Alan Thornett
This book is a response to what is now a planetary ecological emergency. The special IPCC Report, published in October 2018, concluded that the increase in the temperature of the planet over preindustrial times due to global warming must be held below 1.5°C if dangerous destabilisations are to be avoided. This was the limit fought for in Paris by countries under direct threat from the rising sea level. It concluded moreover that this limit will be reached within 12 years if decisive action is not takenThe World Wild Life Funds 2018 Living Planet Report says that global wildlife numbers are in freefall and that we are indeed facing the greatest extinction of species since the age of the dinosaurs.The book insists that we are facing amultifaceted threat to life the planet. Crucial resources are running out. Pollution is choking the ecosystems. The oceans are now 30 per cent more acidic than in pre-industrial times, coral reefs are dying at an unprecedented rate.From a defence of the remarkable ecological content of classical Marxism – lost during the 20th century to the rise of productivism – the book is an appeal to the socialist left to take the ecological crisis far more seriously. It uncovers some fascinating stories of their lives and struggles.Thornett engages directly with major debates such as the rising human population and carbon pricing that remain unresolved on the socialist left. His approach is to promote a transitional approach, which separates him both from both those that think capitalism will find a solution and those who think revolutionary propaganda is enough. He argues that defending the planet against this crisis today requires broadest possible movement of those – the 91 per cent – who are victims of it. Not just the myriad activist campaigns and the big NGO but the trade union movement, the indigenous movements and peoples globally and social movements, such as La Via Campesina and the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), along with diverse campaigns and direct-action groups.
