Johnny Anarcho
4th December 2006, 17:08
If the melting ice caps of Siberia didn’t remind everyone of the impact of global warming, the heat wave that struck the country this summer certainly did. It has been reported that 225 people died in the United States during the 2006 heat wave—and that number is surely understated. Like in most heat waves, those who suffered most were poor with little to no access to air conditioning. More interesting was the average age of those who died: It was unexpectedly low in many areas. But this isn’t new. It is simply the latest in a mounting environmental crisis that is grabbing the attention of all generations.
Evidence of a looming environmental crisis is mounting. We are reaching a defining moment in how we relate to our environment. This was brought home when, on August 29, 2005, the mounting crisis blew right onto our continent, in the form of Hurricane Katrina. It graphically demonstrated the connection between the struggle for environmental stability and struggles for healthcare, fair working conditions, and livable communities, more obvious and more urgent.
You would think that more people would be leaving behind notions that environmental changes will only affect our distant futures, since they are more and more obviously impacting our daily lives right now. But many still see the struggle to preserve and sustain the environment as a secondary issue.
And the “mainstream” environmental movement has depicted the struggle for the environment as more of a charity or an issue affecting some vague “children’s future.” Slogans such as “Save the Planet” don’t instill the urgency and self-interest we have in fighting for sustainable environmental policies. The main enemy of the environment in many Save the Planet campaigns is you, the individual. Thus, the solution to all of our environmental problems is for you, the individual, to do better. Arising from these so-called solutions is the irony of getting individuals to recycle when city officials cannot fund programs to actually collect and re-use the materials; or the implications that one should purchase a hybrid car to be environmentally friendly, though few can actually afford one. It is no wonder that historically oppressed and working class communities have seen the struggle to protect the environment as “hippie, middle-class” notions!
Unfortunately, Al Gore’s recent film, An Inconvenient Truth, made these sentiments painfully worse—providing little for working people to identify with. From the movie, we are led to believe that corporate dominance and the environment are completely reconcilable; that companies would in fact be more profitable if they charitably protected the environment. But if this were really true, companies would have long ago implemented environmentally safe policies in their own self-interest. Few corporations have ever needed our help in determining how to squeeze out every penny of profit possible.
Mother Earth is not asking for a handout—She’s giving us our fair warning! David Shariatmadari points out in “The Hard Green Revolution”, “We tend to take it for granted that we are more powerful than nature.” But in the end Mother Earth will be just fine. It’s the human race that we have to be worried about.
If capitalism is allowed to continue to devastate the environment in its drive to maximize profit rates—the end result will be disastrous, regardless of how many cans individuals recycle.
Sam Webb notes in his Reflections on Socialism, “The earth is sending distress signals to its human inhabitants, which will become more pronounced as long as the social relations of production are not in harmony with the ecological relations of consumption; as long as the reproduction of capital dominates the reproduction of nature.” This sentiment highlights the collective, social nature of the solution to environmental problems.
In his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme, Karl Marx noted, “Labour is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values…as is labour, which itself is only the manifestation of a natural force, human labour power.” The socialist approach to the environment highlights the common link between the exploitation of a worker for her/his labor and the exploitation of natural resources; the capitalist. Thus, the working-class solution to our modern woes targets leaders in transnational capital as the main enemy to a sustainable environment, not simply the individual.
It is plain to see that environmental issues are more than secondary demands to take up separately from other arenas of struggle. These issues need to be addressed as a necessary component of the fight for working people. Their implications deeply impact us today, and as with most societal flaws, have an even deeper impact on working class communities—especially youth. Although all individuals should do what we can to protect the environment, we must collectively address the problems capitalism creates by better integrating them into other struggles we face.
Of course, we can’t sit on our thumbs waiting for the revolution to come. The time to fight for collective, social environmental solutions is now. They are not solely the domain of those who wear tie-dyed shirts and Birkenstocks. The old notion that there were workers on one side and environmentalists on the other no longer holds sway—actually, it’s always been wrong. There is no contradiction between jobs or the environment. Saving the environment—and thus, saving ourselves—will create jobs.
In 2004, the Communist Party USA outlined an environmental program that proposes such solutions, including some that would directly engage and impact the lives of youth in the United States. In addition to calling for government aid to “communities that have been abused with toxic dumps and other super-pollution, with these communities participating in the planning and in the jobs,” the program calls for the creation of a Civilian Conservation Corps for young people, “similar to the CCC of the 1930s, to train and employ youth in the care and preservation of state and federal forests, wetlands, shorelines, waters, and national, state, and city parks.” The program calls for the passing of a national Right to Know bill which would require companies to “inform workers of the hazardous products and materials to which their jobs expose them.” It calls for a conversion plan to maintain jobs and assist in the shift to environmentally sound policies. It proposes all of this and more. These practical, concrete policies, taken up by a broader section of the public, could aid in establishing not only an environmentally sustainable society, but one that also provides for the basic needs of youth and our communities; namely jobs, schools, recreation, and more!
If you still haven’t figured out how to bring more of your friends to the cause, there are certain characteristics of the environmental struggle that give it an advantage in mobilizing large numbers of people, including working class communities and youth.
First, the destruction of the environment cuts across all lines including class, race, gender and age. The 2006 heat wave alone demonstrated this. With a clear understanding of the common cause of environmental problems—the transnational corporations, if you forgot already—the struggle for a sustainable environment has the potential to engage millions. And unlike other areas of the struggle for social and economic justice, right-wing propaganda is unable to fool the population by suggesting that the Earth should simply work harder and pull itself up by the boot-straps.
The difficulty of the corporate classes to distract the public away from the true causes of environmental problems has put them on the defensive, cornering many companies into proclaiming themselves as environmentally friendly. British Petroleum (BP), known for its new “green” appearance and “environmentally sound policies” had its Texas Refinery cited as the worst polluter in the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency . Even Wal-Mart, which continues to pollute many a river and stream while developing on scarce farmland and tribal burial grounds, claims to be “taking the lead on the environment” in an April 2006 statement.
In doing this these transnational corporations are attempting to convince the public that they have it under control; that they’re doing everything possible to save the environment and we need not worry. Recognizing the potential growth in sheer numbers the environmental struggle could bring to the broader movement to curtail corporate rule, these companies hope to dull a powerful mass consciousness. But their success is waning.
The shift from environmentalism as an issue only for well-to-do white environmentalists to one affecting a much larger body of historically underrepresented and working class communities was vividly apparent at the 2006 Take Back America Conference where progressive Democrats highlighted the Apollo Alliance, a collection of environmental groups and labor unions focused on establishing energy independence, new technology, alternative fuels and the green-collar jobs required to create and maintain them.
More people recognize that environmental issues are intricately connected to the broader goals of the working class, and youth have a role to play. We must note that the environmental struggle is not just a fight for our future, but a fight for our present lives. We must assist others in drawing the connections between environmental devastation and capitalism, highlighting which communities experience the most harm, be it from a toxic waste dump or a hurricane.
Our fight isn’t to charitably protect our sensitive planet—humanity would surely die off before the planet “dies”—but to fight for human survival.
Dynamic Magazine (http://http://yclusa.org/article/articleview/1774/1/320/)
Evidence of a looming environmental crisis is mounting. We are reaching a defining moment in how we relate to our environment. This was brought home when, on August 29, 2005, the mounting crisis blew right onto our continent, in the form of Hurricane Katrina. It graphically demonstrated the connection between the struggle for environmental stability and struggles for healthcare, fair working conditions, and livable communities, more obvious and more urgent.
You would think that more people would be leaving behind notions that environmental changes will only affect our distant futures, since they are more and more obviously impacting our daily lives right now. But many still see the struggle to preserve and sustain the environment as a secondary issue.
And the “mainstream” environmental movement has depicted the struggle for the environment as more of a charity or an issue affecting some vague “children’s future.” Slogans such as “Save the Planet” don’t instill the urgency and self-interest we have in fighting for sustainable environmental policies. The main enemy of the environment in many Save the Planet campaigns is you, the individual. Thus, the solution to all of our environmental problems is for you, the individual, to do better. Arising from these so-called solutions is the irony of getting individuals to recycle when city officials cannot fund programs to actually collect and re-use the materials; or the implications that one should purchase a hybrid car to be environmentally friendly, though few can actually afford one. It is no wonder that historically oppressed and working class communities have seen the struggle to protect the environment as “hippie, middle-class” notions!
Unfortunately, Al Gore’s recent film, An Inconvenient Truth, made these sentiments painfully worse—providing little for working people to identify with. From the movie, we are led to believe that corporate dominance and the environment are completely reconcilable; that companies would in fact be more profitable if they charitably protected the environment. But if this were really true, companies would have long ago implemented environmentally safe policies in their own self-interest. Few corporations have ever needed our help in determining how to squeeze out every penny of profit possible.
Mother Earth is not asking for a handout—She’s giving us our fair warning! David Shariatmadari points out in “The Hard Green Revolution”, “We tend to take it for granted that we are more powerful than nature.” But in the end Mother Earth will be just fine. It’s the human race that we have to be worried about.
If capitalism is allowed to continue to devastate the environment in its drive to maximize profit rates—the end result will be disastrous, regardless of how many cans individuals recycle.
Sam Webb notes in his Reflections on Socialism, “The earth is sending distress signals to its human inhabitants, which will become more pronounced as long as the social relations of production are not in harmony with the ecological relations of consumption; as long as the reproduction of capital dominates the reproduction of nature.” This sentiment highlights the collective, social nature of the solution to environmental problems.
In his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme, Karl Marx noted, “Labour is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values…as is labour, which itself is only the manifestation of a natural force, human labour power.” The socialist approach to the environment highlights the common link between the exploitation of a worker for her/his labor and the exploitation of natural resources; the capitalist. Thus, the working-class solution to our modern woes targets leaders in transnational capital as the main enemy to a sustainable environment, not simply the individual.
It is plain to see that environmental issues are more than secondary demands to take up separately from other arenas of struggle. These issues need to be addressed as a necessary component of the fight for working people. Their implications deeply impact us today, and as with most societal flaws, have an even deeper impact on working class communities—especially youth. Although all individuals should do what we can to protect the environment, we must collectively address the problems capitalism creates by better integrating them into other struggles we face.
Of course, we can’t sit on our thumbs waiting for the revolution to come. The time to fight for collective, social environmental solutions is now. They are not solely the domain of those who wear tie-dyed shirts and Birkenstocks. The old notion that there were workers on one side and environmentalists on the other no longer holds sway—actually, it’s always been wrong. There is no contradiction between jobs or the environment. Saving the environment—and thus, saving ourselves—will create jobs.
In 2004, the Communist Party USA outlined an environmental program that proposes such solutions, including some that would directly engage and impact the lives of youth in the United States. In addition to calling for government aid to “communities that have been abused with toxic dumps and other super-pollution, with these communities participating in the planning and in the jobs,” the program calls for the creation of a Civilian Conservation Corps for young people, “similar to the CCC of the 1930s, to train and employ youth in the care and preservation of state and federal forests, wetlands, shorelines, waters, and national, state, and city parks.” The program calls for the passing of a national Right to Know bill which would require companies to “inform workers of the hazardous products and materials to which their jobs expose them.” It calls for a conversion plan to maintain jobs and assist in the shift to environmentally sound policies. It proposes all of this and more. These practical, concrete policies, taken up by a broader section of the public, could aid in establishing not only an environmentally sustainable society, but one that also provides for the basic needs of youth and our communities; namely jobs, schools, recreation, and more!
If you still haven’t figured out how to bring more of your friends to the cause, there are certain characteristics of the environmental struggle that give it an advantage in mobilizing large numbers of people, including working class communities and youth.
First, the destruction of the environment cuts across all lines including class, race, gender and age. The 2006 heat wave alone demonstrated this. With a clear understanding of the common cause of environmental problems—the transnational corporations, if you forgot already—the struggle for a sustainable environment has the potential to engage millions. And unlike other areas of the struggle for social and economic justice, right-wing propaganda is unable to fool the population by suggesting that the Earth should simply work harder and pull itself up by the boot-straps.
The difficulty of the corporate classes to distract the public away from the true causes of environmental problems has put them on the defensive, cornering many companies into proclaiming themselves as environmentally friendly. British Petroleum (BP), known for its new “green” appearance and “environmentally sound policies” had its Texas Refinery cited as the worst polluter in the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency . Even Wal-Mart, which continues to pollute many a river and stream while developing on scarce farmland and tribal burial grounds, claims to be “taking the lead on the environment” in an April 2006 statement.
In doing this these transnational corporations are attempting to convince the public that they have it under control; that they’re doing everything possible to save the environment and we need not worry. Recognizing the potential growth in sheer numbers the environmental struggle could bring to the broader movement to curtail corporate rule, these companies hope to dull a powerful mass consciousness. But their success is waning.
The shift from environmentalism as an issue only for well-to-do white environmentalists to one affecting a much larger body of historically underrepresented and working class communities was vividly apparent at the 2006 Take Back America Conference where progressive Democrats highlighted the Apollo Alliance, a collection of environmental groups and labor unions focused on establishing energy independence, new technology, alternative fuels and the green-collar jobs required to create and maintain them.
More people recognize that environmental issues are intricately connected to the broader goals of the working class, and youth have a role to play. We must note that the environmental struggle is not just a fight for our future, but a fight for our present lives. We must assist others in drawing the connections between environmental devastation and capitalism, highlighting which communities experience the most harm, be it from a toxic waste dump or a hurricane.
Our fight isn’t to charitably protect our sensitive planet—humanity would surely die off before the planet “dies”—but to fight for human survival.
Dynamic Magazine (http://http://yclusa.org/article/articleview/1774/1/320/)