A Plea for an Ecological Reconstruction of Marxism

By Daniel Tanturo

Presentation at the Historical Materialism Conference

London

November 10, 2012

For the first time in history, humanity has to conceive our emancipation under a global ecological constraint, unsurpassable by an increase in labor productivity.

Global warming exemplifies this constraint. In order to stabilize the climate system, the final energy consumption should fall by 50% in the European Union, and 75% in the US, by 2050 (UN, World Economic and Social Outlook 2011). Such objectives cannot be achieved without a reduction in material production and transportation, at least in the so-called “developed” countries. It’s not enough to limit growth.

At the most, the energy system based on fossil fuels must be replaced by another one, renewable, completely new and different. A huge mutation must be carried out within two generations. It requires investments and thus additional energy consumption. In other words, the transition itself, at least in the beginning, will be an additional source of emissions and these must absolutely be compensated. Therefore, a plan is necessary, based on energy efficiency, not cost-efficiency.

Canada, the surprise 'pariah' of the Kyoto protocol

Some Canadians doubt whether their country should have any say in negotiating the second Kyoto protocol after it became the only nation to reject the first one

By Isabeau Doucet in Montreal
guardian.co.uk

26 November 2012 

Oil city: steam rises from refineries outside Edmonton, Alberta. Photograph: Andy Clark/Reuters

Of all the delegations in the room in Doha, the Canadians adopt the lowest profile. Some question whether they should be there at all: The country's first and only Green party MP, Elizabeth May, said: "HavingCanada in the room negotiating to weaken the second Kyoto, when we have already signalled that not only will we not be participating in taking on new targets in the second period but we're legally withdrawn from the protocol, should make us pariahs."

"I can't imagine how anybody would want us in the room."

The Link between Emission Cuts, Right to Development and Transformation of Capitalist System

By Pablo Solon

Pablo Solon holds at COP 17 protest banner

Focus on the Global South

Humanity is running out of time. If there are no deep and real cuts in the next five years the impacts of climate change will lead to a situation ten times worse than what we have seen with hurricane Sandy and other climate change related events in India, Russia, Philippines and Africa in this past year.

That’s what happens with 0.8ºC of global warming, and the current climate negotiations are leading us to a 4ºC to 8ºC scenario.

More than two-thirds of coal, oil and gas should be left under the soil

Different studies say that to limit the increase in temperature to 2ºC, all countries can only emit 565 gigatons of CO2 between 2010 and 2050[1]. At the current rate of 31 gigatons of global CO2 emissions per year, we are going to expend that budget in 15 years.

New NYC Booklet on Medicare

NYC

Medicare's Birth in Saskatchewan: 50th Anniversary of a People's Victory

The two articles re-published in this pamphlet were written to address the 50th anniversary of North America's first public healthcare system for all citizens initiated in Saskatchewan on July 1, 1962.

We were researching the prolific resources and books available on the subject in preparation for a forthcoming book on the fight for medicare in Saskatchewan and wanted to raise the profile of the anniversary as the actual anniversary approached.

This pamphlet is intended as a short and quick resource for labour and health care activists as we celebrate 50 years of medicare.

- Lorne Brown, Doug Taylor

Purchase HERE.

Recovering Bookchin: Social Ecology and the Crises of Our Time

By Andy Price
New Compass

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Through an extensive body of political and philosophical ideas he called social ecology, Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) elucidated one of the first intellectual responses to the ecological crisis. However, over the last two decades of his life Bookchin’s ideas slipped from focus, obscured by the emergence of a crude caricature that portrayed him as a dogmatic sectarian who intended to dominate the radical left for his own personal motivations.

In Recovering Bookchin, Andy Price revisits the Bookchin caricature and critically discounts it as the product of a largely misguided literature that focused on Bookchin the individual and not his ideas. By looking afresh at Bookchin’s work, Price argues that his contribution can be seen to provide a coherent practical and theoretical response to the ecological and social crises of our time.

Dr Andy Price is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He has written articles on both Bookchin and social ecology and on contemporary radical movements for the academic and popular press.

This is a work of “recovery” in the best sense, a lucid, sympathetic yet critical account of Bookchin, demonstrating his continuing relevance in the face of ecological catastrophe. Andy Price’s insightful treatment goes beyond the polemics surrounding Bookchin to illustrate the richness and depth of his ecological philosophy, which should do much to revive interest in this bold thinker.
— Jules Townshend, Professor Emeritus, Manchester Metropolitan University

A trenchant and much-needed reassessment of this singular and all too often misrepresented anarcho-green theorist, and of his contribution to social theory. Price indeed “recovers” Bookchin; he does so with admirable verve and analytical rigour, cutting through the myriad distortions surrounding him and providing us with a new framework for understanding social ecology today.
— Dr Chris Ealham, author of Anarchism and the City (AK Press, 2010).

China’s Nexen Deal Tangled Up With Keystone Pipeline

By Peter Lee

Asia Times

October 6, 2012

An interesting side product of globalization is how China bashing has become a staple of domestic politics in nations around the world, from America to Zambia, from Sydney to Tokyo. Best practices also propagate with remarkable speed and efficiency.

It may not be a coincidence that, just as the United States finally gets the memo that the Chinese currency is no longer significantly undervalued, the commentariat turns on a dime (or jiao, if you prefer) to announce that the real problem is the market-distorting, security-undermining shadow of China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) over the world economy.

Economic Growth and Our Collective Demise

By Jim Harding

No Nukes
October 1, 2012 

Stephen Harper wants to transform Canada into an “energy superpower”. Most Conservative policy seems to follow from this huge gamble with our future. On the surface this “vision” seems feasible; once examined it turns into a nightmare.

Oil is already Canada’s no 1 export and Harper wants to expand the oil-export economy. According to Rubin, in his End of Growth, Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline to ship bitumen to China, which Harper wants to fast-track, “would move more than half a million barrels a day of very precious oil” and this would “lift the revenues of Canadian oil companies by billions of dollars”. Oil flows, money flows. How could anyone question such a seemingly self-evident vision for our country?

There remain vital questions about the risks and costs of environmental contamination, about who would really benefit and how much “trickle down” would actually occur. And whether this would make the economy more or less sustainable and what kind of society Canada will become if it continues down Harper’s path?

Trade Unions and Canadian Democracy promotion video

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Lobbying for Canada’s “Ethical Oil”

By Yves Engler

Dissident Voice

September 25th, 2012

While scientists are reporting a stunning reduction in Arctic sea ice Canada’s ambassador in the U.S. is stumping for heavy carbon emitting oil.

Last Tuesday Ambassador Gary Doer spoke at Washington D.C.’s Johns Hopkins University in support of heavy polluting tar sands oil. According toSun News, Doer touted the job benefits of Calgary-based TransCanada’s plan to build a $7 billion pipeline to take oil from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast of the U.S.

Incredibly, lobbying for tar sands interests may be the main thing Canada’s top U.S. diplomat does. Both Maisonneuve magazine and The Tyee have published articles detailing Ambassador Doer’s voluminous efforts on behalf of the tar sands. “Doer has devoted much of his professional energy to promoting the oil sands industry, flying to industry roundtables, meeting with US policymakers, and speaking to national magazines,” noted Tyee reporter Geoff Dembicki in an April 2011 article.

Trade unions must join the fight against climate change

By Ian Angus
ESSF website
29 September 2011

Ian Angus, editor of Climate and Capitalism, is currently in Australia to speak at the Climate Change Social Change conference in Melbourne, September 30 – October 3.

During his pre-conference speaking tour, he was invited to address several meetings of trades union members. The following is a lightly edited transcript of the opening comments he made at union meetings in Melbourne and Geelong.

“If we leave this issue to the bosses, to the corporations and politicians who profit from the existing system, the changes will be inadequate – and they will put the entire burden on working people.”

Thank you for inviting me to speak today.

This week, in Canada, hundreds of people gathered on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, to support a civil disobedience action against the environmental crime known as the Alberta Tar Sands, and the related Keystone XL pipeline.

7 Ways Canadian Environmental Groups Are Being Attacked as “Terrorists”

BY WILL POTTER

GREEN IS THE NEW RED

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

Environmentalists have drawn international attention to Canada’s tar sands, vast deposits of a particularly gooey, toxic form of petroleum called bitumen that Canada hopes to ship thousands of miles. Civil disobedience campaigns against the Keystone XL pipeline were so effective that President Obama placed construction of its northern leg on hold (and activists in Texas and Oklahoma have beenrelentlessly blockading construction for the southern leg).

With the Keystone XL in jeopardy, Canada’s prime minister Stephen Harper has tried to shift gears with another plan called the Enbridge Northern Gateway, which would cut through the lands of indigenous groups and three major watersheds. Not surprisingly, this has been fiercely opposed by groups like ForestEthics, the Sierra Club, First Nations groups, and the general public (as background see Rolling Stone‘s “Keystone Moves North, Where Big Oil Is Losing”). Just this week, another investigation by ForestEthics documented how toxins from tar sands refineries are polluting communities.

I Broke the Law to Defeat Climate Change

By J.B. MacKinnon

TheTyee.ca 

19 September 2012

Editor's note: On May 5, 13 people were arrested on the railway in front of the White Rock Pier for blocking trains loaded with American coal from reaching port in Tsawwassen. It was the most dramatic act of civil disobedience against climate change yet in the Lower Mainland. This Friday, members of the "White Rock 13" will lead a public discussion on whether nonviolent civil disobedience is needed to increase the pressure for action on climate change. J.B. MacKinnon, co-author of The 100-Mile Diet, gets that conversation rolling for The Tyee with arrestee Lynne Quarmby, who is also chair of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Simon Fraser University.

J.B. MacKinnon: Lynne, are you now, or have you ever been, a "professional activist"?

Lynne Quarmby: Never. After grad school in the early '80s I did participate in the big peace rally on the Burrard Street Bridge, with 100,000 people. And at various times in my life, I've been a big letter writer -- I've written dozens of letters to politicians. So I've been politically aware -- sort of an activist, but not a protester.