Anarchist Environment texts?

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Chilli Sauce's picture
Chilli Sauce
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Jan 17 2011 17:07
Anarchist Environment texts?

One of my co-workers, who knows my politics, approached me about environmentalism today. He's a left-liberal, but is familiar with socialism and anarchism. I also know his mum and she's a workplace militant. Anyway, I gave him a pretty standard response about not being able to separate environmental politics from class politics and using our power as workers to change industry practices; mentioning the Australian green bans as an example. He was quite receptive, but mentioned green capitalism and entering an industry as a capitalist with the explicit goal of changing it. Once again, "greenwashing", iron law of the market, profit being fundamentally in conflict with any ideals. The conversation ended there as we ran out of time, but I think I'd really like to give him a good short text to read (he's read education stuff from libcom that I've sent him previously).

Basically, I'm looking for a good introductory text that outlines a class approach to environmental, critiques green capitalism (ideally a good Marxist approach to this), and outlines out environmental questions would be dealt with in an anarchist society. Any suggestions?

Steven.'s picture
Steven.
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Jan 17 2011 17:21

We in libcom put this together from another article:
http://libcom.org/thought/manifesto/environment/index.php

the anarchist Federation wrote this, but I can't remember how good it was:
http://www.afed.org.uk/publications/pamphlets-booklets/85-ecology-and-class-where-theres-brass-theres-muck.html

Chilli Sauce's picture
Chilli Sauce
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Jan 17 2011 20:12

Thanks Steven. I think that first thing is just about exactly what I'm looking for (minus being a bit too optimistic about the trade unions...). That AF piece is massive, when was it published?

klas batalo's picture
klas batalo
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Jan 17 2011 20:33

The new Northeastern Anarchist from NEFAC and friends will be Ecologically themed!

It should be out fairly soon (o.o)

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Steven.
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Jan 17 2011 20:37

Yeah, it has been a while since I looked at our environment piece it probably needs revising. If you fancy having a crack…

The second one, I can't remember exactly, it was a while ago. Maybe 2003 or something like that

brown spaghetti's picture
brown spaghetti
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Jan 18 2011 04:18

hand him a dead oil asphyxiated pelican in a bloody plastic bag

ajjohnstone
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Jan 18 2011 07:57

i always found this review of David Pepper to be insightful

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/etheory/Early90s/html/93GreenSocialism.html

back2front's picture
back2front
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Jan 18 2011 08:21

Murray Bookchin is worth reading in this respect as his writings informed the modern environmental movement and from a libertarian perspective:

These works especially:

Post-Scarcity Anarchism
The Ecology of Freedom
Deep Ecology and Anarchism

Bookchin's works contain a considerable critique of green movements so this should serve your purposes well.

Jason Cortez
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Jan 19 2011 12:25

If there are in London this might useful http://libcom.org/forums/announcements/ecology-anarchism-26111-housmans-14012011

woooo
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Jan 20 2011 10:30

hi some of these might be of interest.

https://groups.google.com/group/socialwar-energy-climatewar/browse_thread/thread/3cc3f54f0f6bb6d6?hl=en

http://www.delicious.com/dr.woooo/what-to-do-re%3A-climate-chaos+class-war

https://groups.google.com/group/socialwar-energy-climatewar?hl=en