# Red isn't green
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [January 19, 2015, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316 "2015-01-19T22:02:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/21 "2015-01-20T16:36:18Z")
What- no one else ahs ever heard the term “watermelon” used for environmentalists? (Meaning they’re green on the outside, but red on the inside.)
The Left long ago gave up on the idea of convincing people that they could deliver greater prosperity than the Right. They’re now fighting the idea of prosperity itself.
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### Author:  [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/22 "2015-01-20T16:57:44Z")
> [@astorian](#):
>
> What- no one else ahs ever heard the term “watermelon” used for environmentalists? (Meaning they’re green on the outside, but red on the inside.)
Yes, and it (like your other statement) is dead wrong. Most environmentalists are not socialists, and the idea that we somehow need to destroy the economy to fight global warming is a trope pushed by the _right_, not the left - those on the left have very credible models indicating that fighting global warming will actually _improve_ the economy, rather than weaken it.
> [@](#):
>
> The Left long ago gave up on the idea of convincing people that they could deliver greater prosperity than the Right. They’re now fighting the idea of prosperity itself.
Wat
I’m sorry, what has Obama been banging on about non-stop basically since 2010? The economy. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Inequality. Jobs. The economy. Not slowing down the economy. Jobs. Jobs. Health care for workers. Jobs.
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### Author:  [@DoggyDunnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoggyDunnit)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/23 "2015-01-20T19:27:03Z")
Um, y’all do know that “communism” =/= “socialism”, right?
The Soviet Union was “socialist” in the same way Nazi Germany was “socialist”–in that it was not “socialist” at all.
That particular protester is correct–socialism IS the cure. One only needs to look at the stellar environmental records of actual socialist (and “social democratic”) countries–places like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, et cetera–to see that fact.
> [@astorian](#):
>
> The Left long ago gave up on the idea of convincing people that they could deliver greater prosperity than the Right. They’re now fighting the idea of prosperity itself.
I’m sorry, but just because we want prosperity for everyone, rather than just a certain segment of the population, does not mean we “fight the idea of prosperity itself”.
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### Author:  [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/24 "2015-01-20T19:51:04Z")
As alluded to, it depends which “Red” you mean.
Most Green Parties around the world can be characterized as socialist or semi-socialist. They are almost always on the far left of the political spectrum in which ever country they exist.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/25 "2015-01-20T20:47:30Z")
> [@astorian](#):
>
> What- no one else ahs ever heard the term “watermelon” used for environmentalists? (Meaning they’re green on the outside, but red on the inside.)
>
> The Left long ago gave up on the idea of convincing people that they could deliver greater prosperity than the Right. They’re now fighting the idea of prosperity itself.
A gross misconception as the environmentalist from the Yale media climate reported.
And yes, I have heard it before, together with the accusations of fascism by “lord” Monkton and their ilk. I did lost respect for many conservatives when one big poster from the right in the SDMB repeated the false idea that the environmentalists had banned DDT. It is almost a gospel that environmentalist killed millions with malaria for not controlling the mosquitoes but what happened is just that many conservatives choose to ignore evolution.
> **[Evolution and DDT | ScienceBlogs](https://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2007/09/22/evolution-and-ddt)**
>
> Tim Lambert over at Deltoid links to this article, by Aaron Swartz, about the relentless right-wing smear campaign against Rachel Carson. Carson was the author of the 1962 book Silent Spring, where she argued, among other things, that pervasive use...
I have to put those canards in the same bubble that gave us the also false “no-go cities in Europe controlled by Muslims”
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### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/26 "2015-01-20T21:17:32Z")
> [@Squall Winds](#):
>
> The Soviet Union was “socialist” in the same way Nazi Germany was “socialist”–in that it was not “socialist” at all.
Of course, [Hitler was an environmentalist](http://www.ohioswallow.com/book/How+Green+Were+the+Nazis%3F) !!
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### Author:  [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/27 "2015-01-20T21:28:38Z")
[The Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review) described climate change as the biggest market-failure of all time. Under a capitalist system, risks should be identified and then mitigated. Just as a company sacrifices a portion of its profit to buy insurance in order to protect itself from possible devastating events, civilization should be actively investing now to protect itself from huge hits to our future prosperity. Instead we hear arguments equivalent to, “shouldn’t we be sure that this factory will burn down before we waste our money on fire insurance?” It’s not the greens who are being anti-capitalist here.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/28 "2015-01-20T21:45:04Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Once again, buried in all those words in the OP lies the central assumption:
>
> “Naomi Klein recently published a book called This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. She has a decent amount of influence on the left, for better or for worse. The same basic sentiment, that capitalism is inherently unfriendly to the environment, and socialism inherently friendlier, can be seen popping up in this forum with decent frequency as well.”
>
> Emphasis added. I’d like to see a cite for that before we launch off into a debate about a strawman. And lets also keep in mind that the term "socialism’ can vary in meaning widely depending on the context. It means one thing when Americans use it, but something rather different in Europe. Kinda like “liberal”.
Well, I haven’t read [the book](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1451697384/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=60682185672&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11627213297951696035&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_20s7xy3ecr_b), but, according to the bundled review:
> [@](#):
>
> The most important book yet from the author of the international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, a brilliant explanation of why the climate crisis challenges us to abandon the core “free market” ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems.
>
> In short, either we embrace radical change ourselves or radical changes will be visited upon our physical world. The status quo is no longer an option.
>
> In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies. She exposes the ideological desperation of the climate-change deniers, the messianic delusions of the would-be geoengineers, and the tragic defeatism of too many mainstream green initiatives. **And she demonstrates precisely why the market has not—and cannot—fix the climate crisis but will instead make things worse, with ever more extreme and ecologically damaging extraction methods, accompanied by rampant disaster capitalism.**
>
> Klein argues that the changes to our relationship with nature and one another that are required to respond to the climate crisis humanely should not be viewed as grim penance, but rather as a kind of gift—a catalyst to transform broken economic and cultural priorities and to heal long-festering historical wounds. And she documents the inspiring movements that have already begun this process: communities that are not just refusing to be sites of further fossil fuel extraction but are building the next, regeneration-based economies right now.
Is the bolded part a call for “socialism”? Matter of definition. But, she certainly is **right** about it. [New study: To avoid catastrophic climate change, most of the world’s fossil fuels must remain in the ground.](http://www.salon.com/2015/01/07/unburnable_to_avoid_catastrophic_climate_change_most_of_the_worlds_fossil_fuels_must_remain_in_the_ground/) Now, I ask you, in what circumstances can we count on market forces alone to keep that stuff in the ground?
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/29 "2015-01-20T21:49:19Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> I did lost respect for many conservatives when one big poster from the right in the SDMB repeated the false idea that the environmentalists had banned DDT. It is almost a gospel that environmentalist killed millions with malaria for not controlling the mosquitoes but what happened is just that many conservatives choose to ignore evolution.
:rolleyes: Cripes, are they **still** on about [that](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/DDT)?!
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/30 "2015-01-20T21:50:22Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#):
>
> As alluded to, it depends which “Red” you mean.
>
> Most Green Parties around the world can be characterized as socialist or semi-socialist. They are almost always on the far left of the political spectrum in which ever country they exist.
OTOH, Greens are wary of central planning in any form, “decentralization” is one of the Ten Key Values.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/31 "2015-01-20T22:04:00Z")
I guess the OP is off somewhere formulating his killer come-back.
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### Author:  [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/32 "2015-01-20T22:10:40Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> Rolleyes notwithstanding, I’m willing to bet my last nickel that neither the protesters nor Ms. Klein are advocating socialism in the mold of the USSR.
The Bolsheviks advocated for ‘true’ socialism as well, yet they wound up with the USSR anyways.
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### Author:  [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/33 "2015-01-20T22:13:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> OTOH, Greens are wary of central planning in any form, “decentralization” is one of the Ten Key Values.
More than a few reds are also not fond of centralization ;). Anarchists being the obvious ones.
So basically, “Red” has far more varied subgroups than most people would assume at first glance.
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### Author:  [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/34 "2015-01-20T22:54:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> OTOH, Greens are wary of central planning in any form, “decentralization” is one of the Ten Key Values.
Yep. I’m a Green, and what I would like to see are worker cooperatives like [Mondragon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation) become the predominant mode of production. These cooperatives would be democratically owned and managed by the workers within those organizations, as opposed to the centralized bureaucracy of the Soviets.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/35 "2015-01-20T23:00:28Z")
> [@Blalron](#):
>
> Yep. I’m a Green, and what I would like to see are worker cooperatives like [Mondragon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation) become the predominant mode of production. These cooperatives would be democratically owned and managed by the workers within those organizations, as opposed to the centralized bureaucracy of the Soviets.
Hm. Sounds a bit like [the Spanish Revolution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_revolution). Or, the Russian [Soviets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_(council)#Workers.27_Councils) as they were before the October Revolution (i.e., before the Bolsheviks reduced them to instruments of Party rule).
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/36 "2015-01-20T23:03:53Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#):
>
> More than a few reds are also not fond of centralization ;). Anarchists being the obvious ones.
Black is the new red! 😃
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### Author:  [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2015, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/37 "2015-01-20T23:36:35Z")
> [@Blalron](#):
>
> Yep. I’m a Green, and what I would like to see are worker cooperatives like [Mondragon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation) become the predominant mode of production. These cooperatives would be democratically owned and managed by the workers within those organizations, as opposed to the centralized bureaucracy of the Soviets.
But the beautiful thing about a free market economy is that it allows for the existence of socialist/communist/worker-owned corporations. Anyone can try to start something like Mondragon–and the general lack of such cooperatives is a strong sign that they generally aren’t able to compete with profit-driven companies.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/38 "2015-01-21T00:04:16Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#):
>
> Of course, [Hitler was an environmentalist](http://www.ohioswallow.com/book/How+Green+Were+the+Nazis%3F) !!
I dunno . . . I mean, incinerating Jews when they could have been composted . . .
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### Author:  [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2015, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/39 "2015-01-21T00:15:25Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#):
>
> But the beautiful thing about a free market economy is that it allows for the existence of socialist/communist/worker-owned corporations. Anyone can try to start something like Mondragon–and the general lack of such cooperatives is a strong sign that they generally aren’t able to compete with profit-driven companies.
To quote anti-capitalist author David Schweickart :
> [@](#):
>
> “A worker-managed firm lacks an expansionary dynamic. When a capitalist enterprise is successful, the owner can increase her profits by reproducing her organisation on a larger scale. She lacks neither the means nor the motivation to expand. Not so with a worker-managed firm. Even if the workers have the means, they lack the incentive, because enterprise growth would bring in new workers with whom the increased proceeds would have to be shared. Co-operatives, even when prosperous, do not spontaneously grow. But if this is so, then each new co-operative venture (in a capitalist society) requires a new wealthy radical or a new group of affluent radical workers willing to experiment. Because such people doubtless are in short supply, it follows that the absence of a large and growing co-operative movement proves nothing about the viability of worker self-management, nor about the preferences of workers.” [Against Capitalism, p. 239]
That’s why I think we’d need government funding to start worker cooperatives on a massive scale.
Another route would be to require corporations, on an annual basis, to issue new shares of stock that go to an Employee Trust. Let’s say over the course of 20 or 30 years, the Employee Trust would own a majority of the shares in that corporation, making it a de facto cooperative.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/red-isnt-green/710316/40 "2015-01-21T00:37:14Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Once again, buried in all those words in the OP lies the central assumption:
>
> “Naomi Klein recently published a book called This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. She has a decent amount of influence on the left, for better or for worse. The same basic sentiment, that capitalism is inherently unfriendly to the environment, and socialism inherently friendlier, can be seen popping up in this forum with decent frequency as well.”
>
> Emphasis added. I’d like to see a cite for that before we launch off into a debate about a strawman. And lets also keep in mind that the term "socialism’ can vary in meaning widely depending on the context. It means one thing when Americans use it, but something rather different in Europe. Kinda like “liberal”.
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> Well, I haven’t read [the book](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1451697384/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=60682185672&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11627213297951696035&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_20s7xy3ecr_b), but, according to the bundled review:
>
> Is the bolded part a call for “socialism”? Matter of definition. But, she certainly is **right** about it. [New study: To avoid catastrophic climate change, most of the world’s fossil fuels must remain in the ground.](http://www.salon.com/2015/01/07/unburnable_to_avoid_catastrophic_climate_change_most_of_the_worlds_fossil_fuels_must_remain_in_the_ground/) Now, I ask you, in what circumstances can we count on market forces alone to keep that stuff in the ground?
These are both right on. Naomi Klein is a bright lady who’s written a very thoughtful book and the OP completely misses its point. It’s not against capitalism, it’s against unfettered capitalism, and it’s not promoting “socialism” except to the extent analogous to which progressive social programs **in capitalist societies** like the US and UK were enabled in the past by crises analogous to climate change. Things like the New Deal in response to the Great Depression, and postwar programs like universal health care (not in the US, alas), old age security, subsidized housing, funding for the arts, etc. She states that “… as part of the project of getting our emissions down to the levels many scientists recommend, we once again have the chance to advance policies that dramatically improve lives, close the gap between rich and poor, create huge numbers of good jobs, and reinvigorate democracy from the ground up.”
Conversely, the problem with unfettered capitalism is twofold. One is that it endlessly prioritizes economic growth over all else regardless of cost; it pushes for maximum extraction of oil, gas, and coal, deforestation and other blights regardless of air and water pollution and a rapidly deteriorating environment and destabilizing climate. Ironically it then seeks to profit from the crisis itself; Klein cites weather derivatives markets jumping five-fold to over $45 billion on 2006, the profitability of global reinsurance schemes that hit poor countries the hardest. Klein cites companies like Raytheon stating that “Expanded business opportunities are likely to arise as consumer behaviour and needs change in response to climate change”, those being things like more demand for the company’s privatized disaster response services and also “demand for its military products and services as security concerns may arise as results of droughts, floods, and storm events occur as a result of climate change.” Indeed the Pentagon itself expressed exactly the same concerns in a recent report.
Today’s kind of unfettered capitalism wins, she says,
… every time the need for economic growth is used as the excuse for putting off climate action yet again, or for breaking emission reduction commitments already made. It wins when Greeks are told that their only path out of economic crisis is to open up their beautiful seas to high-risk oil and gas drilling. It wins when Canadians are told our only hope of not ending up like Greece is to allow our boreal forests to be flayed so we can access the semisolid bitumen from the Alberta tar sands. It wins when a park in Istanbul is slotted for demolition to make way for yet another shopping mall. It wins when parents in Beijing are told that sending their wheezing kids to school in pollution masks decorated to look like cute cartoon characters is an acceptable price for economic progress. It wins every time we accept that we have only bad choices available to us: austerity or extraction, poisoning or poverty.
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