My first interaction with the Independent Socialist Group was during a public meeting called “We Need Socialist Change, Not Climate Change.” I went because the state of the environment has always been a big concern of mine, and I was curious about what effects socialism could have on it.
The effects of climate change are responsible for many changes in how our world functions, primarily for the worst. It has caused an increased intensity in weather and temperatures, the loss and destruction of animal habitats, the rapid thawing of the ice caps, horrible storms that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and destruction of homes, and other tragic effects. More recently, there have been ongoing forest fires in California that have devastated hundreds of thousands of acres of land and displaced thousands of people from their homes. This raises the question, what is the reason for climate change and its destruction? The answer is big corporations.
Because of the privatization and greed of big corporations, there is an ever-increasing amount of waste in the environment, greenhouse gases being pumped into the ecosystem, worsening weather conditions, and deforestation for the sake of profit and expansion. These are only a few examples of the devastation on our planet.
The development of a workers’ party could help lead to the deprivatization of large companies, which would result in the use of more climate-friendly transportation, more power given to workers on making important climate decisions, more funds allocated to environmental science research, and more planning for social needs instead of profit. We only have one world, and I believe that socialist change will be our answer to save it from climate change.
Independent Socialist Group 