Saturday, September 21, 2019
Socialism, the goal of the workers
Friday, September 20, 2019
Socialism – Our Best Hope
To-day and over the next coming week or so, environment activists will try to draw the world's attention to the climate crisis. The Socialist Party has always made its position clear.
We
stand for an end to capitalism and the formation of a socialist
economy democratically controlled by working people. We know that the
road ahead will have many twists and turns, but we also know that our
fellow-workers have a long history of fighting against exploitation
and oppression, and for justice and revolution. Class is everything,
and without clarity about it we do not know who we are or what we are
doing. The Socialist Party is a revolutionary organisation which
seeks a complete transformation of society, and the creation of a
socialist system. This will mean the working class overthrowing
capitalism, abolishing the State, getting rid of economic
exploitation and political oppression. We are not leaders but we
do strive to base our organisation on the principles that will be the
basis of the future society: mutual aid and solidarity.
Capitalists
seek to maximise profits and reduce the cost of labour. Capitalists
are about acquisition and exploitation. This is the heart of
capitalism. It is not about freedom and democracy. Those businesses
which are not able to increase profits and decrease labour costs,
through lay-offs, cutting wages, destroying unions, off-shoring,
out-sourcing or automation are replaced. Maximising profit means
turning the oceans into dead zones, filling the atmosphere with
carbon emissions and methane that render the climate unfit for
humans, pumping toxic chemicals and waste into the soil, water, air
and food supply, buying off elected officials and judges to serve the
exclusive interests of capital and privatising social services such
as health care, transportation, education and public utilities, to
gouge the public with high monopolised prices. Reducing the cost of
labour means forcing workers to remain unorganised and abolishing
work, health and safety regulations, it means re-locating industry
overseas where foreign workers toil like 19th-century serfs, it means
suppressing wages at home to force an impoverished population into
debt. That is the price of business. Capitalism will loot and
pillage, it will exploit and oppress. Across the world politicians
spew hatred and bigotry. Capitalism has never worked for the majority
of humanity.
The
personal ethics of the employer is irrelevant. The capitalist class
will go to any length to disguise capitalism’s true nature. An
example being Business
Roundtable’s
Principles of Corporate Governance, signed by 181 major CEOs, a
lesson in doublespeak. Capitalism will misinform and manipulate the
people through its control of the media. It demonises and muzzles its
critics. It funds academics and intellectuals to tirelessly propagate
the ideology of capitalism. It finances think tanks to spread the
belief that transferring wealth upward into the hands of the ruling
class is beneficial to society. Capitalism wages endless wars in its
quest for profit. It creates a mafia economy and a mafia government.
The Business Roundtable is equivalent of Al Capone insisting that his
mob runs society. The capitalists are determined to protect their
wealth with a PR image of a gentle, kinder, humane capitalism. Yet
capitalism translates into squeezing workers on wages, on working
conditions and on health coverage, and on pensions.
We
face multiple crises that are reaching their breaking points. Not
only has this resulted in an immense
wealth divide
and
widespread
poverty,
homelessness
and
lack of education for many people, we now are up against the threat
of catastrophic climate change. Carbon emissions continue to rise,
the polar ice caps continue to melt, crop yields continue to
decline, the world’s forests
continue to burn,
coastal cities continue to sink under rising seas and droughts
continue to wipe out fertile farmlands. The capitalist media sell us
the false hope that all will be right in the end. But it won’t.
Capitalism will not be able to adapt.
There
are encouraging signs of the growing realisation that capitalism is
running rough-shod over working men and women and a growing
understanding that there’s an urgent need to come together in the
name of preservation and resistance. It is now time to halt
capitalism's global gangsterism.
Thursday, September 19, 2019
The Poor Die Young
Research carried out by Prof Morag Treanor, of Heriot-Watt University, for the charity Aberlour, found that people from the most deprived parts of Scotland are three times more likely to die before they are 25 than those from the least deprived.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-49740395
Prof Treanor said the results showed the "massive inequality" between rich and poor in Scotland. It also showed young men and boys were far more likely to die before 25 than young women and girls.
Prof Treanor compared the death rates in the most deprived 20% of Scottish areas with the least deprived. She found a rate of 0.21 deaths per 1,000 people among under 25s in the poorest areas compared with a rate of 0.07 in the richest.
Prof Treanor said one major reason for the higher incidence of early deaths was poverty and its impact across the whole of a child's life.
She said this was linked to housing, neighbourhoods, health inequalities, nutrition, outdoor space, education and access to activities as well as the stresses poverty caused families.
Prof Treanor said: "The results of the research really couldn't paint a clearer message and underlines the massive inequality between rich and poor in this country."
Figures released by the National Records of Scotland in August showed that a boy born last year in one of the 10% most deprived areas of Scotland would have a life expectancy 13 years shorter than a boy from the most affluent area. It said a boy born in the poorer areas can expect to spend almost a third of his life (29.2%) in poor health.
Advocating a Socialist Solution
Climate
change threatens to pass the point of no return yet governments will
not accept the responsibility that would require regulation, control
and taxes. Corporations are unable to effectively respond to global
warming which jeopardises the planet and human life. The Socialist
Party stands for a sustainable future that respects the environment.
Some others say there is a strong case to be made that capitalism
will survive because of its ability to adapt to new situations, with
new technologies. The Socialist Party however declares that
capitalism is the greatest threat to the planet’s well-being, and
the greatest barrier to attempts to save it. We advocate a society of
abundance where there is the complete satisfaction of all
conceivable material needs. We aspire to a future where we not only
feed everyone on the planet, but also provide a satisfying and
nutritious diet. Sure, luxuries such as caviar may not be universally
available but the menu will be stimulating and varied. The socialist
focus is with the free and all-round development of human capacities,
not with the growth of material production and consumption for its
own sake. Our vision of socialism and a sustainable environment are
not in conflict.
The
solution to global warming requires the reorganisation of society. We
are not faced with any technological problems but political barriers
and re-directing a real onslaught on the economic structures of
capitalism and away from the cul-de-sac of focusing on individual
life-style behaviour. This system of capitalism is close to running
humanity into the ground. While radicalising a whole section of youth
who are coming to conclusions that the system can’t stop global
warming yet on the other hand, many of the same people will look to
the free market to find a solution the ruling class will accept, and
they hope the great and good in the world's government will listen to
reason.
Climate
change costs lives across the globe and causes species extinction on
a scale hitherto unknown. The most severe effects will be inflicted
on the poorest people in the poorest of nations. Climate change plays
an important role in the distribution of malaria, dengue, tick-borne
diseases, cholera and other diseases; the effects are unequally
distributed, and are particularly severe in countries with already
high disease burdens, such as sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
Capitalism
is driven by ‘short termism’ in its hunger for profits.
Investment decisions are made on the basis on what will make a return
in the quickest time. Such a system cannot deal with the scale of the
climate crisis or make rational planned decisions about what to
produce. The Socialist Party holds a vision of a new economy,
democratically structured to answer to people’s needs instead of
the profit imperative. If you like that idea, then welcome to the
movement for socialism. The Socialist Party is well aware of the
system’s rapacious nature.
The
road to a rational politics is not an easy one. Solutions will not
come from the capitalist parties. The challenge for socialists is
to help build understanding of the implications of capitalism. Many
of the barriers that prevent people from having a clear view of the
climate crisis have been deliberately constructed. We should build
another society that has already been discovered, a class-free
society is more than possible—it is necessary.
To
join the Socialist Party, you don't need to be an expert on Marx or
his economic and philosophic theories, just a basic understanding of
what socialism actually means. Today, our main political activity is
taking the form of speaking out. Everyone is needed and everyone is
welcome. It is up to us all, to step up and act. The best time to
reject and overthrow capitalism was over a hundred years and fifty
ago when socialists first denounced the system. The next best time is
today.
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Socialism For A Healthy Planet
The
day of the Global Strike for the Climate will soon be upon us on
Friday the 20th September and many will be asking, just where does
the Socialist Party stand on this issue. Our presence will not be
prominent and our voice is not going to heard by many but we do hold a
message for those school students and young folk who seek a better
future for themselves.
The
future of the human species - if there is to be a future - must be
socialist. Capitalism is not the system through which we will provide
a sustainable future. To support capitalism is to sign onto a ecocide
pact. Capitalism is a wealth-concentrating system that allows a small
number of people to dominate not only economic, but also political
decision-making. Because people believe there is no alternative to
capitalism, the docility of the people has contributed greatly to
keeping intact this rapacious and voracious society. It keeps on
existing. The idea of a zero growth, sustainable society is not new
and in recent years has been put forward by many in the environment
movement. But while desirable it is contradicted by a fatal flaw. The
ecologist camp still stand for the continuation of the market system.
This must mean the continuation of the capitalist system which is the
cause of the climate crisis.
Many
environmentalists advocate a society based on cooperation and
production for use, a sustainable society where production is in
harmony with the environment and affairs are run in a decentralised
and democratic manner. They argue that only in such a system can
ecological problems such as global warming be solved. However, it is
clear that this sustainable society is not socialism, for the
continuance of exchange economy with its the market is assumed,
together with private ownership. Their ultimate aim is an economy,
based on smaller-scale enterprises, with a greatly-reduced dependence
on the world market. Yet, they remain firmly wedded to a form of
capitalism, holding a belief that capitalism can be reformed so as to
be compatible with achieving an environmentally sustainable society.
If the environmental crisis is to be solved, this capitalist system must go. What is required is political action - political action aimed at replacing this system by a new and different one. There can be no justification, on any grounds whatsoever, for wanting to retain an exploitative system which robs workers of the products of their labour, which puts privileged class interests and profit before the needs of the community, which robs the soil of its fertility, plunders nature of its resources and destroys the natural systems on which all our lives depend.
Climate
change in particular has radicalising potential, as more and more
people are beginning to question the prevailing economic system’s
detrimental effect on the environment. But mainstream environmental
groups aren’t offering a coherent critique of capitalism’s
ecological consequences or doing the work of presenting alternatives.
Capitalism has inflicted incalculable harm on the inhabitants of the
earth. Tragically, the future could be even worse for a simple
reason: capitalism’s destructive power, driven by its inner logic
to expand, is doing irreversible harm to our ecosystems. Almost daily
we hear of species extinction, global warming, resource depletion,
deforestation, desertification, and on and on to the point where we
are nearly accustomed to this gathering catastrophe. Our planet
cannot indefinitely absorb the impact of profit-driven,
growth-without-limits capitalism. Unless we radically change our
methods of production and pattern of consumption, we will reach the
point where the harmful effects to the environment will become
irreversible. Even the most modest measures of environmental reform
are resisted by sections of the capitalist class. This makes the
establishment of a socialist society all the more imperative.
One
way or another, the coming years will be decisive for the fate of
human civilisation. Unless greenhouse gases are swiftly and
drastically curbed the result will be environmental catastrophe on an
almost unimaginable scale, threatening the survival of all life on
the planet. The reality of climate change is already manifesting
itself in an increasing number of extreme weather events, such as
heat-waves, droughts, floods and typhoons. Melting ice sheets are
resulting in rising sea levels and increased flooding of low-lying
areas. Some islands will soon be totally submerged, turning their
inhabitants into climate refugees. The solutions
to our climate emergency are known and simple: rapidly phase out the
use of fossil fuels, make the switch to renewables and halt
deforestation. But significant economic interests at the heart of the
capitalist system have big investments in coal, oil and gas.
Protecting these interests, governments refuse to take more than
token measures to halt climate change. The goal of the big
corporations is to secure the greatest possible profits for their
super-rich owners — regardless of the consequences to the planet
and its people.
Imagine
an alternative, a society where each individual has the means to live
a life of dignity and fulfilment, without exception; where
discrimination and prejudice are wiped out; where all members of
society are guaranteed a decent life, the means to contribute to
society; and where the environment is protected and rehabilitated.
This is socialism — a truly humane, a truly ecological society.
With socialism our work would engage our skills and bring personal
satisfaction. Leisure time would be expanded and fulfilling. Our
skies, oceans, lakes, rivers and streams will be pollution free. Our
neighbourhoods would become green spaces for rest and recreation.
Communal institutions, like cafeterias will serve up healthy and
delicious food and offer a menu of cultural events.
We can create a new politics
The
class struggle and class warfare continue under all circumstances in
capitalist society and it breaks out in different forms on many
fronts. Radicalisation is a condition of changing attitudes, shifting
beliefs, rejecting previously accepted values. It is a subjective
response to social crises. Working-class radicalisation is fueled by
unemployment, technological changes in industry, the uncertainty of
job security, low wages, government cutbacks in welfare and social
services , lack of educational opportunities in short, the
challenging of authority and the desire for a complete change to
something better seek ways to bring change about. These are the
expressions of a radicalising of the working class.
The callousness of the needs of capital accumulation and the subservience of governments to it cries out for us to replace this system and socialism is the answer. The basic question for the socialist revolution is that of capturing of state power. Unless this question is understood, there can be no conscious participation, not to speak of guidance of the revolution. Experience has shown that without anger and indignation, without burning enthusiasm, without an urgent desire to change the world, it is not possible to construct socialism. Revolution and socialism come about as a necessary and regular part of the social development of humanity. We are talking about a change that will involve the vast majority of fellow-workers consciously acting to change the entire society and all the relationships in it, from the way people relate to each other, to the way people relate to their jobs.
The
Socialist Party aims to get a majority of the people to accept its
ideas. Do we advocate violence? No. We want a peaceful
transformation. Socialism can be introduced through parliamentary
means. The existence of political democracy offers a chance to
achieve socialism in a peaceful manner.
The Socialist Party has one great principal and that is to tell the truth to the people. The working class must overcome a number of basic weaknesses. Most importantly, it must overcome the racial and nationalist divisions which, for centuries, have prevented the development of a unified working class movement. Yet despite their seeming strength, the capitalists are not as strong as the people who will eventually abolish the system of capitalism, and build in its place a socialist society.
The Socialist Party is an organisation of revolutionaries. That means that we feel that all the problems people experience in the context of our present society — war, poverty, pollution, economic crisis — flow from a cause, the nature of this profit-oriented society. We see that there are no real solutions to these problems until the entire society is changed. We're out to change the whole system. We see that all the problems of Britain are intimately tied to the problems throughout the whole world. If you are serious about changing the system, about changing the world, it is necessary to confront the system where you find it.
To be effective you have to build an organisation capable of doing that. That is one of the important reasons why a number of us decided to join the Socialist Party. It offers the opportunity for socialists to coordinate their struggles across the country and around the world. What is necessary in order to bring all these struggles together into one common fight that can overthrow capitalism is some sort of organisation that has an understanding of why the struggles are being fought in the way they are.
Capitalism
is chaotic and antisocial, intensifying the process of extracting
surplus value from the labour of the working class, curtailing the
development of productive forces, extending racism and nationalism,
promoting sexism, wreaking untold destruction on the environment and
debasing people through the furthering of a culture of decadence and
alienation. The working class is the only revolutionary class in
society. It is the producer of surplus value (capitalism’s profits)
and of all classes under capitalism, it stands in the most direct
contradiction to the ruling class. Mobilised into ever more developed
forms of socialised production by the capitalist system, the working
class forges its underlying unity precisely in the great factories,
on the assembly lines, in the mines, in the workshops and offices
where it has been brought by the capitalists in their pursuit of
profit.
Only the working class can overthrow capitalism and reorganise society for the benefit of all oppressed classes and sectors. Class struggle is the motor force of history.
The callousness of the needs of capital accumulation and the subservience of governments to it cries out for us to replace this system and socialism is the answer. The basic question for the socialist revolution is that of capturing of state power. Unless this question is understood, there can be no conscious participation, not to speak of guidance of the revolution. Experience has shown that without anger and indignation, without burning enthusiasm, without an urgent desire to change the world, it is not possible to construct socialism. Revolution and socialism come about as a necessary and regular part of the social development of humanity. We are talking about a change that will involve the vast majority of fellow-workers consciously acting to change the entire society and all the relationships in it, from the way people relate to each other, to the way people relate to their jobs.
The Socialist Party has one great principal and that is to tell the truth to the people. The working class must overcome a number of basic weaknesses. Most importantly, it must overcome the racial and nationalist divisions which, for centuries, have prevented the development of a unified working class movement. Yet despite their seeming strength, the capitalists are not as strong as the people who will eventually abolish the system of capitalism, and build in its place a socialist society.
The Socialist Party is an organisation of revolutionaries. That means that we feel that all the problems people experience in the context of our present society — war, poverty, pollution, economic crisis — flow from a cause, the nature of this profit-oriented society. We see that there are no real solutions to these problems until the entire society is changed. We're out to change the whole system. We see that all the problems of Britain are intimately tied to the problems throughout the whole world. If you are serious about changing the system, about changing the world, it is necessary to confront the system where you find it.
To be effective you have to build an organisation capable of doing that. That is one of the important reasons why a number of us decided to join the Socialist Party. It offers the opportunity for socialists to coordinate their struggles across the country and around the world. What is necessary in order to bring all these struggles together into one common fight that can overthrow capitalism is some sort of organisation that has an understanding of why the struggles are being fought in the way they are.
Only the working class can overthrow capitalism and reorganise society for the benefit of all oppressed classes and sectors. Class struggle is the motor force of history.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Who We Are
People need to survive and so we all need air, food, water, etc. It is human nature to eat when you are hungry, to drink when you are thirsty, and to sleep when you are tired. Nothing can alter this.
We also have sexual and emotional needs. To live happy lives we seek out physical contact, affection and love. All these features of human nature will be met in socialism and be much better than they are now under capitalism.
Our present social system is poorly equipped to grant happiness.
Too often we must do somebody harm in order to do a good deed for another, and vice versa.
Socialism does not require us all to become altruists, putting the interests of others above our own. In fact socialism doesn’t require people to be any more altruistic than they are today. The coming of socialism will not require great changes in the way we behave, essentially only the accentuation of some of the behaviours which people exhibit today (friendliness, helpfulness, co-operation) at the expense of others which capitalism encourages.
We will still be concerned primarily with ourselves, with satisfying our needs, our need to be well considered by others as well as our material and sexual needs. No doubt too, we will want to “possess” personal belongings such as our clothes and other things of personal use, and to feel secure in our physical occupation of the house or flat we live in, but this will be just that – our home and not a financial asset.
The socialist solution to the problem is by making the conditions and circumstances of our daily life humane by re-organising the entire network of economic and social relationships so that the problem itself disappears, so that no-one ever has to choose between the demands of the “conscience” and the dictates of “reason”.
We don’t need to change human nature; it is only human behaviour that needs to change. While our genes can’t be ignored, they only intervene in our behaviours in an indirect way, by programming the development of our brains. Therefore, to understand the complexities of our behaviour, it is to our brains, not directly to our genes, that we have to look. When we do this we find that our brains allow us, as a species, to adopt – a great variety of different behaviours depending on the natural, economic and social environments we have found ourselves in.
“A
rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings.”
Jimmy Reid
|
Socialists For the Planet
Enthusiasm
is an excellent and valuable thing when rightly applied, but when it
is wasted in fruitless directions it only leads to disheartenment and
apathy. It is partly on this account that we are sometimes critical
of demonstrations and protests. It is not with any desire to deride
the genuine enthusiasm of participants. We hope one day they will be
aimed at ending the system that exploits them, for then, they will
understand the real cause of the many problems we face and the only
way to end them. It is tragic to see during such demonstrations the
number of sincere, eager young people being deluded by the false hope
of government legislation and regulation when it comes to solutions.
The
permanent and effective solution to climate change is to be found in
a new society. We think the only way is for the vast majority of us
who are excluded from control of their own society to organise
consciously and collectively to remove the tools of political power
from the hands of the exploiting class so we can go about running
society in our own interests, not those of a tiny few. The way out of
the environment crisis is simple and obvious. The majority, acting in
an organised and orderly fashion, must assume possession of the means
of life in the name of society as a whole. Society must take them
over from the few whose private ownership stands in the way of the
general welfare. That is where we want to get.
Global
warming the very name show us the task that we are faced with. Think
globally. If global warming is to be solved, then world structures
must be created to deal with them. We must act globally.
The
resources of the Earth must stop being the property of multinational
corporations, national states and rich individuals and become instead
the common heritage of all humanity. Within the framework of a world
socialism, a society without frontiers, appropriate institutions can
be set up at world, regional and local levels to tackle the problems
that are caused, not by globalisation as such, but by the fact that
globalisation is taking place under a system where the uncontrollable
economic imperative is to make profits and accumulate more and more
capital, regardless of the effect on people or the environment.
For or Against the System?
The
object of a Socialist Party is socialism. To that end the education
and organisation of our fellow-workers and their persuasion to
socialist principles is essential. We cannot have socialism without
socialists. Therefore, the first duty of the Socialist Party is
propaganda, in order to make socialists. In doing this the
Socialist Party also champions every movement of the working class
towards improving its condition such as through their trade unions
even under present circumstances. When our men and women go to
Parliament they want to go with a direct socialist mandate, and if
they cannot go with that they will stay outside. It is of no matter
to us that this personality or that individual should be elected. It
is of importance however, that a socialist
should
be elected and a seat won for socialism. It is the case not the face,
as we often say. From our standpoint, therefore, it is better for a
socialist to fight and be beaten as a socialist than to fight and win
under any other manifesto or election promise. However successful we
may be at the polls we must necessarily be in a small minority for
some time to come in Parliament. While that is the case our most
important work is to be done, not in the House of Commons but in the
constituencies and country at large. The value of our presence in
Parliament would be agitational than legislative. We shall not
regard ourselves as statesmen and politicians , elected to take part
in the government of a
country
that is not ours. Rather than advocating legislative palliatives,
Parliament will become our forum for agitation, appealing to people
outside it, a platform for publicising the socialist case and, when
necessary, helping to defend and protect working class interests. We
will not ally with non-socialists, opposed to our aim.
When
the Socialist Party speaks of the “inevitability” of socialism,
it is only in the sense that capitalism creates all the conditions
which make the advance to socialism possible; and secondly, in the
sense, that the advance to socialism is a necessity for the further
progress of society itself – even more, the only way in which to
preserve society. We speak of the historical necessity of socialism,
since without
it
human
society cannot continue to develop. If society is to continue to
develop, socialism will inevitably come. We are no shepherds bringing
our sheep to the promised land. We are no Moses delivering our people
to the land of milk and honey.
Our goal is for mankind to take that
step necessary for that “association in which the free development
of each is the condition for the free development of all.” Our
choice is not one just merely between between capitalism and
socialism but between socialism and barbarism. It may be fashionable
for liberals and progressives to talk of a new capitalism, a
compassionate capitalism, a regulated capitalism, different from our
predatory capitalism, but no new version of old capitalism will
exempt it from the merciless laws of capital accumulation, market
expansion and insatiable drive for profits. Such idealised
hypothetical models of a “better” capitalism need not be treated
seriously. The foundations of capitalism remain the same despite
various cosmetic and superstructure changes capitalism has undergone
but without profound effects upon the foundations themselves.
Working
people are presented with two doors one of them opens into
socialism and the other into the a catastrophic apocalypse.
Regardless of nationality, race, colour and political and religious
creeds, the working class has always been inspired by one idea—the
overthrow of capitalist society, built on slavery, exploitation and
violence. In this struggle of labour against capital, the working
class can win only by mustering all their forces against the common
enemy, the capitalist class. So long as the capitalist system
continues there is the merciless struggle for supremacy between the
conflicting vested interests of competing groups of exploiters will,
as in the past, eventually evoke a new crisis, plunging the workers
of the world into another disastrous war. There is but one power that
can save mankind from being plunged into another universal
catastrophe. There is but one power which can defend the workers of
all countries against political and economic oppression and tyranny.
There is but one power which can bring freedom, welfare, happiness
and peace to the working class and to humanity. That power is the
working class if well organised and determined to fight all who would
oppose and prevent its complete emancipation.
Monday, September 16, 2019
Be Afraid...Be Very Afraid
Scientists have typically feared being labelled as alarmist or of being accused of campaigning if they express personal views on the issue. They’re alarmed that global warming of just over 1C so far has already created a new normal in which historic temperature records will inevitably be broken more often. Few of the scientists contacted by the BBC had faith that governments would do what was needed to rescue the climate in time.
The UK's ex-chief scientist, Prof Sir David King says he's been scared by the number of extreme events, and he called for the UK to advance its climate targets by 10 years.
The physicist Prof Jo Haigh from Imperial College London said: “David King is right to be scared – I’m scared too."
The polar scientist Andrew Shepherd from Leeds said: "I would not use the term (scary) in general, but it is certainly surprising to see record (or near record) losses of ice. The year 2019 has been a bad year for Earth's ice."
Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, said, “I have a sense of the numbing inevitability of it all. It's like seeing a locomotive coming at you for 40 years - you could see it coming and were waving the warning flags but were powerless to stop it.”
Prof John Church from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia told the BBC "Some things appear to be happening faster than projected. This may be partially related to the interaction of climate change and natural variability as well as the uncertainty in our understanding and projections. In my own area of sea level change, things are happening near the upper end of the projections. What is scary is our lack of appropriate response. Our continued lack of action is committing the world to major and essentially irreversible change.”
Petteri Taalas, who is secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said he criticised radical green campaigners for forecasting the end of the world. Dr Taalas agrees polar ice is melting faster than expected, but he’s concerned that public fear could lead to paralysis – and also to mental health problems amongst the young.
Dennis Hartmann from the University of Washington in Seattle told the BBC: “I do not use the ‘scary’ word. I prefer to talk about moving on to an economy in harmony with the natural world, but still providing a better life to humans. This is entirely possible. It is disheartening to me personally that we are moving faster in the opposite direction in most of the world. Much of what we are doing in increasing atmospheric CO2, extinction of species and destruction of ecosystems is nearly irreversible. So maybe it is time to be frightened.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49689018
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