ecosocialism

By Fred Magdoff - NYC Climate Convergence, September 20, 2014

A. The Environmental Crisis

The "environmental crisis" is actually a number of crises, including the following:

1. climate change;
2. acidification of the oceans (related to elevated atmospheric CO2 levels);
3. pollution of air, water, soil, and organisms with harmful substances;
4. degradation of agricultural soils;
5. destruction of wetlands and tropical forests; and
6. accelerated extinction of species.

These crises have generally adversely affected the poor more so than the wealthy and will probably continue to do so.  This makes it even more important to advance the fight for environmental justice as an integral part of the struggle for environmental health.

B. Proposed "Solutions" Are Based on Hypotheses as to Cause(s)

C. Suggested Causes for the Crisis

The famous Walt Kelly "Pogo" cartoon -- "WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US" -- explains most of the "causes" that have been suggested to account for the horrendous environmental crises.  Some of these are outlined below.

The cartoon's implication when used in the context of an environmental discussion (and I witnessed its use in that way by a leading environmental educator) is that each of us personally or all humans together are responsible for what ails the environment and us.

Here are a number of the common explanations for the environmental crises:

• There are too many people in the world and we need to rapidly lower the population -- usually this is reflected in a call for birth control in the poor countries of the world, especially in Africa.  But as an article headline in the Guardian from just a few days ago states, "It's not overpopulation that causes climate change, it's overconsumption."  The article goes on to state, "Africa's population growth is often linked to ecological risk -- yet the real danger lies in the west's infinite appetite for resources."¹  If you look into this issue a little more, you will find that World Bank economists estimate that the wealthiest ten percent of people in the world consume almost sixty percent of the resources.  Thus, you might conclude that there actually is a population problem: there are too many rich people living too high off the hog.  The problem is certainly not the poor of the world who consume so little and contribute infinitesimally to the use of resources and pollution.  Birth control among poor people -- access to which should be a human right -- does not help solve the environmental crises.

• It's just human nature -- we're too darn greedy and don't care about the future.  For those taking that position, there is clearly nothing that can be done.

• Some say that humans have developed a "domination ethic" and need a new set of ethics that somehow we can create and inculcate in the people in the absence of a change in the social and economic system.

• It's our philosophy that's the problem -- we are following a "perpetual growth philosophy" or "paradigm" and we need a new non-growth philosophy (I presume that we should study philosophy and come up with a new one).

• People aren't purchasing the right kinds of products -- if we all bought "green" products we could solve the problem = green capitalism.  This includes purchasing more efficient cars and green household gadgets, clothes, food, etc.  So continue shopping as before, just buy better products.

• The problem is focus of economists and pundits on growth of GDP.  If only economists would focus their attention on something else . . . like Gross National Happiness . . . then we could be guided in a better direction.  The whole concept that economic growth in a capitalist economy is somehow a result of people focusing on GDP is rather strange, to say the least.

• Industrial society is the problem -- we need to return to a pre-industrial society.  This will necessitate a lot fewer people (billions).  This is a variation of the theme that there are just too many people, but this approach has a different constituency than those who believe that there are just-too-many-people.

• The next suggested "cause" doesn't blame people and begins to see that perhaps the workings of the economy might be the problem.  This approach considers that the "externalities" of capitalism are the problem -- not the system itself.  These "by-products" of doing business as far as companies are concerned (that they do not pay for) become social costs that affect us all, that we all pay for.  Those who maintain that the externalities are the problem (instead of symptoms) feel that we should use market-based approaches, laws, and regulations to resolve the system's "externalities."  These includes a) campaign finance reform (to take away the power of money in politics); b) new business models; c) making products that will be more durable, versatile, and easy to repair, with components that can be reused or recycled; d) privatizing and marketing or trading "ecosystem services"; e) tradable carbon credits; f) carbon-offset schemes; g) using the "precautionary" principle in all economic activities, etc.

By Von Jan-Hendrik Cropp - Keimform.de, September 27, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” – Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program

Potentials

Since one and a half years around 70 people are involved in a post-capitalist farming experiment. Situated in the middle of Germany a collective of 5 growers is feeding around 65 supporters, year-round with a full supply of vegetables. The production is organised along the needs and abilities of the community.

Internally the growers collective evaluates the needs of each “worker”. Both in financial terms (“wage”) and concrete needs (e.g. a place to live). Those needs have to be met in order to enable the individuals to sustainably organise within the project. This happens independently from the evaluation of the amount of time that each grower is willing to commit to the project (“working hours”). If both of this results in a feeling of enough resources to start growing, a budget is calculated summing up all production costs (including “wages”) and running investments of a one-year production.

This budget is then presented at a general assembly to the supporters who want to be fed by the collective. Each of them anonymously fills out a contract in which voluntary contributions are noted. These include regular financial contributions, skills (e.g. working on the land, massages for the growers) and resources (e.g. machinery and land) that people can offer. The commitment for delivery (both of veggies and contributions) in one-year long. Ideally, after this first bid, all of the growers collective’s needs and their budget are met. If not, another round of bids has to be made. In this process we aim at fulfilling needs non-monetarily wherever possible but monetarily wherever necessary.

In a second step the vegetable needs of the supporters are evaluated in order to enable a needs-oriented planning and production. The signed contract also includes other agreements around collective decision-making, criteria for the failure of the project, collective risks and responsibilities and so on.

To stress: Except for a commitment to the project through signing the contract, no more contribution is required be entitled the vegetables.

The harvest throughout the year is then shared in depots, twice a week, around the region. The distribution is organised by the supporters. It doesn’t consist of normed boxes but of pools of vegetables from which every supported can take according to their needs. Several tools in the depots are used to create transparency about the stocks of that day. Furthermore the community as a whole is encouraged to form working groups to organise beyond the basic production, such as in theoretical reflection, processing of left-overs, storage of produce; among others. If the working groups need any form of support (money, skills ressources) to function well, this can be discussed and solved in the generally assembly.

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese - Popular Resistance, September 12, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

This is the fifth installment in a series co-produced by Occupy.com and Popular Resistance, written in the run-up to the People’s Climate March and Climate Convergence actions happening next week in New York ahead of UN Climate Summit negotiations. Read the first part here, the second part here, the third part here and the fourth part here.

The climate crisis is a crisis of democracy requiring a coordinated global grassroots mobilization to stop harmful policies and practices and build alternative systems that are effective and equitable. The climate crisis affects all of us and touches everything we care about. It will take a mass “movement of movements” to counter the power of money and corruption that prevents the change we need.

The last two decades have been wasted by political misleadership and, as a result, immediate action is required. A landmark report issued last week concluded: “By 2018, no new cars, homes, schools, factories, or electrical power plants should be built anywhere in the world, ever again, unless they’re either replacements for old ones or carbon neutral.”

We have a big task before us and need to build a global movement to make it a reality. Confronting climate change will require major political and economic transformations that will impact how we live our lives. We must transition from the Industrial Revolution to the Sustainable Revolution.

By Ragina Johnson and Michael Ware - Socialist Worker, September 9, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

THE CONSEQUENCES of human-induced climate change are dire. Crop failures will increase. Severe weather and rising sea levels will wreak more havoc. Species are being wiped out by the hour--and the continued existence of our own is threatened.

Even without the threat of climate change, we live in a world of vast inequality, where the majority of the world's population struggles to meet basic needs like putting food on the table--while corporations refuse to pay living wages, and decent health care and housing remain unaffordable for many, when there is access at all.

As of 2010, 2.4 billion people in the world were living on less than $2 a day--more than one-third of the world's population. Close to 1 billion people live on less than a $1 a day on average. Nearly 870 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition, according to UN standards--around one in every eight people on the planet.

The growing numbers and size of urban slums throughout the world have typified this poverty in the modern era. One-third of the global urban population lives in what are classified as slums--6 percent of the urban population in developed countries and a staggering 80 percent in developing countries. Most slum dwellers live without clean water or other infrastructure.

Yet some people would have us think that the growing ranks of the poor are the real source of environmental stress and food shortages, rather than demand from those who rule in the Global North.

This is simply not true. According to environmental writer Fred Pearce, the poorest 3 billion people are responsible for only 7 percent of global emissions of greenhouse gases, while the richest 7 percent produce half of all emissions.

Clearly, the world's poor are not driving climate change. Food shortages have more to do with the price of food, not its availability.

By Daniel Adam - Socialist Action, September 3, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The People’s Climate March, scheduled for Sept. 21 in New York City, is poised to live up to its promise of mobilizing the largest number of people that the U.S. has ever seen against the mass production of greenhouse gases. With more than 1000 endorsing organizations, buses scheduled to leave from more than 200 locations, alongside chartered trains (including three leaving from Connecticut and one from San Francisco), over 200,000 Facebook invites, and countless meetings and events around the country, the march will create major advances for the climate movement.

By marching, participants will affirm for all to see that, at root, climate change is not a matter of isolated individual consumer decisions but of institutional forces that refuse to respond to the will of the majority. They will show that climate activists can go beyond local organizing on dispersed projects and can come together to articulate their vision.

The absence of mass demonstrations for many years kept the movement from forging a visible political expression—until the marches against the Keystone XL pipeline in 2012 and 2013. This had allowed climate change to appear like a fringe issue of the relatively well-to-do, or simply something beyond the scope of human intervention. September will mark an advance from the fringes to the mainstream, and from paralysis to action.

In particular, the participation of more than 30 unions presents a ground-breaking opening for labor and the climate movement. Endorsers include the Communication Workers of America, the Amalgamated Transit Union, 32BJ, the United Federation of Teachers, Transport Workers Union 100, US Labor Against the War, and other formations including machinists, electrical workers, farm workers, and a variety of food and service workers.

The participation of unions is a crucial question, given their members’ social position and ability to shift social production from a greenhouse-dependent one to a renewable, even waste-free, one. Such potential was raised at one presentation for a union meeting organized by the Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs, where participants showed impatience to go beyond discussing the evidence of climate change to working out the steps needed to end it. “We can build anything; what do you want us to build?” one worker asked.

To be sure, the union movement is still largely divided over climate questions. For instance, Pennsylvania mineworker unions have recently organized against milquetoast attempts to reduce coal-plant emissions, in an attempt to preserve their jobs. This strategy of aligning with the bosses to protect job security will only be successfully challenged as the movement grows powerful enough to realistically demand a secure livelihood and employment for workers affected by the transition to renewables and as the movement becomes capable of struggling independently of the boss class.

Still, September’s march will mean a considerable step forward for efforts inside the labor movement to bring climate change to the fore. It will also make considerable progress in awakening climate activists outside the labor movement to the importance of allying with organized workers.

By Chris Hedges - Truthdig, August 31, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The climate change march in New York on Sept. 21, expected to draw as many as 200,000 people, is one of the last gasps of conventional liberalism’s response to the climate crisis. It will take place two days before the actual gathering of world leaders in New York called by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the November 2015 U.N. Climate Conference in Paris. The marchers will dutifully follow the route laid down by the New York City police. They will leave Columbus Circle, on West 59th Street and Eighth Avenue, at 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday and conclude on 11th Avenue between West 34th and 38th streets. No one will reach the United Nations, which is located on the other side of Manhattan, on the East River beyond First Avenue—at least legally. There will be no speeches. There is no list of demands. It will be a climate-themed street fair.

The march, because its demands are amorphous, can be joined by anyone. This is intentional. But as activist Anne Petermann has pointed out, this also means some of the groups backing the march are little more than corporate fronts. The Climate Group, for example, which endorses the march, includes among its members and sponsors BP, China Mobile, Dow Chemical Co., Duke Energy, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Greenstone. The Environmental Defense Fund, which says it “work[s] with companies rather than against them” and which is calling on its members to join the march, has funding from the oil and gas industry and supports fracking as a form of alternative energy. These faux environmental organizations are designed to neutralize resistance. And their presence exposes the march’s failure to adopt a meaningful agenda or pose a genuine threat to power.

Our only hope comes from radical groups descending on New York to carry out direct action, including Global Climate Convergence and Popular Resistance. March if you want. But it should be the warm-up. The real fight will come once people disperse on 11th Avenue.