Amidst a frenzy of other green technology and caring capitalism public relations projects appearing all over the mainstream media this week, the Apple computers/media website proudly displayed the above.
http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/warwick.ac.uk.210032...
Rt Hon 'Lord Drayson', minister of state for science and innovation was at the launch declaring how important it was that this car addressed the concerns of 'todays youth' about environmental destruction. Quite how a formula three steering wheel made from carrot pulp fibre ('the stuff left when you make a juice') in any way does this was omitted.
The many stories about green technology promoted by mass media have one thing in common: the idea that a 'solution' to our titanic problem is one that involves economic growth and business as usual (i.e. profits) for the corporations. Organisations like Apple and the guardian etc. have a vested interests in keeping the idea alive that their guys, the industrialists, can come up with solutions but why to so many people in the resistance movements countenance this bullshit? What we need is not workplace resistance but a controlled, gradual, total abandonment of it!
Re: University Of Warwick Unveils 'Green Racing Car'
"What we need is not workplace resistance but a controlled, gradual, total abandonment of it!"
I was with you until this point. That sort of deep green politics that isnt living in the real world. Organised workers are extremely powerful. If we dont get them on side, then we wont be able to bring the changes that we urgently need (just look at the grangemouth strike a few months back). The people who are in the best position to force through the changes we need, are organised workers - so we need workplace resistance.
Most workers would be well up for reductions in working hours from 40 to 16 so long as a good standard of living was maintained, and most would be happy to reskill and retrain for green jobs. But if we dont offer any options apart from rhetoric about the "abolition of work" then they will be against green ideas.
It is all very well to say "we need to abandon work", but you dont offer any credible kind of way of getting from where we are now, to a green society. Perhaps you just want to maintain your 'moral high-ground', and 'i told you so' attitude toward the climate catastrophe? Its probably easier to keep your deep green politics pure and aloof, than to actually get involved in trying to save the life on it this planet from mass extinctions.
The problem is, as you say, the vested interests of big corporations. A democratic planned economy would be much more responsive to the kinds of changes we need to make. And to bring this about we definitely need radical workplace organisations (and community organisations, direct action, civil disobedience).
Iv got a good film i would recommend - its called "rocking the foundations" - really inspiring. It about construction workers in the 70's who started off fighting against the bosses for better wages and working conditions, but as they gained confidence and power, they fought to save rainforest, urban green spaces, and for aborigonal and womens rights. This film will be shown at the Climate Camp Scotland - Boiling Over event in glasgow next month.