Capitalism
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Environmental Demonstrators vs Militarized Police
These disasters give a new sense of urgency to transition away from the fossil fuels that are causing this climate chaos. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the movement fighting for this transition is running up against intense police repression — funded by private corporations as well as the federal government. Continue reading
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Ecosocialist Bookshelf, August 2021
12 August 2021 — Origin: Climate & Capitalism A bumper crop! Ten new books for red-greens and green-reds Ecosocialist Bookshelf is a monthly column, hosted by Ian Angus. Books described here may be reviewed at length in future. Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that C&C agrees with everything (or even anything!)… Continue reading
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Climate change: the fault of humanity?
The sixth report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) runs to nearly 4,000 pages. The IPCC has tried to summarise its report as the ‘final opportunity’ to avoid climate catastrophe. Its conclusions are not much changed since the previous publication in 2013, only more decisive this time. The evidence is clear: we know… Continue reading
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The Uncontrollability of Globalizing Capital
We live in an age of unprecedented historical crisis. Its severity can be gauged by the fact that we are not facing a more or less extensive cyclic crisis of capitalism as experienced in the past, but the deepening structural crisis of the capital system itself. As such this crisis affects—for the first time ever… Continue reading
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Monthly Review July-August 2021
9 August 2021 — Monthly Review July-August 2021 (Volume 73, Number 3) The Editors (July 4, 2021) buy this issue This special issue of Monthly Review is devoted to the New Cold War on China. What has been the view of the Chinese Revolution presented in Monthly Review in the past seven decades? How has it changed over time? As… Continue reading
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Facing Prison for Fighting Chevron
It was back in 2007, when I found him in his thatched stilt home in the rainforest. Criollo told me his 5-year-old son had jumped into a swimming hole, covered with an enticing shine. The shine was oil sludge, illegally dumped. His son came up vomiting blood, then dropped dead in the Chief’s arms. Continue reading
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Jeff Bezos says everything will be ok
The climate crisis may be dire, with ever more frequent and increasingly devastating floods and wildfires, with killer droughts and heatwaves across the globe, with oceans warming 40% faster and arctic ice sheets melting 70% faster than had been predicted a mere five years ago, with arctic permafrost melting and belching super-greenhouse methane into the… Continue reading
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The Three Tribes of Political Ecology
The decade that ended in 2020 was the decade of global climate inaction. Without a doubt, our inability to transform our economic systems into models compatible with planetary boundaries will define the beginning of the 21st century. Continue reading
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Global warming: planning not pricing
Carbon pricing and carbon taxes are now proposed by international institutions and mainstream economics as the main solutions to ending global warming and destructive climate change. For some time, the IMF has been pushing for carbon pricing as ‘a necessary if not sufficient’ part of a climate policy package that also includes investment in ‘green… Continue reading
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Our Rulers Have All The Power And None Of The Responsibility
As the world burns, as ecosystems die off, as the insects vanish, as the forests disappear, as soil becomes rapidly less fertile, as extinction takes over, as the oceans gasp for air and become lifeless deserts while continents of plastic form in their waters, it is interesting how often you hear the sentiment that this is the result of some flaw in humanity for which we all share… Continue reading
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Sicko UK
On the 73rd birthday of the National Health Service, the queen awarded the beloved NHS the George Cross for the valor of its staff during the Covid-19 pandemic. No one doubts the dedication of NHS staff, and its worthiness for the highest honor, but this medal now serves to cover the insidious dismantlement of the… Continue reading
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Capitalism: has the leopard changed its spots?
“Let me be clear: capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation.”, US President Biden tweeted when signing an executive order to expand competition across the economy and crack down on monopolistic practices, describing a misguided 40-year “experiment” in letting US corporations consolidate with little regulation that he said has hurt ordinary Americans. “The heart of American capitalism is… Continue reading
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Is AltE Truly the Best Solution to Climate Catastrophe?
The world is threatened with environmental disaster and capitalists hope to make a killing off of it. Fossil fuel (FF) companies claim they are “environmentally friendly.” Other corporations promote nuclear energy, hydro-power (dams), and solar and wind power as the best energy alternatives. Continue reading
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The Gates Foundation’s “Corporate Merry-go-round”: Spearheading the Neo-liberal Plunder of African Agriculture
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is dangerously and unaccountably distorting the direction of international development, according to a new report by the campaign group Global Justice Now. With assets of $43.5 billion, the BMGF is the largest charitable foundation in the world. It actually distributes more aid for global health than any government.… Continue reading
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“Capitalism must die to protect the sacred”
Indigenous people have been fighting to survive for centuries. Recently, their struggles have become more militant, more global, and less isolated, aligning with other anti-racist and anti-colonial movements, and leading the environmental movement. Continue reading
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The Spirit of Carabobo Will Overcome the Stench of Monroe: The Twenty-Fifth Newsletter (2021)
24 June 2021 — Tricontinental Kael Abello, Utopix (Venezuela), Batalla de Carabobo (‘Battle of Carabobo’), 2021. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, this week from Carabobo, Venezuela. Two hundred years ago, on 24 June 1821, the forces of Simón Bolívar trounced the Spanish royalists at the Battle of Carabobo, a few hundred… Continue reading
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Corporate Watch: 18,000 new prison places coming soon
24 June 2021 — Corporate Watch In this newsletter: New mega-prison in Lancashire – Deportation Drive – Glasgow Housing Association rent hikes – Resistance to dams in Georgia New mega-prison in Lancashire The government has announced plans to build a new mega prison in Chorley, Lancashire. It will be huge, locking up more than 1715 people. It is part of a… Continue reading
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1% own 45% of the world’s personal wealth while nearly 3bn people have little or no wealth at all
Just 56m or 1% of adults out of 5.3bn globally are millionaires in net wealth terms. And they own 45% of all global personal wealth. The other 99% own the rest and there are nearly 3bn people in the world that have little or no wealth at all (after debts are deducted). Continue reading
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On Paul Kingsnorth and Unruly Nature
7 May 2021 — MROnline by Anthony Galluzzo In a 2010 essay entitled “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist,” the English émigré environmental writer Paul Kingsnorth recounts his journey into and out of the environmental movement. The essay appeared in the inaugural issue of Dark Mountain, the journal attached to the Dark Mountain group—inaugurated by Kingsnorth… Continue reading
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The Double Deformation
Economic exploitation is only one aspect of capitalism. The crisis of humanity and the crisis of the earth system are inseparable Continue reading
The New Dark Age 