Beyond 'Green Shopping'

Scientific studies abound on the devastating realities of climate chaos, an imminent "peak" of world oil supplies and a grim future for clean water, forests, fisheries and soil. The response of most politicians and corporations is that new technologies and "green consumerism" will solve the problems: Innovate and shop to save the planet. The Bush Administration is showering the technologies with money: subsidies to develop "clean coal" via carbon sequestration, proposed subsidies for "clean" nuclear energy and--the big one--massive subsidies to global agribusiness to promote biofuels. Each is deeply flawed.

"Clean coal" depends on technologies that optimists say are two decades away, if ever. But it's not only emissions from coal that are problematic. There's also the mining. In Appalachia, more than 500 mountaintops have been blown off to uncover the coal inside, with the toxic waste dumped into local rivers. In what used to be glorious, forest-covered West Virginia, you have a poverty-stricken population suffering from toxic poisoning. The Bush Administration issued a regulation in late August that allows mountaintop removal to expand. As for "clean" nuclear power, probably the plan is to sequester the radioactive waste, together with sequestered carbon, in the poorest regions.

And regarding the mega-panacea, biofuels, Bush says he wants to see 35 billion gallons of auto fuel from bio-agriculture within ten years. He's pushing subsidies nearly equal to those funding the Iraq War. As for the opposition, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and most other presidential candidates are falling right in line. And Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is supporting Bush's plan to subsidize the likes of Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto and Cargill. These companies no longer advertise how they're "feeding a hungry world"; now they're addressing climate change: converting US farms to corn for ethanol, not food. They're also building agrofuel plantations in poor and indigenous areas of South America, Asia and Africa, displacing thousands of farmers.

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