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marjaerwin1. Capitalism can't grow itself out of the crisis. It is bringing more and more wealth to fewer and fewer people, increasing social stratification, destroying opportunities, and increasing global poverty. Since the 1970s, it has created more and more precarity. But it is also creating more and more outcasts: people who are permanently unemployed, groups which are forced into exile, and with this, a permanent countereconomy.
2. Increasing use of declining resources will create disasters. We are at or near peak oil. We are past the collapse of most fisheries. We are increasingly dependent on irrigation for agriculture, and draining the aquifers this depends on.
3. Increasing emissions threaten us all. CO2 output continues to increase. It's unclear what tipping points increasing CO2 levels and increasing temperatures will trigger, but phytoplankton levels have declined as much as 40%, coral reefs are dying from increased acidity, and permafrost is melting and releasing trapped methane gas.
4. The state-capitalist system cannot stop this crisis. It is directly responsible for much of the crisis. It is structured to protect the powerful from accountability; it pollutes, it shields polluters, and it tilts competition in favor of ignoring environmental concerns.
In order to respond to peak oil, global warming, and other environmental crises, we need to replace capitalism and the state within the next few decades, the sooner the better.
We need to act now. Within our own lifetimes. We can't wait for better economic times. They won't happen unless we replace the system. We can't wait for freer social environments, ones where we face less oppression and less precarity. They won't happen until we replace the system. If we don't act, capitalism may turn to fascism, as it has done before. American politics already accepts the torture and murder of people it considers undesirable...
2. Increasing use of declining resources will create disasters. We are at or near peak oil. We are past the collapse of most fisheries. We are increasingly dependent on irrigation for agriculture, and draining the aquifers this depends on.
3. Increasing emissions threaten us all. CO2 output continues to increase. It's unclear what tipping points increasing CO2 levels and increasing temperatures will trigger, but phytoplankton levels have declined as much as 40%, coral reefs are dying from increased acidity, and permafrost is melting and releasing trapped methane gas.
4. The state-capitalist system cannot stop this crisis. It is directly responsible for much of the crisis. It is structured to protect the powerful from accountability; it pollutes, it shields polluters, and it tilts competition in favor of ignoring environmental concerns.
In order to respond to peak oil, global warming, and other environmental crises, we need to replace capitalism and the state within the next few decades, the sooner the better.
We need to act now. Within our own lifetimes. We can't wait for better economic times. They won't happen unless we replace the system. We can't wait for freer social environments, ones where we face less oppression and less precarity. They won't happen until we replace the system. If we don't act, capitalism may turn to fascism, as it has done before. American politics already accepts the torture and murder of people it considers undesirable...
