End capitalism before it wrecks the Earth!

Submitted by Matthew on 2 October, 2013 - 11:37

The latest UN report on climate change provides a stark warning: carry on as we are and within our lifetimes the benign climate on which human society depends will be drastically altered, with dire consequences for billions across the globe.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the physical science volume of its fifth report on Friday, with two further volumes to follow next spring. Its language was dry, but there is no doubting the caution.

The IPCC said it is “extremely likely” that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. The evidence for this has grown, with more and better observations and improved climate models. The report estimated that global average temperatures could rise to 4.8˚C by 2100, tipping the planet into potentially catastrophic climatic conditions that will disrupt human society.

The IPCC dealt with sceptics objections that the annual average global temperature has barely risen since 1998. Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. Some of the heat has been absorbed by the oceans, but this simply stores up further problems in the future. Some natural variability may have offset increases generated by human activity.

The idea that climate change has been disproven is simply preposterous.

For the first time, the report estimated the planetary carbon budget, namely how much fossil fuel can be burned to stay within the widely agreed 2 ˚C threshold.

The IPCC said total emissions cannot exceed 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon. However, it also estimated that over half of those emissions have already been emitted. This underlines the importance of joining campaigns against extreme energy, such as fracking.

Socialists need to spell out the political conclusions from the physical science. Capitalism is generating emissions at a rate and on a scale that will wreck human society within the foreseeable future and for people alive today.

Without a fundamental restructuring of global energy, transport, agriculture and other systems, the natural conditions for human society will be undermined by floods, drought and other extreme weather, as well as the breakdown of food supplies and the exhaustion of ecosystems.

Working class democracy and socialist planning are the answer. Fight now for climate reforms, but as part of the fight for socialism.

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