Did he bring anything new to the table? Disappointingly, no.
“...Personal change has to be part of the solution. We need to drastically reduce consumption. Less meat, fewer new clothes, fewer cars, fewer flights. But, with the ice caps melting, with permanent drought in the southern hemisphere, with coral reefs dying personal change will not turn this around fast enough. Governments must act quickly. But they’re not going to do that unless we force them…At COP 2020 in Glasgow governments must make commitments to cut emissions by 7.6% emissions every year we CAN limit global warming to 1.5°C. As the host nation the UK government has the opportunity to lead on this. We need to push the government to do that this year.”
The debate on whether climate change is man-made or not has well and truly ended. The debate on what to do about it, is not. Despite his good intentions and being well-meaning, Brian Larkin takes us no further than lobbying the government to do something about the environmental emergency as if it is a neutral body.
In order to replace capitalism with an ecological benign society we need a socialist revolution. Capitalism is the reason our civilisation is on the verge of collapse and the only way humanity and the rest of planet’s species can thrive is by ending capitalism. The insolubility of the climate crisis through capitalism is very evident. Those who profit most from the capitalist system have proven time and time again that not only are they unwilling to give up the rapacious economy that is destroying Earth, but that they even refuse to admit that it is that system which is the cause. We can no longer continue the pretense that the cure for capitalism’s deadly excesses can be found in capitalism itself. The reforms undertaken are not sufficient to help us to continue a world that remains liveable. The Socialist Party message is that civilisation as we know it now cannot survive if we allow the pursuit of profit to determine our future. To assume that any corporationhas an interest in acting according to an ethical standard higher than what is obliged or enforced by law is problematic. The very nature of corporations as profit-accumulating mechanisms contradicts and undermines their ability to regulate themselves. Relentless cost-cutting and aggressive expansion of market share in order to maintain its rate of profit form the core dogma of any business.
A willingness to pose the revolutionary challenge to capitalism is often the best way to win changes from the system but only if the revolutionary challenge succeeds, will it stave off climate disaster. Only in a socialist society can the ecological problems capitalism creates be solved. The climate movement has put forth some demands which can perhaps be possible within capitalism, but the Socialist Party continually emphasise the necessity of transcending capitalism and creating a new society based on democratic control of resources and production as a permanent solution. Capitalism’s drive to expand, private ownership of natural resources, production for profit rather than social good, the inability to plan, and alienating of humanity from nature makes it inherently ecologically destructive.
The progressive role of the industrial and scientific revolutions of the 18th through 20th centuries, brought many benefits to all humanity but in the process it also brought massive damage wreaked upon the environment by its blind industrial expansion and capital accumulation. Now the progress of human civilization is about to go into reverse and face us with the real possibility of collapse. The good news is that the alternative is increasingly understood.
The climate crises offers socialists an unprecedented opportunity for discussing profound fundamental change to our society. Global warming is becoming an issue of struggles and protests. The inability of capitalism to manage the economy sustainably or in the general interest has grown clearer to many, and the relevance and necessity of socialism is now becoming prominent in the debate. It is unrealistic to expect capitalism to take it upon itself to become a kinder and gentler . If we truly wish to see real change for the better in our lives we must stand up for our own interests. It is up to all of us. We have the bleak prospect now that world socialism, a new society not dominated by the needs of capitalist accumulation, must now be accomplished under conditions of strict time limits for humanity to restore conditions that will secure the long term survival of our own species.
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