By Raju Prabath Lankaloka
World Environment Day is celebrated on 05th June every year. Since 1974, the UNEP celebrate this day with a pomp and pageant saying that it creates a platform to raise awareness that the world is facing problems such as air pollution, plastic pollution, global warming and sea-level increasing day by day. Yet Global warming, the ‘population time bomb’, nuclear energy and nuclear hazards, pollution and other environmental issues are always in the news. So it is clear that World Environment Day is being celebrated without addressing the causes and root causes of the environmental issues.
Environmental issues are vitally important to us inhabitants of the planet earth. But the environmental problems, and the potential environmental catastrophe, we face are creations of the capitalist system.
The climate has changed many times in the history of the earth, and the acceleration in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been remarkable. We are already seeing the ice sheets and glaciers near the poles melting. This could lead to a rise in sea levels, making coastal areas uninhabitable. Unpredictable changes in weather patterns could cause desertification of large parts of the earth’s surface. This in turn will put pressure on capitalists to cut or burn down the rainforests in search of more agricultural land. But the rain forests serve as a carbon sink, capturing carbon. As they are burned down, more emissions are released, which speeds up climate change. We also seem to be entering a new era of mass extinctions as human action destroys the habitats of thousands of animal and vegetable species.
Within the 2022 World Environment Day, the UN states that “We are using the equivalent of 1.6 Earths to maintain our current way of life, and ecosystems cannot keep up with our demands.” From where do these demands come from and whose demands these processes satisfy is the true question at hand. UN also accuse the people of global warming stating that “Our lifestyles are associated with two-thirds of all greenhouse gas emissions” and further explains that the “studies show that sustainable lifestyles and behaviours could reduce our emissions by 40 to 70% by 2050.” Climate change is not happening on account of ‘human nature,’ because people are naturally greedy. Growth is not the problem. The problem is unplanned capitalist growth, growth driven by narrow selfish profit calculation and unconcerned with any wider considerations. The problem is Capitalism. It is reported that Resource extraction has more than tripled since 1970, including a 45% increase in fossil fuel use and the extraction and processing of materials, fuels and food contribute half of total global greenhouse gas emissions and over 90% of biodiversity loss and water stress. The main contributors to these emissions are the big businesses and the governments who are nothing but puppets of them. Therefore, rallying for climate change without a system change is futile.
The environmental crisis is a global phenomenon which is deeply rooted within Capitalism. Climate change needs to be achieved globally and it cannot be done until we operate on the capitalist system which is driven by profit. As Marx said: “From the standpoint of a higher economic form of society, private ownership of the globe by single individuals will appear quite as absurd as private ownership of one man by another. Even a whole society, a nation, or even all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the globe. They are only its possessors…they must hand it down to succeeding generations in an improved condition.”
The climate crisis has laid bare the need for an international plan of production. The demand for the expropriation of the biggest monopolies and industries should be on the order of the day. You could not ask for more clear opportunities. But left reformism cannot help but squander these opportunities, as it cannot see beyond capitalism any more than the ruling class itself can.
In other words, the main barrier to tackling the climate crisis is not a technological one, but a political one. The only social force that can remove that barrier is the organised working class, and time is running out. The movement of the working class must therefore be armed with the correct ideas as soon as possible. The reformist illusions, even those of the left reformists, can only lead down a blind alley that we do not have time to explore again.
In 1938, Leon Trotsky wrote the following words: “Without a socialist revolution, in the next historical period at that, a catastrophe threatens the whole culture of mankind. The turn is now to the proletariat…The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership.”
It was true back then, in the face of the catastrophe of WW2, a brutal imperialist slaughter. It is true now, in the face of climate catastrophe.
To manage our resources for the needs of people and the planet alike, we need a democratic plan of production and distribution. The task at hand is therefore to prepare for the revolutionary events that are beginning to come thick and fast across the world; preparation for the seizure of power by the working class. This, and this alone, can throw the doors wide open, for the next great task facing us; the harmonisation of humanity with the rest of the natural world.
Therefore, for the future of humanity and the earth, we need socialism and the time has come to change the system to change the climate
