It’s been record hot in parts of Europe and Asia over the last week and this has provoked an outburst of three things that have become de rigeur whenever this happens:
Yeah, it is the physics. Fossil fuels are energy dense and quite portable. The proceeding is not an argument for the status quo. Fossils will be necessary for a somewhat orderly transition to a degrowth (of course Mother Nature has the final word) that utilizes renewables.
This essay wraps up brilliantly what fossil fuels should not be wasted upon. Heat stress will kill multitudes this year. How bad do the die offs from climate stress need to be to satiate our cruel masters? (Rhetorical question, unlimited dying is their dream ...)
"To be honest, I may have written this article for an audience that doesn’t exist."
--> I often feel this way myself. In this case, I'm glad to see that that's clearly not true! We're here and we hear you.
I think one of the best things about Substack is getting the chance to send up the flare to find the audience on these kinds of topics that push and push the conceptual frame until we get to the heart of an understanding that actually makes sense. That audience whom we don't see otherwise day to day in the places we are, but who are out there. And for some of the really beyond the normal frame topics, maybe we can create that audience bit by bit.
Your article contains several important insights, but its conclusions reveal some severe political limitations. You correctly identify that climate change denial among some self-styled "anti-imperialists" is politically incoherent. You are absolutely right that imperialism and ecological destruction "grow from the same root." Your observation that the Pentagon is the world's single largest institutional emitter of greenhouse gases and that the genocide in Gaza has an immense carbon footprint is factually sound. You are also correct that the mainstream climate narrative — a "green transition" managed by the very energy monopolies and financial institutions that created the crisis — is a fraud designed to preserve capitalist profit relations while pretending to address the problem. Your central argument that "legacy media ignores the vast scale of the ecological crisis to focus narrowly on climate change" points toward an important truth: what is presented as "climate policy" under capitalism is not a serious response to ecological breakdown but a series of manoeuvres by rival nation-states to gain competitive advantage while shifting the burdens onto the working class. The critical rupture comes in your proposed alternative. You write that a genuine response would require "serious policies that reject global capital and move us towards sustainable, local systems that benefit communities not oligarchic structures and corporate entities, whether that be in energy, farming, tourism or trade.” This is the language of petty-bourgeois localism — a perspective that fundamentally misunderstands both the nature of the crisis and the social forces required to resolve it. The ecological crisis is not the product of "global" systems versus "local" ones. It is the product of the capitalist mode of production itself: the subordination of all economic life to the accumulation of private profit, the anarchy of the market, and the division of the world into rival nation-states. The answer to a crisis that is planetary in scope cannot be a retreat into localism. Fragmenting production into "sustainable, local systems" would represent a catastrophic regression in the productive forces — a return to pre-industrial forms of life that could not sustain the world's population at anything approaching decent living standards. This is not socialism; it is the romantic anti-capitalism of the petty bourgeoisie, which sees the problem as bigness and complexity rather than private ownership and the profit motive. The most striking absence in your article is any reference to the working class. Your political subject is "communities" — a vague, classless category that obscures the fundamental division in society between those who own the means of production and those who must sell their labor power to survive. The working class is the only social force whose fundamental interests align with the rational, scientific reorganisation of the world economy to meet human needs — including environmental needs. The socialist response to the ecological crisis begins from the recognition that the problem cannot be solved within the framework of capitalism and the nation-state system. The technology exists to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, to restructure agriculture, transportation, and industry on a sustainable basis. What blocks this is not a lack of "community" control or insufficient localisation — it is the private ownership of the commanding heights of the economy by a handful of billionaires and the division of the world into rival capitalist states, each pursuing the interests of its own ruling class.
The program must include:
The nationalisation of the giant energy corporations and banks under the democratic control of the working class, not as isolated national measures but as part of an internationally coordinated struggle.
The scientific planning of the world economy to phase out fossil fuels and reorganize production to meet human needs rather than generate private profit.
The abolition of the nation-state system and the establishment of a world federation of socialist republics, because ecological processes do not respect national borders and no single country can solve a planetary crisis.
As Nick Beams of The Socialist Equality Party Australia explained in his 2009 lecture on Marxism, socialism and climate change, the problems are "so profound and far-reaching that, to be resolved, they require the mobilisation of all available economic, material, scientific and technical resources" — something that is only possible through the international unity of the working class in struggle against capitalism.
You correctly perceive that the ecological crisis is systemic and that capitalism cannot solve it. But your proposed alternative — "sustainable, local systems" — is a utopian retreat from the scale of the problem rather than a revolutionary advance to the level required to solve it. The answer is not less industry, less technology, or less global integration. It is the expropriation of the capitalist class and the rational, democratic, scientifically planned reorganization of the world economy by the international working class. That is the struggle for world socialism.
In fairness, he was happy to talk - I did find myself basically liking him. While I believe climate change is happening (seasons certainly seem less regular and predictable here in the UK since when I was a kid and a lot of temperature records have been consecutively broken) I’m actually a lot more concerned by biodiversity loss. One of my main frustrations with Extinction Rebellion was that a lot of the language and design work was based around species extinction, but actions on a national scale were very centred around climate change specifically. On a local scale my group did a fair amount on species extinction, mind, and I appreciated the animal rebellion group.
If anyone actually cared about climate, the US military is by far the biggest emitter on the planet.
However, that word "if" is doing a great deal of work for me.
Yeah, it is the physics. Fossil fuels are energy dense and quite portable. The proceeding is not an argument for the status quo. Fossils will be necessary for a somewhat orderly transition to a degrowth (of course Mother Nature has the final word) that utilizes renewables.
This essay wraps up brilliantly what fossil fuels should not be wasted upon. Heat stress will kill multitudes this year. How bad do the die offs from climate stress need to be to satiate our cruel masters? (Rhetorical question, unlimited dying is their dream ...)
An astute and valuable perspective, thank you.
"To be honest, I may have written this article for an audience that doesn’t exist."
--> I often feel this way myself. In this case, I'm glad to see that that's clearly not true! We're here and we hear you.
I think one of the best things about Substack is getting the chance to send up the flare to find the audience on these kinds of topics that push and push the conceptual frame until we get to the heart of an understanding that actually makes sense. That audience whom we don't see otherwise day to day in the places we are, but who are out there. And for some of the really beyond the normal frame topics, maybe we can create that audience bit by bit.
Your article contains several important insights, but its conclusions reveal some severe political limitations. You correctly identify that climate change denial among some self-styled "anti-imperialists" is politically incoherent. You are absolutely right that imperialism and ecological destruction "grow from the same root." Your observation that the Pentagon is the world's single largest institutional emitter of greenhouse gases and that the genocide in Gaza has an immense carbon footprint is factually sound. You are also correct that the mainstream climate narrative — a "green transition" managed by the very energy monopolies and financial institutions that created the crisis — is a fraud designed to preserve capitalist profit relations while pretending to address the problem. Your central argument that "legacy media ignores the vast scale of the ecological crisis to focus narrowly on climate change" points toward an important truth: what is presented as "climate policy" under capitalism is not a serious response to ecological breakdown but a series of manoeuvres by rival nation-states to gain competitive advantage while shifting the burdens onto the working class. The critical rupture comes in your proposed alternative. You write that a genuine response would require "serious policies that reject global capital and move us towards sustainable, local systems that benefit communities not oligarchic structures and corporate entities, whether that be in energy, farming, tourism or trade.” This is the language of petty-bourgeois localism — a perspective that fundamentally misunderstands both the nature of the crisis and the social forces required to resolve it. The ecological crisis is not the product of "global" systems versus "local" ones. It is the product of the capitalist mode of production itself: the subordination of all economic life to the accumulation of private profit, the anarchy of the market, and the division of the world into rival nation-states. The answer to a crisis that is planetary in scope cannot be a retreat into localism. Fragmenting production into "sustainable, local systems" would represent a catastrophic regression in the productive forces — a return to pre-industrial forms of life that could not sustain the world's population at anything approaching decent living standards. This is not socialism; it is the romantic anti-capitalism of the petty bourgeoisie, which sees the problem as bigness and complexity rather than private ownership and the profit motive. The most striking absence in your article is any reference to the working class. Your political subject is "communities" — a vague, classless category that obscures the fundamental division in society between those who own the means of production and those who must sell their labor power to survive. The working class is the only social force whose fundamental interests align with the rational, scientific reorganisation of the world economy to meet human needs — including environmental needs. The socialist response to the ecological crisis begins from the recognition that the problem cannot be solved within the framework of capitalism and the nation-state system. The technology exists to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, to restructure agriculture, transportation, and industry on a sustainable basis. What blocks this is not a lack of "community" control or insufficient localisation — it is the private ownership of the commanding heights of the economy by a handful of billionaires and the division of the world into rival capitalist states, each pursuing the interests of its own ruling class.
The program must include:
The nationalisation of the giant energy corporations and banks under the democratic control of the working class, not as isolated national measures but as part of an internationally coordinated struggle.
The scientific planning of the world economy to phase out fossil fuels and reorganize production to meet human needs rather than generate private profit.
The abolition of the nation-state system and the establishment of a world federation of socialist republics, because ecological processes do not respect national borders and no single country can solve a planetary crisis.
As Nick Beams of The Socialist Equality Party Australia explained in his 2009 lecture on Marxism, socialism and climate change, the problems are "so profound and far-reaching that, to be resolved, they require the mobilisation of all available economic, material, scientific and technical resources" — something that is only possible through the international unity of the working class in struggle against capitalism.
You correctly perceive that the ecological crisis is systemic and that capitalism cannot solve it. But your proposed alternative — "sustainable, local systems" — is a utopian retreat from the scale of the problem rather than a revolutionary advance to the level required to solve it. The answer is not less industry, less technology, or less global integration. It is the expropriation of the capitalist class and the rational, democratic, scientifically planned reorganization of the world economy by the international working class. That is the struggle for world socialism.
Maybe
I challenged Piers Corbyn in person to disprove or in any way refute the existence of mass biodiversity collapse and he, frankly, gave me nothing.
That's too bad.
I wish that Piers Corbin was our Prime Minister. He's a good man. in my humble opinion. What do you think of him aside from what you wrote here?
In fairness, he was happy to talk - I did find myself basically liking him. While I believe climate change is happening (seasons certainly seem less regular and predictable here in the UK since when I was a kid and a lot of temperature records have been consecutively broken) I’m actually a lot more concerned by biodiversity loss. One of my main frustrations with Extinction Rebellion was that a lot of the language and design work was based around species extinction, but actions on a national scale were very centred around climate change specifically. On a local scale my group did a fair amount on species extinction, mind, and I appreciated the animal rebellion group.