Climate Emergency
You only have to follow the
facts to know that the climate is changing quickly across the globe. The highest temperatures in recorded history
over years. Heat deaths at record
levels. Methane releases across the
tundra, in Canada and in Siberia. Melting and
retreating glaciers on mountains and in Greenland and open water in the Arctic Ocean. More
icebergs, even massive chunks falling off Antarctica. Heavy flooding rains across the globe,
swelling rivers. Fires raging for months
in the U.S.
and Canadian west clogging the air with smoke and death.
Dead fish from unusually warm ocean waters and killer red and green
tides. The movement of marine life into
cooler, deeper waters. Drought leading
to starvation, refugees and civil war.
Farmers the world-over committing suicide or moving to cities. Massive tsunamis or hurricanes crashing into
coastal communities. Rising ocean waters
flooding isolated islands and low-lying cities.
All leading to food insecurity for many.
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| 2010 Floods in Pakistan |
None of this is news except
to people with their head in the sand.
Even most of the capitalists know this is happening, but the profit
system ‘must continue.’ Even if they
have to individually escape to New
Zealand or an artificial island somewhere.
What do eco-Socialists do?
The liberal panacea is
shopping for the environment. Or an ‘all
energy’ approach, as used by the Obama administration. He figured he could negotiate a compromise
with Mother Nature... Trump denies reality, in league with the vicious oil, gas,
coal and auto industries. Technology
buffs say that sustainable energy – wind, solar, wave, hydroelectric, bio –
will work – but only in the context of a market economy. Now they are actually thinking that
geo-engineering will work too. Cap-and-trade has proved to be a failure in Europe, just moving emissions around. The last UN climate change conference – and its
goal of ‘only’ a 2.7F/1.5C degree rise in temperatures – is too high. The UN Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change actually underestimated what was needed. Carbon and methane, even with all the paper resolutions,
the huge changes towards solar and wind in the U.S.,
Europe and China,
is still increasing in the atmosphere, and sinking into the ocean. Because capital requires unrestrained profitable growth…
What do eco-Socialists
do?
In the U.S., some
organizations, like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Socialist
Action, explicitly call themselves eco-Socialists. Other socialists and communists certainly
understand that the problem is capitalism, not just some mean people. The main
demand, certainly, is to immediately nationalize under workers' control every corporation closely
involved in creating carbon. Not just
the banking system which pauperized a good chunk of the proletariat just
recently. The energy and auto industries
are first on the list, but the massive agribusiness sector is also a culprit
due to meat production. The U.S. military is one of the biggest users of
energy in the world, and certainly any environmental push would mean making the
U.S.
military an actual ‘defensive’ force, not one extending across the globe.
Yet no political force –
including the Democratic Party leadership or the supporters of Bernie Sander’s
type politics – believes in nationalization, or makes it a programmatic point. Civil disobedience by a militant minority is
the result, trying to stop the pipelines in Louisiana,
in North Dakota, in Minnesota,
in British Columbia through civil disobedience.
Here in Minnesota, the Enbridge 3 pipeline will be
a main focus. This has to become a mass movement of tens of thousands, not like
the four people recently brutally arrested in Louisiana and charged with felonies for
trying to stop their pipeline. Or
putting all the burden on isolated indigenous tribes. Even the recent climate actions across the world did not call for nationalization.
What do eco-Socialists
do?
I jokingly say that the only
thing that will work is if a 100 armed workers invade the boardrooms of every
single one of these criminal corporations and occupy their boardrooms,
citizen’s arrest their management and hold them hostage. Of course, that could only happen if we were
on the verge of an actual revolution.
Which, maybe by 2040 or 2050, we might be. By that time it will be much later…
And so we come back to this
issue. Without seizing these
corporations in some manner right now, through politics or mass action, the environment
will head south. The holy ‘market’ is
too slow to work, nor will band-aid regulatory moves actually stop this process. You cannot negotiate with Mother Nature – or
indeed with reactionaries like the Republican Party or the neo-liberal leaders
of the Democratic Party in the U.S. Nationalization of criminal corporations has
to be one of a group of transitional demands taken up by millions. It has to always be accompanied by another transitional demand - guaranteed jobs or income for those who lose their livelihood due to this energy transformation. Or we are toast. Not just vulnerable people living in the most
exposed parts of the globe – but sooner or later, everyone.
This is a bind that the
small groups of eco-Socialists in the U.S. are unable to make much
progress on. Anti-capitalist radical
action will not happen soon enough if present politics go the way they are
going. Most people cannot deal with
issues in the near or far future, but are still staring at their shoes. Should I buy a new pair or not? So the real issue is that the Gen Xers, the Millennials,
the Gen Z and the toddlers are going to have to join or form revolutionary
organizations to handle a capitalist world heading into oblivion. And not try to prop up the politics of the
past. Best to start now. Because ORGANIZATION and a real program, not generalities, are the real political
issues of our time. Vague cliches like 'love,' 'hope,' 'jobs,' 'education,' 'freedom,' 'democracy,' 'America,' 'the Environment,' 'peace,' blah blah blah mean nothing alone.
Red Frog
September 9, 2018
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