We need socialist change to prevent capitalist climate chaos
Alasdair Cook, Dorset Socialist Party
“We lost everything and we don’t know what we are going to do now.” These were the words of a victim who had lost their home of 40 years to the recent Los Angeles (LA) wildfires.
This disaster started in the Pacific Palisades and quickly spread to the neighbouring areas. It has burned through over 40,000 acres of land, 10,000 homes and businesses and has so far killed at least 24 people. The fire still rages on.
What has potentially exacerbated the crisis is budget cuts the local LA fire department has suffered. According to the LA Fire Chief in a December report, the department cuts have affected the “ability to maintain core operations, including training and response to large-scale emergencies”.
Responding to the accusation of cuts, California Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman stated that the cuts “relate to money that’s going to be spent in 2025 and were chiefly for training.”
What a ludicrous ‘justification’! Obviously these fires illustrate the importance of preventing wildfires and other freak weather events. Cuts to the training of new staff will not help the crisis.
Last year was the hottest on record. The average global temperature was 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times – the limit politicians set themselves to avoid in the 2015 Paris agreement. This level of warming and above will lead to increased natural disasters such as floods, droughts and wildfires.
Considering this, the notion of the need for budgetary cuts is absurd when top oil and gas companies ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP had profits totalling over $100 billion in 2023.
The profits of the super-rich in the US and globally could be used to fund the services we desperately need. Furthermore, the capitalists’ hoarded wealth could be used to dramatically decarbonise the economy and fix the climate crisis. The climate crisis will create more chaos and destruction if nothing is done and the impact of this will fall on the heads of the working class and poor people around the world.
Already this year, the top 1% have emitted more carbon emissions than it would take a member of the bottom 50% to create in three years.
The US working class cannot rely on Democrats or Republicans who espouse the need for any budget cuts (see pages 8-9). These representatives are only interested in ensuring the profits of the 1% continue and are not interested in holding them accountable for their climate destruction.
A mass workers’ party is desperately needed, in the US and here in Britain. In December, Keir Starmer once again watered down plans for green investment. Only socialism, the working-class using the wealth and resources of society to democratically plan production, can prevent man-made climate change and ensure a habitable planet for future generations.