butterfly
16th November 2009, 03:37
It was good to see the Call to Action
in your July issue, following through an earlier
article declaring environmental summits to
different in aim from G20, IMF, OECD, WTO
or World Bank conferences. Nevertheless the
content of the Call worries me.
At this early stage in the development of an
ecoanarchist movement – let’s call things by
their right names – it seems inappropriate
to focus on a single spectacular global
environmental summit even to attack or “blockade” it.
The point should rather be to
show that direct action on the ground produces
results, while global conferences produce only
hot air – in every sense of the two words.
James Hansen has laid the blame for inaction
on global warming squarely on global capital.
It is against global capital that action should
be directed. The clamour from the middle
class environmental movement for “action”,
any action, from the state, specifically in the
form of a “state of emergency”, which would
give all power to a “new Churchill” veers all
too dangerously close to the ecofascism of
which the Club of Rome once warned. Modern
nation-states, now remodelled as reinventions
of the corporation, would be forced into line
if they even claimed the power to impose any
kind of carbon emission on capital against
capital’s will, particularly the extremely low and
stringent limits science now tells us are needed.
The Copenhagen conference itself would use
the Kyoto declaration to force any recalcitrant
state to toe the line. The states’ abandonment
of any serious power to capital in the nineties
surrendered all such power to the working class,
in its broadest sense, organised outside of and
against the states. The future of the earth now
lies in the hands of that global class, that class
which is not a class. Instead of a tragi-comic
“anarchy” of non-decision-making, where every
state or corporation blames the other for the
inaction they all desire, in a spectacle which
tries to transfer the impotence of states and
corporations to all other actors on the planet,
we need a real anarchy in which ordinary people
everywhere hurl corporate pollution out of their
everyday life. As the Call to Action declares,
“climate change is related to people’s daily
lives.” Right on. Let’s keep it that way. Instead of
a disempowering spectacularisation of climate
change – where the people “up there” decide
nothing can be done – the revolutionisation
of everyday life. Yes, things should happen
during the Copenhagen conference, but not at
Copenhagen, and with a very different, a very
serious agenda.
It is not a question of initiating a new “cycle of
struggles.” That cycle is already here, moving
out of the cycle paths presented by the state.
The peak hour central city transport gridlocks
can be intensified to block anyone except those
using public transport to get to work (if this is
really where they want to go). Anti-ticketing
inspectors in groups of five or six should patrol
trams, buses and trains handing out rewards
to those without tickets. Landlords would be
presented with bills for cutting carbon emissions
in sub-standard working class houses, and their
offices occupied if they won’t pay. Teams of
climate activists should tour city office buildings
at closing time to ensure all lights are turned off
when workers go home (instead of being left on
all night).
These are just a few ideas – other readers will
have even better ones, I am sure. The idea is
that a variety of actions, at different places, but
at similar times, will be far harder to suppress
that a single “blockade” of passengers getting
on a plane or something similar. Instead of
watching people on telly saying solemnly
“nothing can be done” everyone can go out and
do their own thing.
The Call to Action in Mutiny is not the only call
in general circulation. There is also a call for a
“general strike” of some kind, as pressure on
the Copenhagen conferees to do something.
One kind of passivity, it seems, can cancel out
another. We should, perhaps, invite anyone “on
strike” to join in our carnivalesque decisionmaking,
so they could find out, by their own
actions, where power over the environment
really lies. It would break down divisions within
the environmental movement by bringing
together all those committed to serious action.
Article by Alf.
in your July issue, following through an earlier
article declaring environmental summits to
different in aim from G20, IMF, OECD, WTO
or World Bank conferences. Nevertheless the
content of the Call worries me.
At this early stage in the development of an
ecoanarchist movement – let’s call things by
their right names – it seems inappropriate
to focus on a single spectacular global
environmental summit even to attack or “blockade” it.
The point should rather be to
show that direct action on the ground produces
results, while global conferences produce only
hot air – in every sense of the two words.
James Hansen has laid the blame for inaction
on global warming squarely on global capital.
It is against global capital that action should
be directed. The clamour from the middle
class environmental movement for “action”,
any action, from the state, specifically in the
form of a “state of emergency”, which would
give all power to a “new Churchill” veers all
too dangerously close to the ecofascism of
which the Club of Rome once warned. Modern
nation-states, now remodelled as reinventions
of the corporation, would be forced into line
if they even claimed the power to impose any
kind of carbon emission on capital against
capital’s will, particularly the extremely low and
stringent limits science now tells us are needed.
The Copenhagen conference itself would use
the Kyoto declaration to force any recalcitrant
state to toe the line. The states’ abandonment
of any serious power to capital in the nineties
surrendered all such power to the working class,
in its broadest sense, organised outside of and
against the states. The future of the earth now
lies in the hands of that global class, that class
which is not a class. Instead of a tragi-comic
“anarchy” of non-decision-making, where every
state or corporation blames the other for the
inaction they all desire, in a spectacle which
tries to transfer the impotence of states and
corporations to all other actors on the planet,
we need a real anarchy in which ordinary people
everywhere hurl corporate pollution out of their
everyday life. As the Call to Action declares,
“climate change is related to people’s daily
lives.” Right on. Let’s keep it that way. Instead of
a disempowering spectacularisation of climate
change – where the people “up there” decide
nothing can be done – the revolutionisation
of everyday life. Yes, things should happen
during the Copenhagen conference, but not at
Copenhagen, and with a very different, a very
serious agenda.
It is not a question of initiating a new “cycle of
struggles.” That cycle is already here, moving
out of the cycle paths presented by the state.
The peak hour central city transport gridlocks
can be intensified to block anyone except those
using public transport to get to work (if this is
really where they want to go). Anti-ticketing
inspectors in groups of five or six should patrol
trams, buses and trains handing out rewards
to those without tickets. Landlords would be
presented with bills for cutting carbon emissions
in sub-standard working class houses, and their
offices occupied if they won’t pay. Teams of
climate activists should tour city office buildings
at closing time to ensure all lights are turned off
when workers go home (instead of being left on
all night).
These are just a few ideas – other readers will
have even better ones, I am sure. The idea is
that a variety of actions, at different places, but
at similar times, will be far harder to suppress
that a single “blockade” of passengers getting
on a plane or something similar. Instead of
watching people on telly saying solemnly
“nothing can be done” everyone can go out and
do their own thing.
The Call to Action in Mutiny is not the only call
in general circulation. There is also a call for a
“general strike” of some kind, as pressure on
the Copenhagen conferees to do something.
One kind of passivity, it seems, can cancel out
another. We should, perhaps, invite anyone “on
strike” to join in our carnivalesque decisionmaking,
so they could find out, by their own
actions, where power over the environment
really lies. It would break down divisions within
the environmental movement by bringing
together all those committed to serious action.
Article by Alf.