Environmental Disaster Can Only Be Stopped Through Class Struggle and the Destruction of Capitalism

Today’s environmental crisis is a global crisis that threatens the very existence of life on earth. From water pollution to Texas-sized plastic waste islands and the systematic destruction of forests (most recently South American and African forests), the quality and richness of life on the planet is rapidly diminishing.

Tackling the ecological crisis without taking into account the economic causes is an idealistic vision and disconnected from reality.

As long as it exists, capitalism will continue to blindly waste the resources of this planet in the name of Profit, to the point of considering “global warming” as a new “opportunity” to continue to struggle. In fact, the opening of new research territories, such as the reserves of hydrocarbons and natural gas lying until now under the Arctic ice shelf in the eastern basins of Greenland and in the Barents Sea, will offer to the Capital new production branches that will further worsen the balance of pollutants emitted and energy consumed.

It must be made clear that 85% of global energy is derived from the combustion of fossil products; to maintain at least a fixed concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere, the production of energy from this source should be reduced by 80%. Let’s try to imagine the current world production of steel (1.6 billion tons) obtained with the energy obtained from photovoltaic panels and rechargeable batteries: it is simply not possible. So it is certain that capitalism cannot do without hydrocarbons, gas and coal. That’s why fossil fuels are so fiercely disputed between the U.S., Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark.

The possession or control of energy resources, primarily fossil resources, is one of the main impulses that dictate the dynamics of the imperialist states, and their effects range not only in the production field, but also in the financial, political and military. And it is from these premises that the “reduction of greenhouse gases” fabled in the international conferences should descend!

Capitalism treats the environment as a source of free raw materials or as a barrier to break down in the search for greater profits, leading by itself to the inevitable collapse, which manifests itself periodically as an economic crisis.

The consequences of this crisis are being exacerbated on the shoulders of the working class, which is forced to pay the price through the increasingly expensive austerity measures imposed by governments. The same governments that are now being asked to limit the destructive process that they themselves are safeguarding for the sake of the ruling class.

Unfortunately, no government of any state is so naive as to limit the strict needs of the capitalist economy, and to really believe that a “judicious” use of resources is possible, in the name of a “health of the planet”.

On the other hand, individual choices towards a more balanced and “pro-ecological” lifestyle are of little consequence in the face of such far-reaching problems outlined above, while remaining a limited option for consumers who can afford to choose to pay more.

As communists, we have never, in principle, ignored the real and dramatic danger that the uninterrupted development of capitalism – where it is not possible to definitively close its inhumane historical cycle – and that its unstoppable extension may also lead to the disaster of the human species, to a crisis that is fatal for it. It is a possibility that our materialistic theory does not exclude. But our stated aim is instead to break the political form that maintains and defends the capitalist mode of production, and to destroy its institutions in order to allow a mode of production aimed at the good of humanity and not of Profit.

Capitalism will be abolished when the producers themselves, the world working class, rise up against their position as wage slaves; when they organize joint production to directly provide for human needs. In a world like this, no one can profit from the work of others. Money will no longer be needed and the stories of financial crises leading to trade wars, human misery and real wars will belong to the past.

Only in a communist world without states and borders human beings will be able to really face the damage that has been done to their natural environment and leave to future generations a better world than we found it.