https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2155547987/kinoeye_400x400.jpgSam Gindin: . . . Angus argues that environmental catastrophism is a red herring. Had he simply argued that critics have exaggerated how prevalent it is, that would have been one thing. But to insist that it doesn't exist at all, that there is 'not one' example of this, strains credulity. When environmentalists mobilize around the issue do all of them really never turn to language that suggests more than urgency and never suggest that the world is on the brink of collapse? A good many Marxist economists have repeatedly predicted the imminent collapse of capitalism and the decline of the American empire; others have prematurely warned of peak oil undermining global industrialization. Would Angus really want to lock himself into asserting that this kind of argument has never occurred among environmentalists? Can one not both praise early critics of the environment and also suggest that some of them were prone to apocalyptic overstatement? It seems to me that emerging from this increasingly unproductive debate are three crucial questions. First, how do we soberly assess the current strength of the movement? Second, how do we win the working class to more than progressive resolutions and moderate support? Third, how do we balance the often contradictory objectives of broadening the movement and radicalizing it? . . . Ian Angus . . . What I challenged was your specific claim that in order to win support, some unidentified environmentalists purposely make a claim they know to be false -- that the world is going to end in a few decades, possibly as soon as 20 years. I do not know of a single example of that, and you haven't cited a single example either. You then referred to the mistaken views of peak oil theorists and some Marxist economists. Those may indeed be examples of "catastrophism" in other movements at other times, but they are not relevant to our current discussion. Nor, I should add, are they examples of purposely exaggerating for effect: those writers were wrong, but they weren't lying. But let's set aside the absence of evidence for your specific claim, and agree that some overzealous environmentalists sometimes use "language that suggests more than urgency." Since we really do face a serious crisis, I'm not sure what would qualify as "more than urgency," but I won't quibble. Are such statements really so harmful that they had to be the only environmental movement problem mentioned in your list of "nine things to know about organizing in the belly of the beast"? Are they really more damaging than Malthusianism, or primitivism, or support for market solutions, or any of the other political confusions that beset the movement? Above all, are they more important than the enormous influence of climate change deniers and the corporate propaganda machines? To be frank, I think your concern with exaggeration is exaggerated.

More... (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2014/ga060814.html)

some snips:

The mobilization that has occurred via the environmental movement is impressive and, as Ian Angus has rightly long emphasized, it includes great potential to raise a socialist challenge to capitalism. I do not, however, understand why pointing to certain limits -- as supporters -- raises so many hackles. Though gains have been made, the movement hasn't been able to substantively affect the trajectory of capitalism and, in an effort to explicitly avoid a sense of fatalism from a sense of catastrophe, the green movement (including the big ENGOs) has embraced incremental and market-based solutions. We are losing, not winning, even on a terrain that would seem most fertile. Among other things, the movement hasn't had much success in generating a deep commitment from the critical constituency of labour, and environmentalists remain internally divided on what it will take to win.

snip

Some of us have argued that the only way to resolve it is to incorporate the environment into a broader social agenda. Angus is apparently concerned that this will only obscure any environmental focus, as if class-based questions of environmental justice can be left out of any fundamental anti-capitalist re-thinking of the ecology of production and consumption. In fact, such a broader approach is the only way to both overcome key barriers to mobilizing around the environment and build the base for eventually taking on capitalism. Addressing equality and strengthening social programs to support people experiencing dislocations brought about by radical reductions in carbon emissions; raising the importance of the public sector and collective consumption against profitability, competitiveness, and consumerism; advancing job strategies for responsible production -- all this is not distinct from the politics of the environment but fundamental to it. (There is of course always a danger that within such a broader mobilization the priority of the environment will be eroded, but that is a matter of framing the issues and organizing around them, not rejecting the larger mobilization.)

Angus (the second snip) is clearly the better debater, but its not clear to me what question is being debated. Is climate change a social crisis or an environmental one? If the latter, obviously it should be addressed by technical means and all attempts should be made to limit the political constraints/shackles (but not barriers!) on the application of those technical measures.

If it is a social crisis (as we know that it is) then the vocabulary changes as does the tenor of the discussion. That shift is not particularly (barely at all) evident in the posted "debate"

Angus (the second snip) is clearly the better debater, but its not clear to me what question is being debated. Is climate change a social crisis or an environmental one? If the latter, obviously it should be addressed by technical means and all attempts should be made to limit the political constraints/shackles (but not barriers!) on the application of those technical measures.

If it is a social crisis (as we know that it is) then the vocabulary changes as does the tenor of the discussion. That shift is not particularly (barely at all) evident in the posted "debate"

The nature of human historical development makes it a social crisis and that makes it our balliwick. Yeah, they debate tactics constrained by their PB sensibilities. Never get there from here. Their goals are radical but they are not, they would overturn the status quo in a big way but have zero ability to do so because of those constraints. By their fruitless posturing they distract from the disease, never seriously attack it. This is complicty. Only a radicalized working class can effect a society dedicated to human wellbeing instead of profit.