A-Infos (en) Australia, Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG) The Anvil", Vol. 2 #1 - No Jobs on a Dead Planet*

Workers' Direct Action Against Global Warming -- Even a government wanting to solve global 
warming can be defeated by the economic power of capitalists intent on protecting their 
own profits. Only through workplace organising and direct action can this power be 
removed. And only a federation of workplace and community councils can plan and implement 
a path to a sustainable future, in Australia and for the planet as a whole. We're talking 
about a workers' revolution, because nothing else will work. --- The Copenhagen Conference 
has failed. Beneath a mass of lies, excuses and buck-passing, the reality is clearly 
visible. The United Nations Conference, which was supposed to produce a binding 
international treaty to stop dangerous global warming, has resulted in no such thing. 
Instead of even a “political agreement”, the massed governments of the world have come up 
with an inadequate set of initiatives and a complete lack of commitment to making them 
legally binding.

Cynicism and Greed

The debacle was entirely predictable. The capitalist ruling classes of the world are full 
of cynical opportunists, whose greed and short-sightedness has fuelled a dangerously 
irrational and reactionary denial industry. Dishonest and avaricious political elites, 
visibly in the service of their own ruling classes at home, don't miraculously become 
courageous and far-sighted champions of truth and justice when they meet at an 
international conference. Rather, their double-dealing and special pleading are elevated 
to a new and higher plane. Since they couldn't agree on how to make workers and the Third 
World poor pay for a solution to global warming, they couldn't agree on anything 
meaningful at all.

The capitalists have already delayed the required action for 20 years, from the time it 
was first demonstrated that climate change was a real threat. The science is undeniable 
and action is required now to prevent global warming reaching dangerous levels. There is a 
real possibility that, unaddressed, climate change might begin a self-reinforcing cycle of 
runaway warming, leading to a barely habitable planet.

Market Solutions are No Solutions

All sorts of self-appointed experts advocate an emissions trading system, the Australian 
version of which is the Labor Goverment's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The idea is 
to enable “the market” to find the lowest-cost path to safe levels of greenhouse 
emissions. There are many practical holes in this, not the least of which is that dodgy 
“emission-reduction” certificates that don't actually reduce emissions will be virtually 
impossible to stamp out.

More fundamentally, however, an emissions trading scheme rewards the capitalists in 
industrialised countries with obscene privileges to pollute, while workers in developed 
countries and almost everybody in underdeveloped countries will be compelled by market 
forces to make all the sacrifices. This approach also allows capitalists in obsolete, 
polluting industries to preserve their source of profits by hiding behind their employees 
and bleating about “saving jobs” that they'd happily destroy themselves to boost profits.

A carbon tax is less susceptible to rorting, but shares the other issues of an emissions 
trading system. It also minimises the number of capitalists forced to turn their minds to 
reducing greenshouse emissions. It would still be a tax on workers and the poor, while 
giving the rich an easy way out.

Only Workers can Prevent Global Warming

Capitalist “solutions” to Global Warming will push the cost onto those least able to pay 
and generate splits in society which will prevent effective action. Only the working class 
can prevent global warming, by making the capitalists pay. Only the working class, by 
taking direct action to seize the means of production from the capitalists, can:

    * Close down the fossil fuel power industry and convert to renewables without forcing 
miners and power workers into unemployment;

    * Massively boost public transport and shift the emphasis of travel away from the 
private motor vehicle, without forcing workers in the vehicle industry into unemployment; and

    * Change the pattern of urban development to end suburban sprawl and focus on 
sustainable communities and transport options.

Even a government wanting to solve global warming can be defeated by the economic power of 
capitalists intent on protecting their own profits. Only through workplace organising and 
direct action can this power be removed. And only a federation of workplace and community 
councils can plan and implement a path to a sustainable future, in Australia and for the 
planet as a whole. We're talking about a workers' revolution, because nothing else will work.

WORKERS' DIRECT ACTION AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING

==================================
* This article is from "The Anvil", Vol. 2/ issue 1, newsletter of Melbourne Anarchist 
Communist Group (MACG).
The PDF of this issue can be found here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27506568/Anvil-Feb-2010
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