Good Morning Comrades! This is a special email that will replace the paid-for email that was scheduled for Thursday for a number of reasons. Firstly, I do believe this topic to be the generational defining subject for the coming 10-20 years and everyone should have access to this. Secondly, I occasionally want to offer an insight into what happens behind this paywall that allows me to pay rent. To the paying subscribers: you will be getting a special email on Thursday as well, and as a thank you for your support I will be giving away a free Riot Print to everyone of you that orders from this weekends drop on Thursday via your early bird link. A detailed overview of the upcoming drop will be shared in the telegram group and possibly on IG. Again, thank you for your continued support. Subscribe below to support this knucklehead, get early links, discount codes and my wholehearted appreciation.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations mandated to provide objective scientific information relevant to understanding human-induced climate change, its natural, political, and economic impacts and risks, and possible response options. They released their 6th Assessment Report that addresses the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, and global and regional climate simulations.
You heard and read the news these last couple of days and in the overwhelming noise that resulted from it I wanted to offer a few takes, plans and ideas for the next decade.
Before I continue, I firmly and utterly believe in Science, not Feelings when it comes to these matters. I assume you do too. If this is not the case, please stop reading immediately, unsubscribe and do what you have to do. A total of 234 scientists from 66 countries are behind the first chapter of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, which draws on 14,000 research papers to come up with conclusions on how the Earth’s climate is changing as a result of human activity. This is not a forum to discuss the science based on half-assed feelings anyone caught on a fucking podcast.
The 6th IPCC Report says absolutely nothing new. The data & the science has been fleshed out and solidified and a few dates have moved forward, importantly, and as we have all learned in this blasted pandemic, that’s how exponentialism works. I wish it wasn’t the case but here we are. Again, I am writing this very much from the perspective of a Marxist framework, truthfully I have forgone figuring out the world and my actions in it without it. Do keep that in mind when assessing my own bias.
The main points that this 6th reports explains and highlights are as such:
Compound extreme weather events are on the rise, such as concurrent heatwaves and droughts, are on the rise as the result of human-induced warming, the report says.
Human’s role in climate crisis is “unequivocal” - Humans have caused the world to heat up by around 1.1C since the period 1850-1900, the report says. Though this is the average figure, some parts of the world are heating up a lot faster than others, it adds. For example, the Arctic is heating up at a rate that is more than twice as fast as the global average.
CO2 levels at highest in “2 million years” The report notes that levels of CO2, the primary driver of global heating, were higher in 2019 than at any time in “at least 2 million years”. It adds that levels of methane and nitrous oxide, the second and third biggest drivers of warming respectively, were higher in 2019 than at any time in “at least 800,000 years”.
Humans are the “main driver” of worsening heat. It is “virtually certain” that heatwaves have become more frequent and more intense since the 1950s, the report says, with human-caused warming being “the main driver” of these increases, according to the report.
Here is the rub, this isn’t news. What is news, or rather newsworthy because of ratings and sold advertising space, is the frequency - and thus the recurring “panic” that sells more airtime of these extreme weather and climate scenarios here in the “West”. The Global South has been a victim of our radically destructive economic system for decades and without wanting to sound too brutal, the Western Media cannot sell another deadly drought in Somalia, or rather, as well as selling images of Beverly Hills on fire. You know this but it is important to understand these realities to, and this is where again I am going to drop a few marxist ideas to center your dread into action:
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.” My Main Boo Antonio Gramsci
Following are a few hard truths that have to radicalize you into opposing the capitalistic reality we are faced with in order to, first, identify the enemy, secondly, organize and thirdly, act.
Capitalism at its core is destructive to the ecosystem that we are a part of since it is based on incremental growth, that, in a system of finite resources cannot exist without destroying our host. Any and all anti-capitalist thought can and should start and end there, it’s truly as simple as that. Regardless how much of a fan I am of the libraries of macro theory and science behind it.
Secondly, the destruction of US and our world, serves only the Capitalists. That’s not you and me and never has been. No matter your income or wealth, I honestly doubt a real capitalists reads this here newsletter ( if so, fuck off mate ) and none of us benefits from this system. This is something I have continuously written about and a detailed explanation of this isn’t necessary here. When the shit hits the fan, as perfectly illustrated as recently in this ongoing pandemic, the capitalists do not bear the brunt of the pain, but we do. If you need a clearer example may I suggest going back to the Financial Crisis of 2008 and who paid for it. Again, your labour did, they got richer because of their crimes and were awarded government jobs in most cases.
The Capitalists and their companies involved in the destruction of everything, but sticking specifically to the Climate Change causing industries were fully aware of their negative impact for the past 50 years, at the bare minimum, but in their psychopathic greed spent billions on PR campaigns to shift blame from them to us.
I am all for individual behavioural change to, on the one hand help reduce our impact on the environment as well as forcing the capitalists to adept as we can have an impact on their output through our collective buying choices. As a short term tactic this is more than reasonable. I do not, and not the slightest, accept personal guilt manufactured by global PR firms in the dying of this planet, when a mere 100 corporations are responsible for 71% of global emissions and that’s not even taking into account the rest of the capitalists destruction of the planet through for profits on Wall Street - lumber, meat and fish industries, plastics and so. The list is endless.
If you want names of the above mentioned companies, here you go, linked to article.
As long as we maintain our Stockholm Syndrome with capitalism this extinction level crisis will happen. Capitalism needs to end, and end now for the human race to develop out of the cancerous historic role we have played and progress into the potential we have, as part of this ecosystem, not as its master. Again, coming back to Gramsci, and I am paraphrasing here to put his work into modern context, yes, I am a pessimist because of intellect but worry is a misuse of our imagination. We know what the problem is, we have identified the names of the people responsible for the looming crisis but what we do now is is what decides the fate of our children, the generations to come and the potential future of our species - one, for which I am extremely excited for. I am by no means a pessimist in that regard, quite the opposite.
Speaking of names and addresses, should this be interesting to someone, here you go:
Now, to the future and the totally un-utopian counter plan to capitalism. Yes, I am going to use the big bad C- word here and I am sure that most email providers will stick this email in your spam folder because of it ( small tinfoil hat moment I admit ) and it might not be exactly what you are expecting: Communism… ergh, with some notes attached to it.
Now, when I offer Communism as an alternative to Capitalism in the context of the above issue, you know the one issue that is going to determine whether or not we have a future as a species, it gets a little complicated, especially in regards to talking to your friends and explaining how all this ties in.
As much as Capitalism is a relatively simple economic theory turned into a Universal Social Construct at the root of all this evil, Communism is also a relatively simple economic theory with a HUGE Universal all-encompassing Social Construct. As a base reminder, at its core, Communism stands for:
“a philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a communist society, namely a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and the state.”
That’s it. Now the big question is, how is that going to stop climate change? Well, it can but this is where things become a little more urgent, especially if you are part of non-violent faction of people (love ya, but you can’t hug yourself out of this one I’m afraid). Simply put, how we view any and all economies determines our social construct and our relationship with it FROM WHICH we can can democratically decide how to build our world in harmony with the ecology of this planet and not in opposition to it. Any economy is ultimately our material relationship with each other and the rest of the living world.
For example, under the idea of Communism we own the means of production, and we, democratically, can decide on the mode of production, i.e. we can choose to live in a sustainable, harmonic construct based on the betterment of the future and thus construct our economy towards that goal OR suffer under capitalism. Which, as you all know, was at no point in history even remotely democratic let alone sustainable. So while it is tempting to throw around the hammer and sickle as an alternative to solving the climate crisis for internet points I beg for caution. Granted, whatever the muppets in any government, all in pay of the Capitalists, come up with is greenwashing / gaslighting, sociopathic behaviour that deserves calling out and stopping immediately, posting a fucking Commie Meme won’t do shit either unless you can clearly and simply explain the potential reality we are working for, as explained above.
Also, as a side note, it is incredibly important to know and understand that any ideological purist will get a seeing to from yours truly. Puritanism, again for internet brownie points or your damaged ego will get us nowhere. Communism is Universal, will look differently in every community and region on this planet and serves as guide towards to betterment of everyone as well as the alignment of humanity with out ecology. Just to be clear here.
To wrap this up, Climate Change is real and if not opposed will mean an extinction level event for this species and many more. We have identified the cause of this and who is responsible for this. We have libraries full of answers and guidelines that can and will lead us to not only avoid this man-made catastrophe but can and will lead this species to it’s full potential in line with this wonderful planet we are cosmically insanely lucky enough to be born on. The choice is yours and mine. What we do now determines everything.
I am here if you want to chat about this, by all means use the telegram channel as I answer far quicker there than anywhere else and if you need a more in-depth, but easy to read reality check and guide to the future, this is the ONE book you will need on the subject:
ORGANIC MARXISM: An Alternative to Capitalism and Ecological Catastrophe by by Philip Clayton and Justin Heinzekehr.
This revolutionary book fuses the enduring legacy of socialism—government for the common good—with the best of the environmental movement and the newest insights from sustainability studies. The result is a manifesto in the tradition of Bill McKibben’s Earth—a roadmap forward in the face of the growing environmental catastrophe, which is the most complex crisis humanity has ever faced. Catherine Keller writes, “What an unexpected, discomforting and important work! If Marxism seemed to be abandoned in the West to a few academic leftists and nostalgic activists, the authors bring it roaring back into relevance.”American conservatives like to say that Marxism was destroyed by its opponents and by the mistakes of Marxist governments. Organic Marxism provides the definitive answer to this charge.