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.
- Great Green Smokescreenby Simon Korner Dispatches on Channel 4 on July 16 examined the trend for offsetting one’s “carbon footprint,” and questioned how accurate the science for measuring this really is.BP has claimed on its website that by buying into a scheme for trapping the emissions on a huge Mexican pig farm and burning off the harmful ...---READ-->>
- Climate Change and Class Conflictby Chris Harman In the past two years the question of climate change has moved from the margins of mainstream political debate to the centre. Hardly a week goes by without some international meeting discussing it. Politicians and corporations of all hues now declare their commitment to do something; even George Bush admits that there is ...---READ-->>
- International Ecosocialist Meeting – Update #1More information on this fall’s planned international meeting of ecosocialists The response to last month’s call for an international meeting of ecosocialists has been very encouraging. As that announcement said: “This meeting is a very preliminary first step: we will get to know each other, establish a provisional organizing committee, and begin discussions of projects and activities. ...---READ-->>
- Cubans Call for a Global Response to Climate ChangeFrom Granma (newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba), July 6, 2007 By a group of authors from the Cuban Ministry of Science and Technology (CITMA) and the Council of State Before the beginning of the recent meeting of the Group of 8, President Bush announced his strategy to deal with the severe problem of climate change ...---READ-->>
- Australian Socialists' Environment Charter Moving AheadEcosocialists around the world have primarily focused on exposing and analysing the capitalist threat to our planet. Australian ecosocialists are moving on the the next step, developing a program that lays out the concrete changes they propose for decarbonizing the planet.Dave Reilly (LeftClick) reports that the discussion process in the Socialist Alliance is now in ...---READ-->>
- New Report Calls for ‘Reality Check’ on BiofuelsThe rush for ‘biofuels’ is already causing serious damage, according to a new report by 11 civil society organisations from around the world. (New Release, July 3, 2007) Agrofuels – towards a reality check in nine key areas sets out considerable evidence that the spread of what are more accurately called ‘agrofuels’ – liquid fuels produced ...---READ-->>
- Toward a New Environmental Movement: Time to Kick Out the Corporate Bastardsby Jeffrey St. Clair & Joshua Frank From Counterpunch and Dissident Voice, both on June 29, 2007. Reprinted in Climate and Capitalism by permission of the authors The environmental movement is on life support. Some would say it is already dead. Even though climate change and Al Gore are fast becoming the conversation du jour ...---READ-->>
- Climate Vandals Prepare A Do-Nothing APECby Zoe Kenny From Green Left Weekly, 29 June 2007Two of the world’s worst climate vandals — US President George Bush and PM John Howard — are preparing their lofty green rhetoric in the lead-up to the so-called “climate change” Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney in September. With a federal election looming, the Coalition ...---READ-->>
- U.K. Socialists Boost Int'l Ecosocialism Meeting, Plan Labour Climate Change ConferenceThese articles appear in the Summer 2007 issue of the U.K. newspaper Socialist Resistance. Ecosocialists To Launch New International by Derek Wall Derek Wall is the Green Party of England and Wales Principal Speaker. In what promises to be a milestone event, ecosocialists are preparing to meet in Paris to launch a new international. Michael Lowy and Joel Kovel, ...---READ-->>
- "Not to laugh, not to weep, but to understand"From Inhabitable Earth, June 9, 2007 “Not to Laugh, Not to Weep, But to Understand” As Leon Trotsky said of the Stalinist betrayal of the Russian Revolution and everything it achieved, the task is “not to laugh, not to weep, but to understand”. This site has been started as an attempt to understand essentially the politics of climate ...---READ-->>
- Why the Market Cannot Solve the Environment CrisisBy Tony Iltis From Green Left Weekly, June 29, 2007 The good news is that Australian politicians and corporations are finally recognising that there is an environmental crisis. The bad news is that the “solutions” being promoted by the establishment define what is realistic for capitalism, so the “need” for big business to remain profitable sets the ...---READ-->>
- The Slavery of Climate ChangeBy Saleemul Huq From Science Alert – Australia and New Zealand June 29, 2007 Tackling climate change is like ending slavery. Climate change threatens to wreck the lives of hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest, least powerful people. Tackling this threat today is akin to abolishing slavery, both in terms of the scale of the problem ...---READ-->>
- Special Issue of Seedlings Focuses on Agrofuels“We are trying to get cars to eat bread and people to eat oil” Source: El Roto, El País, Madrid, 2007 No to the agrofuels craze! GRAIN has just published a special issue of Seedling which focuses on biofuels, or as we like to call them, agrofuels – over 30,000 words of in-depth analysis from around the world. In ...---READ-->>
- Another Heritage of ColonialismFrom State of the World Population 2007, published this week by the United Nations Population Fund Sea Level Rise: Not If but When, and How Much? One of the alarming prospects of climate change is its impact on sea level rise and its potential consequences for coastal urban areas. Coastal zones have always concentrated people and economic ...---READ-->>
- Biofuel Production vs Indigenous Peoplesby Andrew Boswell From Eastern Daily Press (UK), 16 June 2007. There are many unique cultures, thousands of human languages and a myriad of ways that people relate to others and the natural environment. We call the inheritors of these traditions “Indigenous peoples” and there are more than 370 million of them in some 70 countries worldwide. History ...---READ-->>
- European Weather Crisis Matches IPCC ForecastsJust two months ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report on Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. It included this warning: “In Southern Europe, climate change is projected to worsen conditions (high temperatures and drought) in a region already vulnerable to climate variability, and to reduce water availability, hydropower potential, summer ...---READ-->>
- The IPCC's 'Good News' About Global WarmingThe Time Has Come And now for the good news about global warming . . . by Joel Kovel Joel Kovel is the author of The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? This article will appear in his editorial column in the September issue of Capitalism Nature Socialism. Early in May, 2007, ...---READ-->>
- A new motto for Capitalism Nature SocialismJoel Kovel writes in the June issue of the quarterly journal Capitalism Nature Socialism: With this issue Capitalism Nature Socialism no longer calls itself an “international red-green journal of theory and politics,” but a “journal of ecosocialism.” We are not so foolish as to think this means that ecosocialism is substantially nearer than it was a ...---READ-->>
- The Sad Case of Alexander CockburnHe’s one of the most respected journalists of the left – but he is also a science-denying crank who insists that global warming is a hoax. Transcript of a Radio Ecoshock broadcast, June 18, 2007. Published by permission of the author, Alex Smith. When some right wing pseudo fascist nut is convicted, or discovered in the bedroom of ...---READ-->>
- Scientists: Civilization Threatened by Global Warmingby Steve Connor Independent, June 19, 2007 Six scientists from some of the leading scientific institutions in the United States have issued what amounts to an unambiguous warning to the world: civilisation itself is threatened by global warming. They also implicitly criticise the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for underestimating the scale of sea-level rises this ...---READ-->>