Our Planet. Our Future

CLIMATE CHANGE v. SYSTEM CHANGE

Scottish environmentalists have submitted their wish-list of reform demands to the Holyrood government. They include:

• A ban on petrol and diesel-powered cars in all city centres by 2030
• Establishing four green, low-carbon city investment deals
• A £100m fund to decarbonise farming

• Regional land use plans to maximise the countryside’s role in cutting CO₂ emissions
• A public information campaign to promote climate-friendly, lower meat and dairy diet

The Socialist Party tries to explain that  the climate change crises are not exceptional aberrations but are an inevitable consequence of the capitalist system. We say society's prosperity and the planet's well-being can only be guaranteed by world socialism. We perceive a dark future when we witness how national self-interest as in the case of Brasil's Bolsonaro permits the willful burning of the Amazon rainforest and how the America First policies of Trump can dismiss and disregard environmental concerns. 

 No part of the world is unaffected by climate change. In contrast to the destructive anarchy of capitalist competition which reinforces the divides between countries, classes, and cultures, a cooperative worldwide commonwealth would put an end to the unchecked power and authority exercised by both governments and corporate powers. New techniques of transportation and communication should facilitate a world in which the entire population could be cooperating in the creation of the good society. Of course, nothing of the kind is taking place. 

The Socialist Party recognises the urgent need to tackle global warming and climate change but views the proposals presented to the Scottish government by the environmentalists as a mere well-intentioned gesture.  It is fiddling while the world burns. 

People have to understand the cause of global warming. Capitalism is the impersonal process of the accumulation of capital out of the surplus value produced by the wage-working class and involves competition to transform this surplus value into money by selling the products in which it is embodied. This battle is won by those enterprises that can sell their products at the lowest price due to their employment of more productive methods. This investment in new productive methods depends on making enough profits (converting enough surplus value into money). So, capitalism is the pursuit of profits to accumulate as more capital. Such “growth” is built into it and cannot be stopped. If ever it was, the whole system would seize up and there would by massive worldwide economic crises. What is required to stabilise the rise in temperature is a global political and social revolution to end capitalism and put “mankind” in full charge of its interaction with the rest of nature (production). Which can only be done on the basis of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources becoming the common heritage of all humanity. To this end, the Socialist Party is organised.

1) If we do have a chance of survival, it is contingent on the establishment of world socialism. If capitalism continues indefinitely, then sooner or later we are doomed.

2) The sooner we establish socialism the better. But better late than never.

3)  The climatic and environmental threat to human survival will come to occupy central place among the concerns that inspire people to work for socialism, overshadowing all else.  

GOVERNMENT ACTION

FALSE HOPE  DESPERATE DREAMS