Climate change

We may be near tipping points

The 2023 State of the Climate report (Ripple et al. 2023) paints a bleak picture. A record-setting year, maybe the hottest globally in 100 thousand years.

Plans set for Drax 8-13 August

On 24-25 February Reclaim the Power held a national gathering of climate activists in York to plan a protest camp on 8-13 August at Drax Power Station (a former coal turned biomass power station). Reclaim the Power (RtP) is a network of climate activists who come together to organise protests and direct action against coal and biomass power stations. Beyond this they also campaign for social and economic justice (e.g. against the hostile environment for migrants, and against fuel poverty). RtP was founded in 2013 and since then has organised protest camps and actions against fracking, Didcot...

Make unions commit Labour to green and renewable energy!

Labour leader Keir Starmer’s 8 February U-turn on Labour’s £28 billion flagship green investment pledge has been justified on the grounds that it is incompatible with servicing the national debt. He wants to be seen to be scrabbling around after every last penny, lest the Tories label him imprudent. The national debt, with interest payments around £100 billion a year, is a genuine problem. Much of the debt is held outside the UK, so couldn’t be quelled even by full public ownership of high finance in the UK, and even a workers’ government might want to retain links with the international...

Farmers’ protests sweep Europe

Farmers’ protests have subsided somewhat in France, following government concessions, but continue in many countries across Europe. They were sparked by new European Union rules which require a certain proportion of fallow land, crop rotations, and reduced fertiliser use. The EU is now stepping back. German farmers object to the phasing out of tax breaks on agricultural diesel; Netherlands farmers, to rules curbing nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions. In Greece, fuel tax is a target; in Bulgaria, food imports from Ukraine. The French Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste ( Révolutionnaires ) reports...

Drax camp planned for 8-13 August

Reclaim The Power, a group in the tradition of the “climate camp” of 2006-09, is planning a protest camp at Drax power station, near Selby in North Yorkshire, on 8 to 13 August. Workers Liberty students and others will be part of it. If you want to join our contingent, email awl@workersliberty.org . There is a planning meeting in York on 24-25 February. Drax bosses claim that the power station is a pioneer in renewable energy, but it is not. The power station has been converted from coal to burning wood. The theory is that the wood can be taken from sustainable forests, which as new trees grow...

More notes on eco discussions

Disagreements within Workers’ Liberty on ecology are relatively slight. The key idea we bring to most interventions on ecology is the centrality of the working class. Capital’s insatiable drive for accumulation is both short-termist and tunnel-visioned. Longer term and wider considerations are secondary for corporations, the ruling class, and their states. That includes climate change and environmental consideration. The search for ever-greater profit brings capitalists in conflict with any restrictions or limits to profit, human and environmental. The transition away from fossil fuels, and to...

Steel jobs: a workers’ plan needed

Port Talbot steel reps and supporters from Unite the Union were at Parliament on 23 January as an Opposition Day debate heard Labour call for Tata and the Government to hold back from any “irreversible decisions” and pledge to put £3 billion into saving steel production in Wales. On 19 January Tata UK announced plans to close the blast furnaces at Port Talbot and make up to 2,800 workers redundant. The knock-on effect would be up to 10,000 job losses. Ieuan Eltham, a Unite shop steward said that these plans, “will decimate Port Talbot and South Wales”. Although the steelworks has already...

Amazon drought signals wider dangers

Last year, 2023, was the hottest year on record, with one dataset finding temperatures 1.54ºC hotter than pre-industrial levels. 2023 also brought the harshest drought in the history of the Amazon rainforest; an early sign that we may have triggered a major climate tipping point. The Amazon is one of the world’s largest terrestrial carbon sinks. Covering an area equivalent in size to the USA, it is estimated to contain 123 billion tonnes of carbon. As the forest dies it releases this carbon further accelerating global heating. A 2021 study in Nature by Luciana Gatti and colleagues found that...

Activist Agenda: campaigns and info

A list of many campaigns that Workers' Liberty activists are involved with and support, plus info about other organising and resources.

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