John Bellamy Foster

COVID-19 has forced a re-evaluation of nearly every aspect of how we fight for social and ecological justice. Yet, when it comes to the issue of climate change it can seem as if the virus has changed everything without changing anything at all.

Capitalism is not just a system, it is a system of social relations and socio-metabolic processes, and we have to change many of those relations and processes radically from within and very quickly in order to deal with the current ecological emergency.

Socialist thought is re-emerging at the forefront of the movement for global ecological and social change.

China’s environmental problems are massive and growing, but the Chinese leadership has made significant steps toward a more sustainable development. This emphasis has emerged out of a broad socialist perspective, influenced by both Marxian analysis and China’s own distinct history, culture, and vernacular.

The Occupy Wall Street movement arose in response to the economic crisis of capitalism, and the way in which the costs of this were imposed on the 99 percent rather than the 1 percent. But “the highest expression of the capitalist threat,” as Naomi Klein has said, is its destruction of the planetary environment. So it is imperative that we critique that as well. (Also – video of a talk by Fred Magdoff)

Environmentalists, especially in wealthy countries, have often approached the question of environmental sustainability by stressing population and technology, while deemphasizing the middle term in the well-known IPAT (environmental Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology) formula. The reasons for this are not difficult to see. Within capitalist society, there has always been a tendency to blame anything but the economic system itself for ecological overshoot.