We now face the challenge of changing the world in the context of impending environmental disaster on a global scale. That’s reality in our time.
Global crisis
Film Review
Al Gore’s Convenient Infomercial for Green Capitalism
Al Gore, the perfect spokesperson for the liberal approach to climate change, simply cannot see that neoliberal logic prevents our current institutions from addressing the crisis.
Book Review
Marx and Engels on ecology: A reply to radical critics
Paul Burkett and John Bellamy Foster answer left-green critics of ecological Marxism with a detailed study of what the founders of historical materialism actually wrote and thought about humanity's present and future relationship to the earth
A planet transformed
New research shows irreversible changes in England in the Anthropocene
Scientists find irreversible changes that have no precedent in the 4.54 billion years of Earth history, caused by new human-made materials
Water crisis
UN report: Billions lack access to safe water and sanitation
Every year, 361,000 children under 5 years die due to diseases caused by poor sanitation and contaminated water
Fighting Back
To win climate justice we must hit Trump where it hurts
South African activist Patrick Bond says we need to generate international solidarity for climate justice by imposing popular sanctions against Trump and US corporations.
Organizing in the Anthropocene
Angus interview: How can we save the planet?
We must understand how can we slow down changes that have already begun, which changes we can reverse, and how we can adapt those we can’t stop
Agriculture in crisis
Growing food in the post-truth era
Agribusiness giants cause food insecurity and environmental degradation, while promoting the myth that industrial agriculture can feed the world better than small-scale, family farms.
An 1862 eco-critique
Les Misérables: Metabolic rift in the sewers of Paris
Victor Hugo’s masterpiece includes a powerful attack on the urban wastefulness that steals nutrients from the land. Like Marx and Engels, he based his critique on the work of the chemist Justus von Liebig.
book review
‘A Redder Shade of Green’ explores the intersections of science and socialism
Martin Empson says Ian Angus's new book makes the case for a renewed synthesis between science and the humanities, using the insights offered by both to develop a strategy for action.
Debating global change
Anthropocene scientists reply to critics
A comprehensive response to scientific objections to formally recognizing a new unit of geological time shows that the Anthropocene cannot be dismissed as a scientific fad
A Redder Shade of Green
Essential Debates at the
Intersections of Science and Socialism
In the Introduction to his new book, Ian Angus says ecosocialism must be based on a careful and deliberate synthesis of Marxist social science and Earth System science — a twenty-first century rebirth of scientific socialism.
Book Review
We Need a Much Bigger Leap! John Bellamy Foster on Naomi Klein’s ‘No Is Not Enough’
There is much to admire in Naomi Klein's new book, but she underestimates the danger posed by Trumpism, and doesn't pose a real alternative. She calls for a Leap, but it isn't high enough or far enough.
Capitalism and pathogens
Ten Theses on Farming and Disease
The corporate business model helps pathogens and pests to spread across the world. The only way to stop the next deadly pandemic is to end capitalist agribusiness as we know it.
More than denial
Trump, climate and the breakdown of multilateralism
For social movements and climate justice campaigners, the US abandonment of the agreement is disappointing, but there is also a unity in understanding that the future of humanity on this planet does not rest on leaders alone.
Book Review
An interesting but flawed take on the Anthropocene
Martin Empson says The Shock of the Anthropocene is a interesting account of the global environmental crisis, but it fails to offer to offer any alternative to the current system
Reading, red and green
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, June 2017
Five new books on climate change and human health, ecology and imperialism in the global south, environmental economics, capitalism and universities, and the meaning of hegemony
Origins of ecosocialism
Barry Commoner: Radical father of modern environmentalism
“The environmental crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production—in industry, agriculture, energy and transportation—essential as they are, make people sick and die.”
GHG Reduction
Planting trees cannot replace cutting CO2 emissions
'Save the planet: Plant a Tree!' It sounds good, but scientists say we can't avoid dangerous climate change without rapid cuts in fossil fuel use, starting now.
Facing the Anthropocene
CO2, oceans, and atmosphere: a correction
Thanks to positive feedback from a geochemist reader, I can correct my description of the global carbon dioxide cycle.