Earth Day: End Capitalism Before it Ends Us and the Planet

Earth Day 2024 comes amidst a climate emergency for our planet. Already, we are dealing with more frequent wildfires, droughts, storms and other extreme weather events. The main obstacle standing in the way of addressing climate change is private profit, and the system that values quarterly revenue over the survival of human civilization. The fight to save the planet is a fight against capitalism. 

In 2022 workers lost 2.8 billion hours of labor and tens of billions of dollars in wages due to extreme heat. Climate change is causing devastating losses to our harvests and facilitating the growth of infectious disease. Five million Americans already live in an area with a high likelihood of a “once in a century” flood in the near future. Increased extreme weather is draining billions of dollars from workers in property damage, more frequent spikes in food and energy costs, and disruptions to child and eldercare. Without a change in our current trajectory, all these issues, and more, will only become more catastrophic. 

The massive military-industrial complex, and the wars and occupations that come with it have made the Pentagon the world's largest polluter. The U.S. war machine emits more CO2 than Denmark or Portugal. The Inflation Reduction Act, “the most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history,” will invest $370 billion over the next five to ten years. In the next ten years alone the U.S. is set to spend $10,500,000,000,000 — almost 30 times that amount — on war and militarism.

The Republicans openly seek to increase climate disasters while the Democrats propose solutions far below what’s needed. Their combined efforts have set emmissions on track to be reduced 40% by 2030, 22-25% below what’s necessary to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. 

Our socialist campaign is going to tackle the climate crisis head on, and guarantee a sustainable future with a crash emergency program to triple the reduction in carbon emissions from 2023 levels every year for the next six years — including projects to supercharge the production of clean energy technologies. 

This starts with the seizure of the 100 largest corporations in the U.S. so that they become public property. This transformation of the economy will facilitate a large-scale effort to repair and build out public transit and rail projects of all types on the municipal, regional and national level; reorganize food production on a sustainable basis; decarbonize an expanded manufacturing sector; as well as other necessary projects in housing, infrastructure and transportation to meet our climate goals. We will also be making dramatic reductions in both the military-industrial complex and emissions by moving towards a foreign policy of cooperation not confrontation. 

We can protect the planet and create millions of new jobs by putting people before profit. The big monopolies and financial giants that run the economy and politics won’t change. The working class has to take radical, drastic action to take power and end capitalism before it ends us.