Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Guardian author Jeff Sparrow thinks we need a modern equivalent to the violent Communist uprisings which rocked France, Germany and Russia towards the end of WW1 to solve the climate crisis.
Climate change is a disaster foretold, just like the first world war
Jeff Sparrow
The warnings about an unfolding climate catastrophe are getting more desperate, yet the march to destruction continues
“The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”
The mournful remark supposedly made by foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey at dusk on 3 August 1914 referred to Britain’s imminent entry into the first world war. But the sentiment captures something of our own moment, in the midst of an intensifying campaign against nature.
According to the World Wildlife Fund’s 2016 Living Planet Report, over the last four decades the international animal population was reduced by nearly 60%.More than a billion fewer birds inhabit North America today compared to 40 years ago. In Britain, certain iconic species (grey partridges, tree sparrows, etc) have fallen by 90%. In Germany, flying insects have declined by 76% over the past 27 years. Almost half of Borneo’s orangutans died or were removed between 1999 and 2015. Elephant numbers have dropped by 62% in a decade, with on average one adult killed by poachers every 15 minutes.
…
The devastation of the first world war eventually engendered a wave of revolt from a populace appalled at the carnage their politicians had wrought.
Climate change has not yet spurred an equivalent of the mutinies in France or the revolution in Petrograd or the uprising in Berlin.
Yet Labor’s appalling equivocation over the Adani mine – a piece of environmental vandalism for which there can be no justification – illustrates the urgency with which we need a new and different type of politics.
The stakes could not be higher. Lamps are going out all over the natural world … and no one will ever see them lit again.
Perhaps pseudocryptic demands for a “new and different type of politics” is what fanatics do when they realise ordinary people have stopped listening to their ranting.
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People that speak fondly of the Bolshevik Revolution have no idea of history. Millions of innocent lives were erased from the earth by these thugs gone wild. Trotsky promoted endless Revolution, ie endless war.
https://youtu.be/ugeUGnxvm_U
“The devastation of the first world war eventually engendered a wave of revolt from a populace appalled at the carnage their politicians had wrought.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The ‘revolt’ in Russia had been brewing since the Decembrists came back from Paris after chasing Napoleon there. The Decembrists uprising took place in 1825 and the French revolutions were all around the same time. The Russians were in serious revolt already and getting worse since the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1905, so World War 1 would have felt much the same as the way Russians had been treated for at least the last 300 years and longer. When the final Russian revolution of 1918 took place the Bolsheviks expected a global uprising, but it never happened. The ‘revolution’ in the UK was the extension of voting rights to all men and to women over 30 that owned property. And, WW1 was not ‘wrought’ by politicians but un-elected monarchies and the web of mutual protection agreements pulling countries into a conflict.
Either this is a deliberate twisting of history to suite a particular agenda or a delusion built on a willfully incomplete view of history.
Jeff Sparrow has absolutely no idea what a catastrophe the Russian Revolution was and how it was also an inevitable tragedy that had been coming for at least 100 years. To wish such an event on people puts Mr Sparrow in the same hall as Pol Pot, Jim Jones, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung. etc.
The Guardian story proves that some people will never learn from history.
goldminor March 14, 2018 at 2:39 pm
Yes, and people can only learn from history if they know it.
Most of us who have grown up in the Western world show have had enough of an education to know the basics of war history from that era, and the costs to society.
No-one’s gonna take me alive
The time has to make things right
You and I must fight for our rights
You and I must fight to survive
I notice the SPCA has leapt into action, “Saving” Asian dogs.
Then it occurred to me that their ideologue saturated selves might be being played.
Imagine the difficulty of trying to set up a business importing fresh dog meat into NA from say Korea.
But rescue dogs, of the best eating breeds, get waved on through by our border authorities.
Now we see reports of Dog Flu, killing North American breeds and some of these “rescued dogs” as well.
A cynic such as myself might see how some smart orientals, with a passion for a taste of home, could have easily stampeded the progressive comrades of the NA SPCA into importing the breeds of their choice.
So sorry my rescue dog died… can I have another one please?
Now I might say Sarc Off, but the likes of WWF and their cohorts are out of control emotional basket cases.
The arrogance of our SPCA actually stealing the food from the poor people of Asia is again impossible to parody.
So I can imagine a clever person convincing them to overreach in the above manner.
What is next?
Rescue cattle from the Pampas?
Rescue Bison from Alberta?
Rescue horses from Mongolia?
As for the recommendation of use of violence from our planet saving comrades, they would say that wouldn’t they.
Lets see…
No convincing science.
No convincing political agenda,
No convincing authorities
I see now they want to convince us by killing us.
Yah that will work.
“Almost half of Borneo’s orangutans died or were removed between 1999 and 2015.”
Could very well be true but due to “climate change” ?
Due to clearing of natural habitat for palm oil plantations. When chided about this the Indonesians would respond…”How much natural forest is left in Europe and North America” ? You’ve cleared most of yours but are telling us we can’t do the same..
Should large chunks of forest in Borneo be preserved?
I believe so but the developed world needs to help.
Oherwise you are telling a poor indonesian farmer that you must stay poor so we developed world citizens can “enjoy” the orangutans.
I suspect that that argument would get short shrift among poor indonesian farmers.
A Bolshevik revolution! Yeah that’s the ticket to get Trump supporters on board! I knew those Harvard/Stanford/Oxford communications professors would eventually come up with a winner. The no more Mr Nice Guy approach will turn the tables on those sceptic spoilers..
Bolsheviks should be careful what they wise for.
So sad. That is like saying we need another Holocaust to set things right with the climate. The Bolsheviks killed more than the Nazi’s. And, you know, what did they accomplish in the end? Most of the Bolshevik leaders were killed off by Stalin in the next 15 years. Endless political killings in Russia, then the German invasion. Talk about bad luck.
WW1 killed around 14 million people. The consequences of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia were far worse. Estimates are generally around 20 million deaths under Stalin but perhaps 25 million. And whilst the War was horrible for many in Europe it lasted for five years – the oppression and horrors of Communism in Russia lasted for 70 years.
http://www.politifake.org/image/political/1508/climate-czar-communism-best-fight-global-warming-climate-chi-politics-1440540733.jpg
This is why I still have my guns.