During the last presidential debate, candidate Mitt Romney accused the Obama administration of stifling U.S. economic growth and job creation by not renewing drilling and expedition licensing to Big Oil and Big Coal.
President Obama’s counter argument was that these corporations were manipulating the market by sitting on the land without drilling. He said they were waiting until it was most profitable for them to extract the energy resource.
During this year’s presidential campaign, the global state of the environment—a crisis more serious and apparent now than ever before—has barely been touched upon by either bourgeois party.
As the world’s climate teeters on the brink of irreversible disaster, why is it the “leaders” of the United States are not focusing on the imminent environmental crisis?
The reason for this is that the only true solution to the climate crisis punctures the very heart of capitalism.
Capitalist development damages the environment
Ever since its origin over 600 years ago, capitalism has gone hand in hand with spreading destruction to every corner of the Earth. Nature and human labor have been cut down, shackled and packaged for the sake of the highest profit.
The early mercantile capitalism of the 16th century brought with it the cotton and sugar boom and the destructive use of monocultures. To meet the high demand and create greater wealth for the plantation owners, the trans-Atlantic slave trade surged.
The power loom and the cotton gin soon followed, and along with coal-fired steam power, ignited the smoke stacks of the Industrial Revolution.
The two and a half degree rise in the average global temperature can be linked in time to the beginning of capitalist industrial development.
The average temperature of the Earth’s land has risen at an unnatural rate over the past 250 years. In the past 50 years, temperatures have risen much faster. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 11 of the 12 warmest years have happened between 2001–2011.
There is no doubt that defenders of private property and capital are aware of this history; it is their own history. It is the history of their profit-driven system that has pillaged the Earth’s resources for the gain of the greedy, wealthiest 1%.
Systemic change needed
The capitalist class and its state inherently pursue super-profits at all cost, thus simple reforms fall far short of the urgent change that is needed to save the planet. Tackling the climate issue is to move against the very capitalist system itself.
The clock is ticking. We will not save our planet and the balance of our climate by buying ourselves more fuel-efficient cars. And no, we will not salvage our ozone layer with cap and trade programs which buy and sell carbon emissions on the world market, or by using reusable shopping bags. One day of waste from the planet’s biggest polluters erases a lifetime of one’s “personal responsibility.” The anarchy of production under capitalism unnecessarily pollutes, wastes precious resources, and decimates ecosystems with logging, mining, damming and more.
An environmental movement that demands the public ownership of the wealth-producing institutions of society and a centralized planned economy hits the root of the crisis. Socialism bases production completely on need and sustainability. Capitalism does the opposite.
Whether liberal ideology admits it or not, implementing the demands that are on the table would require a new global economic restructuring. Since the Kyoto Protocol, developing countries have demanded that the West provide the resources necessary to develop cleaner modes of production. This is essentially a demand for reparations by the formerly colonized countries against the colonizers.
The right wing understands these calls and has fought tooth and nail against this movement with well-funded organizations devoted to denying climate change.
Climate change deniers
The Heartland Institute is one of these entities. This Chicago-based conservative think-tank, funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, has made every effort to counter the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that proves global warming is directly caused by human activity.
In the United States, their efforts have produced strong results. Over 55 percent of people in the United States believe that there is no consensus on global warming. As this disinformation campaign continues, carbon emissions continue to increase and the Earth continues to get warmer.
James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has even warned that if oil extraction at the Alberta tar sands in Canada expands as planned, we will reach the point of no return.
This is the inevitable trajectory of the capitalist system the world over. No amount of reforms can change the fundamental mechanisms of the system. The capitalist system has proven itself to be unsustainable. The time is now to take back our Earth and create a new system that benefits all.
