The sun is hanging blood red in the sky above the U.S. Empire.
We can smell the smoke from a world on fire.
We are being told to stay indoors to avoid the toxic air.
People are scared. Rightfully so.
These severe and “unprecedented” Canadian wildfires are just the latest expression of the runaway train that is climate change.
With every new season, the immediacy of the changing climate becomes more and more real for people. Every crop failure and natural disaster makes the reality of our situation harder to ignore. Climate change isn’t just a looming specter, it is a monster that lives in our backyard.
So, what is the capitalist ruling class doing about it?
The reactionary right does nothing. It buries its head in the sand, “rejects the politicization of weather” (Desantis, 2023), and “encourages innovation in the private sector” while denying the necessity of government intervention. Then they try to change the conversation to be about whatever hateful and chauvinistic fire they are trying to stoke this week.
The Democrats use this fear to beg for votes, promising that they are the only ones that can save us from the climate denying Republicans. Biden made climate change a central tenet in his first round with Trump, and he will 100% be playing this same sad song as the bell rings for round two. The Biden White House is trying to push the narrative that they have made some sort of meaningful progress in the fight on climate change; this is all political posturing and downright dishonesty. His signature Inflation Reduction Act, hailed as “historic climate action,” requires the federal government to lease 62 million acres to fossil fuel companies every year before it is allowed to allocate a single acre for solar or wind. Third party groups such as Earthjustice give Biden abysmal scores on the few minimal programs he has nominally begun work on.
In the meantime, the owning class tries to push an agenda of personal responsibility in the face of climate change. The owning class is giving us a way to perform agency in the face of a terror they have unleashed upon us. Instead of passing the minimum intensive regulatory measures necessary to even slow climate change, the capitalist class tells us that the way to save the environment is to “vote with your dollar.” Buy local. Buy a Tesla. Buy from “eco-conscious” brands. They have taken our fear and commodified it. Selling us mousetraps to set in the path of a charging T-Rex.
One of their most cynical ploys is the motto of “corporate responsibility,” particularly through carbon offsets. Through this scheme, companies can continue to pollute and degrade our environment, continue to tear down forests and pump out as much carbon as they wish, as long as they also use some of their ill-gotten profits on paying for other forests to not be destroyed. Some of these carbon offsets are located in the very same forests that are smoldering as we speak — where is the accountability for those companies that claimed these trees as their greenwashed indulgences?
There is no amount of personal or corporate responsibility that can put an end to climate change. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t recycle and visit our local farmer’s market. This doesn’t mean that every individual is impotent in the face of climate change. But, we need to understand that neither these individual acts of consumption nor the voting booth are where this fight needs to take place.
Every person can make a difference: as a part of an organized mass movement. We must come together, organize and make our voices heard. We must reject the tepid promises of a “Democratic” party that has continuously failed to do anything meaningful in the face of the literal end of the world. We can’t be hoodwinked into casting a vote for the “lesser evil.”
Instead of making cynical comments to our family, friends and coworkers about how fucked we are, we need to start having real conversations about why the people in power are not doing what clearly needs to be done. We need to reckon with the unbreakable link between capitalism and environmental destruction.
Even while we watch the world burn around us, the ruling class begs us to maintain civility in the face of the devastation they bring down on us every day. They shed crocodile tears and assure us that reasoned debate, civil procedure, and compromise will eventually start working. Well, we can clearly see how far that has gotten us. The smoke in our eyes cannot blind us from their sleight-of-hand. They cannot absolve themselves with words and false promises. The only path forward for this planet is to divest the capitalists of their power and get to work undoing the damage they have done.
