Part Three of Ian Angus’s examination of the disruption of the global nitrogen cycle by an economic system that values profits more than life itself.

Ecosocialism — in particular the Marxist wing of the ecosocialist movement — builds and acts on that understanding.

Ian Angus discusses the scientific developments that led Marx to develop metabolic rift theory, and a new generation to rediscover it in our time.

When I was ten years old, I read and re-read a stack of decades-old Modern Mechanix magazines that I found in my grandfather’s basement. Throughout the Great Depression, MM regaled its readers with breathless accounts of technological marvels that were going to change the world, very soon.

An important work of Marxist history and theory restores class struggle to central place in explaining how capitalism arose and grew, and can eventually be overcome.

On October 14, on the CBS television program 60 Minutes, the President of the United States admitted that climate change is not a hoax. It is probably happening, he said, but he doesn’t know what is causing it, and he thinks it might change back. 

Leading Earth System scientists warn: “The Earth System may be approaching a planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing rapid pathway toward much hotter conditions.… Incremental linear changes to the present socioeconomic system are not enough to stabilize the Earth System.”

Virtually unknown in the west, the great Russian geologist and geochemist pioneered scientific study of life’s impact on the Earth.

Why wasn’t Marx’s concept of metabolic rift recognized until recently? Changed circumstances, unpublished works, and bad translations all played a role.

On every scale, from the smallest cells to the entire planet, the essential elements of life are constantly used and re-used. Biogeochemical cycles are the basis of the biosphere.

“Life is the mode of existence of protein bodies, the essential element of which consists in continual metabolic interchange with the natural environment outside them.”

Andreas Malm’s powerful critique of current environmental philosophies puts historical materialism and cutting-edge science at the center of a call for militant action.

Every airport bookstore features books with titles like 10 Ways to Retire Rich, 150 Places You Must Visit Before You Die, or 8 Easy Steps to a Flatter Tummy, with the numbers in very large type on their covers. They are the publishing ­equivalent of junk food, quickie books written to match titles that were invented by the marketing department to generate impulse purchases. The authors and publisher of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things must have had such books in mind when they chose its title and designed its cover.

Ecomodernism is incompatible with ecosocialism. If Jacobin recognizes that and changes course, it can make important contributions to the fight against climate change.

John Bellamy Foster and Ian Angus reply to a recent article published by Daniel Tanuro on carbon pricing schemes. Tanuro, a vehement critic of such schemes, focuses his critique on the cautiously critical support given by Foster and Angus to proposals developed by climate scientist James Hansen.

Key conclusion of Anthropocene Working Group report to Geological Congress: the “Great Acceleration” in the second half of the 20th century marked the end of the Holocene and the beginning of a new geological epoch. The evidence is overwhelming: earth entered a new geological epoch in about 1950.  In an official report to the International […]

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” — Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass What can lobbyists do when science contradicts their political messages?  Some simply deny the science, as many conservatives do with climate […]

I think I have solved a small puzzle in socialist history. Climate & Capitalism‘s tagline, “Ecosocialism or barbarism: There is no third way,” is based on the slogan, “Socialism or Barbarism,” which Rosa Luxemburg raised to such great effect during World War I and the subsequent German revolution, and which has been adopted by many […]

Last year in Monthly Review, I debated Eddie Yuen, an anarchist who believes it is a mistake for radicals to focus on telling the truth about the global environmental crisis, because “awareness of climate crisis does not necessarily lead to increased political engagement.”  Not only can such awareness lead to apathy, he wrote, but “environmental […]

In “A Left ‘Exit Strategy’ from Fossil Fuel Capitalism?” published in Climate & Capitalism last week, Norwegian socialist Anders Ekeland urges ecosocialists to support the climate change program proposed by one of the world’s most-respected climate scientists, James Hansen, in many essays and speeches and in his book, Storms of My Grandchildren.  In support of […]