The worst case scenario is that human beings can’t survive. – Common electrical problems_ Hardware information_ Explosion proof industry information release

　　Capitalism’s Strategies to Deal with Change

　　There has never been a lack of proposals to deal with ecological destruction, including the looming global warming crisis due to the reckless increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A large part of these strategies have a common feature: they are designed by capitalism, the system that rules the world, and represent its interests.

　　It is not surprising that the system that rules the world and is responsible for the global ecological crisis sets limits for the debate about this crisis. Because capital controls the means of production of knowledge just as it controls the means of production of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Therefore, its politicians, bureaucrats, economists and professors have made countless suggestions, all of which are different expressions of the following theme: the damage of the world ecology can be repaired without destroying the existing market mechanism and controlling the accumulation system of the world economy.

　　But one cannot serve two masters-the integrity of the earth and the interests of capitalism. One of them must be abandoned, and history has shown the choice of most policy makers. Therefore, there is every reason to fundamentally question the ability of existing measures to prevent ecological disasters.

　　In fact, apart from the effect of whitewashing, the improvement in the past 35 years is just a huge failure. Isolated progress did occur, but it was inevitably swept away by the ruthless expansion of capitalism and the chaos of its production.

　　An example can prove this failure: in the first four years of the 21st century, the global annual carbon emissions were almost three times that of the 1990s, despite the introduction of the Kyoto Protocols in 1997.

　　"Kyoto Protocol" adopts two means: using the "cap and trade" system of trading emission rights to try to reduce certain emissions; Carry out "clean development mechanism" projects in backward countries to offset the emissions of highly industrialized countries. These measures all rely on the market mechanism, that is to say, first of all, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has become a commodity controlled by interest groups that have created global warming. Polluters are not forced to reduce carbon emissions, but are allowed to use financial resources to control the carbon market for their own use, including destructive mining to obtain more carbon-based fuels. There is also no limit on the number of emission rights that governments in collusion with each other can issue.

　　Because it is impossible to confirm and evaluate the results, the management system of Kyoto Protocol not only can’t control emissions, but provides a lot of opportunities for all kinds of evasion and deception. Even the Wall Street Journal said in March 2007 that emissions trading "will make some giant enterprises make a lot of money, but don’t believe that this crossword puzzle can improve global warming for a moment".

　　The Bali Climate Conference in 2007 paved the way for more serious abuses in the following period. The Bali meeting completely avoided talking about the radical carbon emission reduction target (90% reduction in 2050) proposed by the most advanced climate science; It gives the World Bank the jurisdiction over the emission reduction plan and abandons the people of backward countries on the chopping block of capital; Making it easier to compensate for carbon pollution.

　　In order to safeguard and maintain the future of our mankind, we need a revolutionary change that brings all kinds of struggles together into a greater struggle against capital itself. This great struggle cannot be just negative-just against capitalism. It must call for and establish a different society, which is ecological socialism.

　　Alternatives to Ecological Socialism

　　The goal of eco-socialist movement is to prevent and reverse the ecological extinction of capitalism, especially the catastrophic process of global warming, and to build a radical and practical social system to replace capitalism. Ecological socialism is based on a changed economic system, which is based on the values of non-gold rights that pursue social justice and ecological balance. It criticizes both capitalist "market ecologism" and productivist socialism, because they both ignore the balance and limit of the earth. It redefines the way and goal of socialism under the framework of ecology and democracy.

　　Ecological socialism needs a revolutionary social transformation, which means limiting growth and changing demand by fundamentally changing the economic orientation from quantity to quality and emphasizing use value rather than exchange value.

　　This goal requires not only democratic decision-making in the economic field, but also collectivization of the means of production. Only collective decision-making and collectivization of means of production can provide a long-term perspective necessary for the balance and sustainability of our society and nature.

　　Rejecting productism and changing the economic orientation from focusing on quantity to focusing on quality requires rethinking the nature and objectives of production and economic activities as a whole. Necessary creative, unproductive and reproductive human activities, such as home, parenting, care, education for children and adults, and art, will be the key values in the eco-socialist economic system.

　　Clean air and water, fertile soil, and universally available, renewable and pollution-free energy without pesticides are the basic human rights and natural rights defended by ecological socialism. Society exercises public freedom and fulfills public obligations through non-authoritarian collective decision-making at local, regional, national and international levels. This freedom of decision-making will free people from the economic "law" of the alienation of the growth-oriented capitalist system.

　　In order to avoid global warming and other dangers that threaten human and ecological survival, the whole industrial and agricultural sectors must be suppressed, reduced or reorganized, while other sectors must be developed, and at the same time, enough jobs should be provided for all. Such a radical reform cannot be achieved without a democratic plan for production and exchange and collective control of the means of production. Democratic decision-making must replace the control of capitalist enterprises, investors and banks on investment and technological development in order to serve the long-term common interests of society and nature.

　　The most oppressed part of human society, the poorest and indigenous people must fully participate in this eco-socialist revolution, so as to restore the tradition of ecological sustainability and give voice to those who are ignored by capitalism. Because the people in backward countries and the poor in general are the first victims of capitalist destruction, their struggles and demands help to define the outline of an ecologically and economically sustainable society under construction. Similarly, gender equality is an indispensable part of ecological socialism, and the women’s movement has always been the most active and powerful opponent of capitalist oppression. Other potential agents of the revolutionary change of ecological socialism exist in every society.

　　Without the active support of the majority of the population for the program of eco-socialism, this process can’t start. Workers-workers, peasants, landless peasants and the unemployed-struggle for social justice is inseparable from the struggle for environmental justice. Capitalism, social and ecological exploitation and environmental pollution are the common enemies of nature and workers.

　　Radical reforms proposed by ecological socialism include:

　　1. In the energy system, clean energy under the supervision of the Community-wind energy, geothermal energy, tidal energy, and most importantly solar energy-should be used to replace carbon-based fuels and biofuels;

　　2. In the transportation system, private trucks and cars should be greatly reduced and replaced by free and efficient public transportation;

　　3. The current modes of production, consumption and construction are all based on waste, automatic elimination, competition and pollution, and we advocate replacing them with durable and recyclable products and developing green agriculture;

　　4. In terms of food production and distribution, it is necessary to safeguard local food sovereignty as much as possible, eliminate polluting agro-industrial enterprises, create renewable agricultural ecosystems, and strive to restore soil fertility.

　　Making theoretical and practical efforts to achieve the goal of green socialism does not mean that we should not strive for concrete and urgent improvement at present. Although we have no illusions about "clean capitalism", we must try our best to exert influence on the ruling class-government, enterprises and international organizations-and promote some basic but necessary direct changes:

　　Mandatory and substantial reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

　　Develop clean energy

　　Develop an extensive free public transport system.

　　Gradually replace trucks with trains.

　　Establish pollution purification projects

　　:: Eliminating atomic energy and war expenditures

　　The above and similar demands are the core of the agendas of the Global Justice movement and the World Social Forum. Since Seattle in 1999, it has promoted social and environmental movements to a common struggle against the capitalist system.

　　Conference rooms and treaty negotiations can’t stop environmental damage: only large-scale actions can turn things around. Workers in urban and rural areas, people in backward countries, and aborigines all over the world are the front lines to fight against environmental and social injustice, multinational companies that bring exploitation and pollution, toxic predatory agro-industrial enterprises, invasive genetically modified seeds and biofuels that will only aggravate the food crisis. We should further deepen these social ecological movements and establish unity between the anti-capitalist ecological mobilization of developed countries and backward countries.

　　This Declaration on Ecological Socialism is a call to action. The deep-rooted ruling class is powerful, but capitalism is becoming more and more bankrupt financially and ideologically every day, unable to overcome the economic, ecological, social, food and other crises caused by itself. The radical opposition is full of vitality. At all levels-local, regional and international-we are striving to establish an alternative system based on social and ecological justice.

　　December 7, 2008

　　Attached to the original English:

　　Belem Ecosocialist Declaration Posted on December 16, 2008

　　This Declaration was prepared by a committee elected at the Paris Ecosocialist Conference of 2007 (Ian Angus, Joel Kovel, Michael L?wy), with the help of Danielle Follett. It will be distributed at the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil, in January 2009.

　　The Belem Ecosocialist Declaration

　　“The world is suffering from a fever due to climate change,

　　and the disease is the capitalist development model.”

　　— Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, September 2007

　　Humanity’s Choice

　　Humanity today faces a stark choice: ecosocialism or barbarism.

　　We need no more proof of the barbarity of capitalism, the parasitical system that exploits humanity and nature alike. Its sole motor is the imperative toward profit and thus the need for constant growth. It wastefully creates unnecessary products, squandering the environment’s limited resources and returning to it only toxins and pollutants. Under capitalism, the only measure of success is how much more is sold every day, every week, every year – involving the creation of vast quantities of products that are directly harmful to both humans and nature, commodities that cannot be produced without spreading disease, destroying the forests that produce the oxygen we breathe, demolishing ecosystems, and treating our water, air and soil like sewers for the disposal of industrial waste.

　　Capitalism’s need for growth exists on every level, from the individual enterprise to the system as a whole. The insatiable hunger of corporations is facilitated by imperialist expansion in search of ev er greater access to natural resources, cheap labor and new markets. Capitalism has always been ecologically destructive, but in our lifetimes these assaults on the earth have accelerated. Quantitative change is giving way to qualitative transformation, bringing the world to a tipping point, to the edge of disaster. A growing body of scientific research has identified many ways in which small temperature increases could trigger irreversible , runaway effects – such as rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet or the release of methane buried in permafrost and beneath the ocean – that would make catastrophic climate change inevitable.

　　Left unchecked, global warming will have devastating effects on human, animal and plant life. Crop yields will drop drastically, leading to famine on a broad scale. Hundreds of millions of people will be displaced by droughts in some areas and by rising ocean levels in others. C haotic, unpredictable weather will become the norm. Air, water and soil will be poisoned. Epidemics of malaria, cholera and even deadlier diseases will hit the poorest and most vulnerable members of every society.

　　The impact of the ecological crisis is felt most severely by those whose lives have already been ravaged by imperialism in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and indigenous peoples everywhere are especially vulnerable. Environmental destruction and climate change constitute an act of aggression by the rich against the poor.

　　Ecological devastation, resulting from the insatiable need to increase profits, is not an accidental feature of capitalism: it is built into the system’s DNA and cannot be reformed away.Profit-oriented production only considers a short-term horizon in its investment decisions, and cannot take into account the long-term health and stability of the environment. Infinite economic expansion is incompatible with finite and fragile ecosystems, but the capitalist economic system cannot tolerate limits on growth; its constant need to expand will subvert any limits that might be imposed in the name of “sustainable development.” Thus the inherently unstable capit alist system cannot regulate its own activity, much less overcome the crises caused by its chaotic and parasitical growth, because to do so would require setting limits upon accumulation – an unacceptable option for a system predicated upon the rule: Grow or Die!

　　If capitalism remains the dominant social order, the best we can expect is unbearable climate conditions, an intensification of social crises and the spread of the most barbaric forms of class rule, as the imperialist powers fight among themselves and with the global south for continued control of the world’s diminishing resources.

　　At worst, human life may not survive.

　　Capitalist Strategies for Change

　　There is no lack of proposed strategies for contending with ecological ruin, including the crisis of global warming looming as a result of the reckless increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The great majority of these strateg ies share one common feature: they are devised by and on behalf of the dominant global system, capitalism.

　　It is no surprise that the dominant global system which is responsible for the ecological crisis also sets the terms of the debate about this crisis, for capital commands the means of production of knowledge, as much as that of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Accordingly, its politicians, bureaucrats, economists and professors send forth an endless stream of proposals, all variations on the theme that the world’s ecological damage can be repaired without disruption of market mechanisms and of the system of accumulation that commands the world economy.

　　But a person cannot serve two masters – the integrity of the earth and the profitability of capitalism. One must be abandoned, and history leaves little question about the allegiances of the vast majority of policy-makers. There is every reason, therefore, to radically doubt the capacity of established measures to check the slide to ecological catastrophe.

　　And indeed, beyond a cosmetic veneer, the reforms over the past thirty-five years have been a monstrous failure. Isolated improvements do of course occur, but they are inevitably overwhelmed and swept away by the ruthless expansion of the system and the chaotic character of its production.

　　One example demonstrates the failure: in the first four years of the 21st Century, global carbon emissions were nearly three times as great per annum as those of the decade of the 1990s, despite the appearance of the Kyoto Protocols in 1997.

　　Kyoto employs two devices: the “Cap and Trade” system of trading pollution credits to achieve certain reductions in emissions, and projects in the global south – the so-called “Clean Development Mechanisms” – to offset emissions in the highly industrialized nations. These inst ruments all rely upon market mechanisms, which means, first of all, that atmospheric carbon dioxide becomes a commodity under the control of the same interests that created global warming. Polluters are not compelled to reduce their carbon emissions, but allowed to use their power over money to control the carbon market for their own ends, which include the devastating exploration for yet more carbon-based fuels. Nor is there a limit to the amount of emission credits which can be issued by compliant governments.

　　Since verification and evaluation of results are impossible, the Kyoto regime is not only incapable of controlling emissions, it also provides ample opportunities for evasion and fraud of all kinds. As even the Wall Street Journal put it in March, 2007, emissions trading “would make money for some very large corporations, but don’t believe for a minute that this charade would do much about global warming.”

　　The Bali climate meetings in 2007 opened the way for even greater abuses in the period ahead. Bali avoided any mention of the goals for drastic carbon reduction put forth by the best climate science (90% by 2050); it abandoned the peoples of the global south to the mercy of capital by giving jurisdiction over the process to the World Bank; and made offsetting of carbon pollution even easier.

　　In order to affirm and sustain our human future, a revolutionary transformation is needed, where all particular struggles take part in a greater struggle against capital itself. This larger struggle cannot remain merely negative and anti-cap italist. It must announce and build a different kind of society, and this is ecosocialism.

　　The EcosocialistAlternative

　　The ecosocialist movement aims to stop and to reverse the disastrous process of global warming in particular and of capitalist ecocide in general, and to construct a radical and practical alternative to the capitalist system. Ecosocialism is grounded in a transformed economy founded on the non-mo netary values of social justice and ecological balance. It criticizes both capitalist “market ecology” and productivist socialism, which ignored the earth’s equilibrium and limits. It redefines the path and goal of socialism within an ecological and democratic framework.

　　Ecosocialism involves a revolutionary social transformation, which will imply the limitation of growth and the transformation of needs by a profound shift away from quantitative and toward qualitative economic c riteria, an emphasis on use-value instead of exchange-value.

　　These aims require both democratic decision-making in the economic sphere, enabling society to collectively define its goals of investment and production, and the collectivization of the means of production. Only collective decision-making and ownership of production can offer the longer-term perspective that is necessary for the balance and sustainability of our social and natural systems.

　　The rejection of productivism and the shift away from quantitative and toward qualitative economic criteria involve rethinking the nature and goals of production and economic activity in general. Essential creative, non-productive and reproductive human activities, such as householding, child-rearing, care, child and adult education, and the arts, will be key values in an ecosocialist economy.

　　Clean air and water and fertile soil, as well as universal access to chemical-free food and renewable, non-polluting energy sources, are basic human and natural rights defended by ecosocialism. Far from being “despotic,” collective policy-making on the local, regional, national and international levels amounts to society’s exercise of communal freedom and responsibility. This freedom of decision constitutes a liberation from the alienating economic “laws” of the growth-oriented capitalist system.

　　To avoid global warming and other dangers threatening human and ecological survival, entire sectors of industry and agriculture must be suppressed, reduced, or restructured and others must be developed, while providing full employment for all. Such a radical transformation is impossible without collective control of the means of production and democrat ic planning of production and exchange. Democratic decisions on investment and technological development must replace control by capitalist enterprises , investors and banks, in order to serve the long-term horizon of society’s and nature’s common good.

　　The most oppressed elements of human society, the poor and indigenous peoples, must take full part in the ecosocialist revolution, in order to revitalize ecologically sustainable traditions and give voice to those whom the capitalist system cannot hear. Because the peoples of the global south and the poor in general are the first victims of capitalist destruction, their struggles and demands will help define the contours of the ecologically and economically sustainable society in creation. Similarly, gender equality is integral to ecosocialism, and women’s movements have been among the most active and vocal opponents of capitalist oppression. Other potential agents of ecosocialist revolutionary change exist in all societies.

　　Such a process cannot begin without a revolutionary transformation of social and political structures based on the active support, by the majority of the population, of an ecosocialist program. The struggle of labour – workers, farmers, the landless and the unemployed – for social justice is inseparable from the struggle for environmental justice. Capitalism, socially and ecologically exploitative and polluting, is the enemy of nature and of labour alike.

　　Ecosocialism proposes radical transformations in:

　　To theorize and to work toward realizing the goal of green socialism does not mean that we should not also fight for concrete and urgent reforms right now. Without any illusions about “clean capitalism,” we must work to impose on the powers that be – governments, corporations, international institutions – some elementary but essential immediate changes:

　　drastic and enforceable reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases,
development of clean energy sources,
provision of an extensive free public transportation system,
progressive replacement of trucks by trains,
creation of pollution clean-up programs,
elimination of nuclear energy, and war spending.

These and similar demands are at the heart of the agenda of the Global Justice movement and the World Social Forums, which have promoted, since Seattle in 1999, the convergence of social and environmental movements in a common struggle against the capitalist system.

　　Environmental devastation will not be stopped in conference rooms and treaty negotiations: only mass action can make a difference. Urban and rural work ers, peoples of the global south and indigenous peoples everywhere are at the forefront of this struggle against environmental and social injustice, fighting exploitative and polluting multinationals, poisonous and disenfranchising agribusinesses, invasive genetically modified seeds, biofuels that only aggravate the current food crisis. We must further these social-environmental movements and build solidarity between anticapitalist ecological mobilizations in the North and the South.

　　This Ecosocialist Declaration is a call to action. The entrenched ruling classes are powerful, yet the capitalist system reveals itself every day more financially and ideologically bankrupt, unable to overcome the economic, ecological, social, food and other crises it engenders. And the forces of radical opposition are alive and vital. On all levels, local, regional and international, we are fighting to create an alternative system based in social and ecological justice.