Ecology and the Environment

In December 2009 during the climate summit in Copenhagen, tens of thousands of protesters gathered to call for climate justice and challenge the ongoing UN negotiations. Instead of welcoming these popular calls for action, the Danish state responded with brutal police force and intense repression of protestors. - read article...

The Summit of the Peoples on the climate and the rights of Mother Earth, which met in Cochabamba (Bolivia) from 20-22 April, at the invitation of President Evo Morales, was an enormous success. Thirty thousand participants discussed for several days the various facets of the climate crisis and adopted a series of very interesting documents, from a resolutely anti-capitalist standpoint. - read article...

“The birth of a new climate movement” is how radical Canadian writer, Naomi Klein, described the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba at the end of April. The meeting had been called by Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, in response to the collapse of intergovernmental climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December. - read article...

The increasing conversion of agriculture into a commodity industry is an undeniable reality today. The privatisation of natural resources, the policies of structural adjustment, the gradual disappearance of the peasantry and the industrialisation of the food systems have driven us to the current food crisis situation. - read article...

Food sovereignty proves to be the best alternative to end world hunger. It is a matter of returning the control of the agricultural and food policies to the people (peasants, workers, consumers, women…), as well as their access to the land and the common goods (water, seeds…). A food sovereignty which will have to be deeply feminist, recognizing the role of women as a guarantee of food to a global level, and fighting against the oppression, not only of the capitalist system, but also of the patriarchal system. - read article...

The Sixteenth World Congress of the Fourth International adopted this resolution on Capitalist Climate Change and 0ur Tasks with 97% of the delegates in favour and 3% abstaining. The adoption of this resolution followed discussion of a lengthy report on climate change approved in February 2009 by the International Committee, and the adoption at the previous World Congress in 2003 of a resolution on Ecology and socalism. - read article...

The resolution on Climate change and our tasks adopted by the Suxteenth World Congress by 97% of the votes was presented to the delegates by reports from Daniel Tanuro from Belgium and Esther Vivas from the Spanish state. We publish their two reports in this issue. - read article...

The resolution on Climate change and our tasks adopted by the Sixteenth World Congress was presented to the delegates by reports from Daniel Tanuro from Belgium and Esther Vivas from the Spanish state. We publish their two reports here. - read article...

An International conference on Climate change is taking place in Montreal from November 29 - December 9th. The Assembly of the Movements at the World Social Forum in January 2005 endorsed the call for international demonstrations to take place during that conference, and December 3 has been chosen as the international day of action. - read article...

2006 saw British socialist paper, Socialist Resistance start a new publishing arm - Socialist Resistance Books. It has now published its third title - "Ecosocialism or Barbarism". - read article...

Following its long and rich debate on the resolution "Climate change and our tasks", the Sixteenth World Congress adopted a motion outlining its orientation to the Cochabamba summit on climate. - read article...

Fifteen thousand people marched through freezing rain to demand global action on climate change December 8. - read article...

Despite cold rainy weather and a strike that seriously affected the railways, 4000 people demonstrated in Brussels on December 8 “for climate and solidarity.” - read article...

Activists in Europe are beginning to coordinate action strategies in favor of food sovereignty at the local, national, and continental levels. As these networks bring in new players, they gather strength. The task is not easy, but food sovereignty movements and anti-globalization movements are steadily building a common front behind a call popularized by La Vía Campesina: “Globalize struggle, globalize hope.” - read article...

One of the most vexing issues in Latin America’s relations with Haiti, is the grievous lack of understanding on the part of anti-imperialist forces about the nature of the repeated imperialist occupations of the former French colony, and of the crushing of the Lavalas movement, including the ouster of the country’s democratically-elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. - read article...

On Saturday Dec 12, 100,000 demonstrated in the streets of Copenhagen outside the COP 15 summit demanding urgent action against global warming - more than double the numbers that organisers had predicted - or even dared expect. While of course a high percentage of demonstrators came from Denmark itself and from neighbouring countries Sweden and Germany (where there is somewhat of a tradition of mobilising for each other’s events) - this was a truly international demonstration. - read article...

System Change, not Climate Change! Statement issued by Klimaform09 in Copenhagen, December 10, 2009 - read article...

We knew the United Nations summit in Copenhagen would not conclude with a new international treaty but a simple statement of intent – just one more. But the text adopted at the end of the meeting is worse than anything we could imagine: no quantified objectives for emissions reduction, no reference year for measuring them, no deadlines, no date! - read article...

The climate summit is over and the Danish presidency must be left with a bitter taste on their lips. What was called the meeting to save the world have been a complete failure. Even towards the end negotiations where going on about a document, that would have allowed a concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere almost twice the level that have been recommended by science - threatening global rises in temperature of at least 3° C. Obviously a scandalous conclusion for millions of people as well as countless bio-systems and species. - read article...

This article examining the food crisis is based on a report given at the IIRE Ecnomists’ seminar in October 2009. - read article...

No matter today’s activism, global climate governance is grid-locked and it seems clear that no meaningful deal can be sealed in Copenhagen on December 18. - read article...

Pakistan is among the countries which will be hit hardest in near future by effects of climate change even though it contributes only a fraction to global warming. The country is witnessing severe pressures on natural resources and environment. This warning has recently come from the mouth of Pakistan’s prime minister in a recent statement. - read article...

The climate change that is underway is not the product of human activity in general but is mainly due to the fact that the capitalist system, guided by considerations of short-term profit and superprofit, has based and continues to base its development not only on the exploitation of labour power but also on the plundering of natural resources, in particular finite and non-renewable reserves of cheap fossil fuels. - read article...

With the economic recession and environmental crisis alternative plans for socially useful, sustainable production have never been more relevant. When the financial shit hit the fan last year the overproduction in the auto industry became visible. - read article...

World population has grown from 2.5bn in 1950 to 6.8bn in 2007. By 2050 it is predicted to reach 9.2bn, and then stabilise (UN figures). This estimate assumes rates in many countries in the North will continue to decrease, and that the South will gradually follow suit. - read article...

Daniel Tanuro’s report on climate change [1] is one of the most important documents produced by our movement in recent years. It is an invaluable contribution to the political arming of revolutionary Marxists and to making them capable of facing up to the challenges of the 21st century. - read article...

On June 5, 2009, world environment day, Awajun and Wami defenders of the environment were massacred in Peru. - read article...

The International Committee passed a detailed resolution on climate change. - read article...

The February 2009 meeting of the International Committee of the FI adopted this draft as a basis for a resolution to the next World Congress. - read article...

In the thirty five years since the first oil crisis world car production has doubled, going from 33 million in 1975 to 73 million in 2007. In most developed capitalist countries, the usual mode of management of this growth has been that of crisis with restructuring among firms, factory closures and suppression of jobs. The car industry in the oldest capitalist economy, Britain, has been profoundly reduced over this period. Detroit and Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris bear the scars of closed factories with industrial wastelands in the heart of the city. - read article...

The point of view that I will defend is that the crisis which started in August 2007 represented a real break which put an end to a long phase of expansion of the world economy. This break heralds the beginning of a process of crisis whose characteristics in terms of the number of intermingled factors are comparable with those of the crisis of 1929, although this one takes place in a very different context and these factors are necessarily different. - read article...

"The speed with which climate change is advancing and affecting the populations of the poorest and most vulnerable countries will subject them to the combined impact of the world recession, global warming and the effects of the agricultural policies imposed on so many countries." - read article...

On October 12, 2007, researchers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) received the Nobel Peace Prize, applauded by all the (supposedly) important decision-makers in the world. One year later, the governments of the developed countries no longer conceal their intention of truncating and deforming the recommendations of the experts, in order to make them compatible with the interests of the North and the diktats of the multinationals. The so-called financial crisis can only strengthen this tendency in the future. - read article...

However typical they are of the Caribbean, hurricanes are now growing in size and number as a result of human disdain toward nature’s balance. - read article...

An overwhelming majority within the scientific community has reached an unprecedented consensus: The current climate change is primarily a result of human activities, and climate change will reach a critical point if no measures are taken. Meanwhile, world leaders and economic powers ignore these facts, and offer superficial solutions such as green consumption instead of a fundamental structural change. - read article...

Almost a year has passed since the IPCC released its reports on how rapid climate changes are taking us towards a disaster. The reports have made the issue more obvious and less controversial: the conclusion of this is that the climate threat can no longer be ignored. - read article...

The food crisis has left thousands of people worldwide without food. With statistics showing 850 million hungry, the World Bank estimates that the current crisis increases that number by a hundred more. This ’tsunami’ of hunger is no natural process, but stems from the neoliberal policies of international institutions, imposed over decades. - read article...

Media reports have neglected the most important source of aid to victims of cyclone Nargis - spontaneous donations from their fellow citizens. - read article...

Despite its popularity among advocates of market solutions to global warming, carbon trading cannot produce the quantitative and qualitative changes that the world needs - read article...

How should we judge the outcome of the Bali Conference? The fact that the IPCC targets were not explicitly and directly included in the roadmap has lead some to call it a pointless meeting, a victory for the USA, etc. - read article...

Is ecosocialism really necessary? Isn’t it implied in the very concept of socialism? Why should anybody be an ecosocialist as opposed a plain, straightforward, socialist? - read article...

’Climate poverty’ kills 150,000 every year. - read article...

"The environmental costs of rapid industrialization are of major concern to significant sectors of the population of developing countries and, in many of them, the environmental movement has been a significant actor. Moreover, there is currently an active discussion in many countries of alternatives to the destabilizing high-growth model". - read article...

This is an edited version of the main document discussed at the recent annual general meeting of Socialist Resistance in Britain. The document explains why Socialist Resistance is changing its political programme, perspectives and public profile towards being an anti-capitalist, ecosocialist organisation. - read article...

Acccording to the author "It is time to recognize the utter inadequacy of first-wave environmentalism’s basic premises and forms of organization. There is a certain urgency to this recognition, for nothing less than profound and indeed unprecedented changes in human existence are forewarned by the ecological crisis". - read article...

A recent spate of madcap technological proposals - like putting giant mirrors around the earth - should not blind us to the feasible technological changes that go hand-in-hand with the social revolution needed to stop environmental disaster. - read article...

Climate change threatens catastrophe. How should socialists face up to the challenge? - read article...

Daniel Tanuro interviews the reknowned climatologist about the extent of climate change and the possible solutions. - read article...

Public interest in the climate change crisis has risen dramatically. Much too inactive on this terrain, the left should get involved in the international movement emerging around the idea that rescuing the climate - in a spirit of social justice - takes precedence over profit and necessitates a significant redistribution of wealth. - read article...

"They make you pay for bread, the sky, the earth, the sun and the misery of your life." — Paul Eluard. - read article...

The report of UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on global warming recently published in Paris has changed the terms of the debate on this issue. The conclusion of this latest report is that global warming will have a far more destructive impact than the IPCC had previously predicted and that it will come in a shorter period of time. - read article...

The political rhetoric and frequent violence of the israeli-palestinian conflict often serve to mask underlying environmental issues which, if not resolved, may pose an even greater threat to the well-being of the Palestinian population than the guns and bombs of the military occupation. - read article...

Britain’s largest trade union has affiliated to the Campaign against Climate Change (CCC), reflecting alarm across the labour movement at the Labour government’s plans to replace its aging nuclear submarines and power stations. - read article...

A supporter of the socialist organisation Solidarity and member of the Green Party living in New Orleans reports on the catastrophe which has struck the historic city, impacting disproportionately on the poor and Black people there. - read article...

Twenty nine years ago the north Italian town of Seveso was the site of the first chemical industrial catastrophe - dioxin poisoning. But after more than two decades of battles, the EU is retreating on the fight on chemical pollution, after feroicious opposition from the chemical industry and its neoliberal supporters. - read article...

Thanks to the Russian government’s decision to ratify it, the Kyoto Protocol will come into force in 2005. With the USA having withdrawn in 2001, ratification by Moscow was necessary in order that the agreement, signed in Japan in 1997, should be effective. A new phase of climate negotiations is opening, during which neoliberal pressure will redouble in intensity. - read article...

Heat waves, droughts and floods have focused attention on climate change caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases. Governments try to reassure us that, whether the Kyoto Protocol is ratified or not, adequate measures will continue to be taken and the problem will be brought under control. The reality is, alas, much more worrying. - read article...

This Congress was the first in the history of the Fourth International to adopt a resolution on ecology. This document, published in draft form in IV nearly two years ago, was debated at length at the FI’s International Executive Committee (IEC) and amended accordingly by the drafting committee designated by the IEC. - read article...

The United Nations’ World Summit on Sustainable Development was held in Johannesburg, South Africa from August 26 to September 4, 2002. While the decisions of the Rio convention in 1992 have still not been applied, the great powers, in concert with the biggest multinationals, are claiming to promote sustainable development. Who can really believe it? - read article...

Hope did not come from Rio. It did not come from Johannesburg. It comes from Porto Alegre, Seattle or Genoa. - read article...

The International Executive Committee (IEC) of the Fourth International meeting in October 2000 adopted a draft resolution on "Ecology and Socialism" which was published in IV 327. The IEC decided that the text should be discussed publicly in the press of the international. We publish below three contributions to this debate. - read article...

At its November 2000 meeting the International Executive Committee (IEC) of the Fourth International (the world-wide organisation of revolutionary socialists) discussed a draft resolution on "Socialism and ecology" which will be debated at the 15th World Congress of the Fourth International. - read article...

Humanity has faced ecological problems at other times, but these have taken on a new urgency nowadays due to their scope and gravity. Damage to the environment often has an irreversible impact on man and nature and the ecological crisis on the horizon at the dawn of the 21st Century is endangering the lives of millions of people. - read article...

Our articles on the floods in Pakistan have given details of how to send financial aid to the Labour Relief Fund. If it is more convenient for you, you can also send funds through the Europe Solidaire Sans Frontieres account. - read article...

Pakistan is facing worst ever floods of its history. Torrential rains have unleashed flash floods in different parts of the country since last three weeks. Water levies broke leaving the people exposed to flood water. More than 12 million people have suffered due to these floods. More than 650,000 houses have collapsed, mainly in villages. Thousands of acres of crops have been destroyed due to flood water. Houses, live-stock such as cattle’s and goats, household goods, clothes, shoes and other items have been destroyed. Residents of villages are currently without drinkable water, food, shelter and in need of clothes. In particular, the situation is dire for children and women and they are in desperate need of food and clothing. Disease is spreading fast in the areas affected due to lack of drinkable water. In particular, flu, fever, diarrhea, cholera have been noted and are spreading. - read article...

An unexpected, unthinkable, yet - concerning current circumstances - quite expectable and natural thing has occurred yesterday night. Three public social activists that have always expressed a consistent antifascist attitude and shunned civil indifference have been detained. - read article...

We, the participants at the Istanbul ESF, affirming that we have a strong engagement aganist all war and occupation and that we are for a politial resolution of the Kurdish issue, have made the following resolution : - read article...

Under the impulse of the World Bank and international capitalist institutions, the Moroccan regime started a privatization process of the universities and attacks against the right to studiy. The announcement of the “Emergency plan” to the university at beginning of the academic year, i.e. of the brutal aggravation of these attacks, put a spark to the powder. The class-struggle trade unionists of fight, organised within the UNEM, are at the forefront of the mobilization against the “Emergency plan”. - read article...