The long-anticipated COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow is not very promising for our human civilisation. The well-established data of the realities of global warming is now very clear. The issue isn\u2019t the science, it\u2019s now the politics and the economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saving the environment must also go hand in hand with\u00a0the rights of capitalists and nations to make profits, we are being told. Policies must remain cheap enough for businesses\u00a0to change. Despite all the evidence, proven time and time again,\u00a0that it is capitalism,\u00a0a rapacious economy,\u00a0that is destroying the planet,\u00a0those who profit from it remain unwilling to admit that it is that system which is the cause, and refuse to accept the only solution is socialist revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The climate crisis presents an unprecedented opportunity for profound change for all humanity. Global warming and the climate movement has\u00a0become one of politics\u2019\u00a0top priorities. The inability of capitalism to make\u00a0the economy sustainable\u00a0has never been clearer. The features of capitalism \u2013 its\u00a0drive to expand, to acquire private ownership over\u00a0natural resources, its production for profit rather than social good, make it inherently ecologically damaging.\u00a0Consumption of resources is, of course, an important issue but an overemphasis on lifestyles and individual consumption distracts from industrial and commercial consumption.\u00a0Corporations\u00a0and\u00a0the military are the reason for a disproportionate share of resource depletion, carbon emissions, waste and pollution. These powerful actors should be held responsible for their actions.\u00a0Capitalism fosters\u00a0competition\u00a0and individualism because that is what makes capitalists prosper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only\u00a0with\u00a0a socialist society can the environmental problems capitalism creates be solved. The World Socialist Movement\u00a0continually emphasise the necessity of transcending capitalism and creating a new society based on democratic control of resources and production. Reforms and regulatory legislation may offer minor\u00a0temporary concessions but socialists\u00a0want to change the system itself.\u00a0Socialists\u00a0recognise corporations place commercial success above social responsibility.\u00a0Business success means ever-increasing profits.\u00a0A socialist system would alter who owns and controls the means of production.\u00a0We are part of building a mass world socialist movement, which is our only guarantee to replace capitalism with a world worthy of humanity and the rest of nature.\u00a0In order to replace capitalism with a steady-state society, we need a revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the eyes of many within the green movement, a socialist\u00a0revolution is a pipedream. What is needed now, we are always told, is practical pragmatic policies\u00a0to be passed by politicians. But the proposals to mitigate climate change\u00a0prove to be unachievable and utopian.\u00a0All the various green new deals expect that capitalists will slit their own throats by supporting laws that act against their interests. This is indeed the real\u00a0pipedream, asking capitalism not to be capitalist\u00a0and to use their capital, not for profits\u00a0but to repair and rebuild the devastation they themselves have wreaked upon the Earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is crackpot reformism. The capitalist economy is based on the pillage of nature\u00a0which leads to global warming. Fossil fuels and remains intrinsic to the operation of capitalism\u00a0in many of the developing nations across the world. Capitalism is the reason our\u00a0eco-systems are falling apart and the only way humanity can\u00a0thrive is by ending capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even if some capitalists hold\u00a0a longer-term view, looking at the prospect of\u00a0future profits, their course of action is curtailed as they are constantly required to keep\u00a0an eye upon\u00a0their rivals\u00a0and will not spend or invest if they think this will undermine their \u2018competitiveness\u2019. The fear of every capitalist is losing their competitive edge in the market. If that means risking\u00a0losing long term ability to make profit, so be it. CEOs stick to their faith that \u201cAccumulate, accumulate! This is Moses and the Prophets!\u201d as Marx\u2019s Capital expresses it,\u00a0regardless that people or nature, will\u00a0be sacrificed\u00a0at the alter of Mammon. And no\u00a0government or politician dare\u00a0defy this \u00a0dogma for fear of the full fury of their puppet-masters,\u00a0their financiers and party donors\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The long-anticipated COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow is not very promising for our human civilisation. The well-established data of the realities of global warming is now very clear. The issue isn\u2019t the science, it\u2019s now the politics and the economics. Saving the environment must also go hand in hand with\u00a0the rights of capitalists and nations to make…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3883,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions\/3883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}