{"id":43441,"date":"2019-02-02T09:08:29","date_gmt":"2019-02-02T14:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43441"},"modified":"2019-02-02T09:08:34","modified_gmt":"2019-02-02T14:08:34","slug":"the-toxic-legacy-of-environmental-neoliberalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=43441","title":{"rendered":"The Toxic Legacy of Environmental Neoliberalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/therevelator.org\/toxic-neoliberalism\/\">The Toxic Legacy of Environmental Neoliberalism<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A look at Poland\u2019s growing ecological disaster \u2014 and its polluted past \u2014 shows how green ideals can wither on the vine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At December\u2019s Katowice Climate Change Conference, Polish President Andrzej Duda proudly opened the proceedings by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/earther.gizmodo.com\/poland-literally-filled-an-international-climate-change-1830820392\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">declaring<\/a>&nbsp;that coal \u201cdoes not contradict the protection of the climate and the progress of climate protection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This bizarre and ecologically immoral statement, and the conference\u2019s general embrace of coal, comes from a country whose history deserves greater attention, especially since it echoes so much of the world\u2019s present situation \u2014 and possibly our future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since joining the European Union in 2004, the Polish state has doggedly pursued the neoliberal policies of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. The \u201cfree\u201d market and finance were liberated from state intervention on behalf of the commons and the environment. Limitless economic growth and hyperconsumerism became a mantra. State industries and services were privatized. The economy boomed, and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.portal.santandertrade.com\/analyse-markets\/poland\/reaching-the-consumers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">according to Western trade analysts<\/a>, Polish consumers \u201care used to doing their shopping seven days a week and at any time of day or night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, this recent history can make it easy to forget that Poles lived under communism for 44 years until 1989. This was an era mostly marked by economic recessions, severe consumer shortages and an absolute condemnation of capitalism. For better or worse, citizens accepted their meager material conditions with stoic resignation, and a few embraced a minimalist lifestyle. Simply put, Polish culture was not driven by mass consumption and materialism. Those were unattainable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But at the same time, Polish Marxists in the immediate aftermath of a destructive World War were convinced that communism would quickly usher in a proletarian utopia of progress and plenty. Steel mills, aluminum smelting facilities, shipyards and cement plants were constructed in an initial spasm of modernizing dynamism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Toxic Legacy of Environmental Neoliberalism A look at Poland\u2019s growing ecological disaster \u2014 and its polluted past \u2014 shows how green ideals can wither on the vine. At December\u2019s Katowice Climate Change Conference, Polish President Andrzej Duda proudly opened the proceedings by&nbsp;declaring&nbsp;that coal \u201cdoes not contradict the protection of the climate and the progress [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[24273,141,24272,6996,638,24201],"class_list":["post-43441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-bill-janus","tag-climate-change","tag-ecological-disaster","tag-neoliberalism","tag-pollution","tag-revelator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43442,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43441\/revisions\/43442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}