Climate Is A Class Issue

Factory worker Richie Walsh started his activism as a climate activist but argues that the only way to win real change on the climate is to connect with the working class and challenge capitalism.

The environmental movement has become a target of the culture war. This fight has been taken up by conspiracy theorists the world over. So, how to we tackle this?

People caught up in conspiracy theories and knee deep in the culture war don’t want a lecture on climate science. They won’t listen to the data so why bother. But often, when the climate denier is working class, common ground can be found in the solutions we can offer.

Wouldn’t it be beneficial for the country to be energy independent by harnessing our wind, waves and solar power? And wasn’t our electricity the cheapest in Europe when the ESB was nationalised?

What about public transport? We could make it easier to get by when times are tough by expanding public transport services around the country and making it free. It’d even reduce the traffic that plagues us on our way home. And who could be against cleaner air and water?

Much of the solutions that socialists put forward make sense to most working-class people. The issue for us is how the environmental movement is sometimes seen from a working-class perspective.

The environmental movement sometimes sees itself as removed from the class war. After all, wont the capitalists and their enterprises go down with the ship too? But without class analysis, what do you get?

Often this branch of the movement takes the form of moralism. The upstanding vegan that only buys second-hand looking down on the working-class sinners shopping in Penney’s. This is the result of not bringing class to the forefront.

‘Ethical consumption’ is an individualised approach. Capitalism can work with that. Theres nothing wrong with shopping second hand but telling a worker that they’re part of the problem when we’ve enough to be dealing with won’t get you an audience. It also won’t make the slightest dint in the climate crisis.

The individualised approach is also seen when carbon taxes are presented as the way to fix things. Haven’t we faced enough austerity? The only thing that will tackle this issue is the same thing that will solve the housing crisis, healthcare crisis and all other crisis relating to ruling class domination. The abolition of all classes through a working-class revolution.

Capitalism is a system that requires constant growth to survive. This is incompatible with an earth that has a limited amount of resources. But there’s plenty of resources to go around. If only the economy were planned. No planned economy would have a third of the food produced binned while people go hungry or ten times the number of empty homes as there are homeless people but not solve homelessness!

Capitalists are to blame so the working class shouldn’t be made suffer for ineffective ‘solutions’. Exxon Mobil played down the climate projections their team of scientists were finding as it would’ve likely impacted their profits from fossil fuels. Other capitalists profit from war which on top of brutally killing endless scores of working-class people, is also one of the most polluting industries.

Making products with the intention that they break has proved profitable to the capitalist class and restricting the ease of repair only further boosts this. If anyone should be taxed in the name of solving this crisis, it should be them!

Environmentalists need to avoid the pitfalls of moralism or a fear of upsetting the upper and middle classes. We’ve too much at stake. But we must also not become single issue campaigners.

I started my activism on the environmental justice movement. At that time it felt like a big wave that’d overthrow the entire capitalist system the world over. Its tough to get to terms with the post “green wave” environment, especially with how many negative developments are constantly happening in the environmental arena.

But the battle against climate breakdown is the battle for a working class revolution, for a socialist revolution.

Whatever the battlefield of the class war, we must be there. Striking workers? Show support. Mass Evictions? Oppose. No matter what, to get to the real solution, we must go through the same beast. Always keep it class war.