The Fourth Industrial Estate and the Rise of Eco-fascism
“How dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words", cries a petulant child who has just sailed across the Atlantic on a €4m yacht sponsored by some of the world's wealthiest capitalists to deliver a message to their political flunkies. When she says they stole her childhood, is she comping herself to the children of Aleppo? Or the kids held in offshore detention and border camps? To a 6 year old Somali girl clitoredectomized at age 6 without antiseptic, anaesthetic and pain killers? Or a 14 year old intern at Foxconn? When she says “Our house is on fire and we have to do something”, is she protesting the layoffs of municipal firefighters as Western countries embrace deep austerity cuts? And what does she want us to do, exactly? I don't see much in the way of suggestions. Not much cogent analysis, just a lot of hot air [sic], emotive language and familiar clichés. It’s almost like a cartoon version of Severn Suzuki's 1992 Rio Earth Summit speech. Or maybe a Marvel reboot. She certainly seems to be cast as some sort of super-hero. According to her mother Malena Ernman, young Greta Thunberg can see CO2 with the naked eye.
When I refer to myself as a crusty old cynic, I acknowledge my unqualified opinion on climate science almost certainly counts for nothing. But neither was I born yesterday.
I’ve watched the development of the environmental movement over the
last five decades and can certainly make some comments as a lay observer. Over the years I’ve seen the debate become more and more
politicised, with systemic bias, bad science and outright corruption
on both sides. In the 70s we were warned of an impending ice age, then in
the 80s there was the ozone scare, and then ‘global warming’ in
the 90s, which eventually gave way to ‘climate change’ in the 21st
century, a term so vague as to be completely meaningless, whose primary cause we
are now told is human CO2 emissions. While each of these iterations of what is essentially the same doom porn narrative asserts a causal relationship between
human activity and changes in the climate system, has anyone else
noticed how the emphasis has slowly shifted away from the degradation of
the natural environment, almost exclusively to the use of thermal coal?
As I’ve written elsewhere, the earth’s climate is a complex system. Aside from long term warming and cooling cycles, and external factors such as
solar cycles and gravity waves, there are many other variables in play.
Human carbon emissions certainly play a part. Ocean currents play a part. Tectonic and volcanic activity play a part. I'm pretty certain dumping billions of tons
of toxic waste in to the ocean plays a part, as does over-fishing, over-use of pesticides, poisoning aquifers, deforestation and land
clearing, desertification and loss of biodiversity. I don't presume
to understand the inter-relationships of such a complex system, then again you’d be lucky to find two scientists who agree on how
it all fits together. The strength of the alleged consensus points precisely
to the weakness of the argument. “97% of scientists agree that humans are causing global warming” is a pretty vacuous statement, really.
Pronouncements like “The
science is settled”, “97% of scientists agree”, “I believe in
climate change” and “You are a climate denier!” are not scientific. They belong to the discourse of
superstition. What we see here is the
logic of group conformity; the logic of the witch hunt; of the lynch mob, and woe betide anyone who dares to question the ever growing body of celebrities, experts, and politicians ready to deliver judgement. Eco-anxiety is a powerful force. People are being denied social justice, while climate justice is waved in their faces like a red rag. "A lot of people don't have much food on their table. But they got a lot of forks and knives. And they gotta cut something…" - Dylan
It's no surprise to see a 16 year old child front and centre of the whole shit show, Remember Nayirah Al-Sabah, the 15 year old Kuwaiti girl dragged before a US congressional committee to testify that Saddam's soldiers had pulled babies from incubators and left them to die on the cold floor? Nayirah turned out to be the daughter of Saud Nasser Al Saud Al Sabah, a Kuwaiti ambassador, and the story constructed as part of a public relations strategy financed by the Kuwaiti authorities. Remember little Bana al-Abed, whose viral tweets called for military escalation against the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the Russian Federation? Bana turned out to be the daughter of an al Nusra coordinator and arms dealer.
Which brings us to dear little Greta, the 16 year old Swede with Asperger's who has become the venerated poster child of a generation of anxious young eco-warriors, with a back story as murky as Bana and Nayirah. Like a turtle on a post, you know she didn't get there by herself. Genuine revolutionaries don't get to meet the Pope and speak at the UN. They usually get poisoned, or car bombed, or 'suicided'. Other researchers have gone to heroic lengths to expose the machinations of those responsible for this public relations exercise; the behind the scenes network of state, non-state and corporate actors committed to greening the world for profit. It's sad to see that a genuinely grass-roots environmental movement has been dumbed down with meaningless slogans like ‘climate change’, and co-opted by capitalists masquerading as environmentalists. If this were 1930s Germany they’d probably be calling themselves national socialists. It's the same type of logic.
The centrepiece of the current climate campaign is an historic lawsuit brought by the young Swedish activist and 15 other petitioners from 12 different countries aged between eight and 17, against five countries, France, Turkey, Germany, Brazil, and Argentina, who are accused of violating children’s rights by failing to take adequate and timely action against climate change. This would seem to be part of a much broader unfolding narrative, as finance capital goes head to head with industrial capital, globalism with economic nationalism, new money with old in a contest to see which will emerge as the dominant paradigm in a post-industrial economic landscape. With both Trump and BoJo currently facing electoral challenges, the timing of this globalist counter-coup could not be more obvious.
When it comes to factional infighting among the ruling class, it scarcely behoves us to choose a side, but obviously when a state is the plaintiff in a lawsuit, it is the taxpayers who end up footing the bill. Do we really need another precedent for waging war on the poor? And where else will it lead? We already bomb and occupy countries on all kinds of false premises. Will we now add environmental vandalism to the list?
Capitalism is in deep crisis. 40 years of parasitic austerity has created a downward spiral of deficient surplus value and diminished aggregate demand. Now automation threatens to make labour, and value itself, obsolete. If you think you're being screwed now, you ain't seen nothing compared to what's to come. But capitalists are nothing if not creative. There is currently $27 trillion locked up in global pension funds which central banks would love to get their hands on to reinvigorate a global economy in the throes of systemic failure, and what better way to justify this than the promise of investing in a green future? So don't be surprised when the eco-fascists come after your retirement plan. We owe it to future generations, right?
The Greek Historian Polybius instructed us to distinguish three things about war. The cause, the pretext, and the beginning. The climate emergency, real or imagined, is the pretext which the ruling class will use to rob us blind. International treaties which diminish state sovereignty and channel money away from social programs and into 'green infrastructure' are the beginning. The fundamental contradictions of capitalist production are the cause.
It's no surprise to see a 16 year old child front and centre of the whole shit show, Remember Nayirah Al-Sabah, the 15 year old Kuwaiti girl dragged before a US congressional committee to testify that Saddam's soldiers had pulled babies from incubators and left them to die on the cold floor? Nayirah turned out to be the daughter of Saud Nasser Al Saud Al Sabah, a Kuwaiti ambassador, and the story constructed as part of a public relations strategy financed by the Kuwaiti authorities. Remember little Bana al-Abed, whose viral tweets called for military escalation against the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the Russian Federation? Bana turned out to be the daughter of an al Nusra coordinator and arms dealer.
Which brings us to dear little Greta, the 16 year old Swede with Asperger's who has become the venerated poster child of a generation of anxious young eco-warriors, with a back story as murky as Bana and Nayirah. Like a turtle on a post, you know she didn't get there by herself. Genuine revolutionaries don't get to meet the Pope and speak at the UN. They usually get poisoned, or car bombed, or 'suicided'. Other researchers have gone to heroic lengths to expose the machinations of those responsible for this public relations exercise; the behind the scenes network of state, non-state and corporate actors committed to greening the world for profit. It's sad to see that a genuinely grass-roots environmental movement has been dumbed down with meaningless slogans like ‘climate change’, and co-opted by capitalists masquerading as environmentalists. If this were 1930s Germany they’d probably be calling themselves national socialists. It's the same type of logic.
The centrepiece of the current climate campaign is an historic lawsuit brought by the young Swedish activist and 15 other petitioners from 12 different countries aged between eight and 17, against five countries, France, Turkey, Germany, Brazil, and Argentina, who are accused of violating children’s rights by failing to take adequate and timely action against climate change. This would seem to be part of a much broader unfolding narrative, as finance capital goes head to head with industrial capital, globalism with economic nationalism, new money with old in a contest to see which will emerge as the dominant paradigm in a post-industrial economic landscape. With both Trump and BoJo currently facing electoral challenges, the timing of this globalist counter-coup could not be more obvious.
When it comes to factional infighting among the ruling class, it scarcely behoves us to choose a side, but obviously when a state is the plaintiff in a lawsuit, it is the taxpayers who end up footing the bill. Do we really need another precedent for waging war on the poor? And where else will it lead? We already bomb and occupy countries on all kinds of false premises. Will we now add environmental vandalism to the list?
Capitalism is in deep crisis. 40 years of parasitic austerity has created a downward spiral of deficient surplus value and diminished aggregate demand. Now automation threatens to make labour, and value itself, obsolete. If you think you're being screwed now, you ain't seen nothing compared to what's to come. But capitalists are nothing if not creative. There is currently $27 trillion locked up in global pension funds which central banks would love to get their hands on to reinvigorate a global economy in the throes of systemic failure, and what better way to justify this than the promise of investing in a green future? So don't be surprised when the eco-fascists come after your retirement plan. We owe it to future generations, right?
The Greek Historian Polybius instructed us to distinguish three things about war. The cause, the pretext, and the beginning. The climate emergency, real or imagined, is the pretext which the ruling class will use to rob us blind. International treaties which diminish state sovereignty and channel money away from social programs and into 'green infrastructure' are the beginning. The fundamental contradictions of capitalist production are the cause.
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