Forces of Production, Climate Change and Canadian Fossil Capitalism PDF Download

Author: Matthew Anthony Thomas Dow
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This historically and critically informed dissertation investigates the question why Canada has become one of the worlds leaders in promoting fossil fuels through its unconventional hydrocarbon industry in spite of the science and growing awareness of climate change. Using a critical historical political economy approach that encompasses both ecological or biophysical scientific realities and historical materialism, I examine this contradictory developmental trajectory as embedded in both the historical structures of everyday life and within Canadian and the wider global political economy. This dissertation argues that Canadas current situation should be understood in a broader context as a morbid symptom that is embedded within the current global organic and leadership crises, since current leadership appears to support the contradiction of supporting carbon-based globalized social reproduction and preventing climate change. In doing so, this dissertation critiques both fields of international and Canadian political economy for largely sidestepping the importance of energy and energy systems in the production and reproduction of the global political economy. I show how growing energy demand, the peaking of conventional oil, potential energy insecurities, and a debt-based monetary system perpetuates and is dependent on unlimited growth. Moreover, I argue that the Canadian state and economy has become increasingly locked-in by disciplinary neoliberalism and the new constitutionalism which are reforms, policies and laws that entrench capitalist social reproduction and make it more difficult to alter capitalist patterns of energy-intensive development. As a result, the current world order and global political economy is organized into a vicious cycle of path dependency whereby production and social reproduction require evermore fossil fuels. This could potentially be the largest paradox in human history as climate science suggests that humanity should be attempting to limit the production and consumption of greenhouse gases. I conclude by attempting to create a new pathways and objectives forward for social forces of resistance in current webs of power to form a post-modern prince movement in Canada that would seek to work collectively in rebuilding a new world towards decolonialization, promoting and establishing alternative modes of living and development that will replace the current fossil fuel-based dependency, monetary-debt system, mass consumption, and unlimited growth in Canada.

Author: Nicolas Graham
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004444106
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
In Forces of Production, Climate Change and Canadian Fossil Capitalism, Nicolas Graham offers a reinterpretation of the concept of forces of production from an ecological standpoint and analyzes the fettering of “green productive forces” in the deepening climate crisis.

Author: Ian W.H. Parry
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484345193
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 27

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Book Description
The pan-Canadian approach to carbon pricing, announced in October 2016, ensures that carbon pricing applies throughout Canada in 2018, with increasing stringency over time to reduce emissions. Canadian provinces and territories have the flexibility to either implement an explicit price-based system—with a minimum price of CAN $10 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2018, increasing to CAN $50 per tonne by 2022—or an equivalently scaled emissions trading system. This paper discusses the rationale for, and design of, the price floor requirement; its (provincial-level) environmental, fiscal, and economic welfare impacts; monitoring issues; and (national-level) incidence. The general conclusion is that the welfare costs and implementation issues are manageable, and pricing provides significant new revenues. A challenge is that the floor price by itself appears well short of what will be needed by 2030 for Canada’s Paris Agreement pledge.

Author: Tim Di Muzio
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1783480998
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
As fossil fuels deplete, what happens to capitalist political economies they support? This book examines a new theory for understanding energy, social reproduction and capitalism.

Author: Tom Rand
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781770415232
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A call for the Left and Right -- the business community and environmentalists, bankers and activists -- to join together, reclaim capitalism, and force profits to align with the planet A warming climate and a general distrust of Wall Street has opened a new cultural divide: anti-market critics from Naomi Klein to the Pope target capitalism itself as a root cause of climate change, while neoconservatives who diminish the climate threat are in favor of market fundamentalism. Rand argues that both sides in this emerging cultural war are ill-equipped to provide solutions to the climate crisis, and each is remarkably na ve in their view of capitalism. On one hand, we cannot possibly transition off fossil fuels without the financial might and entrepreneurial talent market forces alone can unlock. On the other, without radical changes to the way markets operate, capitalism will take us right off the climate cliff. Rejecting the old Left/Right ideologies, Rand develops a more pragmatic view capable of delivering practical solutions to this critical problem. A renewed capitalism harnessed to the task is the only way we might replace fossil fuels fast enough to mitigate severe climate risk. If we leave our dogma at the door, Rand argues, we might just build an economy that survives the century.

Author: William K. Carroll
Publisher: Athabasca University Press
ISBN: 1771992891
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 526

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Book Description
Rapidly rising carbon emissions from the intense development of Western Canada’s fossil fuels continue to aggravate the global climate emergency and destabilize democratic structures. The urgency of the situation demands not only scholarly understanding, but effective action. Regime of Obstruction aims to make visible the complex connections between corporate power and the extraction and use of carbon energy. Edited by William Carroll, this rigorous collection presents research findings from the first three years of the seven-year, SSHRC-funded partnership, the Corporate Mapping Project. Anchored in sociological and political theory, this comprehensive volume provides hard data and empirical research that traces the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry through economics, politics, media, and higher education. Contributors demonstrate how corporations secure popular consent, and coopt, disorganize, or marginalize dissenting perspectives to position the fossil fuel industry as a national public good. They also investigate the difficult position of Indigenous communities who, while suffering the worst environmental and health impacts from carbon extraction, must fight for their land or participate in fossil capitalism to secure income and jobs. The volume concludes with a look at emergent forms of activism and resistance, spurred by the fact that a just energy transition is still feasible. This book provides essential context to the climate crisis and will transform discussions of energy democracy. Contributions by Laurie Adkin, Angele Alook, Clifford Atleo, Emilia Belliveau-Thompson, John Bermingham, Paul Bowles, Gwendolyn Blue, Shannon Daub, Jessica Dempsey, Emily Eaton, Chuka Ejeckam, Simon Enoch, Nick Graham, Shane Gunster, Mark Hudson, Jouke Huizer, Ian Hussey, Emma Jackson, Michael Lang, James Lawson, Marc Lee, Fiona MacPhail, Alicia Massie, Kevin McCartney, Bob Neubauer, Eric Pineault, Lise Margaux Rajewicz, James Rowe, JP Sapinsky, Karena Shaw, and Zoe Yunker.

Author: Naomi Klein
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451697384
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
With strong first-hand reporting and an original, provocative thesis, Naomi Klein returns with this book on how the climate crisis must spur transformational political change

Author: Benedetta Brevini
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319578766
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
This volume examines the role of communication in contributing to and contesting the current climate crisis. There is now widespread agreement that even if increases in carbon emissions are kept to the current international target the climate crisis will continue to intensify. This book brings together, for the first time, state-of-the-art research with activists’ interventions to place debate around climate crisis within the wider conversation about the changing relations between communications and contemporary capitalism. Contributors include; Naomi Klein, Michael Mann, Alan Rusbridger, Vincent Mosco, Jodi Dean, and leading figures in Greenpeace and 350.org.

Author: Robert MacNeil
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
ISBN: 177363223X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
Thirty years ago, Canada was a climate leader, designing policy to curb rising emissions and demanding the same of other countries. But in the intervening decades, Canada has become more of a climate villain, rejecting global attempts to slow climate change and ignoring ever-increasing emissions at home. How did Canada go from climate leader to climate villain? In Thirty Years of Failure, Robert MacNeil examines Canada’s changing climate policy in meticulous detail and argues that the failure of this policy is due to a perfect storm of interrelated and mutually reinforcing cultural, political and economic factors — all of which have made a functional and effective national climate strategy impossible. But as MacNeil reveals, the factors preventing a sensible, sustainable climate policy in Canada are also the keys to change, and he offers readers an understanding of the strategies and policies required to decarbonize the Canadian economy and make Canada a global leader on climate change once again.

Author: L. Hunter Lovins
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1429966653
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Believe in climate change. Or don't. It doesn't matter. But you'd better understand this: the best route to rebuilding our economy, our cities, and our job markets, as well as assuring national security, is doing precisely what you would do if you were scared to death about climate change. Whether you're the head of a household or the CEO of a multinational corporation, embracing efficiency, innovation, renewables, carbon markets, and new technologies is the smartest decision you can make. It's the most profitable, too. And, oh yes—you'll help save the planet. In Climate Capitalism, L. Hunter Lovins, coauthor of the bestselling Natural Capitalism, and the sustainability expert Boyd Cohen prove that the future of capitalism in a recession-riddled, carbon-constrained world will be built on innovations that cutting-edge leaders are bringing to the market today. These companies are creating jobs and driving innovation. Climate Capitalism delivers hundreds of indepth case studies of international corporations, small businesses, NGOs, and municipalities to prove that energy efficiency and renewable resources are already driving prosperity. While highlighting business opportunities across a range of sectors—including energy, construction, transportation, and agriculture technologies—Lovins and Cohen also show why the ex–CIA director Jim Woolsey drives a solar-powered plugin hybrid vehicle. His bumper sticker says it all: "Osama bin Laden hates my car." Corporate executives, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, and concerned citizens alike will find profitable ideas within these pages. In ten information-packed chapters, Climate Capitalism gives tangible examples of early adopters across the globe who see that the low-carbon economy leads to increased profits and economic growth. It offers a clear and concise road map to the new energy economy and a cooler planet.