Subjects Archives: Climate Change

Now that all five big investment banks — Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — have disappeared or morphed into regular banks, a question arises. Is this bailout still necessary? The point of the bailout is to buy assets that are illiquid but not worthless.  But regular banks hold assets […]

The past week has been a wild roller-coaster ride in and out of Southern African ruling-party politics, down the troughs of world capitalism, and up the peaks of radical social activism.  Glancing around the region and world from those peaks, we can see quite a way further than usual. Looking first to South Africa, Saturday’s […]

While taking a significant toll on public revenues,1 repayment of the public debt has, since 2004, ceased to be a major concern for most middle-revenue countries and for raw material-exporting countries in general.  In fact the majority of governments of these countries are having no trouble finding loans at historically low interest rates.  However, the […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its September 2008 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. We know that the immediate future holds the certainty of severe climate change, and an ever increasing strain on not only the much publicised issue of reserves of […]

When the U.S. government hypocritically offered $100,000 as aid in the face of the disaster brought about by Hurricane Gustav, subject to an on-site inspection to confirm the damage, the response was that Cuba is unable to accept any donations from the country that is blockading us; that the damage had already been calculated and that what we were calling for was that it not prevent the export of essential materials and credits associated with commercial operations.

Dear Randy,

Yesterday’s “Roundtable” program was particularly interesting and the information provided was extremely valuable. It is a pity that at that time the whole island was without electricity, from Punta de Maisí to Cabo de San Antonio. Just a few family homes in the Camilo Cienfuegos district that were able to resist the fierce winds had power. An underground cable connected to the generator at the Luis Díaz Soto Hospital reached that area.

We had hardly recovered from the emotional impact and material damage caused by the unexpectedly strong winds of Hurricane Gustav on the Isle of Youth and Pinar del Rio, when news were received of sea floods caused by Hanna. Then, the worst news of all: that the very intense Hurricane Ike, turning southwest under pressure from a strong anti-cyclone located north of its course, would strike over more than 1,000 kilometers throughout the national territory.

It is not an overstatement. This is the general expression of many compatriots. It was the impression of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Alvaro Lopez Miera, an experienced soldier, when he saw the twisted steel towers, the shattered houses and the devastation everywhere in the Isle of Youth.

In my last reflection of Tuesday afternoon, August 29, when Hurricane Gustav unexpectedly formed and started to threaten our country on the same day when our Olympic delegation returned, I wrote: “We are lucky to have a Revolution! It is a fact that nobody will be neglected…Our strong, forceful and farsighted Civil Defense protects our people…The growing frequency and intensity of these natural phenomena show that the climate is changing due to the actions of human beings. The current times demand ever increasing dedication, steadfastness and conscience. It doesn’t matter if the opportunists and traitors also benefit without contributing anything to the safety and well-being of our people.”

Modern economic class struggle, the unremitting, sometimes hidden, sometimes open, fight between capitalists and workers that erupted in the 19th century and dominated the 20th, is taking on new forms and dimensions in the 21st century. The stakes of this continuing conflict are higher than they have ever been.  Every aspect of human life on […]

From the first day it appeared online, Climate and Capitalism’s masthead has carried the slogan “Ecosocialism or Barbarism: there is no third way.”  We’ve been quite clear that ecosocialism is not a new theory or brand of socialism — it is socialism with Marx’s important insights on ecology restored, socialism committed to the fight against […]

Housing and securities prices are going down; food and fuel prices are rising.  How will these opposite trends affect our economy looking ahead? The real estate bubble (US capitalism’s latest toxic mix of profit-driven over-investment, over-lending, and financial fraud) is in full “bust” mode.  Residential and now also commercial real estate prices are dropping quickly. […]

A telling remark about US imperialism’s double standards was uttered by Clinton-era deputy treasury secretary Stuart Eizenstat, who a decade ago was the driver of reparations claims against pro-Nazi corporations, assisting plaintiffs to gain $8 billion from European banks and corporations which ripped off Holocaust victims’ funds or which were 1930s beneficiaries of slave labor […]

  In even the most exploitative African sites of repression and capital accumulation, sometimes corporations take a hit, and victims sometimes unite on continental lines instead of being divided-and-conquered.  Turns in the class struggle might have surprised Walter Rodney, the political economist whose 1972 classic How Europe Underdeveloped Africa provided detailed critiques of corporate looting. […]

  The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is currently holding an emergency summit in Rome that will be focusing on the ongoing global food crisis, but rejuvenating and protecting agriculturalists does not seem to be on the agenda. In the past couple of months, the attention of the world has been directed at the issue […]

Where is Harry Chapin when you need him?  The popular folk singer (Cat’s in the Cradle), who lost his life in an auto crash 27 years ago, was an indefatigable force of nature against hunger — in this country and around the world. To hear Harry speak out against the scourge of hunger in a […]

  The following statement was started by the participants in the Climate Change|Social Change conference.  Anyone who agrees with it is welcome to add their signature, and an updated list of signatories will be issued on a regular basis (contact: <[email protected]>.). It is being distributed to environmental, trade union, Indigenous, migrant, religious and community organisations […]

John Bellamy Foster, Marxist ecologist and editor of Monthly Review, addressed the Climate Change I Social Change Conference on “Capitalism and Climate Change,” Sydney, April 11, 2008.  Foster’s talk was part of a panel discussing “Climate Change and Its Social Roots.”  The conference was organized by Green Left Weekly.  Below is Foster’s talk in five […]

The world is teetering on the brink of unstoppable climate change.  Many now recognise the need for serious change in the way we produce and use energy, our transport systems, food production, urban design and forestry practices.  Yet politicians are still mouthing platitudes while allowing corporations to continue to profit from polluting our atmosphere and […]

The world appears to be on the verge of an economic crisis and, if it turns out to be as serious as some think, one that could rival or exceed the great panics of the late nineteenth century and the decade-long Great Depression.  The crisis began with unscrupulous mortgage lending on an enormous scale, leading […]