The increasingly loud and hysterical claims of the eco-feudalists in the run up to Bali is an example of why we can benefit from listening to some of the views of those like O'Neill and Gintis. Consider:

O'Neill:

[L]et’s first deal with the luddites, locavores and eco-feudalists who have given anti-capitalism a bad name.

Gintis:

[A] truly progressive movement must built on technical progress that is impeded by the reigning powers that be . . . not the beggar-thy-neighbor, zero-sum-game sort of redistribution favored by Krugman.

An eco-feudalist:

Time is running out. And while talking is key, demonstrating a willingness to take action is desperately urgent. An ambitious, robust and fair deal on climate change will have three key elements:

• a firm commitment from the north to push for a 2-degree target, backed up by credible domestic measures
• the provision of big developing-country emitters with the technology, investment and incentives to go for low-carbon growth
• an increased focus on the problems faced by the poorest countries in adapting to the inevitable impacts of climate change.

What this demands, above all, is leadership. True leaders are prepared to go first, to accept responsibilities, and to shoulder blame. True global leaders know that national interests cannot take precedence over getting a global deal that is fair to the very diverse circumstances faced by different countries.

Global regulations are precisely the wrong approach. Leadership is our greatest impediment rather than a necessary component of effective response to the threat of climate change.

The Bali junket is not about climate change, it's about politics and money, especially for the parasitic NGOs (such as the International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED), a policy-research NGO based in London directed by the author of the above, Camilla Toulmin).

At this time capitalism is far more likely to develop effective responses than governments, precisely because there is no leadership. Competition and the prospect of great reward for risks taken is a far, far better approach.

Arnold Kling asks:

At what point does an entrepreneur build a massive-scale solar cell manufacturing plant? On the one hand, because the technology keeps getting better, if you invest a lot now you risk having your plant be obsolete soon after it goes on line. On the other hand, if point (4) is accurate, then there will be large unexploited profit opportunities in solar in the next several years, with production of solar panels only a fraction of the potential demand.

The spoor of huge profits is in the air as energy technologies advance. Kling cites new solar technologies, new production methods, and new business analyses ^1,2 that indicate near term investment possibilities. And there's Google.

A heap of climate and energy experts have been aching for government and/or the private sector to step forward in a big way to take on the challenge of diverting the world from its expanding appetite for fossil fuels.

Google has now announced what looks like just the kind of effort they’ve all been talking about. The initiative is called Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal (RECC). Company officials said they planned to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in projects that aim to make nonpolluting technologies for generating electricity competitive with what has been the norm for the last 100 years — burning black rocks.

What is more credible: Google or The UN, EU, and all the NGOs on the planet? Google of course. They take risks and either lose or gain, while the political groups gain whether they win or lose. The only thing that matters to them is to increase their domains, the size of their kingdoms, even if it is a pauper kingdom.

What, for example, if western leaders start competing to be greener than their neighbours? Maybe George W Bush will become a born-again green, building on his half-forgotten pledge to break the United States's addiction to fossil-fuels. Since fossil-fuels have brought the world to the state it is in, it would make sense to use surpluses from petroleum sales to fund a shift to a low-carbon economy.

What if Norway pledged part of its pension fund to bringing low-carbon energy to China and India? What if the Gulf states offered billions of state-managed funds for green investment in Africa? And what if Canada said it would offer to be a home to the thousand of islanders in the Pacific who risk losing theirs, beneath rising waves?

What if the world's leaders gathered in Bali take note of the views and voices of the poor, who have done little to cause climate change but are already feeling its effects? What if they leaders find the language to construct a new collective vision that allows nation-states to put aside domestic interests in favour of a global deal that delivers for all?

Well, Bush is trying to break the "addiction". But for him that means ethanol subsidies and such. This is what we can expect with all political proposals since politicians (and NGOs etc.) take their pay in power, control, subsidies and other regressive currencies. But consider the confusion of the quoted notion. On the one hand the power of competition is dimly recognized, but in a perverted form of a race to the bottom (i.e. green) between nations. And OTOH advocating a collectivist vision (i.e. frantic twirling of the cognitive kaleidoscope).

What is needed is Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal. Google has a perfect grasp of the problem. That they are putting serious cash into the development and deployment of such capabilities is something that others should well note. That no governments, NGOs or advocacy groups have done this is telling. They squander all of their energies on hectoring the world while doing nothing useful about the cited threats.

It's good that O'Neill wants to deal with the luddites, locavores and eco-feudalists who are impeding progress, and good that Gintis wants a progressive movement built on technical progress, since those are the conditions in which Google's Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal initiative can arise and possibly prosper. This, after the S&N Death of Environmentalism/Breakthrough new environmentalism of possibility, seems to indicate that we may be finally getting past the dark, old politics of limits, the Gore/UN/NGO/paleo-environmentalist/neo-Luddite/eco-feudalist stuff. If Google succeeds it may finally drive a stake in the heart of that nasty old stuff and get us on track to deal with the current problem set.

In the movies the monsters never really die, so this may be too optimistic.