{"id":16183,"date":"2020-02-21T13:27:10","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T18:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/2020\/02\/21\/thirteen-theses-on-the-imminent-ecological-catastrophe\/"},"modified":"2020-02-21T13:27:10","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T18:27:10","slug":"thirteen-theses-on-the-imminent-ecological-catastrophe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/2020\/02\/21\/thirteen-theses-on-the-imminent-ecological-catastrophe\/","title":{"rendered":"Thirteen theses on the imminent ecological catastrophe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Feb.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Thirteen theses on the imminent ecological catastrophe and the (revolutionary) means of averting it<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By MICHAEL L\u00d6WY<\/strong><\/p>\n

I.<\/strong> The ecological crisis is already the most important social and political question of the 21st century, and will become even more so in the coming months and years.<\/em>The future of the planet, and thus of humanity, will be determined in the coming decades. Calculations by certain scientists as to scenarios for the year 2100 aren\u2019t very useful for two reasons: A) scientific: considering all the retroactive effects impossible to calculate, it is very risky to make projections over a century. B) political: at the end of the century, all of us, our children and grandchildren will be gone, so who cares?<\/p>\n

II.<\/strong> As the IPCC explains, if the average temperature exceeds the pre-industrial period\u2019s by 1.5\u00b0, there is a risk of setting off an irreversible climate change process. The ecological crisis involves several facets, with hazardous consequences, but the climate question is doubtless the most dramatic threat. What would the consequences of this be? Just a few examples: the multiplication of megafires such as in Australia; the disappearance of rivers and the desertification of land areas, melting and dislocation of polar ice and raising the sea level, which could reach dozens of meters. Yet, at two meters vast regions of Bangladesh, India and Thailand, as well as the major cities of human civilisation \u2013 Hong Kong, Calcutta, Venice, Amsterdam, Shanghai, London, New York, Rio – will have disappeared beneath the sea. How high can the temperature go? From what temperature will human life on this planet be threatened? No one has an answer to these questions.<\/p>\n

III.<\/strong>\u00a0These are risks of a catastrophe unprecedented in human history. One would have to go back to the Pliocene, some millions of years ago, to find climate conditions similar to what could become reality in the future, due to climate change. Most geologists consider that we have entered a new geological era, the Anthropocene, when conditions on the planet have been modified by human action? What action? Climate change began with the 18th Century Industrial Revolution, but it is after 1945, with neoliberal globalisation, that it took a qualitative leap. In other words, modern capitalist industrial civilisation is responsible for the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere, thus of global heating.<\/p>\n

IV.<\/strong> The capitalist system\u2019s responsibility in the imminent catastrophe is widely recognised. Pope Francis, in his Encyclical Laudato Si<\/em>, without uttering the word \u2018capitalism\u2019 spoke out against a structurally perverse system of commercial and property relations based exclusively on the \u2018principle of profit maximization\u2019 as responsible both for social injustice and destruction of our Common House, Nature. A slogan universally chanted the world over in ecological demonstrations is \u2018Change the System, not the Climate!\u2019 The attitude shown by the main representatives of this system, advocates of\u00a0business as usual<\/em>\u2013 billionaires, bankers, \u2018experts\u2019, oligarchs, politicians \u2013 can be summed up by the phrase attributed to Louis XIV: \u2018After me, the deluge\u2019.<\/p>\n

V.<\/strong> The systemic nature of the problem is cruelly illustrated by governments\u2019 behaviour. All, (with very rare exceptions) acting in the service of capital accumulation, multinationals, the fossil oligarchy, general commodification and free trade. Some of them – Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Scott Morrison (Australia) \u2013 are openly ecocidal and climate deniers. The other, \u2018reasonable\u2019 ones set the tone at the annual COP (Conference of the Parties or Circuses Organised Periodically?) meetings, which feature vague \u2018green\u2019 rhetoric and total inertia. The most successful was COP 21, in Paris, which concluded with solemn promises from all governments taking part to reduce emissions \u2013 not kept, except by a few Pacific islands. Scientists calculate that even if they had been kept, the temperature would still rise up to 3.3\u00b0 higher…<\/p>\n

VI.<\/strong> \u2018Green capitalism\u2019, \u2018carbon markets\u2019, \u2018compensation mechanisms and other manipulations of the so-called \u2018sustainable market economy\u2019 have proven perfectly useless, while \u2018greening\u2019 with a vengeance, emissions are skyrocketing, and catastrophe gets closer and closer. There is no solution to the ecological crisis within the framework of capitalism, a system entirely devoted to productivism, consumerism, the ferocious struggle for \u2018market shares\u2019, to capital accumulation and maximizing profits. Its intrinsically perverse logic inevitably leads to the disruption of ecological balance and destructions of ecosystems.<\/p>\n

VII.<\/strong>\u00a0The only effective alternatives, capable of avoiding catastrophe, are radical alternatives. \u2018Radical\u2019 means attacking the root of the evil. If the capitalist system is at the root, we need anti-system alternatives, i.e. anticapitalist ones, such as ecosocialism, an ecological socialism up to the challenges of the 21st century. Other radical alternatives such as ecofeminism, social ecology (Murray Bookchin), Andr\u00e9 Gorz\u2019s political ecology, or degrowth have much in common with ecocialism: relations of reciprocal influence have developed in recent years.<\/p>\n

VIII.<\/strong>\u00a0What is socialism? For many Marxists, it is transformation of the relationships of production \u2013 by the collective appropriation of the means of production \u2013 to allow the free development of productive forces. Ecosocialism lays claim to Marx, but explicitly breaks with this productivist model. Of course, collective appropriation is indispensable, but the productive forces themselves must also be transformed: by changing their energy sources (renewables instead of fossil fuels); b) by reducing global energy consumption; c) by reducing production of goods (\u2018degrowth\u2019), and by eliminating useless activities (advertising) and harmful ones (pesticides, weapons of war); d) by putting a stop to planned obsolescence. Ecosocialism also involves transformation of consumption models, transport forms, urbanism and \u2018ways of life.\u2019 In short, it is much more than a change of property forms: it is a\u00a0civilizational change<\/em>, based on values of solidarity, equality, and respect for nature. Ecosocialist civilisation breaks with productivism and consumerism, in favour of shorter working time, thus more free time devoted to social, political, recreational, artistic, erotic etc activities. Marx referred to this goal by the term \u2018Realm of freedom\u2019.<\/p>\n

IX.<\/strong> To achieve the transition towards ecosocialism, democratic planning is required, guided by two criteria: meeting actual needs, and respect for the ecological balance of the planet. The people themselves, once the onslaught of advertising and the consumption obsession created by the capitalist market are eliminated \u2013 who will decide, democratically, what their real needs are. Ecosocialism is a wager on the democratic rationality of the popular classes.<\/p>\n

X.<\/strong> This requires a real social revolution. How can such a revolution be defined? To carry out the ecosocialist project, partial reforms will not suffice. We could refer to a note by Walter Benjamin, on the margins of his theses On the concept of history<\/em>(1940): \u2018Marx said that revolutions are the locomotive of world history. But things might work out otherwise. It is possible that revolutions are the act by which humans travelling in the train activate the emergency brakes.\u2019 Translation in 21st-century terms: we are all passengers on a suicide train, which is named Modern Industrial Capitalist Civilisation. This train is hurtling towards a catastrophic chasm: climate change. Revolutionary action aims to halt it \u2013 before it is too late.<\/p>\n

XI.<\/strong> Ecosocialism is at once a project for the future and a strategy for the struggle here and now. There is no question of waiting for \u2018the conditions to be ripe\u2019. It is necessary to provoke convergence between social and ecological struggles and fight the most destructive initiatives by powers in the service of capital. This is what Naomi Klein called Blockadia<\/em>. Within mobilisations of this type, an anticapitalist consciousness and interest in ecosocialism can emerge during struggles. Proposals such as the Green New Deal are part of this struggle, in their radical forms, which require effectively renouncing fossil energies \u2013 but not in those limited to recycling \u2018green capitalism\u2019.<\/p>\n

XII.<\/strong> Who is the subject in this struggle? The workerist \/ industrialist dogmatism of the previous century is no longer current. The forces now at the forefront of the confrontation are youth, women, Indigenous people, and peasants. Women are very present in the formidable youth uprising launched by Greta Thunberg\u2019s call \u2013 one of the great sources of hope for the future. As the ecofeminists explain to us, this massive women\u2019s participation in the mobilisations comes from the fact that they are the first victims of the system\u2019s damage to the environment. Unions are beginning here and there to also get involved. This is important, because, in the final analysis, we can\u2019t overcome the system without the active participation of workers in cities and countryside, who make up the majority of the population. The first condition, in each movement is associating ecological goals (closing coal mines or oil wells, or thermal power stations, etc) with guaranteed employment for the workers involved.<\/p>\n

XIII.<\/strong> Do we have any chance of winning this battle, before it is too late? Unlike the so-called \u2018collapsologists,\u2019 who clamorously proclaim that catastrophe is inevitable and that any resistance is futile, we think the future is open. There is no guarantee that this future will be ecosocialist: this is the object of a wager in the Pascalian sense, in which we commit all our forces, in a \u2018labour for uncertainty\u2019. But as Bertolt Brecht said, with grand and simple wisdom: \u2018Those who fight may lose. Those who don\u2019t fight have already lost.\u2019<\/p>\n

Michael L\u00f6wy, an activist of the Fourth International, is an ecosocialist, sociologist, and philosopher. Born in 1938 in S\u00e3o Paulo (Brazil), he has lived in Paris since 1969. He is research director (emeritus) at the CNRS, professor at the \u00c9cole des hautes \u00e9tudes en sciences sociales, and the author of numerous books published in 29 languages, including The Marxism of Che Guevara, Marxism and Liberation Theology, Fatherland or Mother Earth? and The War of Gods: Religion and Politics in Latin America. <\/em>He is joint author (with Joel Kovel) of the International Ecosocialist Manifesto. He was also one of the organizers of the first International Ecosocialist Meeting, in Paris, in 2007.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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