New Book:The Global Fight for Climate Justice

- Anticapitalist Responses to Global Warming and Environmental Destruction
edited by Ian Angus


As capitalism continues with business as usual, climate change is fast expanding the gap between rich and poor between and within nations, and imposing unparalleled suffering on those least able to protect themselves.

In The Global Fight for Climate Justice, anticapitalist activists from five continents offer radical answers to the most important questions of our time:

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Why is capitalism destroying the conditions that make life on Earth possible?
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How can we stop the destruction before it is too late?

In 46 essays on topics ranging from the food crisis to carbon trading to perspectives from indigenous peoples, they make a compelling case that saving the world from climate catastrophe will require much more than tinkering with technology or taxes. Only radical social change can prevent irreversible damage to the earth and civilization.

edited by Ian Angus
Ian Angus, who wrote several of the articles in this book and selected the others from a wide range of authors and movements, is one of the world’s best-known ecosocialist activists. He is editor of the online journal Climate and Capitalism, which has been described as "the most reliable single source of information and strategic insights for climate justice."

Ian is also Associate Editor of Socialist Voice, an Advisory Editor of Socialist Resistance, and a founding member of the Ecosocialist International Network. He lives in Ontario, Canada.

Advance Praise

“The most reliable single source of information and strategic insights for climate justice is Climate and Capitalism, the website Ian Angus edits, and it is a tribute to the movement’s development that demand has arisen for this book.”— Patrick Bond, director of Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

“Essential reading for everyone who is serious about confronting the climate emergency.” —Emma Murphy, co-editor, Green Left Weekly

"We need to move beyond capitalism to an ecosocialist system. Creating such a future will demand intense political struggle. This book is an essential tool for that struggle, and I commend it to all who are serious about creating a liveable future for humanity." —Derek Wall, former Principal Male speaker, Green Party of England and Wales

“At last, an absolutely indispensable guide to the debate on climate change, a sourcebook that makes the case for anti-capitalist action as the only effective way to stop global warming. Of course the powers-that-be don’t agree — after all, who else is responsible for the current crisis? But we all need The Global Fight for Climate Justice if we are to fight for a liveable world.” —Joel Kovel, author of The Enemy of Nature and founding member of the Ecosocialist International Network

“A wonderful collection of articles from across the word by climate change activists. From governmental leaders such as Evo Morales to trade unionists like Tony Kearns this book will inform, excite and energise those who see the need to fight both the impact of climate change and the political systems that have produced it.” —Jane Kelly, editor (with Sheila Malone) Ecosocialism or Barbarism

“‘Socialism or Barbarism’ is no longer (if it ever was) an abstract theoretical proposition. This comprehensive collection of essays focused upon the climate and food crises, the responses of capital and socialist alternatives, draws upon both global social movements and leading advocates of an alternative to barbarism to demonstrate that the choice before us is an immediate one, not one to be put off to the future.” —Michael A. Lebowitz, author of Build it Now: Socialism for the 21st Century and Beyond CAPITAL: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class.

About the Authors
Ian Angus, one of the world’s best-known ecosocialist activists, is editor of the online journal Climate and Capitalism.

Hugo Blanco has been a leader of the indigenous peasant movement in Peru since the Land or Death uprising in the 1960s. He publishes the newspaper La Lucha Indígena.


Patrick Bond is director of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His most recent book is Looting Africa: The Economics of Exploitation.

Simon Butler writes for Green Left Weekly and maintains Climate Change Social Change, an ecosocialist blog.

Fidel Castro led the Cuban revolution and was the Cuba’s head of state from 1960 until he retired in 2007.

Nicole Colson writes for Socialist Worker, the newspaper of the US-based International Socialist Organization.

Kamala Emanuel is a climate activist and a member of the Socialist Alliance in Perth, Australia.

John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and the author of many books, including Marx’s Ecology (2000) and The Ecological Revolution (2009).

Robb Johnson is a UK-based singer-songwriter.

Tony Kearns is Senior Deputy General Secretary of the Communication Workers Union in the U.K.

Joel Kovel is the author of The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? and a founding member of the Ecosocialist International Network.

Juan Esteban Lazo Hernandez is Vice-President of Cuba’s Council of State and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.

Larry Lohmann is the author of Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on Climate Change, Privatization and Power.

Michael Löwy, who co-wrote the first Ecosocialist Manifesto in 2001, is a supporter of the Fourth International in France.

José Ramón Machado Ventura, who fought with Fidel Castro in the guerrilla war in the 1950s, is first vice president of Cuba’s Councils of State and Ministers .


Liam Mac Uaid is an editor of Socialist Resistance magazine.

Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, is the first indigenous head of state in Latin America.

Anne Petermann and Orin Langelle are Executive Director and Co-Director/Strategist of Global Justice Ecology Project.

Andrew Simms is the author of Ecological Debt: Global Warming and the Wealth of Nations, and policy director of the UK-based New Economics Foundation.

Kevin Smith is the author of The Carbon Neutral Myth: Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins.

Sean Thompson is a supporter of Green Left, the anti-capitalist current in the Green Party of England and Wales.

Terry Townsend is a member of Socialist Alliance and Managing Editor of Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

David Travis works with sustainable agriculture, community economics and alternative land tenure systems. He is currently developing a perennial agriculture project in North Carolina, USA.

Daniel Tanuro, a certified agriculturalist and ecosocialist environmentalist, is a supporter of the Fourth International in Belgium.

Derek Wall is a founder of the Ecosocialist International Network and a former principal speaker for the Green Party of England and Wales.

Chris Williams is a physics and chemistry teacher in New York City. He writes for International Socialist Review.

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Introduction
Ian Angus

In this book, anticapitalist activists from around the world offer radical answers to two of the most important questions of our time:

• Why is capitalism destroying the conditions that make life on earth possible?
• How can we stop the destruction before it is too late?

The authors disagree on many things. Some are Marxists, some are not; some proudly call themselves ecosocialists and others see no need for that label; some are members of political parties and some reject traditional forms of political activity. Even among those who consider themselves Marxists or ecosocialists there are differing views on to build a movement, what social forces can change the world, what technologies and policies should be supported or condemned.

But they all agree that solving the climate crisis of the 21st century, saving the world from climate catastrophe, will require much more than tinkering with technology or economic policy, the solutions promoted by capitalist politicians and most of the green establishment.

As John Bellamy Foster wrote in his recent book, The Ecological Revolution: “We have reached a turning point in the human relation to the earth: all hope for the future of this relationship is now either revolutionary or it is false.”

The climate emergency exposes the present social order’s deepest contradictions: unstoppable thirst for wealth and material growth that can only be obtained by condemning billions of people to poverty, while simultaneously undermining of the very conditions of human existence.

This system, as Karl Marx said, is like a vengeful god that demands human sacrifices before it deigns to bless its worshippers.

And now, when their god has taken us to the edge of global catastrophe, the system’s faithful acolytes insist that only minor repairs are needed, that everything will be all right if we just rejig the tax code, or let corporations trade pollution credits, or have fewer babies.

In contrast, the essays and manifestos in this book argue that the climate crisis involves profound issues of political, economic and social justice, issues that cannot be resolved without equally profound changes in the political, economic and social systems that are causing the crisis. They expose the profound injustice that makes the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people suffer for the crimes of the richest nations and the biggest corporations.

They insist that we must view global warming as an issue of oppression, exploitation and injustice, and that we must focus our fight on winning climate justice — for the global south, for indigenous peoples, for workers and farmers around the world.

Marx famously wrote that philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways but the task is to change it. That statement is often misunderstood. It wasn’t just a call to move from discussion to action — Marx was also saying that we can’t properly understand the world unless we work to change it.

For that reason, it’s important to point out that the authors of this book aren’t ivory tower theorists: every one of them is actively involved in building movements to stop climate change, to change the world. So the articles in this book aren’t abstract meditations: they are products of the authors’ concrete experiences in building movements against global warming and environmental destruction. The authors aren’t passive observers: they are partisans who don’t hesitate to declare their outrage at ecological vandalism and their determination to stop the vandals.

Our task is to change the world. This book is a contribution to that task.