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

Mon Oct 6 05:10:38 CEST 2008

I have to admit that I didn't even bother reading it but it reminds me
of people who argue against things like low energy light bulbs on the
basis that reduces demand for energy, thus reducing prices, thus
encouraging more fuel to be burnt, thus causing more climate change.

Although from what I gather from your responses their logic isn't even
that good.

I know the main guy who started mute though, so might forward this on to him :)

He's actually got some pretty cool ideas himself (which the mute site
tries to enable, and which my colleague Joerg helped build), see for
example the attached project proposal for networked distribution.

Josef.

2008/10/5 Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>:
> 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
>>> Skype/Gizmo/Gtalk  : hexayurt
>>> Icelandic Cell     : (+354) 869-4605
>>> "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] 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.
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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/
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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/
>

-- 
Josef Davies-Coates
07974 88 88 95
http://uniteddiversity.com
Together We Have Everything
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: MUTE_nd_planning_design_v10.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 62357 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20081006/aa61cb0d/attachment-0001.pdf 