The environment

Stuff about nature etc.

The truth about slums

Now I recently made a resolution not to read any more depressing books. I'd read books about aid workers in Haiti, Bosnia, Cambodia, Somalia and Rwanda. And before that, I'd read Planet of Slums. Don't let that put you off. This book is a bit depressing because it speaks the truth. It does not pretend that the Western world is doing enough for slum-dwellers nor does it pretend that the problem will go away. On the contrary, it describes a terrifying picture that has haunted the minds of politicians for thousands of years. In Rome, the barbarians rebelled and ever since, governments have always...

Middle-class parables

Review of The Age of Stupid This latest public-safety warning film on climate change was seen by thousands at 65 cinemas across the UK on Sunday 15 March, breaking a world record for the biggest simultaneous screening of a premiere. Viewers were all satellite-linked to the low-carbon centre stage at Leicester Square. This involved watching b-list stars and politicians, including Ken Livingstone and David Stern, being interviewed as they strolled down a second-hand green carpet surrounded by a gaggle of generic environmentalist-professionals and fixers. Speakers from local campaigns had been...

Workers Climate Action speak at RMT

UNIONS AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Workers’ Climate Action were invited to speak at the RMT young members’ conference on 1 March. Bob Sutton went to made the case that young rail and maritime workers are in a position to make a massive difference on the issue of ecological damage both as an industrially strong and organised section of the working class but also as having a grip on the future of what is one of the key questions in any programme of transition to a low carbon economy, that of transport. The conference responded well, especially to the idea that action on environmental issues was not...

Act to reverse climate change now

Riki Lane reports from Melbourne “Black Saturday”, 7 February 2009, was Australia’s greatest fire disaster. Unstoppable fires at over 1200C, driven by winds of up to 100 km/h on a 46ºC day, wiped small communities off the map. At least 210 people died. 2000 houses were burned down, another 2000 made uninhabitable, 7000 people made homeless. In the immediate aftermath, a tremendous outpouring of sympathy, donations and assistance overtook business-as- usual capitalism. Shops, vets, pharmacists etc. that luckily escaped the fires in the affected areas didn’t charge people for their goods and...

William Morris: Ecology and the shift to socialism

The sixth part of a series by Paul Hampton Sometime in 1882, William Morris decided he was no longer a radical and began to associate himself explicitly with socialism. He stated in How I Became A Socialist (16 June 1894) that by the summer of 1882 he was ready “to join any body who distinctly called themselves Socialists.” (Edward Thompson, William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary, 1976) In January 1883 Morris joined the Democratic Federation and began his agitation for socialism — a commitment that he would maintain to his death. He continued to be a dedicated conservationist. In his...

William Morris - Towards a socialist ecology

William Morris made a distinctive contribution to the development of Marxist ideas, for example on the nature of work and on the vision of a classless, communist society. But arguably his most significant contribution — and certainly one with great contemporary relevance - was his conception of a socialist ecology. In this respect Morris was a pioneer and an innovator – he evolved from conservationism to integrate ecology within a Marxist framework. His views have much to teach us today in our age of climactic convulsion. Morris made his name as an artist and as a poet, and his commitment to...

Heathrow Third Runway: New Labour rides roughshod over democracy

As Solidarity went to press, there was speculation the Government would delay its expected 15 January announcement on whether it would allow a third runway at Heathrow, amid mounting opposition from a variety of sources. 12 January saw a many-hundred strong invasion of the airport by climate change activists; the next day Gordon Brown faced opposition in the cabinet and a grilling from the Parliamentary Labour Party. Heathrow expansion would be a disaster from the point of view of stopping dangerous climate change; evidence presented by a wide range of environmental organisations suggests that...

Why we can’t sign the Belem declaration

The antinomies of eco-socialism

The Belem eco-socialist declaration was published last month. It will be formally launched at the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil later this month. It was commissioned by the Paris Ecosocialist Conference of 2007, and written by Ian Angus, Joel Kovel, Michael...

What’s wrong with the Green “New Deal”?

In recent months the idea of a “Green New Deal” has become an ubiquitous answer to the current economic and environmental crises. Barack Obama has alluded to it. The TUC has backed the idea. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has come out for it, endorsed by UK Environment Minister Hilary Benn. A self-selected Green New Deal Group includes Caroline Lucas MEP, Guardian economics editor Larry Elliott, Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper and others. In July this year the group published its first report. According to its proponents, the Green New Deal consists of two main...

Climate change as a class issue

The Workers’ Climate Action gathering on 15-16 November was the first meeting of the campaign since the summer’s Climate Camp and an opportunity to take stock of where we are almost a year since activists first started talking about the project. The network has continued to grow with more and more people across the radical environmental movement wanting to approach climate change as a class issue and with trade union activists getting to grips with what it might mean to work for a “just transition”. The Saturday of the event was for education and debate. Rose briefed activists on the reality...

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