Climate Memo Mondays, July 12, 2021

 

31.  Climate Memo Mondays, July 12, 2021
July 11, UN World Population Day

The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York.  Monthly Rev. P, 2011.

$15.26 – $26.00

Winner of the 2010 Gerald L. Young Book Award, bestowed by the Society for Human Ecology

Humanity in the twenty-first century is facing what might be described as its ultimate environmental catastrophe: the destruction of the climate that has nurtured human civilization and with it the basis of life on earth as we know it. All ecosystems on the planet are now in decline. Enormous rifts have been driven through the delicate fabric of the biosphere. The economy and the earth are headed for a fateful collision—if we don’t alter course.

In The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth, environmental sociologists John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York offer a radical assessment of both the problem and the solution. They argue that the source of our ecological crisis lies in the paradox of wealth in capitalist society, which expands individual riches at the expense of public wealth, including the wealth of nature. In the process, a huge ecological rift is driven between human beings and nature, undermining the conditions of sustainable existence: a rift in the metabolic relation between humanity and nature that is irreparable within capitalist society, since integral to its very laws of motion.

Critically examining the sanguine arguments of mainstream economists and technologists, Foster, Clark, and York insist instead that fundamental changes in social relations must occur if the ecological (and social) problems presently facing us are to be transcended. Their analysis relies on the development of a deep dialectical naturalism concerned with issues of ecology and evolution and their interaction with the economy. Importantly, they offer reasons for revolutionary hope in moving beyond the regime of capital and toward a society of sustainable human development.

This book is desperately needed, because it ends any illusion that we can solve our pressing environmental crises within the same system that created them. With tweaking the system—using incremental market-based strategies—off the table, we can put our efforts into genuine, lasting solutions.  —Annie Leonard, author and host, Story of Stuff

Marx’s concept of ‘metabolic rift’ in the circulation of soil nutrients between countryside and town is generalized by Foster, Clark, and York to an insightful Marxist analysis of the current ecological rift between modern capitalism and the ecosystem. It is a scholarly, well-referenced, and important contribution.  —Herman E. Daly, Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland and author, Beyond Growth

This important book treats industrial capitalism as the globally destructive force that it is, and powerfully points the way toward, as the authors put it, ‘universal revolts against imperialism, the destruction of the planet, and the treadmill of accumulation.’ We need these revolts if we are to survive. This book is a crucial part of that struggle.  —Derrick Jensen, author, Endgame and The Culture of Make Believe

This timely new work promises to become a basic resource in understanding the incompatibility between capitalism and ecology, and also in arguing for the ecological dimensions of any future socialism.   —Fredric Jameson, Professor, Duke University; author, Valences of the Dialectic

The Ecological Rift deserves to—and needs to—become a classic in its field.

—Simon Butler, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review. He is professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and author of The Ecological Revolution, The Great Financial Crisis (with Fred Magdoff), Critique of Intelligent Design (with Brett Clark and Richard York), Ecology Against Capitalism, Marx’s Ecology, and The Vulnerable Planet. Brett Clark is assistant professor of sociology at North Carolina State University. He is coauthor (with John Bellamy Foster and Richard York) of Critique of Intelligent Design. Richard York is associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is co-editor of the journal Organization & Environment and coauthor (with John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark) of Critique of Intelligent Design.

 

 AGAINST DOOM by Jeremy Brecher.  2017.

Publisher’s Summary

Before the election of Donald Trump the world was already speeding toward climate catastrophe. Now President Trump has jammed his foot on the global warming accelerator. Is there any way for the rest of us to put on the brakes?

Climate insurgency is a strategy for using people power to realize our common interest in protecting the climate. It uses mass, global, nonviolent action to challenge the legitimacy of public and corporate officials who are perpetrating climate destruction.

A global climate insurgency has already begun. It has the potential to halt and roll back Trump’s fossil fuel agenda and the global thrust toward climate destruction.

Against Doom: A Climate Insurgency Manual  tells how to put that strategy into action—and how it can succeed. It is a handbook for halting global warming and restoring our climate—a how-to for climate insurgents.

Praise:

“Against Doom lays out key elements of a far-reaching, global-scaled, pragmatic, people-powered strategy to topple the power of the fossil fuel industry and the institutions behind it.” —David Solnit, author of Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World

“In Against Doom, Brecher has provided the climate movement with two essential tools: a moral framework for the struggle against fossil fuels, and an actual plan for victory. By blending sober social movement analysis with the fire of grassroots activism, this book shows that there is a genuine, and winnable, case against the fossil fuel economy—a case to be argued in the streets as well as the courtroom. It's an essential volume for anyone committed to social change in the fight against climate change.” —Joseph Hamilton, Climate Defense Project

“Jeremy Brecher has managed to combine his passion for justice with the wisdom gleaned from decades of research, writing, and personal engagement in social movements and condense them into this short and accessible strategy document. Having benefited from his guidance on a variety of campaigns over the last twenty years, I look forward to collaborating with other organizers and activists in using this book as a blueprint for building a global climate insurgency.” —John Humphries, Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs

“A crisp, clear, and savvy synthesis of key concepts and ideas that will help the global climate justice movement to succeed. Brecher outlines many feasible climate solutions that should give all of us hope, despite the odds.” —Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate

About the Author:

Jeremy Brecher is the author of more than a dozen books on labor and social movements, including Save the Humans? Common Preservation in Action and his classic labor history Strike!, recently published in a revised fortieth anniversary edition by PM Press. He has been writing about climate protection since 1988, most recently in his book Climate Insurgency: A Strategy for Survival (2015). He holds a PhD from the Union Graduate School and is a cofounder of the Labor Network for Sustainability. In addition to being awarded five regional Emmy Awards for his documentary film work, Jeremy was arrested in the early White House sit-ins against the Keystone XL pipeline.

See and hear author interviews, book reviews, and other news on Jeremy Brecher's page HERE

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