“…A war usually has many fronts, also a “war” to prevent the
threatening worldwide collapse and to start the transition to a peaceful and
sustainable world society. It is necessary to fight at all the fronts. But
activists must have an overview of the whole. It seems to me, however, that
most activists are fixated on the battles they are fighting at the moment and
ignoring the “war” that is necessary, namely the “war” against the
industrial-capitalist system. Sometimes they already celebrate the small
insignificant successes in their particular battles…
…. Bill Mckibben, one of the awardees of the Right
Livelihood Award (the “Alternative Nobel Prize”) of this year, addressed to his
fellow activists who, together with him, organized in September of this year
the great People’s Climate March in New York and other cities of the world. He
wrote2a:
“… by the time that day was over (and remember that it ended
with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund announcing their divestment from fossil
fuels) I was letting myself think that we’d seen the beginning of the end of
the fossil fuel industry.” He wrote further: “Which doesn’t mean we’re
guaranteed a victory, of course. Unless that end to coal and oil and gas comes
swiftly, the damage from global warming will overwhelm us. Winning too slowly
is the same as losing, so we have a crucial series of fights ahead: divestment,
fracking, Keystone, and many others that we don’t yet know about.”
Note that he is already celebrating a victory after the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund has announced their divestment from fossil fuels. But
it is not even a victory in a battle, it is only an announcement. It is being
suggested in this quote that everything will be well when the fossil fuel
industry has been abandoned and the renewable energy industries have taken over
the task of powering the industrial societies of the world. There is no
question raised about the viability (energy balance) of the so-called renewable
energy industries, no questioning the sustainability of industrial society, no
questioning of capitalism….
… Also the announcement made by the USA and China in the
run-up to the UN climate conference in Lima – namely that these two giant CO2
emitters have agreed to stop the growth of their emissions in ten to fifteen
years – was much celebrated. Roughly around the same time, however, The New
York Times International Weekly (28.11.2014) published an article entitled
India’s Ruinous Pursuit of Coal (ruinous for the climate, naturally), in which
they reported that India plans to double the output of coal in five years. I
recently read in a report from the said Lima conference that, at half-time, the
European delegates are highly satisfied with the progress made. They are very
optimistic, they think that this time a positive agreement can be reached. But
at the same time it has been reported that at the conference all difficult and
controversial questions are being studiously avoided – e.g. whether oil- and
coal-rich countries (Saudi Arabia, Russia, Australia, Poland etc.) would be
prohibited from exploiting their mineral riches; whether economic growth, that
particularly less developed countries strive for, would still be possible when
consumption of fossil fuels has been drastically curtailed; whether Ecuador and
Bolivia, the two countries that most loudly preach “buen vivir” (good life, in
contradistinction to rich life) will stop exploiting their fossil fuel riches;
whether capitalism is compatible with the goal of protecting the climatic
balance and, more generally speaking, the natural environment…
… We should postpone our celebrations until real victory has
been achieved. And now at the latest, let us stop deceiving ourselves, let us
take up in right earnest the real issues for our struggles, namely gradually
overcoming the industrial mode of living and capitalism. For as long as these
two dominate our life and societies, little else can be achieved. Then we are
sure to lose the “war”.”
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