En Passant

It looks to me as if profit and competition are the barriers to addressing climate change. If that is the case then only a democratic revolution of workers to run society to satisfy human need can address climate change. As the banners at some environmental demonstrations and eco-socialist conferences say ‘System Change, not Climate Change.’

The abandonment of the proposed floor price from the Australian ETS scheduled to start in 2015 is a political, not an environmental, decision. It means the Gillard government can say we are on track to be part of a global market in permits, although that market will do little or nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if the price remains low. The neoliberal Greens have sold us yet another market dud.

Capitalism can’t and won’t plan for the future survival of the planet. We workers can. But to do that we have to democratically organise production to satisfy human need, not to make a polluting profit. That’s a revolution.

So what is all this talk about a battler’s buffer for the carbon tax? Small details like the actual carbon price and the amount of the compensation could be weeks away. But the Gillard Government’s approach is pretty clear. The carbon tax won’t cost us anything. In fact in terms of money 3 million Australians – […]

‘The Liberal Party is currently led by people whose conviction on climate change is that it is ‘crap’ and you don’t need to do anything about it. Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing.’                                            – deposed Liberal Party leader […]

To save the planet from global warming requires removing profit as the driving force of production, the driving force of a humanity on the road to the environmental abyss.

Labor is going to re-introduce the recently Senate rejected Emissions Trading Scheme Bill in February. What is going on? Let me hazard a guess. After the Liberal Party on Tuesday replaced Malcolm Turnbull with Tony Abbott, the Senate yesterday rejected the Labor-Turnbull Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.   Then it rejected the original Labor ETS, the one without the extra […]

That’s the bind for the Liberals. How do they win back the support of the ruling class as a class? Certainly voting against the ETS won’t do that.

Union green bans on environmentally suspect developments show the potential the working class has to create a green future and green jobs.

Under socialism we’d transform the economy to one fuelled by renewable energy, and we’d have to make sure that everyone was well served by fast and efficient public transport also run on renewable energy.