To save the climate, it’s ‘Time to Choose’

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... Clean Energy Revolution “Time to Choose,” a documentary film Isaacs. C “Time to Choose,” should scare the harles Ferguson’s documentary, bejesus out of you. Unfortunately, it will probably only be seen by people who acknowledge climate change. The trick is to get “deniers” to see it and hope­ fully change some minds.

“Time to Choose” makes it abundantly clear that if the oil conglomerates and other corporations promoting fossilfuel mining and drilling operations, as well as those behind large-scale com­ mercial farming and livestock produc­ tion, do not cease their operations NOW, many coastal cities, if not countries (is­ land states) will literally cease to be by mid-century, if not sooner. Millions of people will be forced to migrate.

Politicians who deny the reality of climate change use fear tactics to en­ sure the continuation of the fossil-fuel economy, along with the confidence of corporate shareholders.

What they fail to acknowledge are the facts—and there are plenty of them. Alternative energy sources are on the rise. Clips from the film illustrate for­ mer fossil-fuel workers being trained in production and installation of wind (continued from page 1: “10,000 protesters demand ‘Clean Energy Revolution!’”) circumstances to live amidst the drilling pads despoil­ ing large swaths of the U.S.

Labor organizers who have stepped up to help com­ bat the climate crisis very visibly built the demonstra­ tion. Joe Uhlein of the Labor Sustainability Network and the convener of the Labor Climate Convergence in January of this year, urged trade unionists to attend. “It is time for those of us in the labor movement to rise to the challenge and become a central player in the movement to build a sustainable future for the planet and its people—not only for the survival and wellbe­ ing of all, but also for organized labor’s own self-inter­ est,” he wrote in a blog post called “Why Trade Union­ ists Should March for a Clean Energy Revolution.”

The labor contingent at the march, which included groups from AFSCME and the postal workers union was modestly impressive and reflected the patient and systematic outreach and education being carried out in labor councils, union locals, and other labor bodies from one coast to another.

A Peace and Climate Justice contingent, initiated by Peace Action and built by Code Pink, organized its members under the demands: Slash the Pentagon and world military budgets, provide strong aid to climate refugees, and fund green energy, targeting 100% clean by 2030. The adoption by the peace community of the latter demand is reflective of the now broad ac­ ceptance of the real science of climate change, a sci­ ence that is unanimous in concluding that we must ... Coup in Turkey (continued from page 12: “Turkey: From failed coup to authoritarian purge”)

U.S. because they are bearers of moderate Islam. Gu­ lenists are also allies of Israel and its Zionist politics. But so is Erdogan, though with a difference: he’s an adamant supporter of a strategy that is losing its rel­ evance.

Erdogan claims the leadership of all Sunnis in the Middle East. He supported the Muslim Brotherhood against General Sisi in Egypt. He armed Sunni militias against Assad in Syria. He favoured El Nusra and ISIS in their operations against Kurdish inhabitants. For this reason, he didn’t refrain from souring relations with Russia and Israel.

But his dreams were not realized. His Syrian offen­ sive failed. The U.S. now allies with the Kurds in fight­ ing ISIS. To reclaim his position, he made a U-turn turbines and solar panels.

Tom Randall of Bloomberg News wrote: “The shift occurred in 2013, when the world added 143 gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity, com­ pared with 141 gigawatts in new plants that burn fossil fuels, according to an analysis presented Tuesday at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance annual summit in New York. The shift will con­ tinue to accelerate, and by 2030 more than four times as much renewable ca­ What is to be done?

Opacity will be added. “The race for renewable energy has passed a turning point. The world is now adding more capacity for renew­ able power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined. And there’s no going back.”

The film showed ghastly images of mountaintop removal by mining com­ panies in the U.S., accompanied by dev­ astating interviews with locals about how they were bamboozled by their have an emergency transition that begins today and is extremely advanced just 14 years from now.

Fortunately, Mark Jacobson and his team at Stanford have made it crystal clear that current technology will allow us to complete a transition to a 100% re­ newable energy grid by 2050. The only obstacle is the political elite who refuses to take responsibility for organizing this transition.

Front-line marchers included partici­ pants in the “Indigenous Leaders Protect Our Public Lands Caravan,” a group of youth activists and elders from Colora­ do, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona who traveled to Philadelphia on a nickel and hope. The 17 spokespeople for the Native American victims of extreme extraction by the fuel industry also an­ chored the impressive Summit for a Clean Energy Revolution, held the day before the march at the Friends Center in Philadelphia.

Other contingents included those orga­ nized by the faith community, by elders, by advocates of a nuclear-free transition from carbon, for those leading the drive to popularize local 100% renewable so­ lutions, by SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), and students. The success of from his confrontational foreign policy and restored bilateral ties with Israel and Russia.

Evidently, he follows a strategic line that is subservi­ ent to U.S. foreign policy. But with so many conflicts and regime changes in the region, more twists and turns in U.S.-Turkish relations in the coming months should not be surprising.

Although we cannot be certain of the level of U.S. assistance to the coup, looking at the initially neutral remarks of American top officials, and based on our knowledge of U.S. imperialism’s modus operandi, we conclude that the United States would have supported the coup if it had been successful.

A key task facing the workers’ movement in Turkey and internationally is to disseminate the truth about President Erdogan’s crackdown on dissidents and civil liberties. It’s time to organize mass actions to de­ reps into believing that there would be jobs, and money for health and education. Instead, they got polluted water and air, cancer, and general degra­ dation of the entire area.

There were scenes of enor­ mous “ponds” of livestock waste that leaches into the groundwater and soil; acres and acres of feedlots for cat­ tle and pigs fed corn and soy (greatly subsidized by the government), because of the growing worldwide demand for meat . Not a blade of grass or a tree as far as one can see.

Other contributors to cli­ mate change were illustrat­ ed, such as clear cutting of rainforests to grow oil palms and for cattle raising in Cen­ tral and South America, all of which cause increases in vio­ lent weather, widespread flooding, and extreme years-long drought, leading to a rise in wildfires throughout the South and West of the United States.

The film stated that there is no deny­ ing that renewable energy production is fast out-pacing that of fossil fuel.

It’s certainly time for governments to choose—and as far as the future of hu­ manity is concerned, they are far over­ due in their decision. n this march, organized effectively despite the tremen­ dous negative pressures of the bourgeois electoral season—bodes well for the next steps in our efforts to build a massive movement independent of the Demo­ cratic and Republican parties and reliant on its own power in the streets. n Speakers include: David Farrell (YSA), Hannah A. Holleman (Ecological Marxism), Charles Post (Origins of U.S. Capitalism), Alan Sears (Marxism and LGBTQI Liberation), Wendy Z. Goldman (Women, the State, and Revolution), Edmond Caldwell (Culture of the Paris Commune), Johnny E. Williams (State as a Social Con­ trol), Juan Cruz Ferre (Electoral Strategy in Argentina), Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action candidate for President.

mand the following: • End the state of emergency! • Free the political prisoners who had nothing to do with the attempted coup. • Restore and uphold freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly. Hands off the unions and the Left. Defend the independence of la­ bour organizations. • Form a workers’ united front against U.S. imperial­ ism and its allies. Organize mass actions against do­ mestic repression and foreign intervention. • Turkey out of NATO now! Close all U.S. military bases, including Incirlik military base. • End the siege of Kurdish areas. Halt the repression against the Kurds. Free the Kurdish political prison­ ers. Self-determination for the Kurdish people, now! • Build a revolutionary workers’ party, independent of all pro-capitalist factions, and fight for a workers’ government. n SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2016 11

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