The fundamental choice of what sort of society can no longer be left either to the In the environmental as in the social arena, reformist policies, often tainted by neoliberalism, have proved ineffective in reducing inequality and creating a world we can all live in.
The problem of the greenhouse effect poses most sharply the necessity of a rupture with the capitalist mode of production. The solutions advocated by the international institutions and various governments including those involving Green parties - are not sufficient to put a brake on the degradation of
Nobody, not even George Bush, denies that greenhouse gas emissions are growing (between 15 and 145 per cent since 1750 for the main three due to human activity.
Temperatures increased by 0.6°C during the 20th century, leading to a rise in water levels of 10 to 25 cm. Global warming of between 1.4 and 5.8°C is predicted between now and 2100, leading to a rise in water levels of from 9 to 88cm. Millions of people are threatened.
"Global warming is now a weapon of mass destruction", in the words of J. Houghton, a former official at the British meteorological office. Such a global problem demands a global response to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and overall energy growth, although not necessarily at the same rate for everybody.
The debates around the Kyoto protocol show how much the dominant states and the industrial lobbies resist such a prospect. Signed in 1998 by 119 countries, it needs to be ratified by 55 of them - totaling 55% of greenhouse gas emissions.
The refusal of the US is clear; it is out of the question that it should modify one iota of its energy consumption. On the basis of this refusal, Russia exerted pressure for a long time, before ratifying the protocol in the best conditions for her.
But whatever happens to the protocol, the process is already undermined from within. Its only positive aspects - a timetable for specific reductions - are questioned, as if there was no real urgency. On the other hand, various pressures are watering down objectives that were already very weak.
Official experts have shown that emissions need to be reduced by DCI cent between now and 2050 so that global warming does exceed 2°C over 19th century levels. This would necessitate an attack on inequalities between the centre and the periphery.
On average, emissions should be reduced from one tonne of carbon per person / per year to 0.4 tonnes. The US, Japan and Europe emit between 5 and 13 times this quantity, whereas most coun tries of the South emit less than 0.2 tonne per person.
The solutions envisaged by Kyoto amount to sticking plasters on a wooden legs, such as carbon sinks which 'allow' quantities of CO2 emitted due to absorption by green plants, or introduce pernicious mechanisms which seek to commodify gas emisnamely the global quantity of CO2 emission.
If we look at the problem from this angle, and agree the need for a massive reduction of these emissions, we also need to agree to transform the relations between states - putting an end to the ecological imperialism of the North over the South, the exiting modes of production and consumption and the precipitate disaster which the industrialists are creating.
The whole paradox of the Green parties stems from this fact. Their success is due to growing concern for the environment, but their position as market nor to authoritarian regimes back-up troops to the socialliberal parties annihilates any subversive potential in their initial positions.
A radical and popular ecology needs to pose an alternative to this impasse, opposing the productivism of the traditional workers' movement, but also stressing the radicalism of the ecologist critique, and seek to articulate strucRay Smith tural and industrial changes with changes in modes of life and consumption.
In other words, we have to breath life back into the alliance between changing the world' and 'changing life'
The rapid replacement of fossil fuels by renewable energies and priority for rail and water transport should then be linked to limitations on the use of lorries, the reconversion of polluting industries and an end, for example, to individual car use alternatives can be imagined like the associations for limited loans, avoiding the production of millions of vehicles and the immoderate use of the car).
Beyond this, measures to meet the dangers that threaten our planet necessi-