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COP26 Protests and the Young Communist League

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There were huge protests in Glasgow and around the world on Saturday about failure to adequately address the climate crisis.

The Young Communist League (YCL) of Britain was prevented from participating in the Glasgow protest by police. It appears that they were marching behind a banner reading ‘Socialism or Extinction‘. YCL published the following statement on 5 November 2021, the day previous to the protest and an article appeared in the Morning Star on the day of the protest.

COP26: Socialism or Extinction

COP26 has been billed as one of the last chances to save the planet and humanity as we know it. For nearly thirty years these meetings have brought together world leaders to discuss and debate the best way forward, yet little has changed in that time. In fact, since the first COP meeting held in Berlin in 1995, global CO2 emissions have increased by 56%. The imperialist world’s governments are paying this crisis nothing but lip service, rolling over to let the monopolies and big business that they represent in fossil fuels, agribusiness, manufacturing and finance run rampant across the globe. Politicians are still desperate to cling to the economic system that created this crisis.

This week we have seen the representatives of right wing governments gather to express warm words and pledges in order to protect the capitalist system, with keynote speeches from some of the biggest polluters on the planet including BP and Amazon. These huge monopolies do not represent us and we cannot allow them to pressure governments into enabling and promoting the same privatised market solutions to climate change that have already failed for decades.

Right wing governments and these monopolies cynically present the challenge facing humanity as one of “changing consumer choices and habits”. This completely ignores and obscures the fact that, like all things in our society and its development, production and consumption are rigidly dictated by the monopolies and banks that control the global economy and the governments which serve their interests – all for short-term financial profit.

The continuing role of imperialism cannot be ignored. We are so often told that we are all in this together. But we are not! We are not equally responsible for this mess, and we do not equally share the risks of devastation. Yet we are all told that we all must make adjustments. This week, Scotland’s skies have been filled with the private jets of the elite. We have even seen politicians travelling in jets from Prestwick to Glasgow. A journey served well by a direct train link that takes less than 45 minutes.

More than ever, the inequality capitalism has created on this earth has been made starkly clear. While the richest nations make their own plans for net-zero, many developing nations are being left in the lurch, not offered the breathing space required for their own development. All the while, Western imperialist countries outsource their production abroad whilst attempting to shift the blame towards China and other countries with mass exports.

The media’s relentless anti-China sentiment has continued and increased this week with renewed attention on Chinese emissions, despite the fact that China is by far the largest investor, producer and consumer of renewable energy. Its CO2 emissions per capita barely place it in the top 50 polluting countries globally. Of course, it must do more and the Chinese Government have recently published its plans for net-zero. However, the ramping up of hostility, pointing to a New Cold War cannot be allowed to continue. Nor can we allow smaller and developing nations to be left behind and forced to remain underdeveloped in the interests of the already industrialised western countries.

We cannot stand idly by while politicians seek to divide us, demanding individual responses to what is the crucial systemic problem of this age. We say no more! We do not have time to wait, and we cannot allow our leaders to kick the can down the road to 2030 or even 2050.

Capitalism, a system which is only capable of serving the interest of the banks and monopolies and the suicidal drive for ever increasing short term profit at any cost, has proven itself unwilling and unable to handle the impending catastrophe which it has created. It will never be in the interest of big business or the capitalist governments which it controls to discipline the major carbon emitters or implement the radical change needed to save the planet and humanity. Only a system with absolute democratic control over industry, a Socialist system, is capable of tackling climate change head on. So we say:

The choice is clear – Socialism or extinction

Central Committee
Young Communist League

5 November 2021
Glasgow, Scotland

YCL’s statement published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

22/2/22 Young Communist League: Statement on the COP26 protest

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INSULATE BRITAIN Be Impossible, Demand the Realistic

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Well done Insulate Britain. I have been considering organising an action locally in solidarity, risking imprisonment as you do. I think that I would do some simple criminal damage to increase my effectiveness rather than sit about waiting to be arrested – it’s surprising what you can achieve with some simple hand tools.

People are going to be increasingly willing to take action and risk imprisonment as the climate crisis is not properly addressed. It takes very few to insist and achieve no more business as usual.

XXX

dizzy deep

INSULATE BRITAIN Be Impossible, Demand the Realistic Charlie Waterhouse

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Stopping traffic is nothing. Roadworks stop traffic every day, as do accidents. Floods are now stopping traffic regularly. The response from the Government and right-wing media shows us that we are doing the right thing. Prince Charles’ intervention, saying that he understands people’s frustrations as well as the problems tells us we are doing the right thing. 

And now is the time to do the right thing; to get off the fence; to really face up to what is happening. 

The Government has a choice: it can actually do something about the crises we face or it can stick its head in the sand, criminalising those who are clamouring for change along the way.

And you have a choice too: keep your fingers tightly crossed, say your prayers, and hope against hope that someone else will come and save you. Or you can do your bit and be the ancestor your future family desperately needs. 

“The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary,” observes the author Ursula K Le Guin.

It will take fewer of us than we think to turn ‘annoying’ into ‘revolutionary’; imagination into paradigm shift. But tomorrow is too late. Be Impossible, Demand the Realistic.

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Global climate strike: thousands join coordinated action across world

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/24/people-in-99-countries-take-part-in-global-climate-strike

Hundreds of thousands of people in 99 countries have taken part in a coordinated global climate strike demanding urgent action to tackle the ecological crisis.

The strike on Friday, the first worldwide climate action since the coronavirus pandemic hit, is taking place weeks before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK.

In Germany, two days before the country’s general election, Greta Thunberg told a crowd of more than 100,000 people that “no political party” was doing enough.

The Swedish activist, whose solo strike in 2018 inspired the global Fridays for Future movement, told cheering supporters they needed to keep up the pressure on Germany’s political leaders past election day.

“Yes, we must vote, you must vote, but remember that voting only will not be enough. We must keep going into the streets,” she said.

Organisers of the global event said there were protests in more than 1,800 towns and cities around the world with large events in Europe, Africa and North and South America.

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‘Cut the crap’ say Extinction Rebellion on their ‘Free the Press’ protest

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Extinction Rebellion protested today about UK’s press and politics being dominated by the politics and interests of 5 [ed: 4] non-dom tax evading billionaires. The political agenda is largely set by these sihts who often engage in criminal behaviour e.g. phone hacking, or facilitate criminal behaviour e.g. corruption of high elected politicians like Boris Johnson and Priti Patel. Surely it must be a crime for Priti Patel to be Rupert Murdoch’s Private Secretary instead of UK’s Home Secretary.

Extintion Rebellion deliver manure to press barons and call to cut the crap.

Extinction Rebellion protests take on media tycoons’ silence on scale of climate crisis

https://twitter.com/bearwitness2019/status/1409214113151078401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1409220452053098502%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.readingchronicle.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fnational%2F19402504.23-arrested-extinction-rebellion-dumps-manure-outside-newspaper-offices%2F

Continue Reading‘Cut the crap’ say Extinction Rebellion on their ‘Free the Press’ protest