Union for Radical Political Economics

Economic Crisis: Radical Analysis and Radical Responses

This conference in Brooklyn, NY, next weekend will have a couple workshops on climate-related topics, including an environmental justice/climate justice panel that should prove interesting. I’m not sure how radical any of these people actually are, but I guess we’ll find out. At least there is nothing on the schedule about how to capitalize on new carbon markets…

(My question for you, David Harvey, is what you think of China’s command approach to addressing environmental change. China has recently been publicly praised for making impressive strides in beginning to clean up its coal plants. It has been able to do so because of its willingness to simply come up with strict policies and demand enforcement, even if the latter proves difficult and partial. Given the scale of the actual problems we face, is holding on to an anti-statist perspective radical or just naive? Can we praise China’s efforts on reducing emissions? Or are our hands tied by its human rights abuses, the amazingly destructive policies it pursues in Africa, its geopolitical maneuvering and its willingness to sustain domestic environmental destruction?)

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