Daily News 09/06

The Capitalist Envronmental Crisis A collection of Essays and Quotes

A Single AI AI Consumes and Pollutes Water

Capitalism & Climate Change: The Science and Politics of Global Warming The climate crisis is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. Climate change threatens not only global civilization, but the very survival of our species and many others. The first part of this book gives a lucid explanation of the science of global warming and climate change. Drawing on a wide range of scientific findings, with specific references, Professor Klein presents stark scenarios for the future. Part 1 ends by explaining that technological solutions already exist, and the only barriers to implementation are political. The second part of the book clarifies and illuminates the role of capitalism in creating and perpetuating the climate crisis and related dangers. Clear evidence and compelling arguments are presented to demonstrate the impossibility of adequately addressing the climate crisis within the framework of capitalism. The exposition is interspersed throughout with the artwork of political cartoonist, Stephanie McMillan. Her cartoons clarify and condense the main ideas, and they add counterbalance and humor to the surrounding text. The book ends with a call to action together with guidelines to begin organizing for the overthrow of capitalism.

It’s impossible to raise productive forces any more under capitalism without completely destroying the planetary environment. We cannot manage the environment—a resource that ultimately belongs to no one—in a sustainable way as long as we operate within a system founded on ceaseless exploitation in the name of private ownership and profit seeking. We’ve reached the point at which capitalism itself has become the “fetters” on society’s development. We can thus say that Marx advocates for revolutionary change that would usher in a completely different social system, a change that urgently needs to happen before the “irreparable rift” in the metabolic relation between humans and nature destroys civilization for good — For Marx, Capitalism Was Always Going to Destroy the Environment

WMO Warning – The exceptional El Niño demands exceptional preparation and response. Never in its 50-year history has the World Meteorological Organization launched a comparable major mobilization with National Meteorological and Hydrological Services on the frontlines of delivering forecasts and services to save lives and livelihoods. Numerous sources warn of perilous times ahead for the world’s oceans as temperatures hit levels never seen in modern times, as well as risks of extreme weather events well into 2027. A new update from the World Meteorological Organization claims El Niño is firmly established and is expected to strengthen further, with a 100% probability that it’ll persist into 2027. Regions of the world will experience extraordinary levels of floods, droughts and/or extreme heat. According to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, “El Niño is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up. Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures keep climbing, and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather. The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people. We must win that race.” — Oceans Turn Deadly Dangerous

Fueled by exceptionally warm ocean conditions across the tropical Pacific, El Niño is expected to strengthen further during the coming months to a very strong intensity before peaking towards the end of this year, with climate impacts continuing well into 2027. “El Niño is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up. Sea surface temperatures are rising, temperatures keep climbing, and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather. The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people. We must win that race,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. —‘El Niño is being supersized before our eyes’

For Marx, Capitalism Was Always Going to Destroy the Environment The Myth of Market Solutions to Climate Change The worldwide environmental destruction brought about by the explosive advance of global capitalism has plunged the planet into crisis. The amount of fossil fuels consumed by the world population after 1990 now equals half that consumed during the entirety of human history up to that point. This massive consumption of fossil fuels is causing climate change. Related disasters are occurring everywhere: major flooding in Pakistan, wildfires in California, droughts in Africa, rising ocean levels caused by melting glaciers and ice sheets. The effects of climate change have become unignorable even in Japan, which has seen increasingly heavy rainy seasons and intense typhoons, among other natural disasters. Meat-centric diets have led to extreme deforestation and the worldwide loss of biodiversity. Many scientists believe that these phenomena are partially to blame for novel viruses emerging and causing pandemics among humans. Environmental destruction has now reached the point that it can never be fully reversed. Many scholars, in emphasizing how capitalism has fundamentally changed the workings of the planetary environment, have begun using terms drawn from geology to characterize the present era: as the Anthropocene—an age defined by human intervention into the natural world—or even, more specifically, the Capitalocene.

1% of People on Earth Emit More Carbon Than the Poorest 5 Billion Combined

BoM forecasts strongest El Niño on record as research points to ‘alarming’ climate change influence Bureau of Meteorology suggests El Niño has already broken records, with Pacific Ocean temperature change exceeding 2C in six months

Oceans Turn Deadly Dangerous

The Environmental Crisis Is a Capitalist CrisisOne of humanity’s greatest challenges today is the environmental crisis, which threatens our very existence. Our latest dossier explores its class character, showing that the climate catastrophe is a product of capitalism’s relentless drive for accumulation. The environmental crisis is one of the greatest challenges we face today. At its root lie the capitalist mode of production and the logic of capital accumulation pursued by the ruling classes of the Global North and South. The devastation wrought by capitalism is plain for all to see, as climate change intensifies and accelerates year after year, threatening the very existence of humanity. As Fidel Castro warned in his speech at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, ‘An important biological species is in danger of disappearing due to the rapid and progressive liquidation of its natural living conditions: humanity’.1. Many international organisations and bodies have sought solutions to the environmental crisis, but always within the framework of capitalism. In November 2025, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) will be held in Belém, Pará, in the Amazon region of Brazil. The Amazon is home to countless generations of Indigenous peoples who, through their interaction with nature, have allowed the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystem to flourish. Today, the Amazon is the site of one of capitalism’s central contradictions: agribusiness destroys it by burning and clearing land to expand the agricultural frontier while the very same land is financialised by transnational corporations trading its territories as carbon reserves on stock exchanges. While the ruling classes insist on presenting the environmental crisis as a problem for all of humanity – without any class distinctions – we must not forget that the class contradictions inherent to capitalism are also reflected in the environmental question. In fact, those most affected by climate disasters are the urban and rural poor, who live under precarious conditions in hazard-prone areas.

Capitalism and the Environment Abstract: Capitalism drove the environmental decimation of the planet. The environment was seen as a free good, while the consequences of dirty industrial and agricultural processes were seen as external to the firm. Public policies largely allowed this to happen, as politicians have a preference for short-term economic growth, job creation and higher living standards over the natural environment. However capitalism has never been monolithic. Since the nineteenth century purpose-driven entrepreneurs put in place the fundamentals of organic agriculture, renewable energy and other sustainable technologies. They offered a radical alternative to conventional capitalism. Over recent decades mainstream big business has taken up the cause of sustainability with a diffusion of corporate sustainability reports, green brands and certification programs. While the new attention to the environment is welcome, corporate sustainability can also be regarded as the commodification of environmentalism. It has confused consumers and turned sustainability into a code for greenwashing. The pioneering green entrepreneurs embodied values, often religious or philosophical, in their products and technologies, and the empty rhetoric employed by many large corporations has proved a poor substitute.

It’s Not Just Flock. Police Can’t Be Trusted With Our Data

Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through August 2026, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 61.4 percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy(Updated)

Labor Force Participation Rate is 61.4%

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment. — Shadow Government Statistics

Since the Trump Adminstration’s Bureau of Labor Statistices publishes less information than previous administrations, Shadow Government Statistics has stopped publishing its’ alternate publishing alternate unemployment rate. Based upon information from the BLS’s Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization and the fact that labor force participation rate dropped, this month to 61.4%, my guesstimate rate of unemployment is still well over 30%!