FIGHT the FIRE: Green New Deals and Global Climate Jobs
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Jonathan Neale FIGHT THE FIRE Green New Deals and Global Climate Jobs Jonathan Neale Published by Resistance Books, London The Ecologist, Devon Alternative Information and Development Centre, Cape Town International Institute for Research and Education, Amsterdam Advance Praise for Fight the Fire “ Jonathan Neale has unusual gifts for writing science, technology and politics, ideas and practical plans in ways everyone can understand. He used these gifts in One million climate jobs – a project for trade unionists, activists and political workers in the UK. In Fight the Fire: Green New Deals and Global Climate Jobs, Jonathan Neale has developed them for the world.” – Barbara Harriss-White, Professor of Development Studies, University of Oxford “ Jonathan Neale has produced a magnificent book, readable and accessible – an analytical tour de force and a grounded, forceful call for practical action. Central to any green new deal, with a caring economy at its core, must be the commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions rapidly. New jobs to do that are needed – climate jobs – for those losing their old high-carbon jobs, and for many others besides. It will require a reinvigorated public sector. Looking at both the global North and South, Neale spells out, sector by sector, exactly how we can do it. Inspiring, life-affirming and, above all, practical.” – Richard Kuper, Red Green Labour “ Neale’s writing provides a compelling argument and guide for climate justice activists. The force of its logic, ideas and inspiration is unassailable and many will keep this one by the bedside for years to come.” – Rehad Desai, Director, Miners Shot Down “ 'I want a concrete plan, not just nice words', said Greta Thunberg. Jonathan Neale knows the meaning of concrete when it comes to climate action. With brutal realism and die-hard optimism, he explains why climate jobs must be at the centre of Green New Deals. No book, no plan, no Netflix documentary can reassure us as we face the fire of global warming. Yet the words of Jonathan Neale are powerful, detailed and honest. Whether the chapter is about chickens or hydrogen, this monumental book clears away obstacles in the necessary process of building mass movements for climate jobs.” – Andreas Ytterstad, Chair, Concerned Scientists Norway “ This is a stirring call to action that is as practical as it is bold and radical. With detailed arguments made in plain prose, longtime organizer, writer and climate justice activist Jonathan Neale puts forth how we can cool the planet by stoking the heat and organization of working people. A how-to guide for building the kind of mass movement for climate jobs we need to avoid climate breakdown. Read it, share it, organize by it.” – Chris Williams, author Ecology and Socialism “ Climate change affects us all – and yet it took a sixteen-year-old girl to make the world listen. Jonathan Neale´s extraordinary book cuts through the smoke screens to explain what global warming is, and how it affects us all in one way or another. Until now the debate has sometimes been deliberately obscured in an effort to blind us to the realities. Jonathan has cleared the smoke away to allow us to see and make sense of what is happening. In a language anyone can understand. But this book is not a prediction of a coming apocalypse. It is a handbook on how we can stop it.” – Mike Gonzalez, author of The Politics of Water FIGHT THE FIRE " This book is one of the most accessible, rich and inviting interventions on the climate question today. It provides great insights and convincing arguments as to why green new deals and global climate jobs should be a priority. Neale covers a wide breadth of topics and does a great job at situating the climate crisis within a global system that clearly needs to change. The main strength of this book is that it does not only raise the alarm, but it tells us exactly why the situation is alarming; and it does not simply call for a change, but it also tells us how to do it.” – Rima Majed, Professor of Sociology, American University of Beirut “ Jonathan Neale’s latest book is his most important and impressive. Beautifully and simply written against the background of impending climate collapse and the inability of those who hold immense economic and political power to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Neale presents a clear and penetrating analysis of what is at stake and how the struggle for climate jobs lies at the heart of a working class programme to prevent runaway climate change. Working class activists, in both the Global South and North, have a powerful and easily readable aid with which to convince their constituencies that there are real and viable solutions to capitalist induced climate change and the larger ecological crisis threading life on our planet. This book must be read, discussed and its proposals fought for. A masterpiece.” – Brian Ashley, editor of Amandla " This is a timely book. At a time when the world is still reeling from the ravages of Covid-19 and the massive economic dislocation that it engendered, now is the perfect time to reinvigorate the campaign for climate jobs, or, as in the case of the Philippines, to launch it. And this book is just what any climate jobs campaigner would need. It provides the big picture, the science and the politics of climate change, as well as the nuts and bolts of what such a campaign would look like. More than that, it is replete with lessons that the author has gained from a life spent fighting in the trenches of various campaigns. – Josua Mata, Secretary-General, SENTRO union federation, Philippines. Other books by Jonathan Neale Nonfiction Memoirs of a Callous Picket The Cutlass and the Lash Tigers of the Snow You are G8, We are 6 Billion A People’s History of the Vietnam War What’s Wrong with America? Stop Global Warming – Change the World Novels The Laughter of Heroes Mutineers For Young People Lost at Sea Himalaya © Jonathan Neale, 2021 ISBN 978-0-902869-54-7 Published January 2021 Resistance Books, London The Ecologist, Devon Alternative Information and Development Centre, Cape Town International Institute for Research and Education, Amsterdam Fight the Fire is issue no. 69 of the IIRE Notebooks for Study and Research. Design and typeset by Adam Di Chiara For Nancy Lindisfarne Contents Advance Praise For Fight The Fire 1 Foreword 5 PART ONE: THE TASK BEFORE US 7 Climate Jobs And Green New Deals 19 The Science 35 Emissions 47 PART TWO: REWIRE THE WORLD 49 Fossil Fuel Emissions 53 Wind And Solar Power 63 Balancing Power And Backup Technologies 73 Supergrids 85 Renewables And The Market 93 PART THREE: TRANSPORT, INDUSTRY AND BUILDINGS 95 Transport 113 Industry 121 Buildings 127 Hydrogen? 133 Leaks, Waste And F-Gases 139 PART FOUR: FORESTS AND FARMS 141 Fertilizer, Manure And Rice 155 Livestock And Methane 173 Tear Down The Walls 179 Forests 189 The Mirage Of Net Zero 199 Total Emission Reductions 203 PART FIVE: CONFUSION AND COVID 205 The Politics Of Confusion 219 The Lessons Of Covid 223 PART SIX: SOLIDARITY SOUTH AND NORTH 225 The Centrality Of The Global South 243 Extractive Industries 253 Money 271 Solidarity And The Treatment Action Campaign 279 The Middle East And North Africa 285 PART SEVEN: FUTURES 287 Climate Breakdown 299 The Struggle Is A River 309 Acknowledgments 313 References 332 About The Author 333 About The Publishers FOREWORD y father was a climate activist to the end. Ken Montague was a boomer, born among the bomb craters of the East End of London in what would now be considered abject poverty. MThe experience instilled in him a desire to take care of those around him. And when I say, ‘those around him’ I mean all of humanity. His concern was global and universal. When I became a teenage environmentalist, he was concerned this might be a distraction from fighting for social justice. Nonetheless, he was among the first to fully comprehend the threat of climate breakdown, and, once he had, he dedicated much of his remaining life trying to find a solution. Hundreds of people came to his funeral, and fittingly there were several events to mark his passing. At one such event one of his many friends and activist allies stood up to speak. And for a few minutes he said nothing at all. We allowed the sadness, the grief, to grow into the silence. He held a space for all of us to feel, and did not fill an awkward silence with platitudes or his own reminiscences. When he spoke he came exactly to the point. He told those gathered there on that day about why climate activism was important to my father, and why my father had been important to the climate movement. He read the room. That man was Jonathan Neale. We have entered an unprecedented time in human history. Pick up any book from the shelves today about the environment and there will be page after page about climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse, 1 Foreword the harm of pollution and pesticides. Our forests are being ravaged, our oceans are turning to acid and filled with poison. These are important books. We need to understand the threats that we now face, the urgency of change. But we have been making this same case for 50 years - indeed this book marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of The Ecologist. The argument is settled and the results are in. We need now to focus on solutions. And this is where Jonathan has once again shown his remarkable ability to read the room, to allow us to feel, and to know exactly what needs to be said.