By Christopher C.
The biggest threat facing the world today is global warming. This is better called climate change since, according to the predictions, not all parts of the globe will become universally warmer. Nevertheless, there is an overwhelming consensus among scientists that climate change is happening. Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. In summary, the warming of the earth is partly the result of human action.
This fact is undeniable. It is true that the earth has always gone through hotter and colder periods (ice ages), but more and more greenhouse gases (the most important of which is CO2) are being pumped out into the upper atmosphere. These operate like greenhouses or blankets, in that they let warmth from the sun in, but then trap it in the atmosphere. This contributes to the warming of the earth as a whole. Since the 1980s, the earth has been warming up at a faster rate than ever before. And emissions from us, in the form of burning fossil fuels that give off greenhouse gases, are to blame .
Over half of the increase in temperature has happened in the past thirty years and is in part attributable to human activity. Already it has led to droughts, extinctions of species and rising sea levels leading to localized flooding. It’s going to get worse . Any political movement must articulate an analysis of climate change and a strategy for dealing with it. Climate change must be combatted, the only question is how we are going to do it.
I would like to examine the variety of strategies articulated by activists as to how to deal with the threat of climate change. Many argue that capitalism can be “made green,” or that the damage being dealt to the environment is not the result of systemic issues with capitalism . I would first like to argue against this perception, as well as offer Marxism as a viable alternative to it.
In large part, climate change is due to what economists call “externalities” . Externalities are things that don’t affect the balance sheet and therefore firms don’t worry about. The firm produces iron and steel. It gets paid for these outputs. It also produces smoke. This smoke is a nuisance, but the firm is not charged, so it has no incentive to limit how much smoke it belches out. The firms do not have to pay for this: the working class does. It pays through lung and chest diseases.
Capitalism is literally killing the working class – and the planet – just by functioning normally. That is why the idea that the market treats the environment ‘efficiently’ is ridiculous. Firms minimize costs because that is the best way to make money. But they don’t minimize costs that others have to pay – externalities. Why bother? But these are real costs, just like iron and coal. They are just costs that have to be born by the rest of us.
So much “profitable” economic activity – mountaintop and strip mining, clear-cutting of trees, overfishing, the production of chemicals and plastics, using fossil fuels to feed an ever-growing demand for energy, agribusiness monoculture, and much more-has damaged the environment and/or depleted the natural resources . It is profitable for the capitalists but not the people as a whole. This is not the result of a corrupted “crony capitalism” or anything of the sort. It is simply capitalism working as intended.
It is impossible to construct a “green capitalism” that does not result in environmental destruction. An article in Monthly Review summarizes the green capitalist program this way: “‘green capitalism’ seeks to bind together two antagonistic notions. To be green means to prioritize the health of the ecosphere, with all that this entails in terms of curbing greenhouse gases and preserving biodiversity. To promote capitalism, by contrast, is to foster growth and 