Papua New Guinea Climate Protest 2012
War, Migration, and the Climate Crisis: Only Communist Revolution Can Make a Difference
June 16— Over six million people have fled Sudan in recent months amid an expanding civil war. Millions more are near starvation. War and climate catastrophe go hand in hand.
Rising temperatures, erratic monsoon rains, lengthy droughts, and frequent flooding plague the masses of agricultural and pastoral people. War crimes include deliberate damage to ecosystems and water supplies. Conflict-driven internal migration intensifies demand for limited resources.
All this is a legacy of Egyptian and British imperialism. And of the nationalist politicians and generals who took over after “independence.”
The global climate crisis is real. Anywhere from a quarter of a billion people to over a billion will become climate refugees in the next decade.
“Every month since June 2023 has set a new monthly temperature record — and 2023 was, by far, the warmest year on record,” said a World Meteorological Organization official. “Heat-trapping greenhouse gases are unequivocally the main cause.”
In India, dehydrated birds are falling out of the sky. Workers in Delhi labor all day in temperatures over 49⁰C (120oF) for only 750 Indian rupees ($9). Wage slavery is increasingly deadly.
Torrential rains are also life-threatening. Massive flooding in Porto Alegre, Brazil this spring killed 175 people. It displaced hundreds of thousands and left over a million without electricity and drinking water.
The worst devastation was where the most Afro-Brazilians live. Racism forced these workers from the city center with “urban renewal” (gentrification). Homes they could afford were in areas flooded in 1941.
Then, floods swamped 15,000 Porto Alegre homes. This year’s floods took over 300,000 homes. In 1941, the river Guaíba swelled to 4.76 meters deep. This time, it reached 5.35 meters.
The climate crisis is not “human caused.” It is caused by capitalism’s unrelenting drive to maximize profits worldwide.
Papua New Guinea is the world’s 16th most at-risk country to climate change and natural hazards. An entire village there recently disappeared under a massive landslide that killed 2000 people. Extraordinary rainfall triggered it. Another result of the carbon that capitalism pours into the atmosphere.
But international mining, timber, and palm oil companies had cleared the forest. They destroyed the dense network of tree roots that held the soil in place. Imperialism, not “human activity,” causes climate change.
Record-breaking heat waves are hitting much of the US. Life-threatening floods drowned Florida for three days. Unseasonal snow is expected in the Pacific Northwest.
Capitalists try to make us believe they can reform their system to solve their climate crisis. Sometimes it’s “greenwashing.” That means lying about supposed environmental benefits of a product so companies can continue polluting while profiting off well-intentioned consumers.
For example, in the early 2000s, fossil fuel company BP coined the term “carbon footprint.” It launched a calculator for individuals to assess their personal emissions. But its own emissions were among the highest on the planet.
Liberal climate activists mean well. But they focus on making demands on capitalist governments. That can’t work because those governments (“the State”) exist to serve the capitalist class and its competitive quest for maximum profits. Now, in the early stages of World War III, the US rulers and other imperialist powers are throwing everything they can into war preparations.
And that war is already destroying the environment in Gaza, Ukraine, and the Pacific, as well as Sudan.
The solution is not reform but communist revolution. Communist society will rest on production and distribution for the needs of the masses. Our needs include a livable planet! Wherever and whenever we lead the fight for power, we’ll mobilize people to find ways to mitigate the effects of capitalism’s climate crisis. And then begin to reverse it.
The climate emergency is another reason why, right now, we need a bigger party of people like you. Who know capitalism can’t work for us. Who are ready to talk about taking responsibility for some aspect of communist work. Is that you? Get in touch!