The Co-optation of Copenhagen

tr.v. co-opt·ed

1. To take or assume for one’s own use; appropriate: co-opted the criticism by embracing it.

2. To neutralize or win over (an independent minority, for example) through assimilation into an established group or culture.

I want to start off this post by highlighting a term that I think can apply to the tactics of the Obama administration and their effective subversion of real solutions to environmental problems.

By no means is co-optation a new model, unique to Obama’s presidency– in fact, its probably the primary mode though which modern capitalism acquires new markets, while absorbing its less militant critics– But the way neoliberalism has attempted to hijack the climate movement is especially dangerous; not only for the Earth but also for the potential this crisis has of spurring a powerful social movement.

A sustainable future brought to you by Coca-Cola Inc. and catchy campaign slogans...

A shot of the cute corporate sponsored PR campaign being waged by the city of Copenhagen is an almost laughable example of how the greenwashing (environmental co-optation) of corporate influence can make a blatantly rigged solution like cap-and-trade seem like an unprecedented expression of progress: Brought to you by human ingenuity and the power of the free-market.

In  late 2008, as incredulous Americans got their first taste of a especially catastrophic market bubble burst, you could feel a certain wake-up call being sounded to the Western superconsumer that there was something very unstable that was dangerously intrinsic to the way global capitalism had secured its international markets.

There seemed to be a genuine moment of clarity where the notion of unlimited, unchecked growth became patently absurd and its evidence was staring us in the face. It took the form of bank bailouts, AIG bonuses, investor fraud, and speedy returns to record profits in the financial sector (which had been freshly reinvigorated with emergency taxpayer money) For many young people, an internalized faith in the performance of modern globalized capitalism was broken for the first time. Generations  brought up under the impression that there was some divine sanctity in the incentivisation of greed had to come to terms with a massive economic meltdown that could actually pose a threat to the ever proverbial American Dream.

It was my hope that this new, mainstream, critical narrative would be applied to the crisis as presented by Climate Change. What shouldn’t have been surprising is the way in which large segments of the modern environmental movement were seduced into thinking that the only way to solve the Climate Crisis would be to open up new speculative markets in carbon trading while granting offsets to polluting industries, because like Wall St. financial institutions, they are too big to fail. Its either Carbon Trading or nothing, so we’re told.

Never mind that the United States came to the bargaining table with embarrassingly low emission reduction targets. Never mind the fact that the United States and a couple other wealthy countries drafted an offensive treaty behind closed doors and tried to call it a day. Never mind that a report was leaked basically admitting that the US has no interest in keeping temperature rise below catastrophic levels of warming. While scientists are calling for a return to 350 ppm of atmospheric Co2 concentrations, the US concedes that levels may rise to 770 ppm after the Copenhagen Accords are enacted…if they are enacted… a potentially enacted non-binding agreement written by the US and other corporate states. This is the best our political and economic institutions will allow.

Never mind all that. To think that the outcome would have been anything but a sham with touchy delegates playing a game of emission chicken while an entire continent pleads for their survival would be naive on the part of climate activists. Unfortunately, misplaced hope is often a symptom of naivete. The fact that the mechanisms being proposed by developed countries to combat climate change are based in a fundamentally unsustainable system, namely capitalist driven production, ought to spark disgust in anyone wishing to play any role in preserving a human friendly biosphere.

Hopefully, environmentally minded folks will take COP15 with a grain of salt and realize that its not situational–its systemic, and when power becomes institutionalized to the point where it would sacrifice the future lives of millions for bottom-line profits and short-term security then it becomes time for confrontation–not co-optation.

You’re Here!

Hey all. What I hope to do here is open up a piece of the internet to a thoughtful discussion of the challenges presented to our generation in a way that is very critical, both systemically and superficially. I want this to be a place for us to compile our grievances as we sludge our way though a backwards world where we are first and foremost consumers and commodities.

As much as I have railed on blogs in the past, (I still don’t care about your boring day or how you burned your tongue on your morning coffee) the medium that they present is indispensable and I want to be able to look back in 40 years and know that I took advantage of every instrument of agitation at my disposal.

The philosophy behind my posts here will primarily be one of resistance to modern capitalism, corporate power, and environmental destruction. But it isn’t enough just to resist, so I also hope to build on a philosophy of liberation whereby we can reclaim spaces, both physical and intellectual, to broadcast a more equitable and participatory vision of the future;  A bubble of ideas brought together with such force and conviction that they can’t help but be compelled outward to the world at large where they might find a sympathetic ear.

So if anybody is interested in contributing then I implore you to sign up and make posts that illuminate what it means to be a youth in the second decade of the second millennium.  Whether its about climate change/energy, being a student in debt, congressional legislation, sustainability, culture, tactics for resisting and bringing about change or any other issue that you know is getting perverted by the corporate media and congress.

I also plan to use this site to report on events that I find to be significant both historically and personally in order to shed light on what I believe to be a pivotal moment in the history of our state, country and world. I want to take the progressive blogosphere a step further and provide a platform for the disaffected Obama generation who are pummeled by a culture of doublespeak and hypocrisy.

We know there is something very wrong when a country with a war budget larger than most GDPs sends its head of state to receive a Peace Prize. There is something very scary about a congress and administration that would rather seek out “market-based solutions” to Climate Change than take the bold action that is needed to prevent catastrophic warming.  When the economy tanks and 10 percent of Americans are unemployed, they talking-heads scream deficit and propose cuts to social programs that are directly helping those in need. Education in all its forms is being commodified, privatized and streamlined to a point where Universities are looking more and more like factories pumping out corporate work drones than the emancipatory beacons of critical thinking that a democratic society needs. This is where our system is tending and unless we make a conscious and deliberate break from it we can be sure that it will continue on its impersonal crusade to maximize the bottom line at the expense of the environment, workers, students and the general pollution writ large.

I’m pretty tech inept when it comes to this kind of stuff so bear with me (assuming anyone is reading) as I get familiar with this new mode of communication. So otherwise, be a sport and check it out once in a while and expect upcoming posts on U.S. climate change inaction and the people centered movement resisting the corporate centered solution as touted by Obama and the U.S. Congress. (And Wall St!)