The environment

Stuff about nature etc.

From the Sahara to algal blooms

The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance by Dan Egan documents the history of humanity’s relationship with one of the essential building blocks of life and one of our most important natural resources. Phosphorus in its pure form is extremely reactive and combusts at around room temperature. It was first discovered by German alchemist Hennig Brandt in 1669, who stumbled upon it after conducting elaborate experiments involving boiling gallons of his own urine. Egan charts its use in war and detergent through to the irreplaceable role it now plays in feeding the world’s eight...

Paul Burkett, 1956-2024

Paul Burkett, the prolific author on Marxist ecology, sadly died on 7 January 2024. He was aged 67 and had sudden complications from acute myeloid leukaemia. He began teaching at Syracuse University, then worked at the University of Miami and at Indiana State University for more than twenty years. He retired in 2020. At the turn of the century Burkett made several seminal contributions to the revival of Marxist ecology. His book Marx and Nature: A Red And Green Perspective (1999) re-examined Marx’s works in light of ecological questions. He made good use of the Marx and Engels Collected Works...

Letter: risks from invasive species

Stuart Jordan’s “Nativism, species, and ecology” seems to me far too strong in its critique of the IPBES report, in playing down the risks that the report raises

Activist Agenda: campaigns and info

A list of many campaigns that Workers' Liberty activists are involved with and support, plus info about other organising and resources.

Foster: soiling his own nest

John Bellamy Foster's latest book, Capitalism in the Anthropocene (2022) continues a trajectory that risks spoiling his contribution to understanding ecological questions from a Marxist perspective

“Metabolic rift theory” is not so useful

Updated 2 nd February 2024 John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York’s 2010 The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth has some interesting nuggets, but overall the book is deeply flawed, of limited political value, and tainted by Stalinism in theoretical approach as well as political conclusions. The book’s core is “the central concept of the... ‘metabolic rift,’ or a rift in the metabolic exchange between humanity and nature. … [T]he essence of a metabolic rift is the rupture or interruption of a natural system.” It’s “necessary to ‘restore’… metabolism to ensure...

COP28 shows contradictions of capitalism

Each year the COP meeting highlights a deep contradiction in capitalist society. Extraordinary efforts are made to generate climate science... Yet the talks reveal the seeming powerlessness of capitalist politicians to act on this knowledge.

Metabolism, Part 1: Marx

Printed in the first Discusssion Bulletin on ecology, November 2023 Introduction Every political theory has to conceive of the relationship between humanity and nature, whether explicitly or not. It is unavoidable to make some assumptions about the universe and the place of humanity within it, the impact of ecosystems on human lives, as well as the consequences of human social relations for the planet. The relationship between society and nature has been contested throughout human history. 1 What is the most coherent Marxist starting point for tackling these questions? Marx used the term...

Differences on ecology

Printed in the first Discusssion Bulletin on ecology, November 2023 I think we have few programmatic differences among us on environmental issues, and none of them paralysing. I am confirmed in that by my recent time in Australia, where there is more environmental activism than here, but among our comrades there is no sense that our programmatic positions as mapped by conference resolutions are rendered inoperable by paralysing differences. I sense that many comrades feel that there are huge and paralysing disagreements which they don't understand. The recent geoengineering study group session...

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