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System Change not Climate Change: A Revolutionary Response to Environmental Crisis
We are in the midst of the greatest environmental crisis humanity has ever seen. Yet despite politicians' rhetoric, repeated warnings from the scientific community and countless international conferences, the situation is getting worse. This book brings together articles from leading socialist and environmental activists who argue that the problem is the capitalist system. Whether it is capitalism's addiction to fossil fuels and plastic or the systematic destruction of the natural world through industrial farming, the system destroys the environment in its endless quest for profits. Mainstream environmental solutions are based on free-market solutions or place hope in business the very causes of the crisis in the first place. In contrast, these articles draw out how capitalism creates environmental destruction and why there needs to be revolutionary transformation of society.
Articles include editor Martin Empson on the "Can We Build a Sustainable Society?" and "Food, agriculture and Climate Change", Ian Angus on the "The Discovery and Rediscovery of Metabolic Rift", Kohei Saito on "Karl Marx’s Idea of Ecosocialism in the 21st Century", Ian Rappel on "Natural Capital: A Neoliberal Response to Species Extinction", Sarah Ensor on "Capitalism and the Biodiversity Crisis", Suzanne Jeffery on "Up Against the Clock: Climate, Social Movements and Marxism", Amy Leather on "Hopelessly Devoted to Fossil Fuels" and "Why Capitalism Loves Plastic", Carolyn Egan and Michelle Robidoux on "Canada’s Tar Sands, Indigenous Sovereignty and a Just Transition for Workers" and Camilla Royle on "Marxism and the Anthropocene".
Articles include editor Martin Empson on the "Can We Build a Sustainable Society?" and "Food, agriculture and Climate Change", Ian Angus on the "The Discovery and Rediscovery of Metabolic Rift", Kohei Saito on "Karl Marx’s Idea of Ecosocialism in the 21st Century", Ian Rappel on "Natural Capital: A Neoliberal Response to Species Extinction", Sarah Ensor on "Capitalism and the Biodiversity Crisis", Suzanne Jeffery on "Up Against the Clock: Climate, Social Movements and Marxism", Amy Leather on "Hopelessly Devoted to Fossil Fuels" and "Why Capitalism Loves Plastic", Carolyn Egan and Michelle Robidoux on "Canada’s Tar Sands, Indigenous Sovereignty and a Just Transition for Workers" and Camilla Royle on "Marxism and the Anthropocene".
180 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 2019
12 people are currently reading
362 people want to read
About the author
Martin Empson
19 books164 followersMartin Empson is based in Manchester, in the UK and is a long standing socialist and environmental activist.
His latest book is The Time of the Harvest has Come!: Revolution, Reformation and the German Peasants' War, published for the 500th anniversary of the great central European uprising, and placing it in the context of the rise of capitalism and the Reformation.
In 2019 Martin edited the book "System Change not Climate Change: A Revolutionary Response to Environmental Crisis". It was a collection of essays on the environment by Marxists from around the world including Kohei Saito, Ian Angus, Michelle Robidoux, Camilla Royle, Ian Rappel and Amy Leather.
His book "Kill All the Gentlemen: Class Struggle and Change in the English Countryside" was published Bookmarks Publications in 2018. It is a history of the fight by rural communities to defend their rights and traditions in the face of the development of capitalist relations.
His first book, "Land and Labour: Marxism, Ecology and Human History" was published by Bookmarks Publications in early 2014. Martin draws on a Marxist understanding of history to grapple with the contradictory potential of our relationship with our environment. In so doing he shows that human action is key, both to the destruction of nature and to the possibility of a sustainable solution to the ecological crises of the 21st century.
Martin is also the author several popular pamphlets, including "Marxism and Ecology: Capitalism, Socialism and the Future of the Planet", "Climate Change: Why Nuclear Power is not the Answer" and "The Great Climate COP Out: Why COP26 will not solve the environmental crisis".
His latest book is The Time of the Harvest has Come!: Revolution, Reformation and the German Peasants' War, published for the 500th anniversary of the great central European uprising, and placing it in the context of the rise of capitalism and the Reformation.
In 2019 Martin edited the book "System Change not Climate Change: A Revolutionary Response to Environmental Crisis". It was a collection of essays on the environment by Marxists from around the world including Kohei Saito, Ian Angus, Michelle Robidoux, Camilla Royle, Ian Rappel and Amy Leather.
His book "Kill All the Gentlemen: Class Struggle and Change in the English Countryside" was published Bookmarks Publications in 2018. It is a history of the fight by rural communities to defend their rights and traditions in the face of the development of capitalist relations.
His first book, "Land and Labour: Marxism, Ecology and Human History" was published by Bookmarks Publications in early 2014. Martin draws on a Marxist understanding of history to grapple with the contradictory potential of our relationship with our environment. In so doing he shows that human action is key, both to the destruction of nature and to the possibility of a sustainable solution to the ecological crises of the 21st century.
Martin is also the author several popular pamphlets, including "Marxism and Ecology: Capitalism, Socialism and the Future of the Planet", "Climate Change: Why Nuclear Power is not the Answer" and "The Great Climate COP Out: Why COP26 will not solve the environmental crisis".
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 2, 2019
This is a very useful book, providing a revolutionary Marxist perspective on the struggle against climate change.
What I found particularly interesting and informative was the detailed histories of such things as the use of coil, oil and plastic; detailed discussions of the science of climate change and biodiversity loss; and interventions into debates such as over the term 'Anthropocene'.
There are unfortunately a few downsides to the book. Due to the fact it is mostly a collection of previously published essays, we are treated to the same quotations from Marx and Engels, and the same anecdote about Marx being interested in the science of soil degradation, multiple times. Each chapter starts out at a very introductory level, rather than building on one another; two of the shorter chapters are almost unnecessary, mostly repeating arguments made in more detail in other chapters.
Possibly the biggest problem is that the essays within the book were originally written to inform already convinced Marxists about environmental science and history, not to intervene into climate debates to convince committed environmentalists of the need to be revolutionary socialists. While the environmental science in the book is detailed and well presented, the political arguments are cursory at best. Nowhere in the book is there a comprehensive and convincing discussion of: why capitalism can never be a rational or democratic system; why socialism would be a rational and democratic system; what exactly a revolution is and why it is necessary; the capitalist state and why it will take mass, revolutionary organising to overcome it; why reformism must be overcome and how; why it is necessary to be a committed, organised, revolutionary socialist. One chapter even bizarrely claimed Marx didn't have an answer to capitalist ecological crisis. (Hint: the answer was and is revolution.) Perhaps one of the many invocations of the story of Marx and soil could have been replaced with a discussion of the violence meted out to Standing Rock protestors, including attack dogs and limbs blown off with flash grenades, or the murders of environmental activists such as Berta Caceras, and an intervention could have been made into the question of how Extinction Rebellion should approach the police. For a book seemingly aimed at convincing climate activists to be revolutionary socialists, these drawbacks seem unfortunate and strange.
Nevertheless, this book is still excellent and I recommend it to anyone interested in not dying from climate change.
What I found particularly interesting and informative was the detailed histories of such things as the use of coil, oil and plastic; detailed discussions of the science of climate change and biodiversity loss; and interventions into debates such as over the term 'Anthropocene'.
There are unfortunately a few downsides to the book. Due to the fact it is mostly a collection of previously published essays, we are treated to the same quotations from Marx and Engels, and the same anecdote about Marx being interested in the science of soil degradation, multiple times. Each chapter starts out at a very introductory level, rather than building on one another; two of the shorter chapters are almost unnecessary, mostly repeating arguments made in more detail in other chapters.
Possibly the biggest problem is that the essays within the book were originally written to inform already convinced Marxists about environmental science and history, not to intervene into climate debates to convince committed environmentalists of the need to be revolutionary socialists. While the environmental science in the book is detailed and well presented, the political arguments are cursory at best. Nowhere in the book is there a comprehensive and convincing discussion of: why capitalism can never be a rational or democratic system; why socialism would be a rational and democratic system; what exactly a revolution is and why it is necessary; the capitalist state and why it will take mass, revolutionary organising to overcome it; why reformism must be overcome and how; why it is necessary to be a committed, organised, revolutionary socialist. One chapter even bizarrely claimed Marx didn't have an answer to capitalist ecological crisis. (Hint: the answer was and is revolution.) Perhaps one of the many invocations of the story of Marx and soil could have been replaced with a discussion of the violence meted out to Standing Rock protestors, including attack dogs and limbs blown off with flash grenades, or the murders of environmental activists such as Berta Caceras, and an intervention could have been made into the question of how Extinction Rebellion should approach the police. For a book seemingly aimed at convincing climate activists to be revolutionary socialists, these drawbacks seem unfortunate and strange.
Nevertheless, this book is still excellent and I recommend it to anyone interested in not dying from climate change.
September 2, 2020
Picked it up in a charity shop, attracted by the title "system change", and without enough of a read to spot that it's a Marxist book. Some of its chapters are articles that have been in hard left journals. Still, it's not a waste to have it.
This book admits Marx himself saying he was not a Marxist! On heavy industrial growth policies favoured by some of his followers, such as became the USSR's practice.
As a solidly non-Marxist reader, who puts aside as pie in the sky the faith that their system would do better, which all the writers take for granted without any supporting arguments: what I get from the book is critical angles on the wider environmental movement. What compromises with neoliberalism its leaders have made, from what thought directions or motives of personal influence, and how professional lobbying has bought the bigger green NGOs and made them dependent. Learned how the Chief Sealths speech is a hyped apocryphal myth.
Discusses the Anthropocene period + how to define it.
Most striking chapter is a good thorough critique of "natural capital", the practice of quantifying the environment into financial asset values. How it leads to trading in ownership of the assets.
A concept that Marxists actually disagree with, "tragedy of the commons", is fairly explained. That resources held in commons grow in use until a Malthusian crash point. Which argues against leaving common land unmanaged even if that had been tradition in lower populated earlier times.
So several insights that broaden your picture, that you might not get elsewhere.
This book admits Marx himself saying he was not a Marxist! On heavy industrial growth policies favoured by some of his followers, such as became the USSR's practice.
As a solidly non-Marxist reader, who puts aside as pie in the sky the faith that their system would do better, which all the writers take for granted without any supporting arguments: what I get from the book is critical angles on the wider environmental movement. What compromises with neoliberalism its leaders have made, from what thought directions or motives of personal influence, and how professional lobbying has bought the bigger green NGOs and made them dependent. Learned how the Chief Sealths speech is a hyped apocryphal myth.
Discusses the Anthropocene period + how to define it.
Most striking chapter is a good thorough critique of "natural capital", the practice of quantifying the environment into financial asset values. How it leads to trading in ownership of the assets.
A concept that Marxists actually disagree with, "tragedy of the commons", is fairly explained. That resources held in commons grow in use until a Malthusian crash point. Which argues against leaving common land unmanaged even if that had been tradition in lower populated earlier times.
So several insights that broaden your picture, that you might not get elsewhere.
September 25, 2019
A useful contribution to the debates thrown up by climate change and the growing movement against it. Many of the essays provide a refreshingly Marxist perspective on various aspects of the climate crisis.
August 10, 2019
An excellent book which contains a series of essays on the global catastrophe which we rIsk facing if we continue to put profit before people. One of its central arguments is that people are a part of nature, and to properly look after the majority of us, rather than just a privileged few, it is essential to change the system which both exploits and oppresses that majority and the natural world.
Within the system, there can only be limited reforms and environmental
measures. These are important to support but are not enough to stop the environmental disaster which is looming. In other words, pretty much what the title says. The chapters by different authors range from looking at the science involved, contemporary environmental movements and a look at would can be done in the future. Highly informative and readable.
I would also recommend Land & Labour by Martin Empson (the editor of this book).
Within the system, there can only be limited reforms and environmental
measures. These are important to support but are not enough to stop the environmental disaster which is looming. In other words, pretty much what the title says. The chapters by different authors range from looking at the science involved, contemporary environmental movements and a look at would can be done in the future. Highly informative and readable.
I would also recommend Land & Labour by Martin Empson (the editor of this book).
February 12, 2020
A solid collection of essays that keeps an eye on the prize - system change.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews