Climate change

Around 100 activists attended the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group (CACC-TUG) conference in central London on Saturday 13 April 2024

In Solidarity 702 , I discussed climate Tipping Points (CTPs) as a way of framing the climate emergency. They are points of warming beyond which changes to elements of the climate system may cause a runaway feedback loop of warming. The article also looked at the UN Interconnected Disaster Risks Report attempts to extend the “tipping point” term. Social and ecological affects of global heating were also considered. Later discussion in the Workers’ Liberty online ecosocialist discussion group has highlighted the danger of muddying the waters by conflating “planetary boundaries” with CTPs...

Why did Solidarity 703 publish Stuart Jordan’s article about solar radiation management (SRM)? I read it as an ad hominem attack on me that adds no clarity on serious climate matters. In Solidarity 693 , as part of a series on geoengineering, I assessed the most controversial form of SRM, known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). This involves adding reflective particles such as sulphur dioxide to the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet. I summarised arguments in favour of stratospheric aerosol injection from its principal scientific exponent, David Keith...

Stuart Jordan ( Solidarity 703 ) argues that we should support only computer-simulation research into Solar Radiation Management (i.e. technologies which seek to mitigate global warming by reflecting away more of the energy from the sun, notably stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and marine cloud brightening (MCB)). There is no rush. Small-scale experiments can “bleed into” risky large-scale SRM. We discussed this last November . Then, we concluded instead for “a massive programme of cross-disciplinary and critical research of SRM and other such climate interventions, funded by taxing the...

The 2023 State of the Climate report (Ripple et al. 2023) paints a bleak picture. A record-setting year, maybe the hottest globally in 100 thousand years.

On 24-25 February Reclaim the Power held a national gathering of climate activists in York to plan a protest camp on 8-13 August at Drax Power Station (a former coal turned biomass power station). Reclaim the Power (RtP) is a network of climate activists who come together to organise protests and direct action against coal and biomass power stations. Beyond this they also campaign for social and economic justice (e.g. against the hostile environment for migrants, and against fuel poverty). RtP was founded in 2013 and since then has organised protest camps and actions against fracking, Didcot...

Labour leader Keir Starmer’s 8 February U-turn on Labour’s £28 billion flagship green investment pledge has been justified on the grounds that it is incompatible with servicing the national debt. He wants to be seen to be scrabbling around after every last penny, lest the Tories label him imprudent. The national debt, with interest payments around £100 billion a year, is a genuine problem. Much of the debt is held outside the UK, so couldn’t be quelled even by full public ownership of high finance in the UK, and even a workers’ government might want to retain links with the international...

Farmers’ protests have subsided somewhat in France, following government concessions, but continue in many countries across Europe. They were sparked by new European Union rules which require a certain proportion of fallow land, crop rotations, and reduced fertiliser use. The EU is now stepping back. German farmers object to the phasing out of tax breaks on agricultural diesel; Netherlands farmers, to rules curbing nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions. In Greece, fuel tax is a target; in Bulgaria, food imports from Ukraine. The French Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste ( Révolutionnaires ) reports...

Reclaim The Power, a group in the tradition of the “climate camp” of 2006-09, is planning a protest camp at Drax power station, near Selby in North Yorkshire, on 8 to 13 August. Workers Liberty students and others will be part of it. If you want to join our contingent, email awl@workersliberty.org . There is a planning meeting in York on 24-25 February. Drax bosses claim that the power station is a pioneer in renewable energy, but it is not. The power station has been converted from coal to burning wood. The theory is that the wood can be taken from sustainable forests, which as new trees grow...

Disagreements within Workers’ Liberty on ecology are relatively slight. The key idea we bring to most interventions on ecology is the centrality of the working class. Capital’s insatiable drive for accumulation is both short-termist and tunnel-visioned. Longer term and wider considerations are secondary for corporations, the ruling class, and their states. That includes climate change and environmental consideration. The search for ever-greater profit brings capitalists in conflict with any restrictions or limits to profit, human and environmental. The transition away from fossil fuels, and to...