Climate Prosperity: Why Marx was wrong and Mother Nature is right

Marc A. Weiss

(This article was published in the May/June 2009 issue of Tikkun Magazine.) 

     During the 1840s, two young German scholars, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, applied George Hegel’s dialectical philosophy of history to economics and politics. They envisioned modern history in three distinct phases:

 Phase 1    Economy: agricultural feudalism and urban mercantilism
Governance: monarchy or dictatorship

 Phase 2    Economy: industrial capitalism
Governance: monarchy or dictatorship, with limited experiments in democracy

 Phase 3    Economy: industrial socialism/communism
Governance: proletarian dictatorship

      While Marx and Engels later strongly supported European Social Democratic political parties and movements, they never modified their basic historical framework. They could not envision in 1848 how democratic capitalism would provide unprecedented human freedom, civil rights, and economic opportunities for millions of people worldwide by 2009. Once people taste the fruits of liberty, they never want to return to living with tyranny. 

    This one simple explanation, more than any other factor, accounts for the dramatic decline of communist and socialist ideologies during the past three decades, as I discovered while working in Prague after the Velvet Revolution. 

    It later turned out, as we now know, that there is a big problem with contemporary capitalism, namely the massive and inefficient utilization of a wide variety of natural resources both for industrial production and for human consumption. 

    Resource depletion and environmental challenges were generally ignored until the second half of the twentieth century. Only a few earlier commentators such as the poet William Blake raised concerns about industrialization (Blake called nineteenth-century British textile factories “dark Satanic mills”). It took until the 1960s for rapidly accelerating physical damage, diminishing supplies, and rising costs to finally place the issue of sustainability on the global policy agenda. Climate change is really just the tip of the iceberg in that all natural resources—land, water, and materials—are becoming increasingly scarce, expensive, and dangerous to continue using so excessively and wastefully. 

     Fortunately it is not too late to create an even higher standard of living for every person and community throughout the world, by shifting from resource-wasting capitalism to resource-saving capitalism. In the twenty-first century, the only way to get richer is by becoming greener, and the only way to earn more money is by using fewer resources and reusing more. In other words, the global economy can significantly enhance prosperity and quality of life for people everywhere by treating Mother Nature as our good friend and one of our most precious assets, rather than as our enemy to be exploited and conquered. 

     The main challenge is for each of us to acknowledge the ancient wisdom of two essential values: 1) new is not always better than old; and 2) more is not always better than less.

     Global Urban Development is coordinating Climate Prosperity, whose core belief is that “innovation, efficiency, and conservation in the use and reuse of all natural and human resources is the best way to increase jobs, incomes, productivity, and competitiveness.” The project’s main purpose is to creatively use business sustainability concepts taken from Paul Hawken, Amory and Hunter Lovins, Peter Senge, Karl-Henrik Robert, William McDonough, Daniel Esty, and the McKinsey Global Institute, as applied by companies such as GE, IBM, Toyota, IKEA, DuPont, Google, Nike, and Apple.

      This model has three key elements:

 1)    Green Savings—reducing waste and cutting costs;

 2)    Green Opportunities—expanding jobs and businesses by raising revenues and increasing market share;

 3)    Green Talent—investing in fundamental assets including technology, infrastructure, and most importantly, modern entrepreneurial and workforce skills, because people are now the world’s most vital economic resource. 

      Through state, regional, and local Climate Prosperity Strategies, places like Silicon Valley and the State of Delaware are now using the three-part business sustainability model to promote economic development that saves money, creates jobs, raises incomes, and keeps us all safe from environmental harm. This summer the International Economic Development Council will publish the Climate Prosperity Handbook, describing the various strategies and explaining how to develop and implement such approaches most effectively. 

    Currently there is talk of a Global Climate Prosperity Agreement, with developed countries committing to invest one trillion dollars in developing countries over the next decade to build renewable energy and clean technologies, enabling living standards to rise and poverty to be eliminated through sustainable innovation and resource efficiency. These investments will generate substantial economic and employment growth for every nation throughout the world. 

    The bottom line is that Marx and Engels were wrong, because the real three-phase historical dialectic is as follows:

 Phase 1    Pre-industrial sustainability

 Phase 2    Resource-wasting industrialization

 Phase 3    Innovative, efficient, sustainable, inclusive, democratic, resource-saving industrialism.

       Now that we can envision a healthier, more peaceful, and prosperous future in harmony with Mother Nature, let’s all thank her for showing us the one and only path that can definitely ensure our grandchildren will thrive.

 (Dr. Marc A. Weiss is Chairman and CEO of Global Urban Development and Chair of the Climate Prosperity Alliance. He served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration, and was a Professor of Urban Development and Planning at Columbia University.) 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reviving the Economy through Climate Prosperity 

Marc A. Weiss

  (This newspaper column is nationally syndicated by Citiwire, and was published on October 20, 2008.)

 Climate protection and economic growth are not enemies.  Core strategies to create a vibrant economy – innovation, efficiency, strategic investment, and finding better ways to use and reuse resources – are exactly the same steps we need to cope with global climate change now.  These actions will increase jobs, incomes, productivity, and competitiveness, and they’re green.

 There are commentators who advocate postponing investments in renewable energy and clean technologies, suggesting this will somehow delay economic recovery.  They’re dead wrong.  In the 21st century, the only way for people and places to get richer is by thinking and acting for sustainability, specifically aiming to become “greener.”

 How do we get this message out to the cities and regions of America?  How do we encourage them to switch their economic growth, community development, infrastructure, education and workforce, land-use, transportation, housing, and environmental policies to look courageously forward?

 Climate Prosperity was launched in 2007. It is coordinated by Global Urban Development and Collaborative Economics, with financial support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Environmental Defense Fund.  We’ve been joined by a highly diverse public-private partnership of pro-business groups such as the International Economic Development Council, American Chamber of Commerce Executives, Urban Land Institute, Council on Competitiveness, International Downtown Association, and American Council on Renewable Energy.

   We hope to get millions of people involved in learning the new 21st century economic paradigm.   Technology companies, including Google and Applied Materials, helped launch the Silicon Valley Climate Prosperity Strategy in partnership with elected officials such as San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed. 

  Among other cities, counties, and metropolitan regions working with us on Climate Prosperity Strategies are King County/Seattle, Denver, Portland, St. Louis, Cleveland, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Southwest Florida, and Montgomery County (Maryland).  States working with us on Climate Prosperity Strategies include Delaware, Florida, Maryland, and California.  In July 2009 the International Economic Development Council will publish the Climate Prosperity Handbook.

   The economics driving a shift to new approaches seem compelling.  Oil prices have hit huge peaks in the past year as global demand grows exponentially (hindered only temporarily by the current recession).   The United States consumes one-quarter of the world’s oil and yet possesses just three percent of the world’s reserves.  The only way to stop the bleeding and staunch the flow of over one-half trillion dollars annually to foreign oil producers is by consuming less petroleum.    

   Fossil fuels are not the only commodities becoming increasingly expensive.  Steel prices, for example, have skyrocketed by nearly 170 percent since 2002.  As economic development and population growth accelerate in Asia and throughout the world, serious conflicts are growing as people and places fight over scarce water, land, and many other vital resources.   Even the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida are battling over fresh water sources due to a severe drought.  America, with five percent of the world’s population, consumes 25 percent of the world’s resources.

   The idea of moving from “resource-wasting capitalism” to “resource-saving capitalism” is not new.  Business development experts such as Paul Hawken, Amory and Hunter Lovins, William McDonough, and Peter Senge have long advocated this approach.  The business sustainability model works in three mutually reinforcing ways:  1) Green Savings — cutting resource costs; 2) Green Opportunities — enabling businesses and jobs to grow and thrive; 3) Green Talent — developing globally competitive entrepreneurial and workforce skills, and attracting and retaining talented people.

    Numerous corporations, including DuPont, General Electric, IBM, and Nike, are practicing innovation, efficiency, and conservation to enhance their productivity and competitiveness.  DuPont responded to “peak oil” by switching from petrochemicals to life science bio-products, substantially improving their profitability through saving $3 billion and expanding revenues by producing goods that are better for the environment.

   Fortunately, we have some success stories in which these business sustainability principles have guided economic development in place-based, area-wide economies.  According to the California Green Innovation Index, Californians saved $56 billion on electricity expenses over the past three decades through improved energy efficiency, primarily from state and local government policies requiring higher standards for buildings and electrical appliances and providing financial incentives for utility companies, businesses, and households to conserve energy and use renewable sources.  Private consumers reinvested much of this savings in the state's economy, directly contributing to higher economic growth and greater prosperity by generating 1.5 million full-time jobs with total annual income of $45 million.

   Similarly, people in metropolitan Portland, Oregon save more than $2 billion annually due to the land-use and transportation changes that have occurred during the past three decades.  By modestly increasing population and building densities and developing light-rail transit together with mixed-use communities encouraging walking and bicycling, Portlanders have reduced greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled while jobs, incomes, and investments have boomed.  California and Portland both got richer by becoming greener.

   So we know how to build more prosperous, green, climate-protecting regions.  Now is the time to get serious and spread the message to communities, cities, regions, and states.