The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico highlights the
real state of US capitalism today. While making a lot of noise, Obama
is not prepared to take on the oil companies in any serious meaningful
way. What he is doing is passing the buck to the US working class.
The huge spillage of oil in the Gulf of Mexico was an accident
waiting to happen, as this brief comment from an ex-oil worker points
out. It shows quite clearly that our environment cannot be left in the
hands of a greedy, money-grabbing coterie of capitalists who own and
control the means of production.
It’s been close to a month since the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig
exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico, just 45 miles south of the
already beleaguered gulf coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi. The
ensuing oil spill may well surpass that which followed the wreck of the
Exxon Valdez, which poured over 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s
Prince William Sound in the spring of 1989.
What would such a transitional programme look like for the environment? What set of demands should socialists make regarding the climate change? In this article, we attempt to outline such a programme.
For many people, the idea of a revolutionary change in society seems like a pipe-dream that will never be possible in their lifetime. In this respect, Trotsky developed the idea of the “Transitional Programme”: a set of demands that could take society from our current situation under capitalism, towards our final goal of international socialism. What would such a transitional programme look like for the environment? What set of demands should socialists make regarding the climate change?
‘Ethical consumption’ and other capitalist ‘solutions’ to the climate crisis are a blind alley. We need a socialist alternative.
In the previous few months, we have attempted to show how capitalist ‘solutions’ to climate change, such as market-based methods like carbon trading, are not able to combat the environmental problems facing humanity and our planet. Similarly, international treaties that attempt to operate within the confines of capitalism are also doomed to failure, as was seen in Copenhagen last year. Capitalism cannot solve these problems – capitalism is the problem.
The dramatic collapse of the talks at
the Climate Summit in Copenhagen serves to highlight one thing: the
capitalist governments of the world cannot solve burning issues, such
as damage to the environment provoked by the anarchy of the market. The
thirst for profit is in direct contradiction to the interests of the
working people of the world. Social revolution on a global scale is the
only real answer to the problem.
At 5.30am on Saturday 19th
December, after almost two weeks of negotiations, the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change in Copenhagen
ended with an almost universal agreement that the summit had been a complete
failure.
As the climate change "summit" continues in Copenhapen, we reproduce here an English translation of a leaflet produced by Marxists in Denmark for a demonstration last Saturday
From 7th to 18th December
2009, delegates from 192 countries will be gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark,
in order to create a new, “legally-binding”, global treaty on climate change.
The UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (known
as COP15) marks the culmination of two-years of negotiation to try and generate
a replacement for the Kyoto
protocol, which is due to expire in 2012.
At a recent meeting of a local Labour Party
Branch in Worcester,
a slick high tech presentation was given by a group called Transition Worcester,
who said they had the answer to the environmental crisis. It is to turn the
clock back 200 years to a mythical age where all trade was local and people
enjoyed the benefit of locally grown meat, fruit & veg. Within this presentation were ideas such as we
should no longer trade with developing countries and we should therefore export
our unemployment to the third world.