Remember, these people are just all about the science, this has nothing to do with politics and sociology and authoritarianism and stuff. Jacobin Magazine, which “is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture” chimes in to say you’re crazy for thinking this isn’t about the science
Climate Doom Won’t Save the Planet
It’s another summer of climate dread. Earlier this month, Lytton, British Columbia hit 121 degrees Fahrenheit — the hottest temperature ever recorded in Canada. In Oregon, the Bootleg “megafire†— one of eighty fires currently raging in the West — is still only 30 percent contained after two weeks. The size of Los Angeles, it is “hot enough to create [its] own weather, [including] tornado-like winds that can tear trees apart and dismantle power lines.†Those in the Eastern US are experiencing the effects: hazy skies, air quality warnings, and unnerving red sunsets (more akin to a galaxy far, far away). Outside North America, unprecedented floods have killed hundreds in Europe and thirty-three in China.
Except, as we learn, every single one of those fires were either from lightning, which has always happened, or human activity like arson or poor control of transmission lines, made worse by more forest control. Not a slight increase in the Earth’s average temperature.
Climate dread isn’t just a cascade of bad weather — it’s the familiar feeling of seeing droughts, fires, heatwaves, and storms grow worse year after year as the political class sits on its hands. While Joe Biden talks the talk on climate, his aspirational infrastructure “American jobs planâ€Â falls far short of the investment needed to meet his ambitious targets. Administration officials John Kerry and Janet Yellen act as if it’s the 1990s by claiming “markets not government†and “private capital†are the keys to addressing the crisis.
So now it’s “climate dread”, not climate anxiety? Except, none of those things are growing worse. That last line almost seems like Jacobin wants to push Government control
Yet to read any headlines today is to realize that no amount of knowledge of the reality of climate change has spurred the necessary action. The climate struggle remains mostly not about knowledge, but about who controls production and energy investment. Even while oil and gas companies finally claim to “believe science†and announce targets to reach “net zero†emission by 2050, the Biden administration has quietly approved existing oil and gas drilling leases at a pace comparable with Trump.
The production part isn’t referring specifically to fossil fuels companies, but, to all rich people. To the producers. And that article wants to take power and money away from them.
Nevertheless, those experiencing acute climate disasters still form a minority — and thus experience of climate disaster is not yet a basis for mass action. In fact, if this group did form a majority, we would arguably be too late to stop climate breakdown.
As Ezra Klein recently noted, “there is a discordance between the pitch of the rhetoric on climate and the normalcy of the lives many of us live.†Recent polling suggests a stark 57 percent of Americans do not think climate change will harm them personally.
Put that one with all the pieces where the vast majority do not want to spend more than $1 or $10 a month of their own earnings on ‘climate change’. Doing Something is popular in theory, not practice.
Furthermore, it is quite a lot to expect from “frontline communities†to lead the struggle to save the planet. As some of the most marginalized and oppressed groups in society, their struggles for immediate survival will only fleetingly overlap with the planetary politics of climate change. And while their struggles are often waged directly against the same fossil capitalists that climate activists target, defeating these incredibly powerful corporations will take a much broader, mass movement.
Nope, not Modern Socialism, this is Science!!!!
There is an alternative. Instead of expecting climate mobilization to emerge from knowledge or experience of climate change, we should seek to orient climate action around the everyday material realities of the working class — the vast majority of society. Such an approach could build something the climate movement still lacks: a majoritarian political coalition with the power to confront fossil capital.
While more and more surely are experiencing climate disasters, for most working people the primary obstacle to survival is the daily struggle to afford the basics of life like food, electricity, rent, and health care. Capitalism is a daily disaster of lacking the most rudimentary needs for material security and human dignity.
That sounds like something out of the Marxist revolution which overthru the Russia oligarchy and replaced it with totalitarian system of the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics.
And it is not as if these material needs are “distractions†from the climate crisis. Food, housing, energy, and transport are the key sectors we need to decarbonize. The problem is most climate policy technocrats tend to assume restructuring these sectors will increase (or “internalizeâ€) costs through carbon taxes or fees. A working-class strategy would do the opposite by guaranteeing access to de-commodified goods.
Where does that money come from, because it would skyrocket costs. Punishing the major producers? It would keep the proletariat class from moving, since they wouldn’t be able to afford travel.
The Green New Deal represents a breakthrough in this respect — offering a climate program around public housing, a job guarantee, and, most recently, public power to, “establish electricity as a basic human right and public good.†Still, for this strategy to work, you have to deliver these material gains in the name of climate action.
So, nationalization of the power sector? Remember, this is totally not about politics.
Read: “Capitalism Is A Daily Disaster” For ‘Climate Change Or Something »
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