Any colour car so long as it’s green
AN URGENT programme to tackle climate change is
desperately needed. The latest scientific evidence indicates that the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading climate
prediction body, has been conservative in its analysis. In fact, we face
a rapidly deteriorating situation.
The rate of melting of the polar icecaps is
exceeding already gloomy forecasts and climate scientists are now saying
that decisive action needs to be taken immediately if the worst effects
of global warming are to be avoided. A huge programme of public spending
on the environment could introduce green technology rapidly and create
millions of jobs around the world, because the technology will be
relatively labour intensive.
An important aspect of such an initiative has to be
to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from road transport which, in
Britain, accounted for 18% of the total in 2002, according to the Office
for National Statistics. The reorientation, reinvestment, retraining and
retooling needed for an effective green programme in the vehicle
industry would also create sufficient work to halt the present
catastrophic collapse in jobs in the sector.
An initial proposal for an environmentally
sustainable programme for the car industry could contain the following
points:
* Replace existing petrol- and diesel- burning
vehicles with alternatives that use electricity and hydrogen to power
them. Technologies to do this exist now (batteries and hydrogen cells),
and the overall process can be largely carbon neutral if the energy
needed to make the electricity and hydrogen is itself generated
sustainably.
* Electric motors are quieter and less intrusive
than those powered by hydrogen, and so the former are better suited to
an urban environment, where battery recharging points can be easily
provided. However, hydrogen-powered units will be needed for
longer-distance journeys since the amount of energy stored in
present-day batteries is limited, thus restricting the range of electric
cars and vans.
* Convert filling stations from supplying petrol and
diesel to hydrogen and build a network of recharging points for electric
cars in urban areas.
* Make the process of switching to a new generation
of vehicles sustainable by recycling the steel from existing cars. The
energy required in the recycling operation – for example, for melting
the steel – should be generated from green power sources. Step up the
use of efficiency-improving lightweight but strong composite materials.
* Invest more in research and development to improve
hydrogen cell and battery technology, and develop recyclable new
materials.
* Retrain workers, retool and re-equip some car
assembly and component plants to make buses, trams and light rail
vehicles.
* Retool and re-equip some component plants to make
parts for an expanding green energy industry, for example, advanced
materials for windmill blades, bearings for turbines, control systems,
etc.
To implement this programme will not require any
scientific breakthroughs; all the technology needed exists now,
including hydrogen cells. These cells not only have the capability to
power vehicles but, in theory, aircraft as well, which could solve the
particular environmental problems linked to air travel. Hydrogen power
is not new, but the oil companies and their political representatives
have tried to stifle its introduction for the obvious reason of
preserving their dominant position in the energy market. Seven years ago
George Bush said it would take 40 years to develop this technology, but
a car using a hydrogen cell is now available, made by Honda, although
its prohibitive price means it will not be widely used.
The potential of hydrogen energy is heavily
downplayed by environmental pressure groups because most of them are
deeply opposed to personal, powered transportation. It is true that a
massive expansion of public transport must be a central component of a
programme to cut greenhouse gasses. But if it is accepted that cars will
have a useful role in a future society, albeit on a smaller scale, then
the present industry will have to be made carbon neutral.
If the total number of vehicles on the road has to
be significantly reduced then, in the long term, there will be fewer
workers in the industry and some car workers will have to be retrained
to produce buses and other forms of public transportation. Other
workers, mainly from component factories, will have to be redeployed to
different sectors, to use their skills to make parts for trains, trams
and green energy machines, such as wind turbines. (This switchover will
be made easier by modern robotised and computerised methods of
manufacturing and design where, for example, machine tools and robots
can be reprogrammed relatively easily and quickly to turn out new
products). In the short and medium term, however, the replacement of a
proportion of existing petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles by electric
and hydrogen fuelled cars will require all the resources of the
industry, and could mean that more jobs will be needed. To get an idea
of the timescale for these jobs, even if as many as half the vehicles on
the road went out of use and only half were replaced with green
alternatives, the conversion process (to redesign, reprogramme, retool,
retrain and manufacture) would still take at least five years.
For conversion to be carbon neutral it will not be
sufficient just to turn out cars powered by electric motors or hydrogen
cells. The electricity to charge the batteries that run the electric
motors must itself be generated sustainably, which means that the energy
industries must simultaneously be converted to using green energy (wind,
wave and solar). More generally, the energy required to operate the
production lines for the new green cars and to recycle the steel to make
them, must also be green. Similarly, although burning hydrogen does not
create any greenhouse gases, it does not occur naturally and so has to
be manufactured, requiring an energy input that also needs to be
sustainable.
Barack Obama and other capitalist leaders have
proposed green initiatives to save the collapsing car industries, but so
far to little effect. Even if some effective action is finally taken to
bail out the vehicle sector, the ‘green’ measures proposed amount to
tinkering in proportion to the environmental need, which is to eliminate
all greenhouse emissions from cars. It is ruled out that the sums of
money for the radical change needed will be forthcoming in conditions of
economic crisis, because environmental issues will get pushed even
further down the agenda in the battle for corporate survival. This was
shown clearly in Britain, where the request of the LDV van company for
government money to build a new generation of electric vans has not been
granted, even though the amount involved is tiny compared to the bank
bail-outs.
Technically, it is possible to rapidly implement a
programme that has a goal of making the industry carbon neutral and in
the process save jobs, but this will not and cannot happen in a private
industry run for profit. To achieve this goal, socialist nationalisation
will be needed of the car manufacturing sector. Because the energy
consumed in making and running the new vehicles must itself be green,
the power companies must convert to generating sustainable electricity,
which also will only be possible with re-nationalisation.
Finally, like in all other aspects of the
environment question, solutions have to be global, action in one country
will have only a very limited impact on global warming. But, as has been
pointed out many times before in this column, rivalries between the
imperialist powers prevent meaningful agreement being reached and can
only be overcome by sweeping away the whole edifice of capitalist rule
internationally.
Pete Dickenson
Crisis in the US auto industry
Nationalise and re-tool to save jobs!
AFTER SECURING a deal for $17.4 billion in
government loans in December, General Motors and Chrysler have been in
negotiations with the United Auto Workers (UAW) to restructure the
companies to make them ‘viable’.
The proposed contract changes would be devastating.
They would eliminate the cost-of-living adjustment, limit supplemental
unemployment benefits, reduce break times, and destroy other key
benefits. There would also be major cuts in company payments into the
UAW-run retiree healthcare fund, a key concession from the 2007
contract.
Although Ford has not asked for government loans, it
is demanding the same cuts from the UAW. GM and Chrysler have already
announced plans to cut tens of thousands more jobs and close more than
15 plants in the next two years.
The past two years have seen the biggest attacks
since the foundation of the UAW in 1936. This included cutting wages in
half for new hires, eliminating company responsibility for retiree
healthcare, closing dozens of factories, and the loss of hundreds of
thousands of jobs.
With the whole economy entering the worst recession
since the 1930s, the auto companies are now trying to destroy the UAW
completely. The demands being put on autoworkers will drive down union
wages, benefits, and working conditions so they are equal to or worse
than those of non-union autoworkers.
The companies, as well as the government, are
presenting these attacks on autoworkers using the language of ‘shared
sacrifice’, implying that the pain will be spread equally among
everyone.
David Axelrod, a key Obama adviser, says it’s "going
to require sacrifice not just from the autoworkers but also from
creditors, from shareholders, and the executives who run the company.
And everyone’s going to have to get together here to build companies
that can compete in the future". (Associated Press, 15 February)
At Ford, the top executives have agreed to a 30% pay
cut in exchange for workers making massive concessions. To put this in
perspective, Ford CEO Alan Mulally received $21.7 million in 2007.
The overpaid executives and rich investors are fine
taking a temporary pay cut, they are already millionaires. Workers with
house and car payments, trying to put their kids through college, cannot
afford pay cuts. Retired workers cannot afford to have company payments
into their already underfunded healthcare fund cut in half.
It is absolutely necessary for autoworkers to fight
against these attacks. The Big Three, with the help of Congress, are
attempting to make autoworkers pay for a crisis they did not create and
have no control over. The Big Three have been struggling to maintain
profitability for several years, during which the auto industry has sold
over 17 million vehicles annually in the US. Now, with rising
unemployment, stagnant wages, and tighter restrictions on loans, it is
unlikely that more than ten million new vehicles will be sold in 2009.
This makes it clear there must be a fundamental
change. We can’t keep producing the same vehicles using the same number
of workers and factories. But closing factories and cutting jobs will
not solve the crisis. Making these concessions will not save the
industry. It will only further undermine working people’s ability to buy
cars, thereby aggravating the problem of overproduction and guaranteeing
more attacks on autoworkers in the future.
The only solution that can save our jobs and living
standards is to create a national plan to put the vast infrastructure of
the auto industry to alternative uses, retooling them to produce goods
that meet vital social needs. This means nationalising the auto industry
and running it in the interests of workers, which means not only saving
but also creating jobs.
Plans for plant closures mean entire communities are
staring into imminent disaster. Nationalisation and workers’ democratic
control must now be immediate fighting demands taken up by rank-and-file
UAW activists. Unless there is a mass mobilization of autoworkers from
below around a concrete plan for saving our jobs and retooling the
industry, it will mean major attacks without end.
Brett Hoven
Ford assembly plant UAW Local 879, St. Paul, Minnesota
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