For capitalism, it’s only how

the products are sold to us that has changed

The challenge of global warming is transformed

into a marketing device whether it’s

for ‘green’ autos or whatever other product

that can have a ‘green’ label tagged onto it

The driving factor behind global warming

is the system of modern capitalism,

dominated by wealthy nations and companies

that rely on the use of fossil fuels,

and therefore have a stake in ensuring

that environmental considerations don’t

cut into their profits or access to markets

The lack of substantial action on climate change is not simply a case of “political inertia.” Rather, it is the logic of capitalism, which must continually expand in the drive for profit.

Capitalism is by its very nature an unceasing treadmill of production.

There is no conceivable alternative scenario within such a runaway-train system that leads toward a sustainable relation to the environment, much less a just society.

What is needed is nothing less than a worldwide revolution in our relation to nature, and thus of global society itself.

In any rational society, the threat of global warming would have gotten attention a long time ago, with every possible resource devoted to measures to slow climate change and alleviate its effects.

But under capitalism, greed and profits come first--even at the risk of far-reaching global devastation.

It’s time for some plain speaking about the issue of climate change and capitalism and the progressive movement’s approach to the whole issue,

Okay, so a posse of ‘eminent’ scientists have finally given the official stamp of approval to climate change but it’s also obvious that the leading industrial nations are not prepared to bite the bullet and do what is necessary to halt the slide let alone reverse it.

Instead the advertising industry has gotten its ‘green’ act together, and with the able assistance of government, it’s mounting a massive propaganda campaign whose sole objective is to transfer the responsibility for climate change to the consumer.

The question socialists have to address is simple: What’s changed? Pre-climate-change capitalism is identical in every respect to today’s.

All that has happened is that our past has finally caught up with us, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows the slightest thing about the way capitalism works.

The fact that it might be too late to halt the changes taking place to our climate alters nothing when it comes to our approach except that is for the increased urgency of the situation.

Historically the left has viewed the ‘greens’ with suspicion and in some respects, for the right reasons.

Lacking a class perspective, the environmental movement (or should it be movements?) has failed to identify the real causes of the crisis we face.

Worse still, having now found an ‘ally’ in government and because it lacks a class perspective, it is now peddling the government line, especially in passing the buck to the ‘consumer’.

Indeed, it (the environmental movement) runs the risk of becoming totally complicit in the process of passing the responsibility from those who rule to working people.

For the fact is that as with all crises that confront us, the issue of climate change is inextricably bound up with the way capitalism works.

Not merely because it is structurally incapable of making the changes necessary but also because the vested interests of the state and business are one, thus expecting them to make the necessary changes voluntarily is a pipe dream.

Having coopted the environmental movement has given the state a thin, green veneer, but rub it just a little bit and the real iron core is there for all to see.

And perhaps even more important, at least in the current circumstances, it is the way the ruling elite is exploiting the havoc our political-economic system has wreaked on the planet and its peoples.

Important because the state is exploiting the fears, both real and imaginary, that many people feel about the future (never mind the awful present), and, it’s a fear that the state has been quick to exploit, for example, using the euphemism of ‘energy security’.

For it is clear that regardless, the majority of people in the developed world know only too well that their relative wealth depends on the (increasing) poverty of the great majority of the planet’s people.

Thus one aspect of the propaganda campaign is to link the fears of losing a position of (relative) privilege by for example, linking the ‘war on terror’ to ‘energy security’.

It should be apparent therefore, that selecting ‘fanatical Muslims’ as the focus was not a random choice given the fact that the bulk of the known oil deposits are under countries which are Muslim.

For regardless of what the propagandists say, oil is central to Western economies and has been for at least a century.

Oil, not only to power its insatiable appetite for making products but also of course, to fuel the military power to take what it doesn’t own.

Meanwhile, the BBC is churning out ‘green’ programmes by the fistful featuring mostly well-heeled, middle-class people living in large houses in country settings.

The ‘less fortunate’ amongst us, get the ‘energy audit’ treatment or some useless wind turbine bolted onto their roofs.

Having spent decades inculcating a culture of consumption, the unfortunate populous is now being taken on a guilt trip for doing just that—consuming in gay abandon like there’s no tomorrow.

And of course, even the guilt trip is sated by consuming ‘green’ products and services. ‘Saving the environment’ has been commodified along with everything else.

For regardless, the very nature of capitalism is one of barely controlled chaos, forever hovering on the edge of crisis and very often tipping over into meltdown, driven by its imperatives to expand (that is to say, reproduce capital) without regard to the consequences, as the occupation of Iraq exemplifies.

For socialists, the issue of the destabilisation of the climate merely reinforces the view that capitalism is bad for us, thus the objective must be to link the arbitrary nature of capitalist production to its inability to produce a solution.

A solution that entails a complete reorganisation of the economic basis of not just this society but the entire planet's.

The issue is simple: is capitalism capable of doing this? Judging not only by its response to the current situation but also its past record, the answer is a resounding no.

Ultimately, the issue of global warming is irrelevant to the crisis that confronts us for nothing has changed.

For capitalism, it’s business as usual, it’s only how the products are sold to us that has changed. Thus the challenge of global warming is transformed into a marketing device whether it’s for ‘green’ autos or whatever other product that can have a ‘green’ label tagged onto it. William Bowles @ PFP