We must really try our best not to see the collapse of global capitalism entirely in bleak terms. Such a view is paralyzing and also obscures or undervalues the many good things that are emerging from the ruins of the 30-year neoliberal project. For one, the crisis is clearing the air.

It is no coincidence that some of the dirtiest industrial operations are falling victim to the global recession. Over the past two decades, much of the world’s manufacturing moved to where pollution standards are little more than mild suggestions. Since small, corner-cutting, inefficient facilities tend to both flout pollution laws and be most vulnerable to a sudden drop in demand, the global recession has hit such operations especially hard. Thousands of factories in China’s Pearl River Delta have shut their doors since late last year, for instance; output of autos, electronics and other goods from factories in Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez, Monterrey and Toluca has fallen so sharply that the amount of cargo trucked across the U.S. border has dropped 40 percent. In India, enough small steel-rolling mills around Delhi have closed that levels of sulfur dioxide (which forms acid rain) fell 85 percent in October 2008 compared with a year earlier. The recession is bringing a green dividend in the developed world, too. Reduced economic activity is projected to cut Europe’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief man-made greenhouse gas, by 100 million tons in 2009, and the United States’ by about the same amount.

It’s also creating an opportunity to reverse and rethink production paths:

Recession is not exactly a long-term environmental strategy, obviously. The challenge is to use the downturn to deemphasize manufacturing in favor of cleaner economic activity, and to reengineer what survives so that when the economy revs up it’s not at the environment’s expense. Even world-class polluters get it. In China, as factories seek lines of credit to see them through the downturn, local governments are “less likely to help companies that are considered major polluters,” says economist Deng Yupeng of Dongguan University.

We have been to the end of the world (three decades of neoliberal domination) and seen that it’s not a pretty place. Let’s hope we never go there again.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

23 replies on “The Green Recession”

  1. Now if we could just sign a new round of Kyoto Accords that include the world’s biggest polluter, China, that might actually help a bit.

  6. I’m sure the hundreds of millions of out-of-work Chinese are just as thrilled as you are that those factories are closing, Charles. They’re all going back to their villages, but there’s no work there, either. And Juarez, far from being a green paradise, is a murderous free-fire zone on target for 2000 murders this year.

    Yes, Will, we need to get China to sign a new Kyoto so they can ignore it completely like Germany, Italy and Canada have been doing.

  7. Wait, I don’t understand. I was told that the answer to all our problems was growth, growth, growth. Yet this seems to be saying the exact opposite. Growth?

  9. @6 – if you knew anything you’d know it’s not Canada ignoring it, but Alberta – contrary to popular opinion, energy is a provincial decision, as are things like the environment, and the Canadian Constitution doesn’t allow the Federal government in Canada to interfere.

    Which is why Victoria dumped raw sewage into the water for so long … while Americans whined to the feds impotently, ignoring the provincial government that actually has power over that.

    Thanks for playing, Fnarf.

  10. Cute of you to pretend that Alberta isn’t in Canada, Will. And to pretend that Victoria isn’t still pumping out the raw sewage today. “Canada”, as referred to in news stories and the like, doesn’t mean “The parts of Canada I like”. ALL of Canada, including Alberta, pledged to meet emissions levels under Kyoto, but have instead made enormous negative progress — just like most Kyoto countries. I think Ireland’s the worst offender, actually. Though that may have reversed since their economy went into the toilet, I don’t know.

  11. Kyoto or no Kyoto, there’s too many god damn people on this planet and not enough jobs to keep them all employed. That’s the real problem. So although a recession isn’t a long term plan for cutting pollution, let’s hope it makes people stop popping babies out.

    Also, its snowing. What’s wrong with this picture?

  12. hell yeah, we need to “deemphasize manufacturing.” After all, who needs food, clothing, and shelter? Not me, because like Charles, I subsist on pure idealism and philosophy.

  13. @11 In the long run, the number of jobs equals the number of people minus a small percentage (4-6%) who’s skills have become obsolete and must retrain to enter new industries or who must move to find a position to match their existing skills. I thought liberal arts programs still required intro macroeconomics.

  17. It’s amusing how you just don’t get that other countries have different constitutions – which they actually abide by – and different ways of looking at things.

    You probably think people in Hong Kong are exactly like people in Beijing ….

  21. Other good thing from recession / depression: recycling increases while trips-to-the-landfill decrease (cause people aren’t buying and throwing away and building and destroying as much shit).

    Can I get an eh-men? Government needs to go ahead and drop a Green-Bomb on our economy!

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