The last 10 years were the hottest ever recorded on Earth, with 2023 the single hottest year on record for our planet. 2024 is now on track to break that heat record. The world has entered dangerous and uncharted territory—as carbon emissions from fossil fuels rise, as sea-surface temperatures rise, and as the toll of human suffering from climate change mounts rapidly.
The Inflation Reduction Act (the name given to the Biden administration’s climate legislation) was signed into law in August 2022. It has been promoted by Biden-Harris and their backers as a historic piece of legislation signaling a bold transition from fossil fuel production and consumption to renewable energy. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is what the article “Biden’s Imperialist Climate Bill: The Devil Lies in the Big Picture” posted in September 2022 argued... and that is what developments over the last two years massively and insanely demonstrate.
The fascist climate-denier Donald Trump has declared his determination to “drill, baby, drill,” and he could win the upcoming election outright—or if not, he is preparing to steal it or violently impose “victory.” But “drill, baby, drill” has in fact been the policy of the Biden-Harris administration. Oil and natural gas production in the U.S. have skyrocketed.
The Biden-Harris administration has approved nearly 50 percent more oil and gas drilling permits for wells on federal lands since taking office than the Trump administration did in its first 3 years. Under Biden-Harris, the U.S. has bolstered its position as the world’s leading oil and natural gas producer (with oil and gas production reaching record levels in 2023)—and Biden-Harris have also turned the U.S. into the world’s leading exporter of natural gas.
While investments in renewable energy sources, like solar power, have risen dramatically over the last few years—there is no decline, much less “phase-out,” of fossil fuels. The Inflation Reduction Act does not mandate or enforce any limits on fossil fuel production and emissions. And here we are: In 2023, fossil fuels accounted for over 80 percent of U.S. energy production and energy consumption! As our September 2022 article puts it, the idea that the U.S. is a world leader in combating climate change is like trying to portray the U.S. as a world leader in the fight against racist police murder.
We are facing a cascading environmental emergency. But the reality of capitalism-imperialism—of U.S. imperialism in particular—is that renewable energy is not nearly as profitable as fossil fuels. And it is not profitable to repair and save the planet. Which is why the challenge issued in “Biden’s Imperialist Climate Bill: The Devil Lies in the Big Picture” is more urgent two years on—especially as so many buy into the deadly illusions of the Kamala Harris campaign:
To those who care about the planet, there's no getting around a cold truth about fossil fuels and global warming: To seriously deal with climate change, you would have to put the fossil-fuel companies out of business, seize their assets, and leave most of the fossil fuel in the ground.
And for that to happen, for society to interact with nature in a sustainable way, you need a revolution. A revolution to overthrow this system... to create a new state power and socialize ownership of the means of production... and to forge a planned socialist economy. This is the radically different economic foundation that makes it possible to utilize society’s resources collectively and to unleash people to go to work on the environmental emergency in the interests of world humanity and to have a real chance (not a certainty) to save the planet.
This liberatory socialist revolution is not some fuzzy, far-off prospect. It is more possible in the conditions of today, with multiplying, intensifying, and overlapping social and political crises that can erupt into massive upheaval, with the ruling class of the U.S. “at war with itself.” For people to get caught up in illusory “positives” in the Biden climate bill would be bad enough in normal times. But in these times, such magical thinking is especially harmful. It is to turn away from and to squander the heightened opportunity to make a revolution that could actually transform humanity's relationship to nature.
