There can be little doubt about the centrality and severity of the environmental crisis in the present day. Driven by the mindless "grow-or-die" imperative of capitalism, humanity's destruction of the biosphere has reached and even surpassed various critical thresholds, whether in terms of carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, freshwater depletion, or chemical pollution.
Daniel Denver of The Dig interviews Thea Riofrancos and Daniel Aldana Cohen, co-authors with Kate Aronoff and Alyssa Battistoni of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal.
For nearly 30 years, America’s four biggest rail companies—which move the majority of the country’s coal—have spent millions to deny climate science and block climate policy.
Ecosocialists must stand in support of the millions of democracy protesters in Hong Kong and call on American trade unions and the Left to join us. The Chinese Communist Party is on a suicide mission to destroy planet earth in its all-out drive to maximize economic growth to save the party-state ruling class even if that growth produces CO2 emissions that precipitate planetary ecological collapse. China’s emissions are already more than twice as large as those of the U.S. and growing, with a GDP just 63 % the size of the U.S.
Democratic Socialists of America activist Nick French argues for making the Green New Deal a major new organizing priority for DSA activists and the U.S. Left. This article was originally published by The Call, an online publication of the Bread and Roses Caucus of DSA.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s landmark October 2018 report declared that preventing runaway global warming will require “far-reaching transitions in energy, land … and industrial systems” for which there is “no documented historic precedent.” Oxford University climate scientist and report author Myles Allen explained, “It’s telling us we need to … turn the world economy on a dime.”
Ashley is correct that addressing the climate crisis requires a radical transformation of the economic system, including more state-led planning. However, insisting that we must immediately end economic growth, let alone capitalism, is a political dead end. Fortunately, a green transformation can coincide with sustainable, egalitarian growth.
While the question of whether we should address capitalism first or climate change first is often posed in sequential terms, it is a false choice—though a compelling one.
