For our sixth reading group we are changing venue. From now on we will be meeting at Freedom Bookshop, 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. We will still be holding a reading group on the last Tuesday of the month (28th of January) at 7pm until 9pm.
Arranging a new venue has meant that the call out for this reading group is going out later than usual, so we have decided to read a much shorter work than usual; What is Social Ecology? by Murray Bookchin. Bookchin’s ideas have been influential on the ongoing revolution in Northern Syria, and are increasingly relevant in a world that is facing a climate catastrophe.
A free version of What is Social Ecology? can by found on the anarchist library here and even if you have not finished the essay, feel welcome to come and get involved in the discussion.
The World Bank announced this week that it is to make about $200bn available to fund action on climate change. In making the announcement, Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank, stated: “This is about putting countries and communities in charge of building a safer, more climate-resilient future.” The announcement has been greeted with universal approval with many arguing that the Bank is taking a strong lead and sending a strong signal to private sector financiers.
But before we all start rejoicing to hard, it is worth noting that the World Bank has a long history of saying one thing and then doing the opposite. For example, in 2015 the very same Mr Kim announced a five-point plan to deliver low carbon growth, including a call to end to fossil fuel subsidies, only for it later to be discovered that the Bank had supported the development of fossil fuels to the tune of $3.4 billion, a 22% increase on the previous year.
Elena has received her remaining wages! Thank you to everyone involved.
Elena left her job at Green Eco Plus in February as she wasn’t being paid. She managed, through her persistence and some help from friends and Solfed, to get back an initial £300 over a couple of months. After this the director of the company (Chris Rose AKA Kyriacos Pitsillos) told Elena that the company was liquidated (it wasn’t) and he wouldn’t pay the remaining £250.
The current economic crisis is entirely a product of capitalism itself, spawned by the inherent instability of “boom and bust”, the signature of an insane and immoral system of organising society. But even in the best of the boom times crisis has never been too far removed from the relentless exploitation of resources, both human and natural, in the mad pursuit of profit for the rich and powerful. That this system has brought us to the brink of disastrous climate change is now beyond doubt.
In the face of climate change, big business prefers to fiddle while the world threatens to burn. However, the economic climate is only exacerbating the situation. A prime example of this is the European Union pact on climate change concluded in December last year. Corporate predictions of job losses, warnings of increased costs, and threats to move out of Europe have easily persuaded servile politicians to water down the original proposals.
From Reykjavik to Rio, from Woolies to Whittards, the fall out from the economic downturn reverberates like a Mexican wave around virtually every inhabited corner of the globe. But this crisis, just as surely as it began, will eventually peter out – but not before wreaking misery and destitution upon millions. Alongside this latest recession is the environmental crisis, with far more irretrievable consequences, and a severity we are now only just waking up to.
Over 100 years ago Karl Marx foretold, how the inbuilt tendency of industrial capitalism to expand would give rise to not only continual cycles of boom and slump, but also the phenomenon we now call “globalisation”. More contemporary analysts, such as Murray Bookchin and the social ecology movement of the late 1960s and 70s, later warned of the profound ecological crisis that we now face.
The rapacious western imperialist oil machine marches on, this time in Peru. After government decrees opened up parts of the Amazon region to plunder by multinationals in April this year, indigenous communities responded by setting up a series of blockades. Leaders of the resistance movement issued a statement saying; “we will fight together with our parents and children to take care of the forest, to save the life of the equator and the entire world”.
On the 5th of June, a phalanx of troops, gunships and armed police launched a savage assault on one of the key blockades. The ensuing conflict resulted in the deaths of between 30 and 100 protestors. Curfews and martial law were then installed, as the US-friendly president, Alan García, denounced protestors as “savage and barbaric”. In spite of this violent repression, indigenous communities vowed to fight on.
Raging deforestation, degradation of the soil, sea and atmosphere and rising greenhouse gas emissions. With current concerns over the environment and future of the planet, it seems every business under the sun is doing their utmost to jump on the green bandwagon and convince us of their sound ecological credentials.
Along with this, all sorts of consum-er products are advertised with buzz words like “ethically traded”, and “carbon neutral”. Magazines from The Ecologist to The Observer wax lyrical about how we can all be greener and do our bit to save the planet. The implication here seems to be that if we all buy the “right” products, recycle our rubbish and take a few steps to cut down on our energy emissions then, hey presto!, the planet will be magically saved.
For our eleventh reading group we will finish reading The Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin. From the blurb:
For our tenth reading group we will continue reading The Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin. From the blurb:
For our ninth reading group we will start reading The Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin. From the blurb:
