De leider van de Britse socialisten, Jeremy Corbyn, pleitte onlangs voor de nationalisatie van de Britse energiesector om een klimaatcatastrofe af te wenden. Ondanks het feit dat de ineenstorting van de planeconomie in de voormalige Sovjet Unie een puinhoop heeft achtergelaten, bleef nationalisatie een altijd sluimerende ambitie bij Links. Maar gelukkig is er nu de nakende klimaatcatastrofe die een welkom voorwendsel biedt om deze lang gekoesterde wens weer nieuw leven in te blazen.

Onder de titel, ‘Jeremy Corbyn promises to nationalise Britain’s energy companies in order to avoid ‘climate catastrophe’, schreef Adam Bienkov voor ‘Business Insider’:

  • Labour leader promises to nationalise Britain’s entire energy network.
  • Jeremy Corbyn says its necessary to avert global “climate catastrophe.”
  • Recent polling shows widespread support for nationalising public utilities.
  • However, business leaders remain solidly opposed to Labour’s agenda.

Jeremy Corbyn will nationalise all of Britain’s energy companies in order to avoid the “climate catastrophe” threatened by global warming, the Labour leader said today.

Corbyn used his appearance at his party’s “alternative models of ownership” conference in central London, to promise that he will buy up Britain’s entire energy network.

“The challenge of climate change requires us to radically shift the way we organise our economy,” he said.

“In 1945, elected to govern a country ravaged by six years of war, the great Attlee Labour Government knew that the only way to rebuild our economy was through a decisive turn to collective action. Necessary action to help avert climate catastrophe requires us to be at least as radical.”

The Labour leader said his government would be part of a “wave of change” in favour of nationalising public utilities across the world. ….

However, business leaders today dismissed Corbyn’s announcement as “missing the point.”

“Labour’s calls for nationalisation continue to miss the point,” Neil Carberry, CBI Managing Director for People and Infrastructure, said,

“At a time when the UK must be seen more than ever as a great place to invest and create jobs, these proposals would simply wind the clock back on our economy.

“If Labour turns its back on good collaboration between the government and the private sector, public services, infrastructure and taxpayers will ultimately pay the price.”

The Conservatives said Labour’s plans would cost taxpayers hard, citing research by the conservative think tank the Centre for Policy Studies.

“Independent reports show Labour’s renationalisation plan will cost taxpayers billions and lead to worse services for people,” Liz Truss, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said.

“Labour would put politicians in charge of running everything from the phone lines to electricity supply, meaning people have nowhere to turn when things go wrong. That didn’t work last time and won’t work this time.”

Zie verder hier.

Corbyn’s pleidooi past in een bredere beweging van de milieubevlogenen, die ecosocialisme met grootscheepse wereldwijde inkomensherverdeling voorstaan, ten einde binnen de grenzen van de draagkracht van de planeet te blijven.

Onder de titel, Environmentalists Push Global Wealth Redistribution’, schreef ‘Wesley J. Smith voor ‘The Corner’:

The environmental movement wants to make the rich West much poorer so that the destitute can become richer. Rather than improve the plight of the developing world through such crucial projects as constructing an Africa-wide electrical grid, environmentalists say significant progress will have to wait until the improvements can be sustainable–meaning that billions will have to remain mired in poverty to “save the earth.”

Having ruled out substantial growth for our destitute brothers and sisters, we are told that we will have to substantially redistribute the wealth of the West to the poor, so that the entire globe can live in a substantially lower (for us) but relatively equal standard of living.

In other words, forget creating a world with freedom of opportunity, but tilt at Utopian windmills to force equal outcomes: To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability. That’s certainly the message of a new paper published in Nature.

After identifying the criteria for a “good life,” the authors push redistributionism on a global scale.

From, “A Good Life for All Within Planetary Boundaries:”

We apply a top-down approach that distributes shares of each planetary boundary among nations based on current population (a per capita biophysical boundary approach).

While the environmental justice literature emphasizes the need for differentiated responsibilities in practice, a per capita approach allows us to explore what quality of life could be universally achieved if resources were distributed equally.

It is an important question to address given that it is often claimed that all people could live well if only the rich consumed less, so that the poor could consume more.

This means limits, limits, limits!

The theory of human needs developed by the above authors … visualizes sustainability in terms of a doughnut-shaped space where resource use is high enough to meet people’s basic needs (the inner boundary), but not so high as to transgress planetary boundaries (the outer boundary). …

They talk democracy. But they don’t mean it, as they prescribe an international technocratic tyranny–couched in passive language–that would take from the successful to give to those in need in order to prevent their increased use of natural resources: If all people are to lead a good life within planetary boundaries, then our results suggest that provisioning systems must be fundamentally restructured to enable basic needs to be met at a much lower level of resource use.

How are you going to do that, fellows? Confiscation of wealth? Increased socialism? Destruction of democracy for those countries not willing to strip their walls bare? In so many words, all of the above ….

It could also involve the pursuit of ‘degrowth’ in wealthy nations and the shift towards alternative economic models such as a steady-state economy. We must also destroy the evil fossil fuel companies and redistribute, redistribute, redistribute!

Remaining within the 2 °C climate change boundary is a particular challenge, requiring the majority of energy generation to be decarbonized by 2050. While the cost of wind and solar energy is falling dramatically, which could lead to a major shift in infrastructure the fossil fuel industry remains remarkably resilient, subsidized, and still capable of tipping us over the limit.

Moreover, improvements in resource efficiency are unlikely to be enough on their own, in part because more efficient technologies tend to lower costs, freeing up money that is inevitably spent on additional consumption (the so-called rebound effect). For this reason, improvements in social provisioning are also required, in particular to reduce income inequality and enhance social support.

The authors conclude that we just can’t continue to thrive, much less free our brothers and sisters mired in poverty to reach Western levels of prosperity:

Overall, our findings suggest that the pursuit of universal human development, which is the ambition of the SDGs, has the potential to undermine the Earth-system processes upon which development ultimately depends.

But this does not need to be the case. A more hopeful scenario would see the SDGs shift the agenda away from growth towards an economic model where the goal is sustainable and equitable human well-being. ….

However, if all people are to lead a good life within planetary boundaries, then the level of resource use associated with meeting basic needs must be dramatically reduced.

The goal clearly is a technocracy that will undermine freedom, constrain opportunity, not truly benefit the poor, and materially harm societies that have moved beyond the struggle for survival. No thank you!

This paper–published in the world’s most prestigious science journal!–illustrates why we can never allow these people to be in charge. As I always say, if you want to see what will next go wrong in society, just read the professional journals.

Aldus Wesley J. Smith.

Lees verder hier.

Een dergelijk plan vereist een ‘Big Brother’, een wereldregering, het verlies van nationale soevereiniteit en het verlies van persoonlijke vrijheid – allemaal zonder precedent in de menselijke geschiedenis. Een afschrikwekkende dystopie!

 

De voormalige Tsjechische president, Václav Klaus zei het al:

Environmentalism and its most extreme version, global warming alarmism, asks for an almost unprecedented expansion of government intrusion and intervention into our lives and of government control over us.