chp1: expands remaining topic sentences & minor edits

1 files changed, 94 insertions, 50 deletions

diff --git a/chapter1.md b/chapter1.md
index bd00224..b717d81 100644
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+++ b/chapter1.md
@@ -28,7 +28,8 @@ been partially rolled back.
 - Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing at an accelerating rate
 
 All these failures beg the question: why aren't the green movement's strategies
-working? In particular, I want to focus on green rhetoric.
+working? \[EXAMPLE OF GREEN LEADER ASKING THIS QUESTION\] In particular, I want
+to focus on green rhetoric.
 
 Rhetoric, as I'm using the term, refers to an utterance with an agenda. When
 green rhetoric works well, it solves a problem relevant to green concerns. In
@@ -66,7 +67,7 @@ climate change. For example, writing about climate change, Chris Packham and
 Megan McCubbin ask:
 
 > \[FIND QUOTE\] Why is it that 'our human reluctance to change our mindsets and
-> behaviours'? Why isn't the science enough?
+> behaviours' resists the scientific evidence? Why isn't the science enough?
 
 Part of the answer, they argue, is that political thought is associated with the
 prefrontal cortex, which is also associated with personal expression: thus,
@@ -74,9 +75,9 @@ inviting people to think differently about a political issue like climate change
 can be perceived as a personal attack, preventing people from thinking
 rationally. \[FIND PAGE NUMBERS\]
 
-This analysis assumes that the problem is one for the universal human. It is
-'our human reluctance' that has to be addressed. Having identified a
-psychological problem – why can't human beings like you and me act rationally
+This analysis assumes that the problem is one for the universal individual
+human. It is 'our human reluctance' that has to be addressed. Having identified
+a psychological problem – why can't human beings like you and me act rationally
 when presented with the facts? – it's natural to seek a psychological solution.
 This only makes sense if, as soon as 'we' (whoever that is) start behaving
 sensibly, everyone else that matters will follow our lead.
@@ -121,8 +122,8 @@ a little more guilt: how many flights did you take this year? How much did you
 spend in your car last week? When's the last time you bought large electricals?
 How much do you spend on clothes, or beauty products, in an average month? I did
 my best to max out on every question. At the end, I'd chocked up over 39 tonnes
-of CO_2. I was duly informed that I was just under four times more evil than the
-UK average. Not to worry, I can install their My Footprint App.
+of CO~2~. I was duly informed that I was just under four times more evil than
+the UK average. Not to worry, I can install their My Footprint App.
 
 > We’ve seen the devastating impact that human activity can have on the natural
 > world, but it doesn’t have to be this way. We can build a better world by all
@@ -190,15 +191,18 @@ footprint calculator, which had previously been an obscure concept.
 [@bp-carbon-calculator; @don-miller-bp; @safire-2008; @solman-2008;
 @supran-2021; @kaufman-2020]
 
+Thus, green rhetors, in targeting individual consumption, mis-diagnose the root
+cause of the problems they're trying to address.
+
 Having mis-diagnosed the root causes of the problem, green rhetors too often go
-on to propose incredible solutions. The worst is simply to cut consumption.
-Since _The Limits to Growth_ was published for the Club of Rome in 1972
-[@limits-to-growth], bolstered by eco-classics such as _Small Is Beautiful_
-(1973) [@small-is-beautiful] and _The Population Bomb_ (1968) [@population-bomb]
-the green movement has frequently emphasised a message of austerity or
-'de-growth,' echoing the austerity rhetoric which dominated the cost-of-living
-discourse in the 1970s and since that time [@climate-change-class-war, pp.
-158-159].
+on to propose politically impossible solutions. The worst is simply to cut
+consumption. Since _The Limits to Growth_ was published for the Club of Rome in
+1972 [@limits-to-growth], bolstered by eco-classics such as _Small Is Beautiful_
+(1973) [@small-is-beautiful] and _The Population Bomb_ (1968)
+[@population-bomb], the green movement has frequently emphasised a message of
+austerity or 'de-growth,' echoing the austerity rhetoric which dominated the
+cost-of-living discourse in the 1970s and since that time
+[@climate-change-class-war, pp. 158-159].
 
 So, in 2006, George Monbiot set out his manifesto for putting the UK through a
 90% cut in greenhouse gas emissions. While Monbiot acknowledged that austerity
@@ -268,26 +272,68 @@ remained largely academic, with little impact on politics, and indeed a vague
 grasp on what de-growth policy would actually mean in practice or who you could
 possibly convince to make it happen. [@vansintjan-2019; @cosme-2017]
 
-A little better is proposing market-based policies like carbon taxes. But there
-is no credible route to implementing and sustaining an effective carbon tax,
-because it is against the interests of almost everyone.
-
-The route green rhetors almost universally promote is: listen to the science,
-then act rationally.
-
-This denies the evident fact that society is driven by the private interests of
-those who have power, not collective interests; and this is also true of science
-itself, which, as we have proven time and time again, is up for sale to the
-highest bidder.
-
-The spectre of the 'science denier' or 'science fraudster' as the bogeyman
-behind all resistance to the collective interest serves only to hide the real
-enemy: the powerful private interests that pay him.
-
-Then, the rhetoric fails to properly identify an audience that can make a
-difference.
-
-As I've already shown, green rhetors have atendency to address an unspecified
+Another favourite of green rhetors is to propose smart market-based policies
+like carbon taxes, aimed at tweaking the incentives for private capital to nudge
+the market into financing economic transformation. \[EXAMPLE\]
+
+Admittedly, this is a little better than proposing austerity, and has made a
+little political inroad. The US, EU, and UK have all implemented carbon markets
+and carbon taxes, although the carbon markets have widely been recognised to be
+distorting and counter-productive, and the carbon prices so far have been set
+too low to have any noticeable impact. Making this approach work still has some
+very tall obstacles to climb. As soon as carbon prices are set high enough to
+bite, without state intervention to redistribute investment, the cost of carbon
+pricing is likely to fall hardest on the poorest. This is not politically
+sustainable.
+
+This was decisively demonstrated in 2018, after French President Emmanuel Macron
+attempted to raise fuel taxes, purportedly in an attempt to curb greenhouse gas
+emissions \[EVIDENCE\]. This move triggered an enormous wave of protests across
+France, symbolised by the protester's uniform, the _gilet jaune_. Despite
+Macron's strong political position at the beginning of the protests, he was
+forced to roll back the tax increases alongside other concessions to the
+protesters \[EVIDENCE\].
+
+So, while smart market fixes might work in theory, we're still waiting for a
+credible vision for how they might be politically sustainable. Thus, here too,
+green rhetoric has failed to demonstrate to their audience that the change they
+advocate will be good for them, and thus their proposals are politically
+impossible.
+
+Taking another approach, many green rhetors advocate for a simple programme:
+listen to the science, then act rationally. This call to action suggests that
+the root cause of the relevant problems is that some relevant actors are not
+responding rationally to the scientific evidence. \[EXAMPLE\].
+
+The spectre of the 'science denier' or 'science fraudster' has traditionally
+served as the main scapegoat of green rhetoric. For example, \[EXAMPLE\].
+
+However, there's no particular reason to think that the fossil fuel industry is
+scientifically incompetent or unable to act rationally. In fact, fossil fuel
+companies are if anything astonishingly capable of mustering scientific and
+technological resources to act rationally. \[EVIDENCE\]
+
+Even the production of so-called 'fake science' can be seen as the result of the
+fossil fuel industry acting rationally on the basis of the scientific evidence.
+\[EVIDENCE\] As has been pointed out time and time again \[EVIDENCE\], the
+fossil fuel industry is following a path well-trodden by the tobacco industry,
+who have long since proven that science is up for sale \[EVIDENCE\].
+
+The problem for the world is not that people aren't listening to the science,
+but rather that fossil fuel companies, and other business lobbies, have an
+interest in poisoning the world, and powerful means of ensuring their interests
+are met.
+
+\[TODO: how does 'listen to the science' lead to a practical call to action?\]
+
+So again, the 'listen to the science' line mis-diagnoses the root causes of
+green issues, and thus fails to bring about change.
+
+Finally, having mis-diagnosed the root causes of the issues and proposed
+solutions their audience cannot support, green rhetors fail to properly identify
+an audience that can make a difference.
+
+As I've already shown, green rhetors have a tendency to address an unspecified
 'we', suggesting a universal human citizen, implying that for all relevant
 purposes, everyone has the same interests and powers. Thus Chris Packham and
 Megan McCubbin can talk about 'Ape Aware,' explicitly describing the
@@ -310,26 +356,24 @@ AGAIN\]. Thus, these NGOs are dominated by the Western middle classes who
 provide them with money by taking out membership subscriptions and signing off
 corporate partnerships. \[STATISTICAL EVIDENCE WOULD BE NICE\]
 
-The whole point of the rhetoric is to fight the interests of capitalists, so of
-course it doesn't speak to them. Nor does the condemnation of indulgent
-over-consumption and the demand for cutbacks have any way of resonating with the
-working class.
+But what change is it that Western professional middle classes are capable of
+bringing about? If it's not reducing your individual 'carbon footprint' – which,
+as I've already discussed, is not a proposal with legs – green rhetors have a
+tendency to propose actions which cannot be achieved by this audience, if they
+can be achieved by anyone at all.
+
+Example 1: legally binding emissions targets. (Who's going to enforce them?)
 
-Yet this rhetoric doesn't even work for the PMC, because it has already failed
-to identify a credible route change.
+Example 2: give free stuff to developing countries. (Who's going to pay for it?
+Who are you going to give it to?)
 
-The exhortations are addressed to the universal human collective, or nebulous
-imaginary entities like 'countries': cut carbon emissions! Give 'developing
-countries' money to stop chopping down rainforests! Fund research! But these
-recommendations don't come with a credible route to making them happen. It fails
-to diagnose why these things are hard to do, i.e. identify the vested interests
-that are preventing change, and show how to fight these vested interests and
-win.
+Example 3: stop chopping down rainforests. (How will you convince the loggers,
+ranchers and miners to leave potential profits unexploited?)
 
 The action that PMC people have taken so far (alternative consumption, political
 protests, banning plastic straws, holding COPs, setting targets) have not been
-effective.
+effective. \[EVIDENCE\]
 
-The result is that PMC people feel powerless.
+The result is that PMC people feel powerless. \[EVIDENCE\]
 
 In summary,