File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9711, message 126


Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 11:02:55 +0000
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: M-I: Global warming, err freezing, err revolution, err fascism, ...


Some quotes from Siddarth's forwarded post indicate the true moment of
the glbal warming scenario:

"This scenario was based on a projection of known, but as yet
unquantified, biological feedback mechanisms"

Translation: we made it up

"This scenario is a plausible extrapolation from what is known"

Translation: we don't know what we're talking about

"The precise global dynamics and possible effects, both long-and
short-term, of huge increases in greenhouse gases are unclear."

Translation: we don't know what we're talking about

"There is a natural cycle that keeps CO2 concentrations relatively
balanced."

Translation: but we're going to ignore it

"This chain of events is a dark possibility. It is not a prediction."

Translation: this is a load of old hogwash which we don't want to be
held to account for, but we would like to scare you into giving more
donations to Greenpeace.

One obvious question: the extrapolations of the impact of the greenhouse
effect upon the natural cycle of CO2 absorption project a constant Earth
temperature as a base line. Is that accurate?

And then there is the original Prophet of Doom himself:


"The first truly GLOBAL effect of global warming is not going to show up
in the climate, but in the aggravated and multiform crises which are now
already deepening the chaos and disarray into which whole regions are
sinking." 

What? Did I miss something? Global warming is *already* having an
effect? What was the measurable change in temperature? What was the
demonstrable climactic effect? What are the mediating links between
these effects and social crises, and which social crises are we talking
about anyway? This is use the phrase Global Warming in the same way that
Christians talk of 'God's mysterious ways' or others of 'kismet' or
'fate' - any unforseen circumstance, any real or imagined fear is
attributed to the fickle finger of fate Global Warming. This is not
science but old testament prophecy, as we can see from the following:

"War or revolution? Disease, famine, or militant, disciplined socialism,
fought for in the form of peoples' wars and popular risings? Organising
the masses and seizing state power in the disintegrating peripheries, or
succumbing to US fascism? Those are the issues."

This is about as objective an analysis as Samuel Huntingdon's Clash of
Civilisations: Wildly speculative thinking of a Nietzchean cast. All of
the features that you project into the future are simple extrapolations
from the past - many of which have already been substantially changed by
events. US fascism was never a powerful social force (Father Coughlin?),
and today it seems to be the reserve of imitation American skinheads.
And who is talking about organising the masses and seizing state power
today? "Disciplined socialism", "people's wars" - this is like being
stuck in a time machine, and it is not going into the future. The
backdrop of an assumed ecological crisis seems to serve the purpose of
supplementing your insurrectionary fantasies, where the world communist
movement failed you. 

Trends from quite distinctive levels of economic, epedemiological,
agricultural and political spheres are all lumped in together willy-
nilly. But in this eclectic mix, you utterly fail to suggest what the
linkages between these might be. Are we supposed to take it on trust? Is
this a secret only known by the prohet? Did the spirits whisper it to
you on the mountain?

And what does the prophet offer the faithful in return for their faith?

"it will be barracks socialism for decades, perhaps longer than a
century, until the world population falls to a sustainable level". 

Pol Pot meets Heaven's Gateway.
-- 
James Heartfield


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