EUROPEANS SAY CLIMATE CHANGE IS A BIG DEAL...EVEN BIGGER THAN ECONOMIC CRISIS...HOW ABOUT THAT

I am amazed that Europeans get that global climate change is even more of a serious threat than the economic crisis.  I am not amazed that Americans don't.  I am not downgrading the significance of the economic crisis of capital to so many people and I am not saying the fight against global capital should not remain right up there near the top of the agenda.  Still, climate change and global environmental collapse sort of trumps all that.  However, there is no reason why the two can't be directly connected.  After all it is GLOBAL CAPITAL that is killing the Earth.  THEY may tell you it is your fault because you drink bottled water or use bad toilet paper or whatever (and sure we do all contribute to the problem) but very little of the global destruction going on is caused  the vast majority of the people of the world, the people whom Capital eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Almost all the destruction, almost all the climate change must be laid directly at the feet of Global Capital and those who benefit from it the most.  So my friends take on global capital, don't reform it, end it.  Smash the Empire.  Do that and you will do ever so much to save the planet as you kill its killer.  Hey and while you are at it, keep in mind what I always say, you can't end capitalism without ending white supremacy, white skin privilege and racism first.  That leads directly to my little slogan, SAVE THE PLANET, FIGHT WHITE SUPREMACY AND RACISM.  If you do that you can't help but smash capitalism along the way.  It is all so simple.


The following bit of information is from TREEHUGGER.  By the way the sentence at the end of the article below about growing the economy while fighting global warming with green capitalism is BULLSHIT.  There is no such thing as green capitalism.

Europeans Fear Climate Change More than Economic Crisis: New Poll

by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York

Photo: out of ideas via Flickr/CC BY

Europeans seem to understand the severity of the threat posed by climate change a bit better than we Americans do. A new poll shows that the majority of Europeans consider it the second gravest problem facing the world, right after poverty. Those crazy Euro folk evidently think global warming is even more of a threat than the current economic crisis -- and remember, Europe is in the throes of what could potentially be a much more calamitous financial meltdown than the one we're facing on this side of the pond ...

68% of Europeans rate climate change as a "very serious" problem, according to theEurobarometer poll (pdf). The Guardian reports that the poll

suggests that the majority of the public in the European Union consider global warming to be one of the world's most serious problems, with one-fifth saying it is the single most serious problem. Overall, respondents said climate change was the second most serious issue facing the world, after poverty.
Connie Hedegaard, European climate commissioner, said: "This is encouraging news. The survey shows that the citizens of Europe can see that economic challenges are not the only ones we face."

This is telling. Even as the Eurozone faces the possible collapse of its currency and the existential threats that entails, citizens are still more worried about the longer-term havoc that would be wreaked by the disruption of the global climate system. In other words, they have their priorities in order.
The same cannot be said about Americans. As the fiercest free-market devotees in the industrialized world (at least ideologically speaking) we refuse to even consider having a cogent political debate about climate change, for fear that it would mean impairing economic growth, until we're certain the economy is booming. Climate change consistently ranks near the bottom on the lists of Americans' concerns, and our politicians either cowardly skirt the issue or flat-out deny it exists. We read Roger Pielke Jr.'s "Iron Law" of climate policy, which states that "When policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth, economic growth will win out every time," as gospel.
Yet economic fluctuations will come and go. But once we've dumped enough carbon pollution into the atmosphere to provoke any number of feedback loops (thawing permafrost, vanishing ice cover, etc), our climate system will be broken for generations to come. Europeans understand this better than Americans, and have managed to not only recognize the threat, but to reduce emissions while growing their economy. Novel idea, isn't it?

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