A revolutionary response to the climate change crisis
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ``We need an emergency mobilisation of society, a five- or 10-year plan to achieve a drastic reorientation of our economy and use of energy. Anything else is simply not serious.'' April 3, 2008 -- Dave Holmes, a veteran leader of theAustralian Democratic Socialist Perspective <http://www.dsp.org.au/site/> (DSP), is one of the authors of the pamphlet Change the System Not The Climate <http://www.dsp.org.au/site/?q=node/194> (Resistance Books 2007) who will be participating in the Climate Change | Social Change Conference <http://www.greenleft.org.au/conference.php>, April 11-13 in Sydney Australia. The other authors of the pamphlet, renowned Marxist John Bellamy Foster and Links <http://www.links.org.au> editor Terry Townsend, are speakers at the conference. Peter Boyle of the DSP spoke to Holmes about the key issues the conference needs to address. Dave Holmes: The fundamental problem facing humanity today is catastrophic climate change brought on by runaway greenhouse gas emissions. The relatively narrow band of climatic conditions within which we can function has been destabilised. As average temperatures rise extreme weather events are increasing (cyclones, floods, heat waves and droughts) and ocean levels look like rising dramatically, potentially making refugees of hundreds of millions of people. The very survival of the human race has now been called into question. Human societies have always impacted on their environment. But the source of our current crisis is quite specific: it is the operations of modern capitalism. The drive for profits by the giant corporations has been relentless and has been pursued in complete disregard of any impact on the environment. The fundamental conditions under which we live - how we generate our power, how we get around, how our food is grown, etc. - are not decided by us but rather by the big corporations that control society’s means of production. Without the rule of corporate capital we could set in place radically different and ecologically sustainable arrangements. Read the full article at http://links.org.au/node/329 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
