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NEWS & LETTERS, October - November 2009
Protests against climate suicide
Chicago--The urgency of countering climate change was on the minds of the 80 of us who rallied in the Loop on Aug. 31 for action on the issue. Events like this are showing that the more mainstream environmental groups--like 1Sky, which called this rally--are connecting more with people of color and workers, who have long battled pollution whether or not they were recognized as "environmentalists."
However, the contradictions of this movement were visible. Mainstream activists delivered an uninspiring, technocratic message that touted various technologies and included advocating a carbon tax, which would proportionally be heaviest on the poor. Supposedly, this would not hurt people already struggling to afford rent, food, utilities and healthcare, because a portion of the taxes paid would be used to help low-income people. Speakers did not seem to realize that such aid would be dropped if the tax ever passed Congress.
How is it that the urgency we all shared did not come through in the speeches? Only one mentioned Hurricane Katrina, which is the very real wound gouged into the world's consciousness--not only as the disasters global warming holds in store but how before and after any disaster the racist, capitalist USA stands ready to sacrifice people based on their skin color, sex or class.
The same dynamic is playing out on a world scale, as seen in three international summits in September. On the one hand, the President of Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation, movingly appealed to the special climate session of the UN to save his country from disappearing under the rising seas. On the other hand, the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases--the U.S. and China--put forward only half-measures falling far short of the reductions scientists say are needed. In the spirit of capitalist competition, the U.S. and China are heading together down a suicidal path rather than let the other gain an economic advantage. China's President Hu even resurrected George W. Bush's scam term "carbon intensity," which Hu promised to reduce by an unspecified amount, that is, emissions will keep growing but not as fast as the economy.
Encouragingly, many protests in the U.S. and other countries raised global warming while the UN met and later as the G-20 summit took place. Many more will happen before and during the climate treaty negotiations to come in Copenhagen in December, as will sit-ins to prevent more coal-fired plants from opening. Still, what is missing is discussion of how deep the social transformation needs to be to break out of capitalism's suicidal path, and how it can come to be. As long as that is missing, our movement will continue to focus on technical solutions, legislation, lobbying and treaties, and will be unable to raise the banner of a truly sustainable society based on new human relations.
--Franklin Dmitryev
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