By Casey Resto
In early October, the UN issued a special report updating specific aspects of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment of 2014. The results suggest a centuries-long expansion in detrimental economic and environmental effects on humanity. Lower income individuals will be the most severely impacted as we’re the ones least able to afford what insurance companies deem “Acts of God.”
While international agreements require governments to pledge a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases, only an organization of the workers of the world will have the power to meet the severity of the crisis.
The United States’ decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and recently, to withdraw from the Paris Agreement show that a government will ignore eventual and irreversible consequences for humanity if it’s set up to maintain the rule of the rich over everyone else. We, the majority, will be the ones working in hotter and nastier weather.
Natural disasters have occurred at alarming rates: in 2018 alone, the U.S. was battered by Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael, floods displaced more than a million people in Kerala, India and Typhoon Mangkhut destroyed more than 10,000 homes in the Philippines and China, to name just a few examples.
These catastrophes destroy the environment and its inhabitants, but the effects of these losses are experienced unevenly depending on how a society is organized. Under capitalism, we workers and oppressed take the brunt of the hit. In capitalist society we see incarcerated workers in California fighting deadly wildfires for less than $2 a day. We see North Carolina’s state government refuse to evacuate prisoners in the midst of Hurricane Florence (a category 4 at the time). Over and over we see the cruelty of capitalism.
Low income communities are affected as city boards refuse to update their infrastructure to deal with the worsening effects of climate change. New Orleans residents are still feeling the costs of the August 2017 floods. The Sewerage and Water Board’s failure to do their job caused many damages to homes and cars.
These are not unique cases. As the environment worsens, so do our working conditions, our wages and our ability to afford stable living situations that can withstand the drastic changes to our climate. The destruction of the environment and its irreversible effects are an inevitable consequence of imperialism, materialism, and militarism. Capitalism’s persistent and eager need to consume, colonize and destroy in the name of money will only continue to devastate and ravage the world we live in, all for the pleasure of the bourgeoisie.
We cannot take a passive approach to climate change. Laws take years to enact, and the 2014 IPCC assessment claims that even if global emissions were to stop within the next 24 hours, damages are already locked in for centuries. Those at the top won’t give up their greed. Our only option is to organize and make revolution.