[p2p-research] does green capitalism manufacture artificial scarcity ...

[Michel Bauwens]

seems to belong to the hypercritical tendency in which Mute often falls ....

Michel

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 1:49 AM, Chris Watkins
<chriswaterguy at appropedia.org>wrote:

> I'm with Michel and Vinay on this one. I don't see any insights in this
> article.
>
> Chris
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 03:33, Vinay Gupta <hexayurt at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Enron-Lovins model.
>> Ahem.
>>
>> That, right there (and I helped edit two of Lovins' books) is the most
>> retarded thing I've ever read.
>>
>> Good find!
>>
>> Vinay
>>
>>
>> --
>> Vinay Gupta
>> Free Science and Engineering in the Global Public Interest
>>
>> http://hexayurt.com - free/open next generation human sheltering
>> http://hexayurt.com/plan - the whole systems, big picture vision
>>
>> Gizmo Project VOIP : (USA) 775-743-1851
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>>
>> "If it doesn't fit, force it."
>>
>> On Oct 4, 2008, at 9:56 AM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>
>> Dear friends:
>>
>> What to think of this:
>> http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-09-02-heartfield-en.html
>>
>> It's basically a critique of higher energy prices, I find the critique
>> very weird, and would appreciate any commentary,
>>
>> Not building more power plants, distributing solar and wind energy
>> locally, and hiking up prices is all seen as a plot to manufacture
>> artificial scarcity by 'green capitalists'
>>
>> I also don't see the author offering any alternative,
>>
>> Excerpt:
>>
>>
>> The old-fashioned market incentive for energy efficiency is the savings
>> people make on their bills when they insulate their homes, or turn down the
>> air conditioning. Businesses, too, have every interest in keeping overheads
>> low by using the energy they pay for wisely. Normal prices would give
>> customers the incentive to reduce their electricity consumption.
>>
>> But amazingly the Enron-Lovins model of restricting supply is the one that
>> is being adopted around the world. Utility companies are rewarding consumers
>> for reducing their consumption from central power stations and encouraging
>> domestic-sited energy generation, through windmills and solar panels.
>> Playing on Californians' distrust of the power companies, the Environmental
>> Protection Agency is planning to add solar power to one million new homes –
>> paid for by another surcharge on utility bills.[8]<http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-09-02-heartfield-en.html#footNoteNUM8>In Britain, the government is introducing regulations to make all new homes
>> carbon-neutral. The current goal of carbon-neutral homes reverses the
>> division of labour that saw specialised energy producers distribute
>> electricity, turning it into an eighteenth century cottage industry. The
>> simple economic lesson that mass production avoids reproduction of effort
>> has been lost. Nothing could be more wasteful, or more certain to create new
>> scarcity.
>>
>> California's "negawatt revolution" is only one of the more extreme
>> versions of the way that green priorities work in tandem with profiting by
>> manufacturing scarcity. South African radical Dominic Tweedie argues that
>> recent electricity blackouts there happened because of "a campaign to impose
>> artificial scarcity". The failure to build power stations to meet the
>> growing demand from South Africa's black townships was not recognised as a
>> problem by activists there because they bought into the green prejudice that
>> social aspirations could be met by redistribution alone, at the expense of
>> increased output. Now supply companies are hiking up prices to the people
>> who can least afford them.
>>
>> --
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>>
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
>
> Appropedia.org - Sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.
>
> blogs.appropedia.org
>
> I like this: five.sentenc.es
>



-- 
The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
alternatives.

Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at
http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p

Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html
BEST VIDEO ON P2P:
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=4549818267592301968&hl=en-AU

KEEP UP TO DATE through our Delicious tags at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
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