Followers of my writing have I hope noticed me repeatedly arguing that capitalism produces four mutually reinforcing and multiplying apocalyptic horsemen: ecocide, pandemicide, potentially terminal nuclear war, and fascism.
Capitalism at the Dark Taproot
I want to dig into this formulation here, explaining how capitalism generates each of these apocalyptic menaces and how the “four horsemen” reinforce and indeed multiply each other.
Some say the deal is historic, others that it is weak. We look closely at the text for the truth of the matter
The decision text from Cop28 has been greeted as “historic”, for being the first ever call by nations for a “transition away” from fossil fuels, and as “weak and ineffectual” and containing a “litany of loopholes” for the fossil fuel industry. An examination of the text helps to explain this contradiction.
The federal government faced fierce external pressure to abandon or weaken its plan to cap oil and gas sector emissions from provincial governments and industry lobby groups in the lead-up to its announcement last week.
The absence of a ‘phase-out’ let petrostates off the hook, but there are other ways to end the era of coal, oil and gas
Petrostates fought fiercely against the call from 130 nations at Cop28 for a fossil fuel phase-out. That is because they are engaged in a colossal fossil fuel phase-up, already working on double the extraction that the planet can cope with.
![BC Premier David Eby: ‘Until we find ways to produce steel without [metallurgical coal], it is a good product to be exported from British Columbia.’ Photo via BC government.](https://ecosocialistsvancouver.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/article-image/davideby.jpg?itok=eQtoGeqS)
