``We need an emergency mobilisation of society, a five- or 10-year plan
to achieve a drastic reorientation of our economy and use of energy.
Anything else is simply not serious.''

April 3, 2008 -- Dave Holmes, a veteran leader of theAustralian
Democratic Socialist Perspective <http://www.dsp.org.au/site/> (DSP), is
one of the authors of the pamphlet Change the System Not The Climate
<http://www.dsp.org.au/site/?q=node/194> (Resistance Books 2007) who
will be participating in the Climate Change | Social Change Conference
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/conference.php>, April 11-13 in Sydney
Australia. The other authors of the pamphlet, renowned Marxist John
Bellamy Foster and Links <http://www.links.org.au> editor Terry
Townsend, are speakers at the conference.

Peter Boyle of the DSP spoke to Holmes about the key issues the
conference needs to address.

Dave Holmes: The fundamental problem facing humanity today is
catastrophic climate change brought on by runaway greenhouse gas
emissions. The relatively narrow band of climatic conditions within
which we can function has been destabilised. As average temperatures
rise extreme weather events are increasing (cyclones, floods, heat waves
and droughts) and ocean levels look like rising dramatically,
potentially making refugees of hundreds of millions of people. The very
survival of the human race has now been called into question.

Human societies have always impacted on their environment. But the
source of our current crisis is quite specific: it is the operations of
modern capitalism. The drive for profits by the giant corporations has
been relentless and has been pursued in complete disregard of any impact
on the environment.

The fundamental conditions under which we live — how we generate our
power, how we get around, how our food is grown, etc. — are not decided
by us but rather by the big corporations that control society’s means of
production. Without the rule of corporate capital we could set in place
radically different and ecologically sustainable arrangements.

Read the full article at http://links.org.au/node/329

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