in the need to transition an economy. Now is the appropriate time to declare an interest - for the majority of my working life I was employed in the gas industry (although I have now moved on from that sector) in a regulatory capacity (In a future article I may delve into the minutiae of a system where the principle of competition and profit are implemented in relation to the transportation of highly flammable substances…).

In addition to that I am a proud member of GMB which is a union with a substantial membership in the energy sector as a whole and the fossil fuel industry in particular. There are those that believe that due to their membership in such industries it automatically precludes their involvement. This overlooks the key motivating factor behind the unions in question. The driving force for the unions is not the preservation of the industries per se but the welfare of their membership and the democratic values of the union as a whole.

As to the idea that unions representing workers in an industry is equivalent to an uncritical endorsement of that industry, I would gently point to union representation in private companies where the unapologetic aim of said union is the wholesale nationalisation of the industry in question… Trade Union involvement will play a vital role in any transition to a lower carbon economy. It will ensure that the social cost is considered and that democratic accountability maintained.

So as the floodwaters temporarily recede the question is whether it is the much vaunted (very) unseen hand of the market that will keep them at bay or collective endeavour (with municipally sourced sandbags)….