Ecology: our perspectives and work

Submitted by webadmin on 9 September, 2024 - https://www.workersliberty.org/



The AWL affirms the following points based upon sections of our 2019-20, 2013, and 2008 conference documents as policies for our intervention in the labour movement and in environment-activist groups, and the following summary of new policy on geoengineering. We note that discussions will continue on transformation of land-use and agriculture, growth and limits, and other issues.

The working class is the agent with the capability and interest in transforming society: through immediate reforms as well as in the battle for democratic, rational control of the economy and society as a whole.

We have no confidence in the capitalist class, or their states, to stop climate change. Powerful sections of the capitalist class will fight to stop a green transition. But significant reforms, including environmental reforms, can be and have been won under capitalism. These can limit the speed of climate change, reducing harm and buying us time.

Beyond global warming, there are several major independent environmental threats.

All major industries should be socialised - taken into public ownership, under democratic control of workers - to facilitate transition. Expropriating the banks, and the wealth of the rich, would make available resources to fund rapid transition and adaptation.

In the first place, socialisation of and investment in energy production and transport.

We demand an immediate ban on fracking, tar sands, other “extreme energy”, and any new fossil power plants. We advocate the least polluting - which to first approximation means fastest - possible phasing out of all fossil-fuelled power stations, heating, and transport.

Renewable energy production should be expanded. An integrated and coordinated electricity system using “smart grid” technology would maximise efficiency and reliability.

The urgency of the need to replace fossil-fuel electricity generation makes blanket opposition to nuclear power wrong. The development of solar, wind, tidal, etc. power is an urgent necessity; and so is the redesign of cities and buildings and transport to reduce energy use; but the scale of the task of replacing fossil fuels demands that governments pursue all these changes simultaneously.

Nuclear power will be an essential part of any concerted social effort to control carbon emissions and global warming, at least in the next few decades.

We advocate and fight for a comprehensive programme of measures to redesign living spaces, industry, transport, etc to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions while protecting and improving living standards. This includes fighting for a shorter working week and longer holidays.

In the energy sector, as in others, we champion a transition organised on the basis of worker planning, and in particular the retraining of workers from polluting or obsolete roles into socially-useful jobs.

Workers' control of production! Workers' plans are central to reducing carbon emission at work. Workers' control is necessary to deal with the shift from wasteful, high-emission or polluting production to alternative jobs. Workers' control is essential for protecting the interests of workers in jobs in existing, often ecologically damaging, forms of production. We fight for the labour movement in the industries affected to discuss and develop ecologically friendly alternatives to existing jobs.

Beyond these sectors, widespread workplace environmental action is important for a society-wide transition, for sparking and spreading class struggle, and for stoking working-class environmentalism on the political front of the class war.

We advocate public programmes of insulation, electrification of cooking, and electrified large-scale heating systems.

We support a moratorium on airport expansion, advocating an expansion of high-speed, affordable, electrified and efficient rail, and policies to radically reduce flights. We support increased taxation on flights and phasing-out of short-haul flights where there are less-polluting alternatives, with flights rationed on the basis of need.

We seek an expansion of local free or low-cost good-quality electrical and efficient public transport, and policies to support cycling and walking.

We support crop rotation and scientific methods to enable more sustainable and environmentally friendly agriculture.

Animal-based food production is more energy- and land-intensive and so has a higher environmental impact (in particular a much higher level of carbon emissions) than directly plant-based food production. A societal shift away from animal-based food to more plant-based food is an essential part of a programme to sharply reduce carbon emissions and would also free up substantial land for carbon sequestration through tree-planting. There already exists a widely-consumed range of substitute foods (relatively protein-rich, plant- and fungus-based food alternatives to meat, dairy products, etc.). We advocate promotion and subsidy of such substitute foods to help reduce consumption and production of animal-based foods in the immediate term, as well as seriously funded further research and development into substitute foods to facilitate a society-wide transition. Genetic engineering is in itself not problematic, and genetic engineering of low-emissions substitute foods is positive.

We demand huge public investment in an ambitious programme of ecological restoration - and mass tree planting - to increase biodiversity and natural carbon sequestration.

We advocate a huge redistribution of wealth from the richest to the poorest countries. Wealth from the global north can help societies in the global south develop to support a high quality of life on a low-emissions, environmentally-friendly basis.

Geoengineering is not a substitute for sharp emissions reductions. Some of the geoengineering technologies might have major downsides and risks. But they may prove necessary to confront a world we never wished for.

The present stage is mostly about research, experiments and testing. On balance, it makes sense to support authorised, publicly-funded research. We raise the questions of governance of geoengineering, pushing for democratic safeguards, scrutiny and accountability, including by the labour movement.

We work to build struggles around workplace environmental demands, including on campuses.
We want to work with the radical environmental movement as a whole and win it to our perspectives. But we want to move the focus of that movement from direct action by small, self-sacrificing groups to mass action.

We see environmental activism as a crucial part of our work.

WORKERS LIBERTY