The world is facing an unprecedented environmental crisis, with climate change threatening devastating consequences on a massive scale.

The Obama administration promises that its economic stimulus will address this crisis with its focus on environmental investment and “green-collar jobs.” Obama’s budget also takes aim at the crisis with its expansions in funding for environmental programs and research, including a 34.6% increase in the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency.

While these moves are clearly more environmentally progressive than any legislation from the Bush administration, how effectively will they address these crises and what do they say about the new president’s priorities?

While the stimulus provides $79 billion in funding for clean energy projects, energy efficiency initiatives, and green transportation, it puts aside $280 billion for tax cuts. The stimulus bill allocates less than a third as much money ($10 billion) to mass transit as it does to roads ($30 billion), even as significant cuts are underway in public transportation despite ridership reaching record highs in many cities.

The minimal transit funding in the bill is unlikely to lead to expansion of routes. As Minneapolis Metropolitan Council Chair Peter Bell said, “It makes no economic sense to build what you can’t afford to operate…nor does it help the economy to hire a construction worker if it means laying off a bus driver.”

The stimulus also provides $3.4 billion for “fossil energy research and development.” Most of this will be spent on “clean-coal” technology. This $3.4 billion represents a victory for the coal industry, which has been heavily lobbying the new administration for a share of the stimulus.

While the $33 billion earmarked for renewable energy in the stimulus package is a welcome development, market forces and the dominance of the oil and coal corporations virtually ensure that renewable energy sources will be vastly underutilized.

The economic crisis has only exacerbated the problem, with renewable energy developers experiencing increasing difficulty finding capital. Only 4 of 18 banks that once helped finance the installation of wind turbines and solar arrays continue to do so, despite the hundreds of billions of dollars lavished on the financial sector (NY Times, 2/4/09).

This shows the complete and utter bankruptcy of the bailout strategy, which is aimed at shoring up profits rather than meeting actual societal needs.

Ultimately, Obama’s measures do far too little to address the rapidly developing environmental crisis. Political rhetoric and the economic and environmental realities of capitalism are deeply at odds with each other.

What is badly needed to address the environmental and economic crises is a massive public works program in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and mass transit. Such a program would have to be made on a much larger scale than the environmental provisions in the current stimulus bill and Obama’s budget if it is to make significant strides toward a sustainable economy.

There is no contradiction between saving the environment and saving or creating jobs. A public works program of this kind would create millions of jobs in genuinely “green” areas of the economy: developing renewable energy technologies, building solar and wind infrastructure to replace fossil fuels, and broadly expanding mass transit. It would be a far more rational use of public resources than the $13 trillion bank bailout.

But such a program of massive public investment in the environment would require a frontal assault on powerful corporate interests – something the Obama administration is not willing to do.

A rational solution to the environmental crisis is not possible within the current economic system. Under capitalism, the need of corporations for profitability at all costs outweighs human needs for a healthy environment, jobs, and public services.

The creation of a sustainable economy that will meet human needs will require the transformation of the economy along democratic socialist lines. Only when the economy is democratically accountable to the public as a whole can rational planning replace the anarchism of the market. Only then will the priorities of oil companies be replaced by the real needs of present and future generations for a just and sustainable world.