Ecosocialist Resources

The Ecosocialist Resources column is published at irregular intervals. It features links to new articles, reports, talks and videos that are relevant to Climate & Capitalism’s mission and goals.

Inclusion of a link does not imply endorsement, or that we agree with everything (or even anything!) the item says.

If you read or write an article that might be appropriate for this column, please post your suggestion in the Climate and Capitalism Facebook group.


  • Population Control and Climate Change, Part One: Too Many People?
    Population control is once again being touted by some in the green movement as an answer to climate change and other environmental problems. By Phil Ward Why is population control an issue? There is a long history of intersection between the ecological movement and the advocates of population control. Sometimes, views on this issue are not explicitly reactionary, ...
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  • The New Climate Science: Governments Gamble With Our Survival
    Official climate reports, though often disturbing, have not been nearly as frightening as they ought to be By Renfrey Clarke Almost universally, governments are refusing to recognize the scope and urgency of the changes demanded by global warming. The menace, however, is real, and the time available for concerted action to combat it is frighteningly brief. ...
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  • Treaty Chiefs Unanimously Demand a Halt to New Oil Sands Approvals
    “Oil sands development has all but destroyed the traditional livelihood of First Nations in northern Athabasca watershed” Calgary – From Wednesday to Friday of last week, Treaty Chiefs representing the Treaties 6,7 and 8 nations of Alberta met and passed a resolution, unanimously, to support the calls for no new oil sands approvals until Treaty First ...
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  • An African Call for a Moratorium on Agrofuel Developments
    The agrofuels ‘revolution’ is replacing millions of hectares of local agricultural systems, and the rural communities working in them, with large plantations We, the undersigned members of African civil society organizations, as well as organizations from other parts of the world, do urgently call for a moratorium on new agrofuel developments on our continent. We need ...
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  • “Climate change is a trade union issue”
    Some 300 people participated in the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Conference in London on February 9. Socialist blogger Liam Mac Uaid reports that “the majority of them were neither part of the far left nor any of the established environmental groups.” Liam’s blog includes reports on the event by himself and by conference ...
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  • Fidel Moves On
    Some personal thoughts on an ecosocialist hero by Ian Angus In January 1960, the newspapers reported that Fidel Castro would be visiting Ottawa after speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. I immediately tried to organize my school friends to go to the airport to greet him. Unfortunately the visit to Canada didn’t happen, ...
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  • Climate Chaos and the Global South
    Economic growth in India and China is portrayed as a key contributor to climate change. But the problem is mainly caused by the global rich not poor countries. by Suzanne Jeffery Socialist Worker (UK), February 5 2008 It was announced last year that China had overtaken the US as the world’s ...
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  • Scientists Identify Tipping Points of Climate Change
    By Steve Connor The Independent, February 5, 2008 A major international investigation by dozens of leading climate scientists has found that the “tipping points” for all nine scenarios – such as the melting of the Arctic sea ice or the disappearance of the Amazon rainforest – could occur within the next 100 years. The scientists warn that climate ...
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  • Trade Unionists must be the agents of human survival
    An Interview with Roy Wilkes  Roy Wilkes lives in Manchester, England. He is secretary of the organizing committee of the Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union Conference that will take place in London on February 9. Roy is also a member of Respect Renewal and of the International Socialist Group. He was interviewed by Richard Searle of ...
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  • Latin America's Democratic Revolution and the Greening of the Left
    by Daniel Denvir Global warming, indigenous rights, energy sovereignty and Latin America’s democratic revolution were on the top of Ecuador’s colloquium celebrating the Action Week / 2008 World Social Forum here in the capital. The set of panel discussions, entitled “Another Latin America: Where Are the New Revolutions Going?” took place on Friday January 25th, at the ...
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  • Richard Levins: Cuba, Ecology and the Need for a Dialectical Approach
    The January 2008 issue of Monthly Review includes a short memoir by Richard Levins, co-author with Richard Lewontin of the wonderful book The Dialectical Biologist. In the MR piece, Levins discusses the long arc of his career as a scientist who was also a dedicated activist and Marxist. On the cover, Monthly Review ...
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  • Eco-socialist Network Formed in Adelaide, Australia
    By Leslie Richmond From Green Left Weekly, 26 January 2008 In October 2007, with the federal election looming, and global warming generating a lot of tepid air in parliaments around the country, a diverse group of people in Adelaide established the Eco-socialist Network to attempt to generate more serious discussion of environmental issues. Green Left Weekly’s ...
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  • How to Avoid Action on Climate Change
    The following is the text of Ian Angus’s keynote speech at “Smells Like Green Spirit,” a conference sponsored by the University of British Columbia Student Environment Centre, on January 19, 2008. Canadians are known for being modest and self-effacing. We don’t brag much, and sometimes we seem to have an inferiority complex, a belief that we ...
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  • Tar Sands Crimes
    On Sunday, January 20, I was one of two speakers at a public meeting entitled “Can We Stop Global Warming,” sponsored by the Vancouver Socialist Forum. My talk will be broadcast in Vancouver this week as part of “a special look at climate and the capitalist malaise” on Alex Smith’s excellent Radio Ecoshock program. UPDATE: This program ...
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  • Climate Change – Social Change Conference, Australia, April 11-13
    Climate change – Social change conference April 11-13, 2008 Sydney, Australia The world is teetering on the brink of unstoppable climate change. Many now recognise the need for serious change in the way we produce and use energy, our transport systems, food production, urban design and forestry practices. Yet politicians are still mouthing platitudes while allowing corporations to ...
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  • Options for Ecosocialists in 2008
    (The general line of document below was endorsed by a meeting of the Green Left (a group within the Green Party of England and Wales) at their meeting this month. I met Sean Thompson at the founding meeting of the Ecosocialist International Network on Paris in October. He has been a socialist activist in Britain ...
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  • “More Forest, Less Bank!” Protecting the World’s Forests Will Take More than Money
    Media reports on last month’s Bali conference focused almost exclusively on what happened inside the conference hall and in negotiating sessions. But while politicians and bureaucrats haggled over the details of their toothless “Action Plan,” something quite different was happening outside. Dozens of activist groups also met in Bali, laying the basis for a revived ...
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  • New Publication: Confronting the Climate Change Crisis
    Available now: A new anthology of 10 frequently downloaded articles by Ian Angus, editor of Climate and Capitalism. They were published in Climate and Capitalism, Canadian Dimension, or Socialist Voice during 2007. Confronting the climate change crisis The IPCC and the conservatism of consensus Exploding the myths of ‘carbon offsets’ The war machine is addicted to oil The ‘emissions intensity’ ...
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  • From False to Real Solutions for Climate Change
    by Patrick Bond Amidst her welcome critique of the biofuel mania, Vandana Shiva’s ZNet commentary last month (December 13, 2007) also made this point: “The Kyoto Protocol totally avoided the material challenge of stopping activities that lead to higher emissions and the political challenge of regulation of the polluters and making the polluters pay in accordance ...
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  • Ethanol and the Gulf Dead Zone: More Echoes of Engels
    I previously quoted Friedrich Engels in regard to the impact of the U.S. ethanol boom on Brazilian rainforests.  Here’s the quote again: Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place ...
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