In the multiple forms of oppression relating to sex, race, religion, gender or sexuality adopted by ‘intersectional’ greens, class is often named but rarely explored or developed. Class has in effect and broadly been ignored.
This is because a production-rooted theory of class which explains how discrimination and other forms of oppression structure class power has tended to be considered as irrelevant to the party’s ecological and climate concerns. In that respect, ‘deep greens’ who dismiss the existence of the working class – or worse – are in effect and objectively in agreement with post-modernist identinarians.
But since global warming is now widely understood as an existential threat to the whole of humanity, it is becoming obvious to the many that a few hundred fossil fuel capitalist companies and states who own the rights to deposits and control the means of production are directly responsible for climate breakdown. The grotesque profit they generate rests not only with their ownership of the deposits and fuel extraction but also in the burning of those which generates C02 emissions.
Fossil fuels capitalists are furthermore making profits from polluting oil refineries, the making of steel, cement, plastics, chemical fertilisers which destroy the soil and cause cancers, as well as the production of electricity through the combustion of natural gas and coal.
Strangely enough, whilst greens keep talking of ‘system change, not climate change’, they generally welcome profit driven renewable energy businesses whilst failing to challenge the ownership of their mode of production and who benefits from selling electricity to all of us.
This is because the Green Party’s solutions to the climate crisis is not grounded in a material understanding of class and class antagonisms. In classic utopian ideology and politics, party activists and all environmental protesters – bar perhaps practical and brave Green Peace activists – tend to focuss on spreading their knowledge of climate change, doing research or just remain informed.
Getting elected to seek the implememtation of ‘local solutions’ and campaign for mitigation money for communities affected by drought or the rising sea under the banner of ‘climate justice’ are their two other pursuits.
But in spite of decades of efforts towards the mobilisation of millions of environmental campaigners across the globe, the stark reality is that fossil fuel capitalists companies and whole oil producing states such as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Russia have never been so wealthy.
Donald Trump’s provocative message: “ drill, baby drill “ at his inauguration on 20th January will no doubt have been devastating for all ‘anti-system’ radicals and ‘climate justice’ warriors, as indeed for all those who care about the planet and living species. But they must now acknowledge that their approach has spectacularly failed to deliver on the UN Paris Climate change agreement of 2015.
The agreement was to limit global warming to 1.5°C whereby greenhouse gas emissions had to peak before 2025 at the latest and decline 43% by 2030. It is now acknowledged that this is no longer achievable.
So, since fossil fuel driven global warming poses such an existential threat to humanity and that greens – not so ‘nice’ anymore – mostly recruited from universities and the professional class have failed to create a UK mass movement necessary for a democratically elected government with the power to stop the production of oil, gas and coal and the continued emission of CO2, a new approach seems imperative.
What is needed is a new ecology based on the basic needs of those who own nothing, have no choice but to sell their labour – manual or intellectual – in order to simply exist and reproduce and are “threatened with extinction”. That is the majority of us.
Guardian columnist Owen Jones is right when he says that “the Green Party’s time is now ” , but he could not be more wrong with his calling on the party’s leadership team to “start picking some fights”.
What the Green Party need is not pick fights with Starmer – Ed Milliband may deserve some conditional support – or work with Jeremy Corbyn and fellow travellers – but a completely new strategy aimed to turn climate change into a class war.
How that could be achieved will be explored in a future blog from our team. Meanwhile, do send us your views and comments. 500 words contributions are also welcome.
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