While Marxists and others on the Left are correct to point out that many college-educated progressives are themselves part of the working class — even many lawyers and doctors must work for a paycheck to survive, after all — the key to socialist political strategy is uniting the whole working-class around a majoritarian agenda. For a civilizational challenge like shifting away from fossil fuels, only broad-based working-class power is capable of achieving what planetary systems require. To build that power, we need to understand why we are failing to win many workers to our politics, and how we can change that.
The “punk” part ain’t no joke
Climate change has the potential to literally wipe out all the humans. Surely that makes it a bigger problem than inequality between humans.
But climate change does not pay SS officers dressed in ICE uniform to knock on your doors and bring your parents to a San Salvador prison.
It is potential versus actuality here.
And will notably hurt the poor and those subjected to systemic racism the most. The rich aren’t going to just have their oceanfront property fall into the ocean, they’re going to redirect public resources from at risk communities to it, and buy up the housing at the new climate adapted desirable locations leaving the “affordable” housing that’s too hot or too risky to the poor and disadvantaged.
For those negatively affected by the erosion of rights both represent existential threats. The difference is climate change is an existential threat decades away while the erosion of rights is a threat today. Why would you prioritize a threat that will kill you 30 to 40 years from now when you may die tomorrow from this other, much closer, threat?
I’m personally not affected, but I can absolutely empathize and agree climate change is the lesser threat to those living today. Ideally, we should be able to address both at the same time, but if we have to give priority, then climate change is lower.
Because climate change is a long term process and the changes we make today are going to take 20-50 years to take effect.
It’s like being infected with rabies and thinking you have a few months before it will kill you, ignoring that the treatment must be given promptly or it won’t be effective. If you wait until the symptoms show, it’s too late to treat it and it’s almost certainly fatal.
That is a completely irrelevant argument to a population (and their children) that might already be dead from civil rights violations for 20 to 50 years at the time when climate change impacts are felt by the oppressive survivors.
If you accidentally consumed a fatal poison and had a very short time to counter it, in that moment would you give a crap about solving climate change? I won’t believe you if you say “yes”.
Did you see the other post on here “The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate”? - this is part of the lie.
The premise of your question is trying to compare an individual crisis that affects one person with a worldwide, global problem that affects not just humanity but other species living on this planet.
As I said before, I’m an Islander, and I consider climate change to be a higher priority than stuff like wage equality or cultural issues. Dealing with inter-human discrimination isn’t going to matter if our entire species can’t survive.
I am not denying climate change. I believe climate change is happening. I believe it is because of humanity’s actions of carbon release (among other things).
You’re selectively cherry picking my comments out of context changing their meaning. I don’t appreciate that. Those comments you quoted were specifically from the population that are facing down issues greater to them than climate change. I get it. Those issues are less concerning to you specifically. That doesn’t mean your opinion changes theirs.
Asking an individual to suffer “for the greater good” has to have some kind of reward that that individual sees their own sacrifice as “worth it”. Working to stop deaths in the distant future of some other groups while accepting deaths that happen today to your own group is a very hard sell. You’re not going to get many takers.
Of course you do. I respect your position for your situation. As an Islander, I can absolutely appreciate to you climate change is the biggest and closest threat to you personally and those in your group. I can imagine no greater threat to you and your way of life that the sea rise and dangerous weather that climate change will bring.
You argument evaporates when you make these untruthful statements. Realistically even with the worst models of climate change our species will survive.
Billions of people will die, and our world as we know it will be gone. Millions of other species alive today will go extinct. These are reasons enough for me to believe we need to change our actions today, but humanity will not die. It will survive in a much diminished form.
As for our conversation here. I understand and respect your perspective (and always did), but even with this last post of yours you’re failing to empathize with others that face challenges to them greater than climate change.
I think we’ve reached the end of useful discussion. Thank you for engaging up to now. I believe we will both continue to do what we can to slow, stop, and reverse climate change. Have a great day.
Sorry, I didn’t explain the Australian context of Islander - I don’t live on an Island.
I’m a Torres Strait Islander by descent, i.e. an Indigenous Australian so considered “Blak” in Australia. (We use “Blak” sometimes to differentiate from the US usage of “Black”). The term “First Nations” is popular these days but I hate it because it sounds like manager speak.
I consider climate change to be more important than Blak issues (or Black issues for that matter), including ones that specifically affect me like police brutality. I’ve had police ignore people physically assaulting me in public before, was ostracised all through high school and in other situations, etc. I consider all of that not as worrying as climate change.