nature: it doesn't do bailouts

Things are hotting up (quite literally, haha!) over in Copenhagen as the world’s great and good arrive in the Danish capital, and begin gearing up to save the world from its continuing descent into climate oblivion. Or at least this is what we’re being told.
In reality, what these summits achieve is normally very little. It gives world leaders a nice chance to stand around for awkwardly posed group photographs and pretend that they’re doing something to alleviate world poverty/ rescue the world economy/ save the universe. Then maybe sign some kind of vague, watered down agreement that was carved up in closed doors negotiations two weeks previously.

And with very little forthcoming among all the diplomatic wrangling that’s taken place in the weeks leading up to Copenhagen, it now looks likely that, at the very best, we’ll get ‘an outline agreement to be firmed up next year, and even this would depend on the compliance of the US Senate, hostile towards anything resembling an effective deal’.
So says the environmentalist George Monbiot, who lays much of the blame for this stalemate situation on the fact that almost every US Senator is tied up with corporate interests who aren’t really that keen for effective emission targets to be implented. You know the type.. big oil, big pharma, the petro-chemical industry…
It becomes evident pretty quickly that capitalism can’t save the planet. An economic system built purely on growth, greed and increasing profits cannot possibly bring about the dramatic cut in carbon emissions we need to prevent the 2C temperature rise, which climatoligists say is key if we’re to avoid the worst effects of global warming.
When the global economy crashed, the IMF and national governments were on hand to bail out the crumbling financial institutions to the tune of trillions of dollars, and pretend everything was okay again. Mass unemployment, sweeping cuts, job losses, a generation lost, tearful bankers – but hey, we’ll get over it, right?
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of nature – it doesn’t do bailouts. There can be no second chances as far as the climate goes.

Whatever pathetic agreement eventually comes out of Copenhagen in the months or years to come, it isn’t going to be enough: a 15% drop in 1990 emission levels will not be nearly enough to stave off environmental catastrope. 
The necessity of socialism – of an economy that’s planned with human and environmental concerns at the forefront of its agenda, rather than the chaotic, unrelenting madness of capitalism which pits profit ahead of all else - is being proved more than ever, and time is running out.

JOIN SSY ON THE WAVE DEMONSTRATION IN GLASGOW THIS SATURDAY 5 DECEMBER – assembles 10.30am at Bellahouston Park. www.the-wave.org.uk/scotland