Re: [Marxism] SWV on Earth Day 2019 and trends in environmental movement
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Thanks for your comment on the SWV leaflet, Patrick. It's important to have consultation on what's going on in the movement. As to Seattle Workers' Voice and DWV, we support the struggle for climate justice as an important part of the overall environmental struggle. Both in Seattle and Detroit, we have raised the issue of environmental racism repeatedly. This can be seen by looking for "environmental racism" in the search engine on the Communist Voice Organization website. And for example, the Detroit/Seattle Workers Voice mailing list has been covering the struggle against the expansion of the toxic waste facility deceptively called "US Ecology" in Detroit, which is a fight against environmental racism as well as against poisoning in general. That said, I would be happy to know more about the current state of the climate justice movement. We see what it's doing in the Detroit and Seattle areas, but I would be eager to hear your description of its activities elsewhere and of its overall direction. The SWV article didn't describe the militant section of the environmental movement; a short article can only deal with so much. Instead it focused on showing not just the necessity, but the possibility, of extending the relationship of the environmental movement to the working masses. Elsewhere we have talked about the militant section of the movement, and what its present limitations are. The climate justice movement contains many militant groups, is involved in many struggles, has more criticism of market measures than most other sections of the movement, but it's not the whole militant movement, and it has limitations in its standpoint. With respect to Earth Day activities in Seattle this year, the climate justice groups didn't seem that interested. Some years ago, various climate justice groups in Seattle were much more visible in the general environmental movement. But since then some political groups that had been excited about climate justice, seem to have abandoned it, while Got Green Seattle focuses simply on community organizing on various fronts. Got Green, for example, is having its annual Green-A-Thon close to Earth Day, but this event is solely to ask people to promote or contribute to community organizing. Got Green also is taking part in a protest in the Washington state capital of Olympia against Governor Inslee's cap and trade proposal, but that action is barely mentioned on its website. Thus, with regard to Earth Day, the events organized by Extinction Rebellion stood out. Environmental racism is also a major issue in Detroit and Southeast Michigan. The poisoning of Flint is well-known, but there are many issues in Detroit as well. But while there are many groups concerned with climate justice and environmental racism, they are connected to different political or activist trends, and don't form a unified climate justice movement. The different groups are involved in different spheres of community organizing, and different struggles. We have carried material about some of these struggles in the D/SWV list. But to help strengthen these struggles, there is the need to develop a conscious alternative to establishment environmentalism. Naomi Klein talked about the treacherous role of "Big Green" in her book "This Changes Everything", albeit a bit ambiguously; this was a very important part of the book, although I don't know if she still uses this phrase. The denunciation of "false solutions" by various climate justice groups is also important, but the issue eventually arises of what lies behind them, and this is connected to who will fight against them. I don't think that denigrating the phrase "climate action" is very helpful or understandable; there is always going to be a fight within the environmental movement between different standpoints. This difference occurs even within the struggle for climate justice, while the clash with establishment environmentalism will become even sharper in the future. The militant movement, if it is to grow and become a consistent opposition to establishment environmentalism, is going to have to take this into account. It needs to discuss this with activists. But look what happens at present. In 2017, the Climate Justice Alliance and the Indigenous Environmental Network put out a valuable 32-page pamphlet, "Carbon pricing: A Critical Perspective for Community Resistance/Building Solidarity Against the Threat of Linking Carbon Markets" (October, 2017). It vigorously and vehemently denounced market measures, including the carbon tax. At one time, the climate
Re: [Marxism] SWV on Earth Day 2019 and trends in environmental movement
POSTING RULES & NOTES
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*
On 2019/04/14 7:46 AM, jgreen--- via Marxism wrote:
As the demand for climate action grows:
...Rather than attempting to plan and directly regulate industry, agriculture
and
transportation, in the 1990s a large number of "environmentally aware"
governments embarked on the path of trying to use market measures--setting up
a market in carbon-emission certificates ("cap and trade)" and/or imposing
carbon
taxes--to rein in green house gas emissions. Other countries, such as the
United
States, didn't even do that much. Furthermore, establishment environmentalism,
as represented by Al Gore and the leaders of the mainstream environmental
groups, did their utmost to divert the environmentalists into becoming champions
of these market solutions that have so miserably failed.
Joe, I always respect your work, as you know, especially in statements
like that above.
But in the rest of the piece, you've missed an entire genre of activism
and radical critique, known as "climate justice." Was this intentional?
The framing around "climate action" is most often understood within the
likes of Al Gore, WWF and other ecological-modernizers; that's a why a
global CJ network emerged in 2007.
The idea of "class struggle" in climate change is excellent, but could
be seen as downplaying the indigenous, feminist and ecological
considerations that have become so important on the left in the last
dozen years.
Today, seeing the radicalizing youth, Extinction Rebellion and Ende
Galaende moving so firmly is excellent, and your outreach to them with
this sort of analysis is appreciated - since the distinction between
market-oriented strategies and eco-socialism is vital to stress.
But since groups like Climate Justice Alliance, Indigenous Environmental
Network, DAPL warriors, Attac and so many others are in motion, and
their roots go back so far in this struggle, the evacuation of the
anti-capitalist CJ tradition doesn't seem logical.
Cheers,
Patrick
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at:
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] SWV on Earth Day 2019 and trends in environmental movement
POSTING RULES & NOTES
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*
As the demand for climate action grows:
Build a working class movement against climate change!
(From Seattle Workers' Voice, vol. 3, #2, April 13, 2019)
As was predicted would happen decades ago, global warming is now giving rise
to increasingly devastating floods, droughts and wildfires, cyclones, polar
vortexes
and other climatic changes, and climate refugees. And as was known decades
ago, burning fossil fuels is the main cause of this warming, with
deforestation,
agricultural and other land-use practices that destroy natural "sinks" that
absorb
carbon dioxide making it worse. But greenhouse gas emissions reached record
highs in 2017 and in 2018.
How can this disastrous situation be happening?
Rather than attempting to plan and directly regulate industry, agriculture and
transportation, in the 1990s a large number of "environmentally aware"
governments embarked on the path of trying to use market measures--setting up
a market in carbon-emission certificates ("cap and trade)" and/or imposing
carbon
taxes--to rein in green house gas emissions. Other countries, such as the
United
States, didn't even do that much. Furthermore, establishment environmentalism,
as represented by Al Gore and the leaders of the mainstream environmental
groups, did their utmost to divert the environmentalists into becoming
champions
of these market solutions that have so miserably failed.
At root of this debacle is that the polluting and otherwise earth-destroying
corporations and their financiers are bitterly driven to oppose any serious
environmental measures because those will infringe on their profits. Thus, to
save these profits the IMF and World Bank, plus ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and other
oil companies have thrown their support behind carbon pricing and the carbon
tax. (1) Trump and the Republicans obviously serve them with human-caused
climate change denialism: "what problem??" But the Democrats also serve them
by foot-dragging when it comes to taking sufficient measures to curb climate
change, including Gov. Inslee's pushing the carbon tax.
So the struggle to stop and mitigate climate change is at heart a class
struggle,
but a class struggle that the polluting corporations and their political
servants
have been winning at the peril of the huge majority of humanity. The only
conclusion is that a trend of working-class environmentalism must be built up
in
order to fight and overcome them. Such a trend that has no interest in
preserving
the profits of those destroying the earth and every interest in preserving and
replenishing it. Further, such a trend must struggle against the sold out
AFL-CIO
and other union bureaucrats who fight for business-as-usual pollution, even if
means the planet becomes uninhabitable.
Recent developments show that the potential for building a working-class
environmental movement exists everywhere.
For example, the French working people are just as concerned about climate
change as everyone else, but beginning in November millions of them rose in the
powerful "yellow vest" movement that forced the government to abandon another
fuel tax increase. This was because the workers and poor were fed up with being
economically squeezed in the name of environmentalism. Indeed, in opposition
to that many raised slogans demanding that the rich should be made to pay,
while
people all over the country also pointed out that they couldn't give up
traveling in
cars because there was no mass transit where they lived. Their mass rebellion
demonstrated to the entire world that environmentalism has to make a choice.
Either side with the struggle of the masses for a decent life or side with the
corporations and the measures that they prefer, such as the carbon tax.
The potential also exists among the tens and tens of thousands of Belgium
environmental demonstrators who forced an environment minister to quit in
February, and who continue to mount protests of many thousands. Also in recent
months, new environmental groups have been organized around the world that
are demanding that governments take serious climate action now. On March 15
they helped mobilize some 1.2 million young people into streets around the
world
for a "Youth Climate Strike," including many hundreds in Seattle. On April 15
there will be another international protest called by one of these newer
groups,
Extinction Rebellion (see end for Seattle information).
And the potential exists among the millions of people who are excited by the
idea
of a Green New Deal and the concept of linking environmentalism with the
livelihood of the masses of people. This shows
