green syndicalism

By David Johnson - CounterPunch, May 5, 2017

Climate change, as it has emerged as a defining political issue of our time, has a peculiar exceptionalism attached to it. While we know it is in some sense a political problem, or at least demands a political solution, we nevertheless tend to think of it as a problem in nature – one that transcends social issues and threatens social life itself. Every year, waves of liberal students enter environmental science programs at universities across the West, determined to study the changes human beings are causing in the earth’s ecosystems. We know that human activity in general, and the burning of fossil fuels in particular, is the primary agent of climate change, with very serious implications for the natural environment upon which humans depend, and for human life itself

The need to drastically reduce carbon emissions, then, is as clear as it is urgent.  Technologically speaking, there is a path forward: innovations in energy production abound, including in renewable sources like sun and wind. It would seem we have a problem and a solution. Why then do we see little meaningful reform, when the stakes are so high and the answers so clear?

Here the conversation often crumbles into a series of dead-ends. A significant portion of the public has resorted to denying the scientific consensus on climate change, and there is no shortage of funding for such a campaign. Others who accept the science nevertheless become cynical from the scale of the problem; the obstacle, many conclude, is “human nature” itself. Still others, determined to fight, seek to appease large corporations with innovations that are both environmentally friendly and profitable – so-called Green capitalism. Can the profit motive save us?

A new book edited by Vijay Prashad bursts through this rigid state of affairs. Focused around Naomi Klein’s Edward Said lecture, delivered in London on 4 May 2016, Will the Flower Slip Through the Asphalt is a short collection of narrative essays and analysis that responds to the global climate crisis in a refreshingly expansive way.

By Martin Empson, Monthly Review, May 2017

Capitalism has, to put it mildly, a peculiar relationship with the natural world.1 Karl Marx perhaps summarized it best in the Grundrisse, where he wrote that with the rise of the capitalist mode of production, “for the first time, nature becomes purely an object for humankind, purely a matter of utility; ceases to be recognized as a power for itself; and the theoretical discovery of its autonomous laws appears merely as a ruse so as to subjugate it under human needs, whether as an object of consumption or as a means of production.”2 In the same section, Marx notes that “capital creates the bourgeois society, and the universal appropriation of nature as well as of the social bond itself by the members of society.”

This instrumentalized relation to the natural world contrasts sharply with the ways that nature was seen and used by earlier human societies. This novel interaction with nature arose from the violent social transformations that accompanied the development of capitalism in Western Europe, and expanded with the spread of that system to the rest of the world. Marx catalogued the many forms of plunder and destruction perpetuated by early capitalism as it remade the world in its image: “The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation.”3 Capital, he famously concluded, enters the world “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt,” as nature itself is subordinated to the needs of the system.4

By Paul Burkett - Monthly Review, May 2017

In the summer of 2016, the acceleration of climate change was once again making headlines. In July, the World Meteorological Association announced that the first six months of 2016 had broken all previous global temperature records, with June being the fourteenth month in a row of record heat for both land and oceans and the 378th straight month of temperatures greater than the historical average. Heating has been especially rapid in Arctic regions, where thawing effects are releasing large amounts of methane and carbon dioxide. On July 21, 2016, temperatures at locations in Kuwait and Iraq reached 129oF, the hottest ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere. The disruptive effects of bi-polar warming were evident in the unprecedented crossing of the equator by the Northern Hemisphere jet stream, where it merged with the Southern Hemisphere jet stream, further threatening seasonal integrity with unforeseen impacts on weather extremes and the overall climate system.1 Meanwhile a report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) described the December 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change as “outdated even before it takes effect,” with climatologists now expecting a global warming of at least 3.4oC (more than double the 1.5oC limit supposedly built into the agreement) even if the promised emissions goals of the nations involved are somehow achieved despite the lack of binding enforcement mechanisms. “The world will still be pumping out 54–56 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year by 2030 under current plans, well above the 42 gigatons needed to limit warming to 2 degrees,” according to the UNEP report.2

The historical irony in this situation is hard to miss. Just a couple decades ago, we were told that neoliberal capitalism marked the “end of history.” Now it appears that the system’s ideologues may have been right, but not in the way they envisioned. The system of fossil-fueled neoliberal capitalism is indeed moving toward an end of history, but only in the sense of the end of any historical advance of humanity as a productive, political, and cultural species due to the increasingly barbaric socio- economic and environmental conditions the system creates. There is now no alternative to the end of history as we know it. The sustainable development of human society co-evolving with nature including other species now depends on a definite historical break with capitalism (wage-labor, market competition, production for profit) as the dominant mode of production. That is the main lesson of three recent books: Ian Angus’s Facing the Anthropocene, Andreas Malm’s Fossil Capital, and Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything. To solve the climate crisis—which is only part of the broader environmental crisis created by capitalism—competitive, profit-driven production under unequal class control must be replaced with a system in which working people and their communities collectively and democratically regulate production and other interactions with their material and social environment. Sustainable development of people cooperatively co-evolving in a healthy way with other species must replace the profit motive, exploitation, and competition as the motive force in production and in the entire system of material provisioning. To deny that the climate crisis is hardwired into capitalism, and that we need a new system to deal with it, is just as misleading and dangerous as to deny the existence of human-induced global warming. Both forms of climate denial must be overcome in theory and practice.

By Brian Tokar - System Change not Climate Change, April 29, 2017

Just over a year ago, diplomats from around the world were celebrating the final ratification of the December 2016 Paris Agreement, proclaimed to be the first globally inclusive step toward a meaningful climate solution. The agreement was praised as one of President Obama’s signature accomplishments and as a triumph of his “soft power” approach to world affairs. But even then, long before Donald Trump and his coterie of plutocrats and neofascists rose to power pledging to withdraw from the agreement, there were far more questions than answers.

First, recall that the Paris Agreement was based entirely on countries voluntarily submitting plans outlining their proposed “contributions” to a climate solution.  This was the outcome of Obama and Hillary Clinton’s interventions at the ill-fated 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, where the US delegation made it clear that it would never agree to mandatory, legally binding limits on global warming pollution. While most global South representatives at successive UN summits sought to preserve that central aspect of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, rich countries united during the years between Copenhagen and Paris behind the notion that climate measures should be strictly voluntary.

Secondly, the Paris Agreement contained no means of enforcement whatsoever. While the text was abundant with words like “clarity,” “transparency,” “integrity,” “consistency,” and “ambition,” there’s literally nothing to assure that such aspirations can be realized. The only official body focused on implementation and compliance is mandated to be “transparent, non-adversarial and non-punitive.” Countries are urged to renew their proposals every few years, with a stated hope that the various “Nationally-Determined Contributions” to climate mitigation will become stronger over time. But if a President Trump or a potential President Le Pen chooses to do the opposite, there’s nothing but vague diplomatic peer pressure standing in the way.

Third, the various plans submitted prior to Paris fell far short of what is needed to prevent catastrophic destabilization of the earth’s climate systems. Various assessments of the plans that countries brought to Paris suggested an outcome approaching 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3°F) of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100, far short of the stated goal of a maximum of 2 degrees, much less the aspirational goal of only 1.5 degrees that was demanded by delegates from Africa, small island nations, and elsewhere. We know, however, that at the current level of just over 1 degree Celsius (1.8°F)  in average temperature rise, we are experiencing uniquely unstable weather, Arctic ice is disappearing, and catastrophic storms, wildfires, droughts and floods are disproportionately impacting the world’s most vulnerable peoples. Two degrees is very far from a “safe” level of average warming; it is far more likely to be the 50-50 point at which the climate may or may not rapidly shift into a thoroughly chaotic and unpredictable state.

The global climate movement responded to the Paris outcome with an impressive showing of skepticism and foresight. Thousands of people filled the streets of Paris itself, declaring that the UN conference had fallen far short of what is needed, and parallel demonstrations voiced similar messages around the world. Last spring, a series of worldwide “Break Free from Fossil Fuels” events temporarily shut down major sites of fossil fuel extraction and transport on every continent, including major actions against oil transport by rail in the northeastern and northwestern US, a massive convergence to shut down Germany’s most polluting coal mine, and a boat blockade of Australia’s biggest coal port. Last fall and winter, the encampment at Standing Rock in North Dakota brought together the most inspiring alliance of indigenous communities and allies we have yet seen, and encampments inspired by Standing Rock have since emerged at the sites of a handful of major pipeline projects across the US.  Midwestern activists are responding with renewed determination to challenge the Trump administration’s move to resurrect the dreaded Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport toxic, high-carbon tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

By Sean O'Torain - Facts For Working People, April 10, 2017

The authors of this Blog have continually focused on the refusal of the trade union leaders to fight the bosses and the offensive of the bosses capitalist system against working people and the environment. We believe we are correct to do so. The US trade union leaders control organizations with a membership of up to 14 million and with huge full time resources, a massive infrastructure and hundreds of millions of dollars. Their potential power is confirmed by the fact that people like Obama, and now Trump stroke these union leaders to make sure they remain on their side. Just have a look at how far these union leaders are prepared to go to boot lick the bosses and their political stooges.

The New York Times Sunday April 9th had an article entitled: "Can Trump Win Over Big Labor?" The article showed he would not have a hard job if we are talking about the union leaders as opposed to the rank and file. Just three days after his inauguration - he was wasting no time, again this shows the potential of the trade union movement that he thought he had to move fast - yes just three days after his inauguration Trump invited the leaders of the building trades unions to the White House. The New York Times described what was going on as Trump "courting" these leaders. Well this courting worked, the romance is so far going well. The New York Times describes the mood of these union leaders after the meeting as "almost giddy" (it is nauseating) and went on to point to the news release from the laborers' union which was headed: "It is finally beginning to feel like a new day for America's working class." Yes it is a new day alright. The whip will be laid with even greater ferocity across the back of the US working class.

Then there is McGarvey the head of the North American Building Trades Unions and supporter of the Keystone Pipeline and other such destructive projects; he said: "So far so good - our concern is the economic trajectory of our members." In other words screw everything else, the workers who are not their members, the planet, women's rights, the fight against racism, sexism, police brutality, the wars and occupations abroad, health care, education, screw them all it is just the "economic trajectory" of his members. Oh how these bureaucrats like using big words. It makes them sound learn ed and, they hope, cover up their cowardice and refusal to fight for their members. And if this betrayal of the working class as a whole, this betrayal of the fight to save the planet and against war were not enough, the economic trajectory of his members has already been going down for years. McGarvey went on: "We're creating a building trades majority, Democratic and Republican whether state or national. We never want to be in a position where losing an election changes the economic trajectory of our membership." So he wants an alliance of the Trumps, the Clintons, incredible. On top of that  this moron refuses to see that the "economic trajectory" let us speak plainly, the living standards of his members and the US working class has been going down for decades. A new fighting leadership has to be built in the rank and file of the unions and the workplaces. This old boot licking pro capitalist leadership has to be removed.

By anonymous - Hambach Forest Defenders, April 8, 2017

As soon as barricades are destroyed in the Hambacher Forest they have been rebuild often even right behind bulldozers and before cops left the forest. This friday was no exeption but for the fact that this time also bread and roses have been put up in the place of destroyed barricades protecting the forest. This is connected not just with not continuing the resistance on an empty stomach but also with "Stones Are Our Breads and Barricades Our Dinner Tables." action that happened during this cutting season. It was also inspired by 1912 Breads and Roses Textile Strike and Riots in Lawrence Massachusetts which were organized by women and united over 30 different ethnic groups and also used workplace sabotage. The striking mothers with their children were brutally attacked by police at a train station as the kids were being sent to live with supporters when due to the prolonged strike the families could no longer feed them themselves. This resulted in international solidarity and finally with congressional hearings, positive workplace pay increase settlements, changing of work conditions and eventual shortening of the work week itself.

100 years later is it possible for RWE's irreversible destabilization of the Planet's climate and pumping its atmosphere full of toxins responsible for killing over 7 million people a year, as conservative estimates by World Health Organization indicate, result in equally positive response on the part of today's politicians?

The latest police action of clearing the barricades opens up the Millenarian Hambacher Forest to destruction by RWE and its release of megatons of carbon and a long list of toxins that lay below its floor and its roots. To be pumped into the atmosphere in the name of profit and greed regardless of the consequences showing that this time as well there will be no response that has anything to do with social and ecological justice on the part of legistlators, politicians and cops all deeply co-opted by the special interests of the coal industry without more radical actions such as those at the Hambacher Forest.