Poverty, Pollution & Working Class Solutions
by Richie Venton & Ken Ferguson
Scottish Socialist Party£5.99

THIS new 60-page booklet sets out in well-researched and easily digestible form the massive task we face in dealing with climate change, and how we can achieve lasting solutions.  

In the words of the authors, “to tackle the task of combating both the economic and ecological crises facing humanity, we need to identify the scale of the problem, its root causes, the sweeping transformational measures required to combat it, and the social forces required to achieve a clean, green planet, free of poverty and inequality.”  

It particular, they argue that climate change has not been caused by us as individual humans. Instead they prove that a global system in place since the onset of the industrial revolution, has always placed profit in a marketplace above the needs of those who create the wealth, leading inevitably to climate catastrophe.  

The disastrous consequences of capitalism have been apparent since the 19th century but always hidden from sight until they become obvious.

Even then the picture is confused by the type of fog we are seeing from the world’s leaders at Cop26: suggestions that future fixes will save the planet when the evidence is that the situation is worsening because of their inability and unwillingness to take on the global corporations, including the tax-avoiding fossil fuel extracting giants.

The authors suggest that a “Socialist Green New Deal” based around a deliverable programme of free public transport, free retrofitting of all homes with adequate heating and insulation, 100,000 new homes fit to live in, and clean green energy production, could be transformational.  

This is not idealistic pie-in-the-sky but based on historic and current examples, several of which are offered.

The plans of Lucas Aerospace shop stewards in the 1970s to convert from weapons manufacture to socially useful production to save their jobs, show how workers have the ideas on how their labour and experience can be better used.

Contemporary stories like the successful campaign of indigenous peoples in North America to force cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline, show how collective action can alter the course of history.  

The energy and enthusiasm of the young people involved in the School Climate Strikes is inspirational, and their calls for similar action by trade unions point the way forward.

This booklet provides the necessary socialist argument and can only help advance this process.

Available from scottishsocialistparty.org