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Ecological Revolution
John Foster gives a radio interview on Ecological Revolution
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How the rich plan to rule a burning planet
The climate crisis isn’t a future we must fight to avoid. It’s an already unfolding reality. It’s the intensification of extreme weather–cyclones, storms and floods, droughts and deadly heat waves.
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The growing threat of water wars
In 2015, United Nations member states adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, which include an imperative to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.” Yet, in the last four years, matters have deteriorated significantly.
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The inorganic body in the early Marx
The effort to revive and recover critical theory and its intellectual precedents has become more difficult at a time in which ‘critique’ is regularly denounced as negative, skeptical and anthropocentric. Bruno Latour, for instance, imagines that when we speak about what is ‘critical’, we have in mind a fully negative project, a practice of debunking and dismantling hegemonic presumptions about the world, and that critical theory only intensifies skepticism and lacks transformative power and commitment to emancipatory ideals.
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Metabolic monstrosities: Vampire capital in the Anthropocene
Paraphrasing a passage from Marx in the Grundrisse, Stavros Tombazos remarks that “every economy is in the end an economy of time” (2014, 13). This is to say that the productivity of labour, the accumulation of wealth, and the circulation of goods and resources which make up an economy in its broadest sense are all components of a particular organisation of time.
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Lies, Newsweek and control of the media narrative: First-hand account
Until several days ago, I was a journalist at Newsweek. I decided to hand my resignation in because, in essence, I was given a simple choice. On one hand, I could continue to be employed by the company, stay in their chic London offices and earn a steady salary—only if I adhered to what could or could not be reported and suppressed vital facts. Alternatively, I could leave the company and tell the truth.
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The “fixing capitalism” headfake
It’s not hard to see why young people are embracing socialism. It isn’t simply that they can see a probable grim future under capitalism as they know it: more and more low-wage, high surveillance jobs versus more budget and psychological stress as most also have higher fixed costs (rentier housing costs, student loan payments, even more “asset lite, rent heavy” systems, ever-escalating health care costs).
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Geoengineering is no climate fix. But calling it a moral hazard could be counterproductive
Desperate times call for desperate measures. In recent years and in the face of unprecedented changes in the climate system, some previously unknown and risky solutions have been proposed to put a halt to the chain of climate disasters, or at least to slow down the speed of their onslaught.
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If you want peace, you get war; if you want war, you get rich
A quarter century ago, Victoria Sandino Palmera joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People’s Army (FARC-EP). She had previously been a militant in the Communist Party and–when FARC-EP was above ground in the 1990s–joined the Patriotic Pole. But the repression of what she calls the ‘traditional oligarchy’ sent her back to the jungle over and over again. Victoria Sandino made it clear that she was not keen on this war. ‘We didn’t take up weapons because we felt the need to use violence’
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The Coming Revolution: Capitalism in the 21st Century
The Coming Revolution is an impressive guide for Marxists looking for a way to approach contemporary capitalism, argues Josh Newman
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The oppressive state is a macho rapist
On 25 November 1960, three of four of the Mirabal sisters – María Teresa, Minerva, and Patria – of the Dominican Republic were assassinated for their resistance against the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. The youngest of the three – María Teresa – said before her death, ‘Perhaps what we have most near is death, but that idea does not frighten me. We shall continue to fight for justice’.
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Thinking and acting from Marxism today – Feminist proposals for a theoretical and strategic rearmament
The global disorder and the experiences of the systemic crisis we have experienced for more than a decade (economic crisis, crisis of political legitimacy, crisis of social reproduction and crisis of the limits of the planet) have generated a need to understand that cannot be covered by partial analyses but requires a theory of totality.
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Social crises, crises of Democracy, neoliberalism in crisis
The current global social tensions have in common the rejection of inequality and the loss of democratic control. The engine driving these challenges may well be the fading relevance of neoliberalism, which is aggravating its own crisis and opening the door to confrontation.
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Are numbers of species a true measure of ecosystem health?
A recent study that found no general decline in the numbers of species in individual ecosystems has sparked controversy. Some scientists see it as evidence of how species adapt, while others see it as a sign that common invasive species, such as rats and mosquitoes, are the real winners.
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An alternative to liberal globalization
In the Bandung Conference of 1955, the governments and peoples of Asia and Africa expressed their ambitions to reconstruct a global system based on the recognition of the rights of countries that had previously been under the yoke of colonialism. In that period, “the rights to development,” as applied to the frameworks for negotiating multipolarity constituted the basis of globalization. These rights would force the imperial powers to adapt to new realities.
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Emissions Gap Report 2019: Executive Summary
This is the tenth edition of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report. It provides the latest assessment of scientific studies on current and estimated future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and compares these with the emission levels permissible for the world to progress on a least-cost pathway to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
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How racism works today
With racist speech and sentiments coming more to the fore in current Irish politics, campaigner John Molyneux takes a look at how racist ideas and language work today.
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Capitalism versus life on Earth
Environmental destruction isn’t driven by human nature or mistaken ideas. It is an inevitable consequence of a system built on capital accumulation.
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Green Strategy: To beat climate change, humanity needs socialism
It’s bad enough to imagine blame and scenarios of dread, as if from science fiction, but add in the presently feeble response to dire threats and we’re in a funk. If tools were available, we’d get a lift. Marc Brodine’s book Green Strategy, reviewed here, is about tools.
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Extinction Rebellion: Rebellion against whom?
Through the global climate strike and mass demonstrations for the planet launched by Greta Thunberg, an entire generation has gotten a taste of political action, understanding the need for dramatic change to deal with environmental degradation. It is in this context that the group Extinction Rebellion (XR) has struck a chord.