The current climate crisis emerged out of a specific set of historical and economic factors which have maintained capitalist accumulation and class inequalities to this day. Jason W. Moore, geographer and Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, explains how the development of capitalism fueled European colonialism and Western imperialism, resulting in a novel form of climate destruction.
In part 2, historian and geographer Jason W. Moore explains why climate and revolutionary struggles must understand capitalist dynamics and deploy a language of universal class solidarity to overthrow transnational power structures perpetuating the climate crisis.
Dr. Shana Marshall is the Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University in D.C. She highlights a crucial element of financing the military and defense technology sector by venture capitalist and private equity firms with dubious financial and political interests. She explains how the business models of these firms shape the sort of weaponry produced in the U.S., such as an increase in drones and AI-powered systems and the “attritable” form of warfare that is waged as a result. Furthermore, she argues that U.S. policy in the Middle East and American support for authoritarian regimes has had dire consequences for the people in the region.
Widespread corruption in Lebanon is fostered by the country’s ruling class, whose business interests are enmeshed with those of international finance. Nadim Houry, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, explains how Lebanon’s culture of political impunity is tied to the reconstruction agreements put in place in 1990, at the end of the 15-year civil war. The ongoing political deadlock shields the authorities from scrutiny and allows for vulture capitalists such as the former governor of Lebanon’s Central Bank, Riad Salameh, to embezzle the country’s resources. At the same time, ordinary people are faced with crushing inflation.
Justin Joque is a visualization librarian at the University of Michigan and the author of the book Revolutionary Mathematics: Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, and the Logic of Capitalism. His book examines the statistical models on which our algorithms, machine learning, and financial systems are built, highlighting the mechanisms of abstraction which lend these models an air of misleading objectivity. Can statistical models be used towards emancipatory aims?
Jomo K.S. warns U.S. policies are driving the world towards war and depression, leaving developing countries with a strong vested interest to reconvene a new non-aligned movement and strengthen democratic institutions of global governance. Lynn Fries interviews Jomo K.S. on GPEnewsdocs.
Talia Baroncelli and Paul Jay discuss Russian threats to use tactical nuclear weapons against Western Europe and what role China can play in solving the existential crisis of climate and threats of nuclear war—part 2 of 2.
Éric Pineault, professor of ecological economics at the Institute of Environmental Sciences at the University of Quebec in Montreal, explains how the fires raging in Canada are a corollary of the paradigm termed Extreme Oil. He discusses various oil and gas projects across North America, as well as the Canadian government’s support for the Trans Mountain Pipeline project, and how terms such as “net zero” and “carbon neutral” are misleading and conveniently serve Big Oil’s aims.
His recent book A Social Ecology of Capital presents an empirical analysis of capitalist societies, which both builds on and enhances Marxist theories by accounting for the energy extraction and colonization of ecosystems, a characteristic of what he terms our “fossil-industrial” society. His conception of capitalist metabolism outlines extractivism, production, consumption, and waste dissipation, which leads to an absorption of surplus energy, capital accumulation, and profit maximization. Most importantly, how is this understanding of social ecology useful for furthering a project of emancipation?
Why net zero commitments are empty and dangerously misleading if we continue to burn fossil fuels. Talia Baroncelli speaks to retired physician and IPCC climate expert Peter Carter about how ongoing wars, illegal mineral wealth extraction in active conflict zones, and the plunder of resources by transnational corporations are literally killing the planet.
Steve Keen has been exposing the ways mainstream neoclassical economists—including winners of the so-called Nobel Prize in Economics— have been arriving at their absurdly optimistic numbers regarding climate change, and they’re terrifying. In this interview with Colin Bruce Anthes, Keen goes through prevalent examples in detail and argues that these numbers and the methods behind them must simply be thrown in the garbage.
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