This administration is not just a cabal of ignoramuses. Behind the right’s climate denial is the economic reality that seriously combating capitalism’s war on the planet requires the defeat of the system.
Indian migrant daily wage workers bath at a public well in New Delhi. New information shows that poverty in China and India is worse than previously thought. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP
The world’s eight righest billionaires control the same wealth between them as the poorest half of the globe’s population, according to a charity warning of an ever-increasing and dangerous concentration of wealth.
The risks of climate change are not easy to communicate clearly. Since the atmosphere affects everything, everything will be affected by its warming — there’s no single risk, but a wide and varied array of risks, of different severities and scales, affecting different systems, unfolding on different timelines. It’s difficult to convey to a layperson, at least without droning on and on.
President-elect Donald Trump greets supporters before speaking at a campaign rally on Oct. 18, 2016, in Grand Junction, Colorado. (Brennan Linsley/AP Photo)
On December 5, former vice president Al Gore met with Donald and Ivanka Trump in an effort to convince the president-elect that he should not gut federal policies and agreements dealing with climate change. Three days later, actor Leonardo DiCaprio also paid the Trump duo a visit, urging them to help build a green, climate-friendly economy with lots of jobs. The two men could not have done less to prevent climate catastrophe if they had flown up to Alaska together and asked the glaciers to please stop melting.
Republished by Climate and Capitalism with permission, from the UK magazine Socialist Review, January 2017
With Donald Trump in the White House the future for our climate looks bleak, but capitalism’s love affair with fossil energy runs much deeper than the desires and personalities of individual politicians.
Once again, Pope Francis has made global headlines, shocking reporters late Sunday after blaming the “god of money” for the extremist violence that is taking place in Europe and the Middle East. A ruthless global economy, he argues, leads disenfranchised people to violence.
President-elect Donald Trump greets supporters before speaking at a campaign rally on Oct. 18, 2016, in Grand Junction, Colorado. (Brennan Linsley/AP Photo)
