Transformation is not a metaphor
In this intervention I highlight an element that has been overlooked in this important debate about “progressive environmental futures” – the dismantling of fossil capitalism.
ecosocialism
The anti-colonial politics of degrowth
What degrowth adds is the assertion that growth in high-income nations is not required in order to achieve a flourishing society. What is required is justice.
Capital Versus Biosphere: An Eco-social Agenda Fit for the Times
The push to ensure that public interests, the decommodification of fundamental rights, and cooperation prevail demands a new eco-social agenda that aims to be hegemonic. This agenda should focus on three key aspects: biodiversity, the local, and energy transition.
The Meaning of Cataclysm
The logical endpoint then is to leverage the word cataclysm in these times, because only that word captures the magnitude with which our species is fundamentally altering the world in ways that will have profound, lasting, and potentially fatal impacts for humanity as a whole.
The Shortest of Comments, the Biggest of Movements
The good news is that there is a “new Global Left” that enjoys a multitude of emerging movements, including climate justice groups led by young people. The rich array of activist groups and the dynamism and passion they display excite a sense of possibility.
The Coronavirus Pandemic as the Crisis of Civilization
The fight for ecocentrism, like the fight for human emancipation, is a fight for universal values. Without ecocentrism, that is not just an intellectual point of view but a genuine love for nature and for life on Earth, there will be no humanity and no human emancipation.
Clean Tech Versus a People’s Green New Deal
Is there a way to imagine a different GND, a global Green New Deal? I think so. But it might have to start by recognizing the ecological laws of limits and a social ethic of redistribution of wealth and resources, and equality. It would argue for developmental convergence, including in energy use, between wealth and poor, within and between countries.
Why De growth is Essential: A Rejection of Left Ecomodernists Phillips, Sharzer, Bastini, and Parenti.
The left urgently needs to get over its long-term fascination with “productivism”, to realise that the best line of attack against capitalism is to focus on limits and sustainability, and to plunge into Transition Towns and related initiatives.
Climate Emergency Declarations Guarantee Nothing; We Need Total System Transformation for Climate Mitigation and Adaptation
Do what you can and as much as you can, even as you factor in your own limits.. Those of us who are awake must find our way to work on what has been unleashed. What we choose to do must become effective participation in the longest relay race we’ve ever been forced to run. Don’t drop the baton, and do pass it on.
Climate Change and Capitalism: A Political Marxist View.
If we want to stand a chance of building socialism in the near future, we must become eco-socialists and stop catastrophic climate change now.
Making the Green New Deal Real
As the Climate Justice Alliance points out, “to truly address the interlinked crises of a faltering democracy, growing wealth disparity and community devastation caused by climate change and industrial pollution, we must reduce emissions at their source.
Degrowth is Utopian, and that’s a Good Thing
Reality is complex, what is possible and what not is hard to know, and the roads to ecosocialism (or however else you might want to call an egalitarian and sustainable future) are many.