Sean et al...

From the perspective of someone who is and has been one of those
environmentalists that you speak about, you comments point to one of the
fundamental flaws in human nature that in the end with be our Achilles
heal... That is that we, collectively and as individuals, are
preoccupied with satisfying our own material interests. At all costs...
It has also been called greed... Call it what you may, in the end, and
other more informed persons than I have made this case, the earth's
resources are simply to limited to keep all the worlds population alive,
let alone living at a standard of living we might find acceptable in
North America.... Add into this recipe the central premise of the
capitalist approach that the economy need to be constantly expanding,
and you have great certainty that social, economic and environmental
collapse will occur in close proximity in space in time with a resulting
collapse of human society as we now know it... I'd be much less
concerned with losing your jobs and more concerned about how you might
quickly adapt your lifestyle and standard of living expectations to deal
with the soon to emerge reality... Worry about how you will feed your
family and heat your home... And get used to eating root vegetables...

I hope I'm wrong but I fear not...

Take care

Mike Sawyer

Richard Collier wrote:
>
> Dear Rick:
>
>
>
> If the effects of the capitalist systemic failure led by US
>
> imperialism were not so grave for Canadian working people, the calls
> by the environmentalists for "No New Approvals", "Stop the Tars Sands
> Permanently", preventing global climate change by industrial
> curtailment, halting the production of "dirty oil" etal, would be
> comical. They would be laughable.
>
>
>
> But groups like the Sierra Club, Council of Canadians, Green Peace and
> others have a significant influence on organized labour and the
> leadership. What is not understood by so many on the environmental
> left is that if the tars sands are stopped Alberta's economy will stop
> along with all those environmentalists' jobs as well.
>
>
>
> The "No New Approvals" that is being called for by the
>
> environmentalists has in fact been implemented with a speed and
> hostility by the oil monopolies themselves, which will mean ruin for
> 1000's of working families. Workers will pay the price – temporary
> foreign workers as well, as the camps are opened up and those workers
> laid off. That is what is at issue.
>
>
>
> The big oil monopolies have completed the work of the
>
> environmentalists. Most of the projects in Alberta have been
>
> halted, "delayed" or moved to lower cost jurisdictions (US mid west,
> Gulf coast). Petro-Can, Shell, Imperial, CNRL, Nexen, Suncor,
> syncrude and others have all announced that capital expenditures will
> be dramatically scaled back. This will translate into significant job
> loss. The calls on the building trades boards are dry, meaning there
> is a "freeze in hiring". Metals and mining companies have announced a
> halt of over 20 projects. David Coles CEP president is warning that
> forestry is under threat of complete collapse.
>
>
>
> The question that confronts these environmentalists is where do
>
> workers find employment? And they are still calling for no new
>
> approvals? Alberta workers need those projects to continue and
> go-ahead not halted.
>
>
>
> The fight will move to a new plain; keeping open the projects that are
> still going or have been planned. The environmentalists will find
> themselves in a position that must oppose energy sector worker jobs,
> this they will be forced to contend with. Would the environmentalists
> call for a moratorium on car manufacturing in Ontario? Cars are big
> polluters. The test of the environmentalists' positions should be; are
> you prepared to get up in front of a building trades union meeting and
> call for "No New Approvals"? A march on the provincial legislature,
> calling for "No New Approvals", in the face of such economic
> insecurity and impending job loss, will be viewed with suspicion and
> ridicule by workers themselves.
>
>
>
> No matter how well meaning the people involved are, the disregard
> shown by these groups for workers' jobs is dangerous, divisive and
> completely out of step with the economic realties of the Alberta and
> Canadian economy. In the context mounting job loss in the Canadian
> resource sectors and manufacturing in Ontario and Quebec, such calls
> places the environmentalists in collaboration with the oil
> monopolies. The defence of the environment on the backs of workers is
> cynical and naïve. Environmentalists will have to contend with a
>
> growing anger of workers and justify why they are calling for
>
> workers' jobs.
>
>
>
> Sean Currie
>
> Energy Sector Worker
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Sean,
>
>
>
> My intuition tells me that we have in the past already dealt with much
> that you mention here; nevertheless, the points are important and
> worth some review. I confess to a dialectic response to what you
> say: I both agree and disagree with you, and I both agree and
> disagree with environmentalists as they currently conceive themselves.
>
>
>
> In resolving the dialectical conflicts in my own thinking what became
> paramount was the sense that those of us on the left need to build
> coalitions rather than fragmenting potential alliances -- the battle
> against finance capital is too big to permit extensive in-fighting; to
> fall prey to internecine struggles will be one certain way to doom our
> revolution to failure. I recognize that there are those on the left
> -- particularly Communists of a strictly Bolshevik and Leninist stripe
> -- who still feel that they must purify their ranks in order to be
> sure of a vanguardist role in the revolution. I suspect that in
> today's world such an assumption is misguided, but frankly that issue
> requires an entirely separate essay.
>
>
>
> If we are to have alliances, especially one between workers and
> environmentalists, it is important that both of these putative 'sides'
> stop viewing the world in an us/them opposition, yourself included.
> It is simply not true that all workers are anti-environment and that
> all environmentalists are bourgeois, anti-worker, elitists (as you
> suggest). I myself am in fact a member of a worldwide group that
> calls itself The Eco-Socialist Movement, and many in this group
> describe themselves as being 'deep Red'.
>
>
>
> Of course, it is true that many environmentalists need to be tutored
> in Marxist thought, and need to learn that the rights and needs of
> workers must be harmonized with ecological concerns. But absolutely
> the same kind of thing can be said about most workers (at least in
> North America); all too frequently they know little about Marx, and
> are completely dismissive of environmental matters (which, in my
> estimation, explains why so many of them vote for Stephen Harper and
> his ilk).
>
>
>
> What is it that these two groups need to learn from each other? Well,
> environmentalists need to learn that, along with proposing that CO2
> intensive industries be capped or eliminated, they should also
> advocate for job retraining and adequate family support (at least
> equal to former pay scales) for workers adversely affected by these
> economic impacts. I, for one, am alarmed by and resistant to any kind
> of discussion that suggests that some subset of humanity may need to
> suffer or die in order to achieve some greater good -- I've heard mass
> die-offs of Africans and East Indians advocated to reduce population,
> for example, or mandated restriction of economic growth in China and
> India to stave off pollution. Such suggestions are all fine and dandy
> until I submit that such matters as, say, population control be
> managed as a global lottery, one that could affect my interlocutor and
> his family as much and with equal likelihood as some poverty-stricken
> family in Angola. In other words, that kind of talk is genuinely
> elitist ("trash the poor and people of colour, but leave us wealthy
> white folks alone"), and is, I suspect, what you are reacting against.
>
>
>
> But workers need to learn, as well, that if things go on as they are
> today, in a finite number of years -- 10? 25? 50? -- there won't be
> a habitable planet for them to labour in or for their children or
> grandchildren to labour in. There simply will not be a future for
> much of humanity. Now, I know it's fashionable to be a climate change
> or CO2 denier, but usually such folks are on the hard right of the
> political spectrum (perhaps another reason so many workers vote PC?).
> But to be a denier means you have to imagine that hundreds, if not
> thousands, of respected scientists are lying for the sake of some sort
> of grand conspiracy . . . such a phantasmagoric vision exceeds even
> that required to see 9/11 as an inside job.
>
>
>
> So in effect, what I am saying is that workers and environmentalists
> should be allies in the fight to save the planet, both committed to
> preserving (and increasing) the gains of the working class over the
> past hundred years, both committed to curtailing the environmental
> degradation being spewed forth by unrestrained capitalism, and both
> committed to a socialist revolution that replaces capitalism with a
> more rational and ecological harmonious social and economic system.
>
>
>
> Without this, and to argue that workers in the Fort McMurray oil patch
> have a right to their jobs no matter what damage those jobs in those
> industries are doing is, in effect, a counter-revolutionary position
> since it argues for the status quo. It is in fact a position that
> trade unions all too often take: we can only agitate for better wages
> and working conditions; we cannot try to raise our members'
> revolutionary consciousness because any real change might threaten
> what we have achieved. Which means that all too often trade unions
> very conservative because they are wedded to capitalism; despite their
> apparent antagonism to the bosses and to management, they need these
> people, their corporations and industries, and the system that allows
> them to thrive in order to continue to exist as they are now without
> fundamental -- and perhaps painful -- change.
>
>
>
> Revolution is not going to occur without some of us losing our jobs,
> losing our homes, destroying our families, and perhaps losing our
> lives. If workers are not willing to take those risks at some point,
> there will never be a revolution, and the left will be reduced to
> advocating for workers' rights and for a reformist capitalism. In
> other words, the NDP and social democracy. Well, it could be worse,
> but in my opinion, it's not enough.
>
>
>
> Comradely,
>
>
>
> rick
>
>
>