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| Part of the September 2011 protest against Keystone XL pipeline |
This 1000th coincides
with the Forward
on Climate Rally to be held in Washington D.C. on Sunday February 17,
2013. There will be similar
rallies across the country, including one in San Francisco at the State
Department office from 1-3 p.m.
The United States has been the major stumbling block in 21
years of United
Nations sponsored climate change negotiations. The U.S. environmental
establishment’s policy has been limited to lobbying effort and supporting
“pro-environment” politicians, mostly from the Democratic Party.
In a break with this failed “strategy,” the Forward on Climate
Rally, co-sponsored by 350.org,
Sierra Club, and the Hip Hop Caucus, has been organizing and
mobilizing thousands for street protest to demand stopping the proposed
Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and to adopt measures to stop and reverse global
warming. A year ago, 350.org
organized a rally of some 15,000 people against the proposed Keystone XL
pipeline at the White House. The Obama administration decided to postpone a
decision on the pipeline pending feasibility studies, effectively to some
time after the 2012 presidential election.
Leaderships
of the 350.org, Sierra Club, and the Hip Hop Caucus have worked within the
framework of capitalism to find solutions to their concerns, in particular the global warming and catastrophic
climate change. However, the
350.org has been organizing and mobilizing for direct action to reach its
specific goals. There is some evidence that pressure from the ranks as well as
some willingness from a section of the Democratic Party to take steps to contain the global warming trend as reflected in giving prominent mention of the climate change challenge in Obama’s inaugural and State of Union speeches have opened political space for direct action. On Tuesday, a group of 50 protesters, including leading scientists,
activists and celebrities, staged a sit down strike in Washington. SOme were arrested including the environmentalist Bill
McKibben, actress Daryl Hannah, NASA climate scientist James Hansen, lawyer
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and civil rights leader Julian Bond. Michael Brune,
Executive Director of Sierra Club, who also was arrested, said:
"And
so we know that we can’t win on climate change if we continue to dither, if we
continue to talk about it but not do anything. And so, the Sierra Club is
engaging in civil disobedience for the first time [in its 120 year history],
because we have a moral catastrophe on our hands, and we need to do everything
that we can to compel stronger, bolder action."
Thus,
the Forward on Climate Rally demands: “The first step to putting our country on
the path to addressing the climate crisis is for President Obama to reject the
Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. His legacy as president will rest squarely on
his response, resolve, and leadership in solving the climate crisis.”
The
ecological socialist movement has correctly argued that the climate crisis is a
prominent part and parcel of the crises of society and nature perpetuated by
the capitalist industrial system.
Thus, the definitive solution to global warming is to replace capitalism
with an ecological socialist society. It is imperative that this perspective be
raised with the thousands of environmentally conscious protestors on Sunday.
A few
socialist groups in the U.S. have just announced their intention to participate
in the February rally. For
instance, on February 14 I received a statement on the Ecosocialist
International Network from Solidarity
and International Socialist
Organization (ISO) co-signed by a few Green Party locals, and two dozens
individuals, including two trade unionists, that endorses the rally’s central
demand and announces the signers's intention to participate a ecosocialist contingent in the Sunday
rally in Washington, D.C. The
statement has not been widely circulated among all ecosocialists groups and
individuals. The United National Antiwar Coalition has also
endorsed the rally.
These endorsements and participation will certainly broaden the range of view
presented at the rally to include antiwar activists and (ecological)
socialists. However, their delayed decision to endorse the rally means they could not have participated in building it effectively. In some case, it shows hesitancy to join forces with the
“liberals” in demanding action on global warming and climate change. The Solidarity and ISO initiative could
have been much broader to include other ecological socialist currents and
individuals.
But most
importantly, some ecological socialists hold a view that no action under the
capitalism is sufficient to stop and reverse global warming. By taking a "systemic approach" they argue that to stop and reverse global warming and
catastrophic climate change it is necessary to overthrow capitalism
worldwide. This is an ultra-left
error that leads to ecological socialists standing on the sidelines from various actions
underway to address global warming and climate change, almost always led by
groups that believe it can be done under capitalism. The revolutionary strategy is the take the opposite
course. Fighting to stop global
warming must be a central part of the struggle to replace the internationalist capitalist
order with an ecological socialist alternative, which requires ecological
socialists to be in the forefront of all actions to address the combined crises
of our times. In fact, it is the
ecological socialist movement that should propose a program of immediate and transitional demands to
replace the current energy infrastructure of the international economy with one
that is consistent with stopping and reversing global warming. Given the fact that the U.S. has the highest per capita energy consumption in the world, the U.S. ecological socialist movement,
very small and non-influential at the present, has the most responsibility and
best opportunity to lead in the global effort to stop and reverse global warming. The February
17 rallies offer an opportunity to embark on this road.
I urge readers to join the February 17 actions in Washington D.C. and San
Francisco and other places with an eye to help building them as broadly as
possible and to foster future actions as well. In my small town fifty miles
from San Francisco there are already a few carloads of people who will
participate in the Sunday rally. All out for the Forward on Climate rallies!
--KN
--KN
* * *
There have been 99 posts since my last communication (nos. 901
to 999 inclusive). As usual, the focus has been ecology, environment and
ecocide (28 posts), global warming and climate change and other planetary
crises (20 posts), other animals (14 posts) and the Cuban revolution (13
posts).
As I state regularly all signed articles represent the views of
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