Out of the Woods articles in the new Occupied Times

Our contribution to the issue was in the form of three articles, which we'll introduce below. Also in the issue is a lot that will be of interest to readers of this blog, including: Kerem Nisancioglu on the wave of apocalyptic ideas which accompanied the destruction of the old social orders with the rise of capitalism, Larry Lohmann on the reactionary uses of apocalyptic fears, libcom blogger sometimes explode on 'post-nihilist' poltics after 'the end of the world', an interview with Silvia Federici, Brian Tokar on climate justice struggles, and more. The pdf of the whole issue is available on the Occupied Times site, and individual articles are being uploaded too.

As for our contributions:

• Business-as-usual gives a brief overview of the current state of the climate and the science, and outlines some of the likely consequences of this trajectory towards 4-6°C of warming by the end of the century, including severe food and water stresses, desertification, rainforest loss and mass migration.
• No future summarises our criticism of an environmentalism mobilised by the cry to think of the children. The future is a terrain we cannot win on - we must fight for ourselves now, and promise the earth to those who would save it.
• Disaster communism looks too the extraordinary communities of mutual aid which emerge in disaster situations, and sees in these the possibility of a better world emerging even from the worst conditions. But for the logic of reciprocity and mutual aid that we glimpse in disasters to become the logic of everyday life, struggles need to coalesce to break with the hold of capital and state over society.

Forthcoming from us on this blog: we will be continuing our series on food and climate change, introducing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ahead of its annual meeting in December, and we've been reading Naomi Klein's new book on climate change. We will likely write a review and/or an engagement with some of the topics it raises.

- OOTW