[WSMDiscuss] (Fwd) Climate justice protest at Durban City Hall (9am-noon), and 3 webinars from Joburg/CT today (from noon SA time, 6am EST): "Polluters! Pay your climate debt to Africa!" (African Ecofeminist Collective); climate dialectics towards eco-socialism; and anti-gas (The Green Connection)

[Patrick Bond]

///(Earth Day! First two webinars at noon SA time, followed by anti-gas 
and offshore drilling at 2pm.)/

1) Register at: BIT.LY/PollutersPayClimateDebt

Polluters! Plunderers! Pay your Climate Debt to Africa!
Online event
22 April 2021

Join an Earth Day Dialogue on histories and perspectives of 
anti-capitalist struggles for ecological and climate debt, and 
questioning how to frame and claim the ecological debt that is owed to 
Africa. On April 22, Earth Day, 10AM GMT, 12PM CAT.

***

2) Join in <https://tuney.kr/H5hdbu>, Zoom Link : 
https://tuney.kr/H5hdbu <https://tuney.kr/H5hdbu>

or Zoom room number : 338 884 7525

Password : marx

*Climate Crisis and a Case for Eco-socialism*

*Dialectical resolutions of environmental justice and ecological 
modernization*

PATRICK BOND

Professor, University of the Western Cape School of Government, Cape 
Town, South Africa

Presented to Social Sciences Korea Global Marxism Online Talk series, 22 
April 2021 (7pm SK; noon SA; 6am EST)

/ABSTRACT: /A fierce intellectual battle continues over the ideological 
character of green politics. The overall conflict that emerged in past 
decades between environmental justice advocates on the one hand, and on 
the other, a coalition of states, corporations and their academic and 
media allies will now revive in earnest, given the Biden 
Administration’s commitment to take climate change seriously. After the 
Trump regime’s climate denialism, a longstanding problem now returns: 
the supposedly-pragmatic framing of “climate action” utilizing 
“ecological modernization” strategies – i.e., regulatory, technicist, 
market-based (applying “marginally” so as to incentivize next-step 
decision-making instead of dramatic transformations) or some combination 
– that characterized the pre-Trump era. In contrast, as one example of a 
Marxist committed to resolution of the tension thus created (between 
orthodox approaches and left-indigenous-feminist-community-anti-racist 
“climate justice” politics), David Harvey has long promoted the 
“radicalization of the theses of ecological modernization.” The 
temptation that must be avoided in this process, though, is 
/deradicalization /through cooptation, e.g., through adoption of “false 
solutions” which (in this case) might include mass agricultural 
bio-engineering in search of deep-rooted carbon sequestration. But even 
as technical questions reemerge – especially over “net carbon zero” 
fantasies of putting CO2 “back underground” – the radicalization Harvey 
calls for is actually more relevant than ever. On the one hand this 
often appears impossible, such as in the debate over emissions trading, 
where an ecologically-modernized “internalization of externalities” is 
again being contested by critical activists across the world, at the 
same time corporate net neutrality has become all the rage and hence 
carbon markets and offsets have recently revived. On the other hand, 
“climate reparations” for “loss and damage” – via “ecological debt” 
payments and/or carbon taxation – are related techniques that need 
careful consideration, so that climate action does not lead to an unjust 
“privatization of the air” and ultra-commodified “Payments for Ecosystem 
Services.” As eco-socialists mobilize against fossil fuels (amidst their 
other battles against unnecessary minerals extraction) and as they try 
to avoid eco-social fragmentation (especially labor versus 
environmentalists), Harvey’s provocation is a good opportunity to 
establish what kinds of dialectical processes might constructively 
arise. In the South African case, for instance, ongoing environmental 
justice demands are grounded in eco-feminist /Ubuntu, “/commoning”, 
PanAfrican and “rights of future generation” concepts. But can their 
advocates radicalize the technicist analysis they are daily confronted 
with, by utilizing ecological modernization approaches to assess climate 
debt and to better advocate for anti-extractivist economic policies by 
invoking “natural capital accounts,” in search of a resolution that in 
turn provides new eco-socialist potentials – and further contradictions?

(full paper available: pbond at mail.ngo.za)

***

register: bahia at thegreenconnection.org.za

***


https://bereamail.co.za/260541/south-durban-community-environmental-alliance-to-host-earth-day-event/


  South Durban Community Environmental Alliance to host Earth Day event


    This picket will create awareness about the importance of Earth Day
    and the impacts on our earth in relation to climate change.

THE South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) will be 
hosting a demonstrative picket outside the Durban City Hall on Earth 
Day, 22 April from 9am to 12pm.

Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for 
environmental protection.

First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events 
coordinated globally by EARTHDAY.ORG including 1 billion people in more 
than 193 countries.

According to Joanne Groom from SDCEA said, “Our government and 
industries should realise the enormity of the use of fossil fuels and 
take a stand by moving to alternative energy such as wind, hydro or 
solar which would be cleaner options for our planet and our health.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.openspaceforum.net/pipermail/wsm-discuss/attachments/20210422/093fd681/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: bdohgjbpbaddenen.png
Type: image/png
Size: 66763 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.openspaceforum.net/pipermail/wsm-discuss/attachments/20210422/093fd681/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: plnemmgmjgmhgfne.png
Type: image/png
Size: 99618 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.openspaceforum.net/pipermail/wsm-discuss/attachments/20210422/093fd681/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: nfdnaanfkfomjmmh.png
Type: image/png
Size: 142926 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.openspaceforum.net/pipermail/wsm-discuss/attachments/20210422/093fd681/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: nephiahofhplcloh.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 21505 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.openspaceforum.net/pipermail/wsm-discuss/attachments/20210422/093fd681/attachment.jpg>