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.
- Ten propositions on the climate crisisCanadian Dimension editor Cy Gonick identifies key challenges facing the climate emergency movement---READ-->>
- Population book misdiagnoses Australia's environmental crisisDick Smith’s Population Crisis: The Dangers of Unsustainable Growth for Australia. Allen & Unwin, Sydney Australia, 2011. ISBN 978-1-74237-657-8 reviewed by Simon Butler Green Left Weekly, August 28, 2011 Those who say today’s big social and ecological problems stem from there being too many people on the planet face a special difficulty. As the Australian ecologist Alan Roberts once said, ...---READ-->>
- Native American and Canadian First Nations join civil disobedience to stop tar sands pipelineThe Indigenous Day of Action, September 2, 2011, at the White House will express the solidarity of Native Nations, to protect Mother Earth and demand Obama respect the treaty rights and survival of Native Nations of the US and Canada (It’s Hot in Here. Aug 27, 2011) The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a national environmental justice ...---READ-->>
- ‘Capitalism cannot respond to climate change’Noted Marxist economist and ecologist John Bellamy Foster is a feature guest speaker at the World at a Crossroads: Climate Change Social Change conference, which will take place in Melbourne Australia, September 30 to October 3. He was interviewed by Peter Boyle for Green Left Weekly. ================ What will be some of the effects of the ongoing global financial crisis and the global ...---READ-->>
- Canadians call for civil disobedience to stop tar sandsCall urges “one of the largest acts of civil disobedience on the climate issue that Canada has ever seen” in Ottawa, September 26 There comes a time when you need to take a stand. When sending letters and signing petitions isn’t enough. When together we must say, “enough is enough — not on our watch”. That time ...---READ-->>
- Interview: Fred Magdoff on What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism“It appears inconceivable to most of the people I spoke with that somehow there might be a future economic system that wasn’t capitalist.” ++++++++++++++++++++ [Climate & Capitalism Editor’s Note: My copy of this book arrived two days ago and I immediately read it right through. It is an invaluable resource. Buy, share it, use it, give copies to your ...---READ-->>
- Deforestation is worse in 'protected areas' than in community-managed forests“When done properly, the benefits of community-based management can be seen over the long term, leading to greater conservation participation, reduced poverty, increased economic productivity and the protection of many forest species” News Release from the Center for International Forestry Research August 23, 2011 Tropical forests designated as strictly protected areas have annual deforestation rates much higher than those ...---READ-->>
- South African food sovereignty campaigners expand land occupations“The land reform has failed us. The municipality has failed us. We will not fail ourselves. We are occupying this land. We will not be removed. Ever!” by Ronald Wesso Pambazuka News, August 18, 2011 Furious emerging farmers in the Kareeberg municipality in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province have decided to stop paying rent for the municipal owned ...---READ-->>
- Anti-capitalism and environmentalism as a political alternativeWe cannot analyse the global ecological crisis separately from the crisis in which we are immersed or the critique of the economic model that has led us into it. by Esther Vivas Speech at a conference to commemorate José Saramago at the University of Granada, 28 April 2011. Published in International Viewpoint, August 2011. The starting point for ...---READ-->>
- How Jeffrey Webber's From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia turns reality on its headGiven the hostile tone of his sweeping attacks on the government and its supporters, one would expect a thorough and detailed analysis. Instead we get a litany of errors and misleading statements. Jeffrey Webber. From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia: Class Struggle, Indigenous Liberation, and the Politics of Evo Morales. Haymarket Books, 2011. Reviewed by Federico Fuentes Alborada, August 19, ...---READ-->>
- Why GMOs won’t feed the world (despite what you read in the New York Times)We need proven sustainable intensification agriculture that creates resilient communities, not the hollow promises of GMO promoters by Anna Lappé Anna Lappé is the authorof Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, and the co-founder of the Small Planet Institute and Small Planet Fund. With all due respect, Nina ...---READ-->>
- Marxism has an ecological heartIn the past two decades several scholars have gone back to the writings of Marx and other early socialists. They have found that humanity’s relation to the planet’s ecology was a key element to a Marxist analysis of political economy. by Ash Pemberton Green Left Weekly, August 13, 2011 We all know there’s a big problem with the environment ...---READ-->>
- Population debate heats up on C&CThe article “Seven questions for a populationist” has prompted some interesting comments and debate. Now one of the big guns of populationism, Simon Ross, CEO of the UK-based Optimum Population Trust, has posted his answers. He accuses socialists of dividing the environmental movement and “generating fruitless debates.” Click here to join the conversation …---READ-->>
- David Harvey on the English riots: Feral capitalism hits the streetsA political economy of mass dispossession, of predatory practices to the point of daylight robbery, particularly of the poor and the vulnerable, the unsophisticated and the legally unprotected, has become the order of the day by David Harvey “Nihilistic and feral teenagers” the Daily Mail called them: the crazy youths from all walks of life who raced ...---READ-->>
- Building an ecosocialist network in New ZealandThe time is right to encourage further cooperation among people who identify as ecosocialists Statement by Socialist Worker-New Zealand Unity, 11 August 2011 The crises of global capitalism, coupled with catastrophic climate change and peak resources, is going to bring about profound social, ecological and political upheavals. There is evidence of this happening globally already. We can point to ...---READ-->>
- Jonathon Porrit vs George Monbiot on nuclear powerTwo posh britishmen discussing nuclear power. Not exactly my cup of tea, I really don’t like the arrogant tone both regularly use, but interesting to follow. by Ricardo Sequeiros Coelho Cool the Earth, August 10, 2011 Jonathon Porritt argued in a blog post that nuclear power supporters within the environmental movement are hijacking the debate over the future ...---READ-->>
- Rioters on Wall Street!As I write these words, out-of-control hordes are swarming throughout downtown Manhattan. Their disregard for human decency, for the sanctity of people’s homes, jobs, property and health is beyond anything seen since the Dark Ages. These men and women, almost all of them white and disturbingly antiseptic for people living in a filthy and crowded city, ...---READ-->>
- England: an explosion of bitterness and rageThe anarchy of the market is far more devastating than the supposed anarchy on the streets. The bankers and businessmen have enriched themselves more effectively than any looter. Statement issued by the Socialist Workers Party (U.K.) Why people are rioting The riots that swept large parts of London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol last night are an explosion of ...---READ-->>
- How biofuels are destroying Indigenous communities in MalaysiaLogging and then palm oil plantations have cost the Batek and the Penan much of their rainforest homelands. In the most common progression, logging companies obtain concessions from state governments with little or no resistance from indigenous peoples who have limited land rights and rarely read or write Malay, Malaysia’s official language. In the past, many communities ...---READ-->>
- Neoclassical economics: a pretend scienceMichael Yates reviews three critiques of the absurd economic theories that are taught in colleges and universities everywhere … Michael Yates, an economist and a labor educator, is associate editor of Monthly Review. Economists have taken certain scientific concepts—such as equilibrium, stability, efficiency, feedback loops—and certain mathematical and statistical techniques and notions—such as calculus, probability, normal distribution, randomness, independence—and applied them ...---READ-->>