We need a plan to forestall climate disaster

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To stop climate change short of climate disaster, the United States—which has been the world’s largest polluter for many years—has to lead the way to re­ structure our global economy to rapidly reduce, and ultimately eliminate, use of fossil and nuclear fuels.

That’s a giant task—but even more will be required to create a sustainable environment that can be passed on to future generations.

We also must reverse destructive urban sprawl, re­ building and repopulating our depleted urban cores while restoring the forests, wetlands, and farmland that once surrounded, protected, and nourished our cities.

We have to as well start shifting from chemical and genetic modification to organic farming methods to stop the many forms of pollution of our soil, water, and air—as well as creation of “super-bugs” threat­ ening not only crops and livestock but even human health.

And we will have to make some adjustments in the wastefulness of what we consume.

We have the science and technology at our disposal to do all of these things. And the ruling rich can spare some of the enormous wealth they have accumulated through environmental/climate destruction to under­ write the costs. We can accomplish all this while cre­ ating truly full employment, maintaining a quality life style in this country, and also introducing dramatic improvement in the lives of billions currently living in poverty around the world.

But for this satisfactory outcome in the greatest challenge humanity has yet faced, we above all need a plan. Individuals can and should support this effort through changes in life style, but such modest options available to us will amount to little more than the pro­ verbial drop in the acidifying ocean.

The class that runs our economy and dominates government is deeply vested in a highly profitable fos­ sil/nuke dependency. Measures such as discredited cap-and-trade schemes—now belatedly proposed on a small scale by the Obama administration—promis­ ing to modify this corporate behavior in the capitalist market economy, will get us nowhere fast.

Even the bipartisan Establishment run by the One Percent, which has been slashing “Big Government,”

recognizes the inherent superiority of centralized planning and has embraced it, in a distorted way, dur­ ing times of emergency.

When this country was taken into the Second World War—fought on six continents and all oceans—the White House and War Department did not patiently wait for the Free Market economy to somehow pro­ ... Mass action (continued from page 1: “Stop climate disaster Mass protests critical to victory!”) upon ruling capitalist forces, particularly the Democratic Party.

While 350.org’s Bill McKibben has singled out the fossil fuel industry for demonization, he has treated the rest of big business as generally innocent, and looks to Obama as an ally who needs en­ couragement and support, rather than chief executive of the capitalist state tasked with maintaining the profitability and power of the fossil fuel industry, the banks, and every other sector tied to the destruction of Earth.

The Sierra Club’s Michael Brune speaks even more highly of Obama and the Dem­ ocrats. Indeed, their last major march against the Keystone XL pipeline refer­ enced Obama’s campaign slogan with its title, “Forward on Climate.”

The labor unions and other organiza­ tions involved are also committed to sup­ porting the Democratic Party, and it is clear that any specific demand that would be acceptable to anyone in the movement would be embarrassing to these “allies” in Washington.

As pointed out by left commentators Chris Hedges and Anne Petermann, the absence of concrete demands has opened the door for even corporate fronts like Climate Group (whose backers include BP and China Mobile) to advertise the demonstration on their website (al­ though this support has not translated into a formal endorsement).

When a demonstration has clear po­ litical demands, such support from oppo­ nents only exposes their own contradic­ tions. But without a clear political objec­ tive, such support threatens to become the message itself.

Hedges, however, poses an entirely in­ adequate solution to this problem. To be­ gin with, he poses no demands either. He simply supports plans for direct action following the main march and quotes Kevin Zeese’s call to disrupt the UN meet­ ing itself.

Zeese characterizes the main march as merely symbolic, but how can a few ar­ rests in central Manhattan be anything more than symbolic? Even the activists who recently stalled a train full of coal and oil in Seattle by blocking the tracks did not slow the emissions of greenhouse gas one iota.

For direct action to have an effect be­ yond symbolism, it has to appeal to broad layers of society and involve large numbers of people (particularly those working at the point of production) in sustained struggle, whose aim is not the arrest of the participants but actual ma­ terial victories, up to and including the seizure of mass production by those who make it run.

This will require mass organizations of working and oppressed people and a leading layer capable of directing the struggle independently of the capitalist class. A small number of people getting arrested for a cause with no discernable material effect can symbolize militancy, but it can also symbolize political isola­ tion and desperation, or even the attempt to substitute for the struggle of the many duce the vast quantities of ships, planes, and tanks urgently needed. Big Government essentially took control of the entire economy and ran it according to a master plan. It proved to be the most successful economic mobilization in history—and in the process finally succeeded, where the markets had failed, in bringing an end to the Great Depression that had fes­ tered for more than a decade.

We, of course, don’t want more war. Nor do we want to lavishly compensate Big Business for following our plan, as was done with the war profiteers dur­ ing World War II. But we certainly face an emergency even greater than in 1941, and we can learn much from the planning method, and the spirit of coopera­ tion that motivated the entire nation then.

Socialist Action calls for the creation of an Emergen­ cy Climate Action Public Sector to begin with nation­ alization of key components of the economy such as Finance, Energy, Transportation, and Auto. This sector would democratically implement a plan determined by scientists, environmentalists, and workers in the workplace. Top priority would be given to replacing fossil and nuclear fuel usage with clean renewable sources such as solar and wind.

Another crucial element to the plan is commitment to the principle of Just Transition. That is: whenever jobs are eliminated for the benefit of society as a whole, society has the obligation to maintain displaced work­ with the actions of a few.

A demonstration of hundreds of thou­ sands symbolizes the will of the major­ ity in society and reveals those in charge of everything to be the utter minority. A demonstration that includes a substan­ tial showing from organized labor sym­ bolizes the potential that working people have to shut down production and reor­ ganize society.

A demonstration that draws in signifi­ cant layers of new people from many dif­ ferent walks of life symbolizes our collec­ tive potential to radically reshape society, and thus the relevance and practicality of an uncompromising and sweeping vision, and the demands to articulate it.

It is not possible to conjure a revolu­ tionary uprising at will. As in Tunisia, Egypt, Wisconsin, and Ferguson, such explosions often take the world by sur­ prise—even when the initial actions have (Above) Protesters demand more action at UN climate conference in Durban in 2011.

ers’ living standards while they are retrained or relo­ cated for suitable new jobs. Many present jobs will unavoidably be lost. But the needs for restructuring a sustainable economy will produce full employment for generations to come.

Of course, the new Climate Action Public Sector we envision would continue existing union contracts and would not oppose new union organizing.

In short, those of us proudly accepting the label of “eco-socialists” believe the goals of climate and class justice are inseparable. We can’t win one without the other. The only force in society with both the material interest and social and economic clout to take on the climate and economic wreckers ruling society today is the working-class majority. A revitalized workers’ movement, reclaiming our class identity, working with allies in the inspiring new climate action move­ ment, can get the job done.

That’s the message we need to spread in the work­ place, on campus, in our communities—and in the coming struggles for political power. n Bill Onasch is a retired bus driver and former vice president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1287 in Kansas City.

Jay Directo / Agence France-Presse been planned. What can be consciously developed are democratic practices that allow a layer of today’s activists to learn how to advance a struggle independently of the capitalist class and build organiza­ tions that can realize their goals. The cli­ mate march creates more space for this perspective, not less.

Radicals must use the opportunity posed by the march to connect with the many layers, old and new, who are join­ ing the protest. Where possible, they should advocate large democratic meet­ ings to follow, where the base of the movement can get together to work out demands and a struggle that is indepen­ dent from big business, its institutions, and its parties.

The demands for 100% renewable en­ ergy and a just transition for hydrocar­ bon workers might well become crucial demands in advancing this process. n SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2014 5