April 22, 2022
Earth Day 2022:
Time’s up for preventing climate change --
IPCC says some long-term climate devastation is now “inevitable and irreversible”
by Joseph Green, Detroit Workers’ Voice
Earth Day 2022 comes at a time when it is already too late to prevent climate change from doing major damage to the world. Here is how The Guardian characterizes what the UN’s climate science group, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), says in its recently released Sixth Assessment report: “Even if the world manages to limit warning to 1.5 C, some long-term impacts of warming are likely to be inevitable and irreversible.” (1) Inevitable! That means, it is going to take place no matter what is done from now on. Irreversible! That means even if later action is able to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, some tipping points to disaster will already have been passed.
This doesn’t mean that we should give up the struggle for drastic cuts in carbon emissions. It is vital to limit the extent of the catastrophe that is already beginning, even though droughts, floods, heat waves, and species extinctions are already taking place. But we also have to prepare for harsh times in the future. It’s necessary for the environmental movement to ponder major changes in its demands and methods.
Millions upon millions of people have come out onto the streets demanding that the governments and ruling classes take effective measures to protect the environment. Greta Thunberg, speaking as the voice of a huge global movement, has denounced the politicians, the government leaders, and the UN officials for spouting “blah-blah-blah” while letting the situation deteriorate. The mass struggle for drastic cuts in carbon emissions has to continue. But so far, the movement is mainly united around the need for action, rather than the type of action that needs to be taken. The time is getting closer when the environmental movement is going to have to look more closely at what is needed. It is going to have to fight for radical change in how the economy is run, and it is going to have to ask where is the class force that really wants these changes.
- The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment report
- Radical economic change is necessary
- The experience of the COVID pandemic
- A time for reconsideration and change
- Notes