I hope you are enjoying saving 16 cents on your 4th of July cookout this weekend. Not that I endorse celebrating the 4th of July in any way, shape or form - but that 16 cents really means a lot. Thanks, Biden.
The Pacific Northwest just saw the most extreme heatwave in history and it isn’t over yet.
The Gulf of Mexico is on fire from a burst pipeline.
Wildfires in British Columbia are creating their own weather - pyrocumulonimbus clouds.
Alaska just saw record flooding.
Russia is having its own record setting heatwave.
Hurricane Elsa is breaking records as the earliest fifth named hurricane in history
I received push back last fall when I wrote As The Climate Burns Biden’s Climate Plan Comes Up Short for Due Dissidence. In that article, I analyzed the differences between Biden’s climate proposal and the Green New Deal and came to the conclusion that “Biden’s milquetoast incrementalism that does not truly address the transportation sector, ban fracking, cut back on the military, or adequately fund research and development is no solution to this threat.” Today, it has become clear that Biden does not intend to even carry out the weak proposals he ran on.
In February, the pentagon announced that “US forces in Syria are not guarding oil fields as previously ordered by former President Donald Trump, and are instead focused on fighting the remnants of the Islamic State (IS) group.” This appeared to be a welcome shift from providing cover for oil companies exploiting the middle east. It was a complete lie. How do we know this? Because, as reported by Al Jazeera, on June 28, “The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Iran-backed armed groups fired several shells at a US base in eastern Syria’s Al-Omar oil field, causing damage but no casualties.” The US responded with airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, killing multiple civilians. This is not defending freedom, this is defending corporate interests.
These were not the only combat missions flown in the Middle East recently. It has been largely ignored that, as reported on by CNN on June 23, “United States Marine Corps fighter jets aboard a British aircraft carrier flew combat missions over the Middle East this week -- the first time US warplanes have gone into combat from a foreign warship since World War II, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday.” The target of these missions has not been released. On his campaign website, which surprisingly has not yet been scrubbed from the internet, Joe Biden promised that he “will end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, which have cost us untold blood and treasure.” His actions tell another tale and it was just recently reported by PBS that Biden’s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan includes leaving troops in Afghanistan. This means that not only did Biden pushback the date for the withdrawal, he actually lied about withdrawing at all.
Afghanistan is a touchy subject for Biden
An Exxon-Mobil lobbyist admitted that their support for a carbon tax is just a public relations ploy and that they are actively undermining efforts to combat climate change. They need little help from the Biden administration in this, as Branko Marcetic reported for Jacobin the following:
According to statistics from the Bureau of Land Management, from the start of February to the end of April, the administration approved 1,179 drilling permits on federal lands, not far from the four-year high of nearly 1,400 approved over a similar three-month period at the end of Trump’s term.
In addition to this, the Biden administration approved 207 offshore drilling permits during the same period. Biden has kept the Dakota Access Pipeline open, Enbridge Line 3 continues to move forward in spite of protests, and is defending Trump’s approval of the “Willow” drilling project in Alaska. An leaked draft of the IPCC report on climate change says, “Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems…Humans cannot.” It goes on to say “We need transformational change operating on processes and behaviours at all levels: individual, communities, business, institutions and governments” and “We must redefine our way of life and consumption.”
Meanwhile, the Sunrise Movement, which supported and campaigned for Biden and celebrated his performative actions, is fundraising off of their protest at the Whitehouse while largely ignoring the actions of the water protectors against Enbridge Line 3. The climate organization 350 action was also duped by Biden. The Bernie campaigns have shown us that there is no way forward inside electoral politics. We cannot win in a rigged system, no matter how much money we raise. Pushing Biden left is a fool’s errand, he must be dragged kicking and screaming out of power and replaced with true people’s democracy. The power of the people does not lie within bourgeois democracy, but in their numbers and the ability to withhold labor and disrupt capital accumulation.
The only reasonable conclusion to be made is that capitalism must stopped and replaced with an eco-socialist system. That is the only transformation change that can prevent the total collapse of civilization and slow down this extinction level event. We cannot vote our way out of this crisis. How long must we wait before the people become conscious that revolution is the only hope for survival? The climate crisis will hit the working class hardest. The global proletariat must unite in opposition to war and climate change. We don’t need green capitalism, we need the Red Deal.