Essay by Eric Worrall
“… The role they discharge as climate criminals is quite willful. …”
Climate Change for Capitalists
John Clarke 16 September 2026
Capitalists have long been aware of the consequences of fossil-fuel use, but the profit system requires them to seek to benefit from it, or escape it as individuals, explains John Clarke
The scale and pace of climate breakdown are now well-established realities of life on this planet, as extreme weather and chronic impacts impose themselves on us to an ever-greater degree.
It is equally well understood that fossil-fuel companies and political leaders are doggedly compounding these catastrophic results by doubling down on oil and gas production, resulting in levels of carbon emissions that will make things even worse.
…
Though the ranks of the ruling establishments include crude climate deniers like Donald Trump, it would be wrong to imagine that the major capitalists and their leading functionaries are unaware of the implications of the course that they are on. The role they discharge as climate criminals is quite willful.
…
It would be useful, however, also to consider how the capitalists themselves, along with their political agents and intellectual enablers, view the question of climate change. We have already seen how they work to stifle a clear understanding of the threat that it poses and try to delay meaningful action to address this dire threat. Nonetheless, the harsh and intensifying reality of the issue can only force itself upon them and they are compelled to consider its implications.
…Working-class people across this planet have no luxury bunkers to escape into and very limited means of mitigating the impacts of climate breakdown, as they intensify to the point of catastrophe. Our survival hinges on our collective struggles against climate-wrecking capitalism and the creation of a just and sustainable socialist society.
Read more: https://www.counterfire.org/article/climate-change-for-capitalists/
Can you imagine the kind of horror show world someone like the author John Clarke would build, if he and his friends were in charge?
If you disagree with extreme climate claims, you’re not someone with legitimate concerns about the quality of the science, you are an “intellectual enabler”, as much of a criminal as people who build businesses which emit CO2 in order to put food, goods and services at our disposal.
Yet John thinks such a world would be “just”.
Actually we don’t have to imagine what such a world would be like – events like China’s Cultural Revolution and Cambodia’s Pol Pot have already demonstrated how badly intellectuals are treated by “just” socialist societies. Scientists like Ye Qisun, who trained many famous scientists including a Nobel Prize winner, was brutally persecuted by the Communist regime because – who knows why. But Ye got lucky, if you can call such cruelty luck. Many of his fellow scientists were murdered.
I’m glad the climate alarmists lost, because recent history shows us things could have gotten so much worse. I know places like Britain and Europe and Canada it might not feel like they lost, but they’re on the way out. They will never get the kinds of show trials of capitalist criminals and “intellectual enablers” they appear to want – at least, they’ll need to find a new cause to frighten society into acting like barbarians. Too many people have seen through the fake climate crisis.
Just more evidence that the climate change movement has always been nothing more than international socialism masquerading as atmospheric science.
“The Cause” doesn’t change, just the lever used to gain power (and the names of those who’s hands are on the lever).
Well, the whole text is just again another class struggle/ divide and rule schtick.
The craziest thing is to claim that “working class people have no bunkers to escape into”.
Besides the lunacy of needing bunkers for 2 degrees of warming(UK teachers not willing to work at more than 25C may actually need them),
it is people like him who keep people from getting cheap energy and AC’s to counter the apocalyptic nothing.
He may also look at China and how life went for them since they switched to a capitalism oriented system and increased their co2 output by 600% .
But for some reason Chinas capitalism and co2 are so more equal that they don’t matter.
Commie CO2 is good CO2. Free Market CO2 is wicked.
“Well, the whole text is just again another class struggle/ divide and rule schtick.”
“It’s symbolic of his struggle against reality.”
Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”, 50 years ahead of its time.
When I looked up Counterfire and read their Wiki page, this was the first thing that came to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4
and
They are watermelons and always have been. A thin green skin on the outside, bright red all the way to the middle.
Red as in Communist Red?
Just seeking clarification.
“Our survival hinges on our collective struggles against climate-wrecking capitalism…” Aha! The truth behind AGW comes out!
It has been stated by UN officials and others that it was not about the environment, that it was about creating a One World Order with socialism as the foundation, with the UN in charge.
The rebirth of feudalism. The Nobility and the serfs, aka the deplorables.
Don’t forget the guilds.
” The climate summit in Cancun is not a climate conference but one of the largest economic conferences since WW2″
” One must say clearly that we redestribute wealth by climate policy.
One must free oneself from the Illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy.
This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy”
Ottmar Edenhofer,former IPCC co- chair,
Chair of ESABCC,who set the goal for 90% emission reduction by 2040
For more quotes by Ottmar Edenhofer go to:
http://www.azquotes.com/author/30381-Ottmar_Edenhofer. Here is one of his quotes: “Climate change policy is about how redistribute de facto the world’s wealth”.
There will never ever be any reduction in the emission of CO2 because for many countries there will always be long cold and snowy winters like in Russia and Canada. Last winter in the Yukon and NWT air temperatures plunged to -50° C which broke all previous low temperature records.
Send Clarke and Edenhoffer to Yukon for a winter to show us lesser mortals how to survive without producing CO2. And don’t allow them to use anything that has produced CO2 or used oil or gas in its manufacture.
Climate madness for the serfs who must pay for the exorbitant energy that the climate protectors have given us. The EU’s ETS doubles Piland’s electricity costs.
Piland? Where is Piland? Is Piland a region in Poland?
Brush up on your climate science – Poland is a region in Piland, and slow cooling is heating.
If one was needed, this is one more reason for the US to get out of the communist UN and get the UN out of the US.
It’s also known as the De-Growth movement!
John Clarke and his enablers are demonstrating a waste of intellect on preaching faith in a fallacy. Such is the willful blindness of smart people who forego skeptical inquiry in favor of a chosen dogma. I don’t think that their new religion is gaining adherents, but as long as people in power are followers, we’ll all suffer the consequences of their resulting bad policies.
The guy is preaching communism and is making a good living at it. China is partly funding his lifestyle as they know it will destroy the USA as a power of any kind and do not mind putting our children into mud huts.
Why would China want to destroy the US which is their biggest market for manufactured goods like textiles, shoes, smart phones, laptops and possibly EV cars? I have a brand new Lenovo laptop which works very well and is quite speedy. It uses the AMD Ryzen and Radeon chips.
“Why would China want to destroy the US which is their biggest market”
The CCP’s stated goal is world domination by every means possible. America’s tradition of liberty is the biggest barrier to that and why taking us down is their #1 objective. The rise of DSA is empirical evidence the brainwashing has been successful. Clarke is doing their bidding.
Like most on the left, they don’t mind destroying the existing infrastructure. They believe that they will be able to build it back better, once all opposition to their rule is eliminated.
“Our survival hinges on our collective struggles against climate-wrecking capitalism and the creation of a just and sustainable socialist society.”
Yeah, the collectivist CCP with its impressive program of new, high-performance, low-pollution coal-fired power plants is showing the way forward against those climate-wreckers. /s
That is all for now.
Imagine the cries of pain if you took away FF from the commies! They are such HYPOCRITES!
They are coffee house commies. Lot of talk, but no action.
So it was the greedy capitalists’ fault that the plebs got things like washing machines and central heating?
My grandmother treated her washing machine as a gift directly from God. It came late after 6 babies, two born in a sod house in the Peace district in Canada, years of washing on a washboard in a tub. All due to greedy capitalists who she probably thanked on her knees on Sunday.
What fossil fuel did she use for heating water and cooking food? Did BC Hydro supply any electricty?
Not the first time the phrase “climate criminals” has been put to print.
One can agree on 99% of the points but if one disagrees or even asks about the 1%, automatic conviction of “climate crime.”
There goes the right of presumption of innocence until proven.
Then again, the Spanish Inquisition was a good model, eh? /s
In order to be a “climate criminal”, you would have to be a “weather criminal” in a given area for 30 years first.
That’s the only possible result using the definition of climate. Too bad the commies that invent terminology don’t look it up first. But never worry, this time it will work.
I agree, but language, especially English is so fluid definitions change with the phase of the moon.
From: https://www.counterfire.org/author/john-clarke/
“John Clarke became an organiser with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty when it was formed in 1990 and has been involved in mobilising poor communities under attack ever since.”
One has to wonder how his approach helps the poor, which was his initial mission.
I recommend going to the link and scroll down to the bottom to enjoy all of his other bits of “wisdom.”
My favorite is
The social costs of the World Cup
https://www.counterfire.org/article/the-social-costs-of-the-world-cup/
Every time I go to a the website of an environmental NGO the first message I see on the homepage is: Donate. Some of these NGO like the EDF and the EDRF are living high off the money hogs of the big foundations.
As a former Chicagoan, I appreciate a good racket…gotta figure a way to become a “legit” NGO. That’s gonna be a toughie ‘cuz Momma raised an honest boy. Sigh.
“The scale and pace of climate breakdown are now well-established realities of life on this planet…”
I am bewildered that seemingly intelligent people actually believe this. But when I go to the web to find these “breakdowns” I can’t find them. Anybody?
Yes, it is true: The Alarmists are having unprecedented breakdowns.
I’m certain that Warren Beeton can vomit a few alleged “breakdowns”, as he is a graduate of the Al Gore academy.
They don’t believe it. They’re just going along with it for a desired result, the end of Western civilization.
Who is John Clarke? A Canadian community organizer who since 1990 has been organizing poor communities under attack, says Counterfire.org.
Under attack from what? If capitalism, then he is a Marxist/socialist who is ignoring the sad history of the ideology he espouses. If climate change, then he is just an ignorant idiot.
Either way, Counterfire.org is never making my reading list.
It is partly funded indirectly by the Chinese government. Dark money is involved
How can I get some? Do I have to study Mao’s little red book? I bought a Chinese vehicle, and most of the stuff in the kitchen says “Made In China”, even one article supplied by an American company “Proudly American since 1929”!
I also have some American precision equipment and tooling, and I can read and write American, so I will accept US or Israeli dark money, if there’s some to spare.
No doubt the various agencies, CIA, Mossad, MSS, have my bank account details. When may I expect some of this dark money to appear?
In case “dark money” sounds a bit racist, I will happily accept light money, or money of any other colour, really.
When the deposit arrives, will you share?
Many of us would appreciate an influx of dark money or light money or any color EXCEPT GREEN. 😉
I know. US currency is commonly called greenbacks.
Sparta, I’m shocked! I will accept GREEN money – that means less for them, and more for me!
And if they think I will donate it straight back, they are obviously living in La-la land.
Take their money – why not? It will buy just as much.
My kinda guy…upfront with no apologies.
Straight out of Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The guy is not a socialist, he is a communist.
The only discernable difference between a socialist and a communist is….
The communists tried the 15 minute cities. They failed. They were identified as communes.
A communist is a socialist in a hurry.
These leftists always claim to be for the working people, but the never seem to understand that the costs of their expensive fantasies are born by the very working people who they imagine that they are helping.
Every time I hear (or read) the term “climate Crisis” I cringe and shake my head. People like this author –John Clarke– and others of his ilk should have to take a historical Geology course with final testing before they are ever allowed to write about climate in any which way. A little education could sure go a long way.
They should all have to refute Happer and wijngaarden and show exactly where the maths is incorrect in any of their papers on CO2 and CH4
https://wvanwijngaarden.info.yorku.ca/publications/
They know what they’re saying is bunk. Their goal isn’t education, it’s indoctrination.
And influx of funding.
Much of this narrative sounds like it came out of a Communist-era playbook where the capitalists are branded the culprits and the working classes the victimized. Except the communists left the countries they controlled largely impoverished until they woke up and adopted the level of fossil-fuel use that the West figured out was essential long before. Note how China, a communist-controlled country, just happens to be one of the biggest fossil fuel producers, importers and consumers.
There is something quite disturbing about John Clarke’s musings. He openly says capitalism is the cause of climate change. With that basic mistake behind the reason he says socialism should be adopted to put right all of capitalism’s wrongs? He seems to conveniently forget all the socialist countries that have gone full on anti capitalism or anti free market society, to be more descriptive of Western capitalism. All of the anti capitalist regimes failed, or are failing.
The USSR failed, Cuba has failed, North Korea is a complete failure, Venezuela failed, Cambodia failed. Their failure had nothing to do with climate change it was and is purely down to regimes that do not value wealth creation. The most striking current example of a country that has championed wealth creation while maintaining a totalitarian grip on its population, is China. They do operate a free market domestically and do allow wealth to be built and enjoyed by those creating it. They are not a democracy clearly, but they are certainly capitalist in a totalitarian political regime.
China was failing, until they decided to adopt the form of capitalism, if not exactly the name.
Then the current leader decided to go back to communism, and progress reversed.
What do you suppose Mr. Clarke would say if he watched Jonathan Cohler in this video: https://rumble.com/v7f6f50-jonathan-cohler-fossil-fuel-combustion-drove-essentially-none-of-the-atmosp.html?e9s=src_v1_cbl%2Csrc_v1_ucp_a
and learned that humans have not caused the recent rise in CO2? Would he still think the world needs more wind mills?
Alarmists don’t accept information outside of the fixed closed loops of perception they self identify with. Extraordinary rationalizations are employed to keep reality at bay.
I don’t take counsel from the likes of John Clarke. He is lying about CAGW and capitalism and capitalists.
Which “Climate Crisis’ are they referring to? I haven’t noticed any weather anywhere at all that’s out of the ordinary.
It’s a bit hot here, today. A couple of degrees cooler would be more comfortable. Not really a crisis. Luckily, God create air conditioning just for my convenience.
The rest of you don’t need to thank me, it’s my pleasure to help you to avoid a crisis.
Can you imagine the kind of horror show world someone like the author John Clarke would build, if he and his friends were in charge?
Yes. Give us more graft from the omniscient Fearless Leader or the Green jobs go and landfill gets it along with the windmill blades-
Solar recycler losing “insane amount of money” and about to shed staff as PV pilot program remains suspended
Seems that solar recycling is not economically viable to stand on its own without a tsunami of funding from the tax payers. Sounds a lot like WTG and SV doesn’t it?
Should read: The Malthusian Inteligencia are responsible for cooking up the Climate Crisis.
I’m sure people like Nick Stokes will show up and condemn this kind of naked, unjustified alarmism. I’m sure…
It is amazing how many do not know what a capitalist is.
Sheesh.
According to the socialists that I know, a capitalist is anyone who has more money than does the socialist.