A major investigation by Greenpeace has revealed what we always knew: climate change denial is a well funded conspiracy, centered on oil corporations.

In recent years, there’s been a lot of focus on the role of companies like Exxon in funding organisations that spread lies and propaganda to undermine climate science. But even their contributions are dwarfed by a little known US firm called Koch Industries.

The company is based in the US but has interests all over the globe. Despite being little known, it’s the second largest privately-held (that is, its shares aren’t traded on the stock market) company in the US.

The billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch who own the company put $50 million into climate change denial between 1997 and 2008. Their interest is clear-they want to discredit any attempts to end the fossil fuel economy and limit carbon emissions. What they have done is a spectacular crime against the world, allowing huge amounts of lies to be disseminated that have seriously undermined efforts to tackle the biggest problem in human history.

Through a series of front groups, the Kochs have used their money to shift political debate away from action that needs to be taken. A few examples include:

-The American for Prosperity Foundation received $5,176,500 from the Kochs between 2005-8. This money was used to organise “grassroots” events across the US as part of the ‘Hot Air’ tour, which featured a hot air balloon. The aim was to build opposition to US legislators taking any action on climate change.

- The Cato Institute received $5,278,400 between 1997 and 2008, which it used to get climate change deniers on to panels and in the media to spread lies about what’s happening.

Scumbag liars

- The Kochs funded a Spanish study that tried to claim, falsely, that renewable energy had cost Spain jobs, which has been used by right wingers in several countries despite being shown to be nonsense.

- They also funded a non-peer reviewed study that tried to claim that the declining numbers of polar bears was not related to global warming, which has also been discredited.

- Koch funded groups have played a major role in hyping and repeating vastly exaggerated claims about the East Anglia Climate Research Unit hacked emails.

These guys are scum, capitalism at its worst: endangering the entire future of human civilisation for their own short term profit. Their (extremely well funded) politics has done so much damage to the world, and embodies all that is insane about our current economic and social model.

Make no mistake: organised climate change denial is a criminal conspiracy, perpetrated by the global rich to try and prevent social change. It needs to be challenged every time it rears its head.

Don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead.

James Lovelock is a notable scientist and inventor. He’s most famous for developing the Gaia theory, which argues that living organisms and the physical processes of the Earth are part of a huge system that regulates conditions on this planet to keep it comfortable for life.

He’s also a total knobhead.

Lovelock has been prominent in recent years in the debates about climate change and ecological destruction. What he says shows that he’s good at understanding the global climate, and absolutely useless at understanding human beings, politics and social change. His rantings are seriously damaging to those of us who actually want to change the world and make society fairer and more ecologically sustainable.

He recently gave his first interview in months to the Guardian. In the intervening period the world has seen the hacking of emails from climate scientists that was blown into a huge controversy by the media, the total failure of the global elite to tackle climate change at Copenhagen, and the really cold winter.

In the face of declining public trust in climate science, Lovelock says he hasn’t read the hacked emails, just the media coverage, but that he was “absolutely disgusted.” Thanks for taking a balanced view and making up your own mind there James!

But more importantly, the headline given by the paper was his claim that “Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change.”

James Lovelock is a serious misanthrope. He ultimately believes that humans are doomed to face the collapse of civilisation through runaway climate change, and we’ll never do anything about it. In his book ‘The Revenge of Gaia,’ he argues for an effort to preserve as much of human science and knowledge for survival in a mass produced book in preparation for the coming apocalypse.

Not if we have anthing to do with it

The risk of runaway climate change is all too real, and could indeed lead to a situation that undermines the basis of human civilisation. But there is another way we could go. What James Lovelock fails to understand is that it isn’t humans that are stupid. There are millions of humans all over the world that understand that it’s our social and economic system, based on inequality and constant growth at the expense of the environment, that’s responsible for taking us to the brink. What we urgently must start doing is changing our society and economy, allowing us to meet everyone’s needs without further destroying the planet.

In the face of apocalypse, people feel powerless. But as long as there is the chance of survival, humans must try to survive. Accepting it as inevitable would be the most spectacular example of us ignoring our duty from the whole of history. But that’s what Lovelock advocates, saying he favours “adaption” to climate change. It also leads people to going “Fuck it, what’s the point?”, something that he’s encouraged when he says “Enjoy life now, because, if we’re lucky, it’ll be 20 years before it hits the fan.”

It’s understandable that Lovelock is unable to see the eco-socialist alternative to catastrophe when you take a look at his political views. He blames a lack of “elitism” for the email scandal. He talks of “dumbo” scientists “churned out” by “mass produced universities.” “Elitism is important in science. It is vital,” he argues.

What this sounds like to me is a belief that science has been corrupted by the break down of traditional privileges that meant it was hard for working class kids to get a job in science. (It’s still pretty hard tbh.) It completely ignores the fact that the scientists who wrote the controversial emails are under siege from an organised, right wing climate change denial movement, which aims at protecting the profits of energy corporations at the expense of long term human survival.

His love for elitism shines through as well when he talks about what needs to be done:

We need a more authoritative world. We’ve become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It’s all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can’t do that. You’ve got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it. And they should be very accountable too, of course.

But it can’t happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What’s the alternative to democracy? There isn’t one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.

At this point he really is skirting the territory of eco-fascism. The desire to see a strong state, or some kind of virtual dictatorship impose ecological limits will not work, and turns people off environmentalism. What we need is real democracy, equality that’s social and economic as well as political.

Quite right old chap, these plebs have got no place in a lab!

I’m not going to go into here some of the more mad things he’s said, such as that most people should have to eat food that’s been chemically synthesised, leaving real food a luxury for those that can afford it. Or that this science fiction process should be fuelled by a massive programme of building nuclear power stations, and that we should dump the nuclear waste in the Amazon jungle.

The point of all this is that Lovelock is a respected voice of the environmental movement. Much as he is a great scientist, Lovelock has absolutely no solution to the problems facing human society. Far too much of the coverage that environmentalists get is human-haters who are unwilling to confront the people in power. The eco-socialist alternative isn’t covered because it’s the real threat to the system.

It’s really important that the people who see the real issue here begin to make their voices heard. And the real issue is that capitalism and climate change are two names for the same process-a corrupt, unfair human society that is incompatible with humans being part of the global ecosystem. A system that can and must be changed.

People like Lovelock believe apocalypse is inevitable because it is easier for them to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

First Bus wankers!

Bus fares went up AGAIN in Glasgow today, with First Bus introducing fare increases well above the rate of inflation.
For most standard fares, this means an increase of 10 pence – just a year after a similar increase – while others services are facing price rises of up to 34%.
Glasgow has a very low level of car ownership, meaning most people rely on the public transport system to get around – especially the service provided by First Bus, given that the subway system barely leaves the city centre, and the limits of the suburban rail network.

The increase is totally unjustified – last year, First Group announced record profits of £134 million, while at the same time freezing the wages of staff and cutting services.  We’re always being told that opening up public services to ‘competition’ and the ‘free market’ gets better value for money, drives down prices and improve services… yet it’s been proved time and time again that leaving public services in the hands of people who only care about making profits is absolute insanity. First Group couldn’t care less about a family in Possil who rely on the bus to get in their messages. They don’t give a shit about debt-laden students who rely on the 44 to get into college every day, or people who need it to get into work.
Bus fares in Glasgow used to be capped – that is, they were regulated to keep them affordable for ordinary people and prevent the runaway fare increases we’re so accustomed to now – but two years ago this was removed in the name of ‘competition’. Predictably enough, bus fares skyrocketed almost immediately, rising some 25%, and this has gone on unstopped since.
Glasgow SNP MSP Anne McLaughlin last week lodged a motion in parliament calling on First to ‘reverse its decision’. While this is all very well, it’s a totally flawed strategy: no amount of appeals or petitions is going to change the fact that First are in public transport to make money, and if this means hitting ordinary Glaswegians in the pocket, then so be it.
Indeed, the Scottish Parliament has far more sweeping powers when it comes to buses. In 2006, the SNP’s annual conference voted to back a policy of reregulating the bus network, which would give local authorities control over bus routes, rather than private companies. However, one year later, a certain Mr Brian Soutar, millionaire owner of Stagecoach and all round knobhead, gave a £500,000 donation to the party. Oddly enough, this policy of bus reregulation was dropped from their election manifesto a month later – though the party refutes any allegations that these events may be linked! So instead of taking real action to lower the cost of public transport, they’re now forcibly reduced to the level of populist posturing and token appeals, none of which is ever going to get anywhere. The SNP: don’t say we didn’t tell you they’re a fucking joke.

The SSP offers a radical alternative to the mainstream when it comes to buses: let’s make them all free. And trains. And ferries. If we can find billions to spend on bank bailouts and trident renewal, we can surely afford the less than £1 billion a year it’d cost to run Scotland’s entire public transport network  for free. Not only would this dramatically reduce the number of cars on the road – meaning less emissions, faster travel and less road accidents – it’d be the biggest pro-environment policy enacted by any government anywhere, ever. And it’d be a hell of a lot better than the privatised, delayed, outdated, chaotic mess of a public transport ’system’ we have at the moment.

There’s loads more on the SSP’s free public transport policy here: www.freepublictransport.org

If you’ve been watching the news in the last month or so, you could be forgiven for thinking the Earth has gone a bit crazy. Devastating earthquakes have hit Haiti, Chile, Turkey and then Chile again.

But in fact, the recent spate of earthquakes is not in any way unusual. In any given year, we can expect on average one richer-scale 8 earthquake, 17 quakes between 7 and 7.9, and roughly 132 with a magnitude between 6 and 6.9.

So why does it seem like 2010 has already been such a terrible year for earthquakes? In this case, it’s not the Earth which is changing, but human society.

Human society on Earth has recently entered an unprecedented new phase: for the first time ever, more people live in cities than in the countryside, on the land. The vast majority of these people live in recently built slums. These slums go by many names-favela, township, ghetto; they all add up to the same thing. Migrants from around the world, torn from the land by capitalist economic policies, pour into cities in search of a living. Faced with the failure of municipal governments to accommodate them with decent housing, they build their own homes with whatever they can find.

This process has been going on since the beginning of the capitalist era. The Highland Clearances were one of the first examples of poor people being chucked off the land, as wealthy landowners prepare to use intensive methods to extract the maximum profit they can from their land. Today’s clearances are taking place in rural China, India and Africa. They’re driven by the policies of the international financial institutions like the World Bank or the IMF, who force governments to make their agricultural sector only produce profitable commodities for export.

But at the time of the Highland Clearances, there was at least an industrial revolution that provided work for the mass of landless people flooding into cities like Glasgow, Manchester or Birmingham. Today, factories work differently, with more automation and advanced machinery than was possible in the 19th century. So although countries like China are rapidly industrialising, there will never be enough work to provide for all the people migrating to the coastal cities. The result is that those workers who do find a job labour in near-slavery conditions fro absolute pittance wages.

A favela in Brazil

Meanwhile, the majority are forced to try and survive in what’s been called the “informal sector”, or the black economy. They peddle goods on the street, they scavenge rubbish dumps for anything valuable, or they become involved in crime and the one profitable industry within reach-the drug trade.

Left wing sociologist Mike Davis has chronicled what he calls ‘The Planet of Slums,’ in a book of the same name. It started out life as an article which is well worth a read, and is available for download here.

Many of these third world cities are built close to geological fault lines, making them prone to earthquakes. But the really devastating thing is that so many people now live in poorly built housing, which is extremely vulnerable to collapse. This means that the numbers dying from earthquakes on average is increasing. Therefore, more media coverage.

There’s pretty much nothing we can do to predict or prevent the occurrence of earthquakes. But what we could do is start a major global programme to make sure everyone on Earth has a properly built home that could better withstand one, which would drastically reduce the numbers that die.

More than that, we could start looking at how to change our global agricultural system. In global capitalist agriculture, production isn’t geared to providing people with an opportunity for meaningful work, or feeding the vast majority. What most agricultural production in the third world is geared towards is to producing the products wanted on the supermarket shelves of the rich countries. A different kind of agriculture worldwide could give most of the world meaningful work and feed the world’s population without

People scavenging a rubbish dump for survival in Cambodia

harming the environment.

Ordinary working people on the land have fed humanity for centuries. What we need isn’t a return to some kind of medieval idyll that never existed. It’s the right of people to live and work where they choose, without being forced to move to survive, leading to a more equal distribution of the population across the land. This would also be safer, because it wouldn’t cram so many millions of people into megacities vulnerable to natural disasters. It’s what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels meant when they called for “the abolition of the distinction between town and country” in The Communist Manifesto.

Warning: This post contains some upsetting stuff about dead ducks.

The above video is one of several shot by William Todd Powell, a senior biologist working for the Province of Alberta in Canada. It shows a duck struggling to escape from a tailings pond, where oil company Syncrude dumped the toxic leftovers of its operation to extract oil from the Alberta tar sands.

Over 1,500 migrating ducks landed on the pond, covering themselves with the deadly residue. The vast majority of them died. Now Syncrude is facing a trial for its failure to protect the ducks, and the company could face up to $800, 000 in fines, and executives ultimately could get 6 months in prison.

Syncrude admit that they had failed to properly install noise-making equipment to scare the ducks away from landing on the toxic pond as they were migrating.

The disaster could have been covered up were it not for the courageous efforts of tipsters like Powell. Although legally obliged to do so, Syncrude had failed to inform authorities of what had happened. But when Powell and other wildlife officials got on the scene, their shocking images and video stormed around the internet, and forced action.

Footage of a Greenpeace action against the tar sands.

The whole affair has brought into sharp focus the environmental battle to stop exploitation of the tar sands. As the possibility of peak oil begins to bite, the fossil fuel industry is desperately looking for new areas to exploit to keep their profits flowing. The tar sands in Canada offer the prospect of huge new reserves, but they are very difficult to extract. This means huge amounts of energy are used in the process, causing massive carbon emissions. It also means enormous destruction of the natural environment, including much land that is home to Canada’s embattled indigenous people as well as pristine boreal forest. The fight to stop further exploitation of the oil sands is one of the most important battles against climate change and ecological destruction in North America, if not the world. Exploitation of the tar sands alone is enough to make Canada fail to meet its obligations under the Kyoto agreement on global warming.

Lawyers for Syncrude have entered a plea of not guilty to the trial, claiming there was nothing they could have done to prevent the disaster. Shamefully, they have attacked William Todd Powell, and, supported by the corporate media in Canada, accused him of “showboating”. Syncrude argues that Powell should have “shot the ducks with a gun not a camera” as that would have been more humane. Leaving aside the complete heartless hypocrisy of the statement, this ignores the fact that actually Alberta wildlife authorities did shoot the ducks that were in range to put them out of their misery. However, the pond is so vast and the number of ducks so huge, it was only possible for them to reach a fraction of them.

Ed Stelmach: Twat in a hat

The Conservative Premier of Alberta, Ed Stelmach, is unfortunately in the pocket of Syncrude and the other oil companies. His government has given approval to a massive expansion of tar sands operations, as well as spending millions on trying to improve the image of the dirty oil project. Responding to the disaster, he bizarrely chose to call the horrific duck deaths an “opportunity” to show the world Alberta “means business” when it comes to environmental protection. Quite how footage of dead and dying ducks does this is unclear.

In an even more ridiculous gaffe, Stelmach also told reporters recently he had not seen the notorious duck images, even though they had been headline news on TV and in the papers in Alberta. His comments outraged many, as they felt they showed a total lack of concern for his own responsibility in the disaster. In response, opposition politicians gave him photos in the legislature, and Greenpeace delivered blown-up and gift wrapped photos in person.

“Not even looking at the front page of papers in this province? That’s something that is not responsible for a premier to do. They are taking Syncrude to court, but are they actually examining their own actions?” said Mike Hudema of Greenpeace.

Greenpeace activists deliver gift-wrapped photos of the dying ducks to Ed Stelmach

Stelmach and his spokespeople have offered various different stories to try and get out of looking stupid over his claims. Stelmach now claims he thought reporters were asking if he’d seen the photos before they were introduced in court, which they clearly weren’t. His team have also claimed that they give him news clippings each morning with the pictures cut out. “He doesn’t have the luxury of opening a paper in the morning,” said his communications director, Cam Hantiuk. “He missed the visuals.”

The fact is that the disastrous tar sands development is being driven by the corporate greed of Syncrude and others, and whatever the results of the trial they will continue to have huge control over the political process in Canada as elsewhere. The heroic work of William Todd Powell in exposing them shows the world a model of a responsible public servant. Unfortunately, Canadian governments see work like his as less of a priority than defending dirty developments, as wildlife services across the country face budget cutbacks and lay-offs.

The horrific duck deaths just underline the need for grassroots activism that works on the ground to undermine the power of the oil lobby and their paid-for politicians.

I’m sure many Leftfield readers will have been watching the latest series of Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe, pretty much the best satire on telly.

I loved the second series of this vital show, taking down the lies and fantasies of the media at every turn. But I didn’t love most of the bits featuring “US comic and drunk [big woop] Doug Stanhope.”

This guy has a persona of an absolute misanthrope: he hates the world and everyone in it. His most objectionable bit was the one embedded above, talking about overpopulation.

In this little rant, Stanhope tries to make out like he’s telling the world a hidden truth, something hidden by the media because it doesn’t fit with the mainstream environmentalist agenda. This supposed truth is that there are too many people in the world, using up too many resources, and the only way we can really save the environment is to stop having kids.

But the reality is that this idea is a very powerful one, and it’s been used by the ruling class as an excuse for nearly 200 years now.

In 1798 English cleric and economist Thomas Malthus published his Essay on the Principle of Population. He argued that population growth would always outstrip the expansion of the food supply, and that as more workers became available wages would be driven down, leading to poverty.

2.Many.Malthuses.

In other words, the working class in Britain were to blame for their own poverty. It had nothing to do with the exploitation they suffered at the hands of the capitalists, who owned the places where they worked, and got rich on the back of their labour.

The thing is, he was wrong. Food production has grown faster in the last 200 years than at any other time in history, and has rapidly outstripped population growth. Famines aren’t caused by food shortages, but by unequal distribution of food.

But blaming the poor for poverty and hunger was a convenient solution for the people who were really responsible-the rich.

In the 1960s Malthus’ arguments were revived by environmentalists, who argued that population growth in the third world was causing an ecological crisis and must be stopped.

These people never however stopped to think about the centuries of looting that the third world has suffered at the hands of European empires. Nor did they consider that many people in poor countries have many children to ensure that some of them survive the harsh realities of an impoverished childhood.

In fact, the rate of world population growth is slowing. It peaked in the 1960s, and ever since the rate of increase has been getting slower.

The population theorists thought that if the world’s resources were a pie, reducing the number of people who wanted a slice would mean everyone gets more. But what about the 1 or 2 people that are eating three-quarters of the pie, leaving the rest of us fighting over the crumbs?

Delicious pie: Time to fight for a bigger slice

Most mainstream environmentalists don’t want to confront the realities of inequality, caused by capitalism. It’s much easier to tell everyone that they have to play their part, change their lightbulbs etc., than to say “A tiny minority of the world’s population are fucking everything up to make themselves rich.” The reason it’s easier is that rich people are very powerful, and taking them on is a hard fight. But if we’re really going to prevent the worst of climate change, and save the global environment, then we’ll have to take them on and beat them.

As a system, capitalism is based on economic growth. Every year we must produce more products, consume more, and make more money. But growth is unequal-the economy is constantly funneling more and more wealth from the hands of the majority into the those of the rich.

Right now, 10% of the world’s population own 54% of the world’s wealth. The richest 50 humans on Earth make more money than the poorest 416 million put together. In their unceasing quest to get richer, these people are trashing the Earth, by pulling out everything of value from the ground, the sea, and the soil, and by pumping back the toxic waste left over. These are the people who are really responsible for climate change, and must be defeated.

The best way to reduce population growth is to start ending the poverty afflicting most of the world’s population. For decades the world’s rich countries and financial institutions have forced poorer countries to cut their public spending, preventing them from having decent health services. If more poor countries were able to follow the example of Cuba, and set up world beating health services, then less babies would die and parents would have less children. Another key issue is women’s access to proper sex education, and reproductive rights to control their own bodies.

If we’re really going to save human civilisation from the potential catastrophes on the horizon, we can’t be human-haters. We need to change our society to be more eco-friendly, and at the same time more people-friendly. It’s more than possible to meet all the basic needs (clean water, housing, enough to eat, a fulfilling life) for all the people in the world.

The people in the way of us achieving this would much rather believe that all humans are equally responsible. I’m sorry to disappoint them, but with unequal wealth and power comes unequal responsibility. So Doug Stanhope isn’t bringing us a radical message that they don’t want you to hear. His hatred of humanity (which conceals a real misogyny-see his comments about “a tired old whore” and women’s wombs) actually suits the mainstream agenda just fine. Because it lets the people who’s fault it really is off the hook.

This map uses colour and distortion to show two different things. The extent to which a country is squeezed or inflated shows the extent to which countries are consuming their fair share, based on population, of the world’s resources. Starved-looking countries consume less than their fair share (most of Africa), whereas stuffed-looking countries consume far more than their share (most of Europe and North America). The colour of the countries shows the balance between whether a country has, within its borders, can generate enough resources and cope with its own waste within its environment (green, like environmentally rich Brazil and Canada) or not (like the Middle East and, yes, the United States). (via www.pthbb.org)

Since June of last year, environmental activists have been occupying the site of a proposed new open-cast coal mine in Mainshill, Lanarkshire.
Despite vehement opposition to the mine from the local community, and the devastating environmental impact of open-cast mining  locally, not to mention the impact on climate change globally, South Lanarkshire Council, Scottish Coal and wealthy landowner Lord Home have pressed on with their plans to tear up Mainshill wood and proceed with the mine. Now… a conglomeration of big business, local government bureaucrats and a Conservative peer putting their own interests before that of the local community and environment… who’d have thought it?!

This video shows the hypocrisy and corruption of some of the politicians involved in the decision making process, and exposes the cosy relationship many of them enjoy with Scottish Coal, who operate on numerous sites across Lanarkshire.

Over the past seven months, those occupying the site have been resisting any attempt to begin work at the site. This has involved the sabotage and destruction of machinery, lock-ons and blockades, as well as maintaining a sizeable human presence in the wood. However, this morning (Monday 25 January), bailliffs acting under the instruction of Lord Home moved into to begin the eviction of the Solidarity Camp, assisted by police. This morning saw the arrest of several activists, with many more still dug into tunnels and in treehouses, and the eviction is expected to last several days, if not longer.
The camp have had full community support throughout, who know the devastating effects that open-cast mining can have first hand, with the landscape around the village of Douglas scarred by them.
As the utter failure of the Copenhagen talks to reach any worthwhile deal on carbon emissions demonstrated, capitalism cannot, and will not, sacrifice profit for the sake of environmental or human concerns. It’s now up to us to halt the potential environmental catastrophe that climate change will bring, fighting alongside local communties who’re facing the brunt of the system that pits profit above all else.
There’s regular updates from Mainshill Solidarity Camp on Indymedia Scotland & on their twitter at https://twitter.com/MainshillCamp.

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

I did started getting pretty suspicious when I found out that they don’t even accept cardboard for recycling.
And now, as if we needed any further evidence  that Glasgow City Council LOVE the global rise in temperatures caused by human activity that’s probably going to KILL US ALL, news reaches Leftfield that they’ve gone and denied the annual demonstration against climate change their intended route through the city centre.

The demo, monikered ‘The Wave’, is being billed as Scotland’s largest ever demonstration against climate change, and is taking place on December 5th. However, rather than taking its planned route from Glasgow Green through to Kelvingrove Park, the powers that be at the council parades committee have decided to reroute it to a starting point at Bellahouston Park on the southside, from where it will march the 2.5 miles up to Kelvingrove Park, managing to completely avoid the city centre. The reason?
Christmas, of course! Yes, seems that the annual festival of capitalist consumption, consumerism and um, Jesus (so I gather anyway), is being given greater priority than an issue which the entire planet’s future depends on, all because it might interfere with a few shoppers doing some no-doubt-vital-to-the-planet’s-survival Christmas shopping.
Oh, and because the police are saying that there’s the ‘risk of disorder’ on the route that was initially applied for. What, are we really to believe that the Climate Change Denial Nutcase Brigade are marching the same day? Nah, I didnt think so. Glasgow City Council are just being bastards, and quite clearly sending out a message that they’re willing and able to stop marches in the city centre if they want to, having announced earlier this year that they want to curtail them by 90%. The idea ostensibly being to clamp down on the hundreds of Orange marches that take place each year – but as we’re seeing, they’ll use it against anyone.

Now, as it happens, the last lot of protestors to be taken out the city centre and abandoned somewhere in the Paisley Road West area were none other than… the scumbag Scottish Defence League. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.
On the bright side, let’s all just be really fucking grateful that Glasgow City Council aren’t in any way involved in the Copenhagen summit. Although, to be fair, they probably couldn’t make much more of a mess of it than Ed Miliband and co will no doubt do…

march with SSY on The Wave – assembles 10.30am, Sat 5 Dec at Bellahouston Park
more info  and a map of the route here: www.the-wave.org.uk/scotland

All this info is taken from Tripping up Trump website.

Trumpland Clearances

Donald Trump has asked the council to use their power to forcibly clear people from their homes, all in the name of a private golf course.

Below are just a few of the locals that are threatened.

David and Moira Milne first met in 1992, the same year he finally managed to buy the old coastguard look out. He began immediately to turn it from a disused, unloved coastguard station to a family home, a process that has taken a great deal of time, effort and emotional energy.

All the couple want is to be is left alone to enjoy their home in peace, but with the increasing aggressive attentions of the Trump Organisation that seems unlikely.

Michael Forbes has been happily living and working on his croft for 40 years, where he bides with his wife and elderly mother. He works as a foreman at a local quarry but when at home can always be found working around the croft, whether its farming, fixing machinery or fishing in the nearby sea. Michael has voiced on many occasions that he won’t sell to Trump because he wouldn’t just be losing his home but his way of life.

You can protest against the Trumpland clearances in a few weeks time, on the first of October, outside the AECC conference centre in Aberdeen.