The environment

Stuff about nature etc.

Contribution to discussion: The ecological insights of Marx and Engels

Printed in the first Discusssion Bulletin on ecology, November 2023 "Everything affects and everything is affected by every other thing, and it is mostly because the manifold motion and interaction is forgotten that our natural scientists are prevented from gaining a clear insight into the simplest things" (p178, Dialectics of Nature , F. Engels) In the preface to Capital volume 1 Marx states his purpose is to "reveal the economic law of motion of modern society" and explain “the development of the economic formation of society …as a process of natural history” (p92, Capital vol 1). There is...

Ecology — Suggestions for a bibliography, with reviews

Printed in the first Discusssion Bulletin on ecology, November 2023 Below are some reviews, focussing on books which I think are relevant to debates on theoretical background issues. The books in the class struggle ecological and wider science sections are valuable in general, for ecological stuff: the third section engages more with theoretical questions. My reviews are not polished for articles, they are mostly half-formed critiques, thoughts, and extracts. Some I intended to review, but never pulled together notes. But I share them for reference: General class-struggle ecology, very good —...

Discussion bulletin on ecology #1, November 2023, #2, February 2024

Discussion bulletin on ecology #1, November 2023 (DB 371) Click here for pdf of the first Eco DB, in the two column format as printed. Click here for a PDF of the same but in a one-column format, if preferred for reading online. Click here for doc version of the bulletin. Discussion bulletin on ecology #2, February 2024 Click here for pdf of the second Eco DB, in the two column format as printed. Click here for a PDF of the same but in a one-column format, if preferred for reading online. Click here for doc version of the bulletin. Contents #1 Click to read online: Metabolism, Part 1: Marx, by...

To curb emissions, curb the rich

The super-rich 1% are responsible for 16% of global carbon emissions, equal to the emissions of the poorest 66% of humanity (five billion people). The richest 10% (incomes over $91,000) are responsible for half the emissions. Limiting long-term global warming to 1.5°C requires a 48% cut in total global emissions by 2030 (compared to 2019 levels). There is no way of achieving this without radical cuts to the oversized emissions of the rich. Progress on poverty alleviation and longer term climate goals also necessitates social control of investment decisions. As the super-rich gather for the...

For researching a "brutally ugly" climate fix

As if inexorably, the Keeling curve measuring carbon dioxide emissions continues to ratchet up. At the same time, annual global average temperatures continue to increase. This year looks set to become the warmest for millennia. Paltry efforts to curb fossil fuel use, to prevent the problem of climate change at source, have stalled or are swallowed by ever-growing energy demand. Net zero resembles a distant mirage. Activists have to redouble our efforts to impose mitigation measures on profiteering capitalists and their unwilling bourgeois states. While emissions abatement must remain the main...

Union pushes plan for steel

The UK steel industry is at a crossroads. Steel production is carbon intensive. A transition is needed if the UK is to meet its carbon goals. And the UK’s four blast furnaces, which produce 80 per cent of our steel and provide thousands of jobs, need replacing over the next decade or so. Their owners have proposed a more rapid closure with the loss of up to 5,000 direct jobs and many more beyond that. Steel production has been in a long decline in the UK. At its peak in the early 1970s, the industry employed around 320,000 people. It is now somewhere around 5-10% of that. Just before Margaret...

Why there is so little hope from COP

For many years the representatives of fossil capital have outnumbered politicians and scientists at the COP talks, but this year fossil capital has openly, brazenly taken control. COP28, starting 30 November, will be chaired by Sultan Al Jabr, CEO of ADNOC, the UAE’s state-owned oil company. He recently announced plans to increase output from 2.7 billion barrels to 5 billion barrels a day, and leaked documents reveal ADNOC’s plans to use the summit to broker business deals. For the past 28 years the capitalist class has demonstrated it will not and very likely cannot halt rising emissions...

School climate strike in Sydney

Sydney, Australia, saw a school strike for climate on 17 November. The downside is that the march was about 600, where the biggest school strike climate march in 2019 was 60,000. That reflects Covid lockdowns interrupting the movement; in-school organisation falling apart as 2019 students move out of school; loss of momentum; and maybe that the evil climate denial of the previous government was more galvanising than the nitty-gritty policy issues under Labor. Publicly-owned renewable energy is in the platform of School Strike 4 Climate, but there was no mention of public ownership or socialism...

Six months jail for marching

Just Stop Oil activist Phoebe Plummer has been given six months in jail — on remand, until 16 May 2024 — without even being convicted. Plummer has already served a month on remand, late last year, after throwing soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers picture (no damage to it). Since then Plummer has had an ankle bracelet as part of bail conditions, confined to student accommodation except for 12 hours a day for classes. The new spell in jail is for breaking those bail conditions to go on a march. UN Special Rapporteur Ian Fry has written to the government protesting at the fierce sentences on JSO...

Motions on “climate interventions”, “geoengineering”

Workers' Liberty decided the following on 19th November 2023. On climate change, the overwhelming priority remains the struggle to reduce emissions as swiftly as possible. Geoengineering is not a substitute for sharp emissions reductions. Some of the geoengineering technologies might have major downsides and risks. But they may prove necessary to confront a world we never wished for. The present stage is mostly about research, experiments and testing. On balance, it makes sense to support authorised, publicly-funded research. We raise the questions of governance of geoengineering, pushing for...

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