Revolution #188, January 10, 2010
An Introduction to Our Coverage on the Copenhagen Conference on Global Climate Change
The People–and the Planet–Need Revolution!
The conference on global climate change in Copenhagen last month, and the protests surrounding it, sharply revealed three key points:
1) The economic system of capitalism-imperialism has brought on a crisis that threatens the extinction of many, many species and is endangering the very environment that makes human life possible. In fact, this crisis is already having catastrophic effects in many parts of the globe. HUMANITY MUST MOVE, RAPIDLY, TO DEAL WITH THE CRISIS OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE.
2) It would take a monumental effort to begin reversing, stop and repair the effects of this environmental crisis. But the basis to develop the knowledge and technology for that effort already exists. Humanity has the potential to repair the environment and develop a way of life in which it serves as the guardians-—and not the plunderers—of the earth and its species.
Yet the capitalist-imperialists who rule the planet showed in Copenhagen that they cannot unite on any sort of serious plan to even start to do so. All they can do is fight with one another over the division of the plunder, and use their police to brutally repress those who clamored outside their doors demanding action. THE CAPITALIST-IMPERIALIST SYSTEM STANDS IN THE WAY OF WHAT URGENTLY CRIES OUT TO BE DONE TO DEAL WITH THE ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE NOW UNDER WAY.
3) The only thing that can save the earth and its inhabitants is revolution—a communist revolution which would eliminate the chains of profit from the productive forces, unleash the creativity of humanity to understand and deal with the problems which capitalism has wrought upon the environment, and enable people to usher in a new morality which does not see the planet—and other people—as a means to profit and plunder. Even as revolutions are made in individual countries, the perspective of each revolution must be to ultimately liberate the entire planet. THE PEOPLE—AND THE PLANET—NEED A COMMUNIST REVOLUTION.
In the articles that follow we show some effects of this crisis right now on the people of Asia; we analyze what happened in Copenhagen and why; and we lay out some basic principles on how a revolutionary society on the road to communism would deal with this.
- Copenhagen Climate Summit Accord: A Crime Against the Planet
by Orpheus - Excerpt from Raymond Lotta webcast:
"The Elephant in the Room: Can Anything Short of Revolution Solve the Environmental Crisis?" - Global Warming: Catastrophe from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal
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