How serious do Marxists find global warming?

oh - it was on the front page of the guardian yesterday

Carousel, you seem to have missed the point. But well done anyway.

That the article predicts catastrophe by 2020, not 2100.

And my original question was will it dictate future events.

I don't think global warming will dictate future events unless we're already reached critical mass. It is something that communists should be worried about, but I do believe it is solvable. In any case I don't think "marxists" are the best to ask about a prediction on how/when it will happen, unless that marxist happens to be a climatologist or something like that. Would be nice though if I could meditate on Capital and divine the ecological catastrophe...

And my original question was will it dictate future events.

The evidence is growing that global warming is already having an impact on current events (droughts, floods etc), exacerbating problems of displacement of population, hunger, disease, etc.

The significance of the Pentagon's report - even if it may well be somewhat exaggerated in its conclusions for the near future - is that it tells us how the bourgeoisie will act towards the problems caused by climate change. It won't, surprise surprise, act in the spirit of international cooperation and rational global planning, but by intensifying the imperialist struggle for dwindling resources. As the Pentagon report puts it, climate change is not seen as problem facing humanity, but as a problem for US national security. This is the only way the capitalist class as a whole (and not just its US branch) can respond, and underlines its total inability to deal with the very grave issues facing the human species.

Yes the point was the pentagon report, as I said. Something worth discussing in itself as Alf did, or to refute as overly paranoid.

Your counter-point (not to care about war because the value of life is relative) is not something to take seriously, unless the admins want to ban you for trolling.

not banned, just mucho deletion - Carousel, last warning pissing about on threads started by new posters

Just for once I think Alf’s pretty much hit the nail on the head there, from our point of view the major question is not whether climate change will happen (it either will or it won’t, the best that can be managed at this point is mitigation if the climate change people are to be believed), but how the state/big business is reacting/will react – battening down the hatches, setting up economic/legal processes which protect elite consumption patterns and lifestyles at the expense of everyone else, building up internal policing and defence capability, ramping up propaganda output to head off any potentially problematic mass movements of people.

Yeah well, it winds me up when people assume that if someone leaves Fabianism’s narrow furrow then they must be deliberately baiting people rather than developing an understanding of reality minus all the petit-bourgeois consciousness raising and values driven thinking.

You think George is worse than Al? Any road up, the Guardian report adds meaning to events rather than removes it. Like much liberal media, it pretends to set out facts but is actually expressing moral indignation. It flatters the values of the lefty middle classes in just the same way as the “tabloids” approach their target demographic. I mean, I occasionally read those reader profiles of theirs in the pub on a Saturday dinner time. What a bunch of well-to-do drop out junkie loser depressives. And they all got into the Guardian because of their lefty politics. Enough said.

Hardly, though their sour grape tinted spectacles make Guardian readers inclined to elevate their loserism to the point of sacrifice.

Done about what?

It is their job to be paranoid...to plan for worst-case contingencies a half-century in advance. Latching onto reports like this one is sure to result in sensationalistic journalism.

I remember right before the Iraq war when all of the anti-war types were batting back and forth rumors about (very real) policy papers advocating the militarization of space and the internet and expanding biological weapons programs. It also promoted a huge increase in the size of the US military in preparation for a multi-front world war and the extension of US military presence and influence throughout the middle east moving into China.

While this type of thing ought to be taken seriously, they are often misunderstood to be the plan rather than just one proposal from one group (often the most extreme group) within the US ruling class.

What nonsense. Loser as in loser of a competition, indeed those reader profiles celebrate their lack of material success as some kind of moral vindication. “Oh I could have made a lot of money if I wanted to, but I’d have had to step all over people to do it etc etc etc whine whine”.

There it is you admins, look at the constant baiting I have to put up with. There is no point to miss.

Ask it again, ask it again....

A Guardian style question if ever there was one. What makes something “important” I wonder?

Oh that's rich coming from the archetypal communist elbow patch wearing blues loving teacher. When it comes to being ignored your lot are experts, they’re so lonely they have to hang around outside anarchist events just to stand a chance of pulling some skanky crusty. Jesus, even your children think “conscious hip-hop” is cool, what a bunch of rotters.

Ooops, forgot to ignore him

It's lem isn't it.

Ha ha. No chance. But if you're not mad when you start posting here, you soon will be. Actually Tacks, you're the only "real" poster left here anymore, every body else is me.