Written by Daniel
Tanuro and first published at International
Viewpoint
All over the
world, thousands of young people are starting to set off spontaneously for the
climate. On 17 January, in Brussels, more than 12,000 people went on strike and
demonstrated in response to the magnificent appeal made at COP24 by the
15-year-old Swedish high school student Greta Thunberg. They were more than
35.000 one week later and the movement continues.
"What’s
the point of going to school if tomorrow our world is destroyed," these
young people ask. It’s common sense itself! These young people are not
exaggerating. The situation is indeed very serious. The average global
temperature has only increased by one degree since 1800, and the result is
already worrying: heat waves, cold waves, more severe droughts, melting
glaciers and ice caps, more violent cyclones, huge forest fires...
At two
degrees, the impacts will be catastrophic. From that point we risk experiencing
a snowball effect of global warming. The Earth would become a "drying
planet", the temperature could rise very quickly by 4°C. Entire regions
would become uninhabitable, hundreds of millions of people would become climate
refugees, biodiversity would collapse and sea levels would eventually rise by
three to four metres. It would no longer be a disaster, but a cataclysm!
The
unavoidable conclusion is that everything must be done to ensure that the 1.5°C
threshold for global warming decided at COP21 in Paris is not exceeded. But
governments are not doing this. On the basis of their "climate
plans", specialist's project a warming of between 2.7 and 3.7°C... At the
very least, because more and more leaders are tempted to deny reality, like
Donald Trump and the Brazilian fascist Bolsonaro!
In Europe,
the Belgian government is one of the most hypocritical: on 2 December 2018, it
congratulated the 75,000 demonstrators marching over climate, the next day it
refused to support two European climate directives! Shame on those Tartufes!
But the people are fed up with false promises and recuperation: there were even
more demonstrators in Brussels on January 27.
Capital destroys our lives and the
planet
Scientists
have been ringing the bell for over 25 years. Why do emissions continue to
increase? Why do governments do (almost) nothing? Because they are at the
service of capitalism, because capitalism’s sole purpose is profit, because
profit requires growth and because this growth is historically based on fossil
fuel energy (oil, coal and natural gas).
Renewables?
They are produced for profit, not for ecology. If we produced less and shared
more, they would be enough to satisfy the real needs of humanity. But
multinationals refuse to give up their fossil energy stocks and equipment,
banks refuse to give up their capital invested in these stocks and equipment
and bosses in all sectors have only one idea in mind: to exploit ever more
labour and nature in order to produce ever more and make more profit than their
competitors...
We are told
that growth is the condition for everything: our jobs, our wages, our social
security, our public services, our standard of living. Thus, our lives
apparently depend on our exploitation and that of nature. In reality, this
productivist system destroys both our lives and nature.
Today, we are on the brink of the
abyss
Today, we are
on the brink of collapse. To have a 50/50 chance of not exceeding 1.5°C of
global warming, global net CO2 emissions must decrease by 58% between 2020 and
2030. Then they must be reduced to zero in 2050, after which it will be
necessary to ensure that the Earth absorbs more CO2 than it emits.
Otherwise, it
will be necessary either to resign ourselves to a planet that has become an
used one, or to use technologies to artificially remove carbon from the atmosphere
("negative emission technologies") or to return part of the solar
radiation to space ("geoengineering"). Warning: there is no guarantee
that these witchcraft apprentice technologies will work. It will have to be
experienced directly on a life-size scale, on the Earth and the living things
that inhabit it....
Faced with a
deadly danger, the instinct for self-preservation is a thousand times
legitimate. The high school students are therefore a thousand times right to go
on strike. Let us not stand idly by. Let us support them in the face of attacks
from the pro-Trump right and attempts at recovery, wherever they come from. And
let us follow their example!
Social and ecological issues: a single
struggle!
The main
victims of global warming are those who are constantly attacked by governments
and employers: workers, peasants, children, women, pensioners, the sick... and
migrants!
The rich tell
themselves that they will always get by, even if it means living on artificial
islands reserved for billionaires. To save their privileges and destroy our
social and democratic achievements, they are increasingly tempted by the
extreme right-wing who are racist, sexist and climate deniers. It is therefore
clear that social and ecological issues are two sides of the same great
democratic struggle.
This fight
has only just begun. The world of work must take place there. From yellow vests
to youth, it is high time to bring together struggles and demands. Today, our
children are on the streets and on strike to defend their right to exist and
that of their children on this planet. What about us adults? What do we do? We
must be behind them! It is our duty and responsibility.
Let us
mobilize, by all means. Let’s go on strike, too. Not a strike in slippers: an
active strike. To discuss thoroughly all the injustices, all the destruction
and ways to put an end to the current mess, both socially and environmentally.
For an ecosocialist emergency plan
Is it still
possible to avoid climate disaster? The effort required is enormous. It can
only succeed by combining the social and the ecological, in democracy and
justice. An ecosocialist transition is essential. This requires an emergency
plan. Here is a ten-point draft:
1. Eliminate
unnecessary and dangerous production (starting with weapons!) and unnecessary
transport of goods, locate production to the maximum, fight against programmed
obsolescence.
2. Create
public companies to insulate and renovate all buildings (at no extra cost to
the inhabitants).
3. Invest
massively in public transport, discourage the use of private cars.
Rationalising air travel.
4. Leave
fossil fuels in the ground. Expropriate and socialize the energy and finance
sectors to organize a rapid transition to an economy based 100% on renewables
(without nuclear!).
5.
Redistribute wealth, restore equality in terms of taxation and the
progressiveness of taxation on globalised incomes. Refinance the public sector,
education and the care sector.
6. Respect
climate justice. Transfer to the South the technologies and financial resources
necessary for sustainable development for all.
7. Breaking
with agribusiness. Promote ecological agriculture that does what it takes to
sequester as much carbon as possible in the soil.
8. Share the
necessary work among all, without loss of pay. Reconvert workers in the sectors
to be eliminated (with income maintenance and social achievements) into new
activities.
9. Getting
out of the market: free education, transport, health care. Free consumption of
water and electricity corresponding to basic needs, rapidly progressive pricing
above this level.
10. Develop a
culture of "caring", transparency and accountability. Strengthen and
socialize care activities for people and ecosystems. Grant the right to vote to
all. Recognise the rights of citizens and popular control and initiative,
including the revocability of elected representatives
Utopian?
Between 1940 and 1944, the United States government implemented an emergency
plan. Military production has increased from 4% to 40% of GDP and all kinds of
restrictions were imposed. What was done to defeat Nazism and ensure the global
supremacy of US multinationals can be done to save the climate with social
justice. It is a matter of political will. It is up to us to impose it.
Youth and student movements
The Albanian
student struggle has reached historic dimensions
Student
protests in Albania: “What we are witnessing is the direct effect of the
neoliberal reform in education”
In the wake
of the yellow jackets, a major youth movement could develop in France
China
Intensifies Crackdown on Marxist Student Activists
Amid Growing
Clampdown on Dissent and Free Speech, Hong Kong’s Youth Is Pushing Back
Climate
A Lesson in
How Not to Mitigate Climate Change
COP24: During
the disaster, the comedy continues
Our planet,
our lives, and life itself, are worth more than their profits!
Tropical
Forests Are Flipping From Storing Carbon to Releasing It
The rising
tide: Kerala 2018 flood
Daniel Tanuro, a certified
agriculturalist and eco-socialist environmentalist, writes for “La gauche”,
(the monthly of the LCR-SAP, Belgian section of the Fourth International).
Daniel Tanuro is the author of The
Impossibility of Green Capitallism, (Resistance Books, Merlin and IIRE) and Le
moment Trump (Demopolis, 2018).
No comments:
Post a Comment