Q9: Could you tell us more about the details of the Keystone XL pipeline struggle?
The Keystone XL pipeline extends from Alberta, Canada to the refineries on the southern coasts of Texas with two separate legs. It is about moving the tar sands oil to the Gulf Coast of the U.S. where it can be refined and sold internationally.
In the US, at the moment the leading part of the movement is focusing on the northern part of the pipeline, which will cross the border between Canada and the US, and which has not been approved by the US government. But the really strategic part of the pipeline is in the southern part of the pipeline, because all those oil have to pass down to the Texas Gulf coast, and in the southern leg of the pipeline the different routes meet. The Keystone XL pipeline battle is becoming an important symbolic and a direct struggle aimed at stopping the usage of unconventional fossil fuels in North America.
I do not know too much about the movement in Canada. It is led by an indigenous movement, “Idle No More”, with which some trade unionists and environmental groups are connected. They are also trying to stop the transportation of tar sands by railroad.
In the US, the battle becomes a real mass movement. Tens of thousands of people have been involved in this and tried to block the pipeline, and over 1,000 people were arrested during the protests and demonstrations.
Now the strategy of the US movement is basically to make the fossil fuel industry into the “No. 1 Enemy” instead of capitalism. It is a sort of ‘Popular Front’ strategy, like in the 1930s when the strategy was to create a popular front against fascism rather than against capitalism itself, and actually ‘the popular front’ at the time was allied with a part of the capitalist class against fascism.
The movement that is led by Bill Mckibben and 350.org is trying to organize divestment campaigns aimed at the fossil fuel industry along with carbontracker.org. The idea is that if we burn the unconventional fossil fuels we will break through the carbon budget and impair the conditions of the climate of the entire planet. This means that most fossil fuels are not in fact burnable and that the fossil fuel assets, which investors have put their capital into, are actually nothing but a huge financial bubble, demanding divestment.
However, it is very hard to really stop oil companies and the fossil fuel industry just by divestment, because they are all tied up with other corporations. There are a lot of questions and issues to work out. Q10: what is your solution to the fossil fuel war and the “epochal crisis” ecologically and economically?
Labeling the fossil fuel industry as the enemy is a rational way to build up the movement, but ultimately we have to confront capitalism itself on this question.
The basic point is that, in the age of global monopoly-finance capitalism, we do not produce things based on our needs, but based on profits and over-accumulation.
Economically, we do not have much time to reduce carbon emissions drastically. We have to proceed with technology and infrastructure development, such as solar power and wind power, though technologies and material conditions co-exist.
Politically, if we want to resolve the issue of climate change and limit the level of carbon emissions, it must be based on a global planned economy or certain international agreements between different countries and different blocs.
We have to slow down our waste production and make these things more politicised than ever before. The whole population will criticize the carbon emissions.
James Hansen proposed collecting carbon tax and 100% distribution of this to the public on a per capita basis. The dividend would put money in the hands of the public, allowing them to purchase vehicles and other products that reduce their carbon footprints and thus their taxes. The working class will also benefit from this tax. Effects will permeate through the society. It is just a small example, but it could also mobilise the population and let us question most of the waste we produce now and who makes the decisions, and so on.
In the US, the 400 richest individuals have as much wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans, namely half of the American population. The whole society has become much more unequal.
Every year, trillions of dollars are being spent on military, trillions of dollars are spent on marketing, 400 billion dollars on public security, 400 billion dollars on private security, and 170 billion dollars on highways.
They are all irrational expenses for the society as a whole. As a result we do not have enough money for education. In some counties and states, They are supposed not to teach students physical education, music, arts and sciences anymore. The schools are only teaching grammar, reading and writing. They strip money away from schools, but we have spent 40% more on public and private security.
It is like they do not care that there is no future in the US. All have been privatised, it is absolute madness.
Capitalism creates so many contradictions, so many irrationalities and so much waste and destruction. All these problems have to be dealt with, and it is not an easy task.
In order to accomplish this task, We have to restructure the global economy and social relations. Technology can help in the long-term, but cannot be implemented in an effective way fast enough. We have so much wealth, power and abilities to meet peoples’ needs and transform our society into a more rational one, and we do not need this endless growth. We should develop new means of production and set up a planned production on a democratic basis.
We have to mobilise the masses and rely on mass uprisings. Through that, we can achieve a lot very quickly. Neverthless, leadership in the global struggle will come from the global South.
As a socialist now, you have so many issues that need to be confronted, sometimes it is very difficult to even put them together and consider how rationally and sustainably to meet the interests of the world population as well as to prevent an ecological disaster.
We have no choice but to try our best to achieve something on this.
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