In the wake of the Stern Review (published 30 Oct 2006) the threat posed by climate change has risen rapidly up the agenda of all the establishment political parties. Or so it appears from the rhetoric!

The problem is that whilst more and more mainstream politicians are talking the talk, they are not walking the walk. They cannot imagine solutions outside the context of an expanding global economy, based entirely on the proposition that the accumulation and concentration of wealth by the tiny minority who control the world's powerful multinational corporations is somehow good for the whole of humanity.

So when these apparent converts to the cause of environmental responsibility, speak of the dire consequences of uncontrolled and devastating climate change they do so with blinkers and earplugs firmly in place. How else can they welcome the latest airport expansion or new motorway on a Tuesday and talk about climate change on a Thursday ?

Environmentalism has traditionally been the territory of Green parties but with the political mainstream now turning its attention in their direction, and the Greens themselves wholly taken in by talk of the a free market and commercialisation as the way forward for renewable energy, the Greens are no longer the radical platform they once appeared to some to be. The Stern Review, to which links are provided, highlights the economic consequences of doing,so far, much too little to combat global warming.

In the meantime we have an expanding world economy, reliant on oil for trade and transport. We have a military wing of a ruling elite, waging war for oil, and what's more a war machine dependant on oil for military superiority. We have real concerns about energy supplies with the legacy of nuclear waste and attendant safety issues unresolved.

We are confronted with massive problems in relation to the waste products of our consumer lifestyle which cannot be buried indefinitely. We have a society where pensioners shiver in fuel poverty whilst others exhibit their status by driving their gas gobbling Chelsea tractors, enjoy an air-conditioned tropical environment and light their lawns with more watts than others need to keep them warm on a frosty night.

The key word here is "waste". The key phrase is carbon emission free energy. The proposition is not that the comfortable middle class should shiver like the impoverished pensioner. The proposition is that nobody needs to be impoverished, materially or environmentally. Solidarity believes that only democratic public ownership of our energy, housing and transport industries, allied to a strategic plan for wholesale renewable electricity generation within a generation, subsidies for energy efficient housing, and a huge reduction in transport carbon pollution can deliver the environmental changes this and future generations need and save us from the tipping point where global warming will cause ecological and climate catastrophe.

Their are two accusations levelled against socialism. Socialism is said to be inefficient because it fails to acknowledge the motivation inspired by greed. Socialism is said to be undemocratic because of the eastern European example.

However the inefficiencies of capitalism are manifest in the lemming-esque approach to climate change. Imagine if an extra-terrestrial tracked the movement of goods in world trade and distinguished between those movements which actually enhanced collective enjoyment, from those that merely added a profit margin and most readers would appreciate that the exploitation of our planetary resources is currently out of balance. The recent debacle where 200 jobs were lost in Annan as locally caught prawns were shipped to China to be shelled and then back again is but one small example of this madness.

The old style communist or Stalinist regimes were undoubtedly a failed experiment but the odds against success were heavily weighted when socialist ideas failed to gain a dominant position in the west. Socialism is necessarily an International movement. Whilst ascendant the worker's state aspires towards a huge extension of democracy but, whilst under siege, paranoia and a nostalgia for the comfort of hierarchical structure resurfaces.

The essential difference in the modern era is the understanding that democracy and education are the oxygenated lifeblood of the genuine socialism Solidarity stands for. We are helped in this by the revolution in communication technology. In this context, socialism starts from a position which, in comparison the eastern experiment, is probably weaker than it was 100 years ago. However socialism can re-emerge on the world stage with greater speed than before with a much more powerful statement of its original purpose. And part of that much more powerful statement is that socialism is not now just charged with its historic task of the liberation of humankind from the social power of capitalism and the reactionary remnants of feudal society - it is charged with the physical saving of humanity and the ecosphere from the potential apocalypse of climate change.

The crisis of overproduction which was described by Marx 150 years ago may well have been moderated by the free market economic technocrats and the new imperialism of the globalised economy, but it has not disappeared. It finds its expression in other ways. The current "cure" has the unsavoury side effects of environmental catastrophe at home and abroad, war after war, the agony of Africa, mass extinctions and the prospect of a very bleak future.

That is why Solidarity commits itself to thinking globally and acting locally, to an internationalist green socialism.

Review references from Stern

Green Solidarity

Socialists - proud of the Motto "You've got to be red to be green" have always been at the forefront of numerous environmental campaigns both locally and nationally. Annually, Solidarity co-convener Tommy Sheridan and other seasoned campaigners, protest against the continued presence of nuclear submarines and warheads at the Faslane naval base on the Firth of Clyde. Other socialists were to the forefront in the struggle to stop the construction of the M74 near Glasgow.

Nationally, and in the Highlands in particular, socialists, many now in Solidarity have been involved in the direct actions taken against the enforced and undemocratic open field testing of GM crops.

The sustainability of our environment and especially the present and potentially devastating threat posed by climate change is something which concerns and effects as all, regardless of race, sex, creed, age or class. That is why Solidarity will seek to develop environmentalist policies that are second to none.

Scotland, because of its unique richness in oil, gas, coal, wind, tide, wave and water will be on the frontline of the inevitable environmental battles to come. With a little vision, green industries in an independent socialist Scotland could become an important employer and a major player in the local economy - and the country the jewel in Europe's ecological crown.  While we understand that the protection of our planet and ending global warming can only be achieved by ending the dominance of global capital, we will campaign for every reform, however small, which protects our environment.

In the Highlands and elsewhere socialists have been active in our main green campaigns - the long yet finally successful fight against the GM crop trails at Munlochy, in Fife, Grampian and elsewhere; monitoring nuclear dumping at Dounreay; opposing the dismantling of navy nuclear subs at Nigg; against the erection of ˜mega pylons"; opposing new nuclear power stations and the genocide weapon that is Trident at Faslane; for the creation of a public national energy corporation to produce energy from 100% renewable sources, and to nationalise our mothballed oil fabrication yards as facilities to build and develop wind, wave and tidal turbines. With regard to land reform, socialists in the Highlands, backed by the Rambler's Association held a ˜Red Ramble" to highlight problems locals face with access laws.

Renewables.

We have made an ambitious but serious proposal that, in an independent socialist Scotland, we would aim to produce 100% of our electricity entirely by renewable energy sources within a generation.

To most of us the reasons for the need for renewable energy will already be abundantly clear. We must reduce worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, which are produced by carbon fuelled power stations, if we are to eliminate the problems associated with global warming. Whilst new ˜clean" coal technology must be seriously investigated, we must also find an alternative to fossil fuels as reserves of these are finite, and running out fast.

New Labour - amply aided and abetted by the Greens - have put all their faith in the ˜free market" to deliver renewable energies. Unfortunately, this has lead to an over emphasis on wind turbines, where the tab for expensive r & d doesn't have to picked up by greedy companies, and the piece-meal and profit driven nature of this market led strategy has led to a backlash in some areas over the placing of windfarms.

Solidarity believes appropriate siting should neither be left to the anarchy of the market or the ill-informed anti-windfarm lobby. It should be founded on thorough scientific research, strategic planning and public ownership, together with informed democratic consent.

Currently around 90% of energy in the UK is produced through non-renewable methods. In an independent socialist Scotland we would set up a National Energy Corporation based on social and environmental need, not quick bucks for energy company shareholders. This public corporation would be run NOT in the mould of the old fashioned monolithic state run corporations of the fifties, but by the users, workers and communities whose welfare will be intrinsically linked to its operation. This public energy company, linked to a national strategic plan for renewables would have an emphasis on research, development and education, and a holistic environmental outlook.

Initially, funding for this would be found at least partially by bringing into public ownership Scotland's vast offshore gas and oil reserves. To some extent an independent Socialist Scotland could pick and choose who to sell oil and gas to - selling only to those countries actively exceeding the Kyoto treaty and other international agreements.

Let's turn the old oil fabrication yards into an economic engine for a renewable led economy!

GIVE US NIGG!

Closely connected with our drive towards renewable energy and participatory public ownership is the green-socialist campaign to nationalise the Nigg oil fabrication Yard in the Highlands. Since 2002, we have consistently argued that the yard, which is now up for sale and has been mothballed since the late 1990's, should be taken into public control and used in the construction of renewable energy generators such as wind, wave and tidal power units. The site the fabrication yard is situated on is 330 acres in area with large hanger-type workshops already in place. Because of this, the site could easily be converted to its new use.

 Because of its protected coastal location in the Cromarty firth, the site would also be ideal for testing and developing renewable technologies such as wave generators which are currently starved of investment.       

                               Throughout the seventies, Eighties and Nineties, the yard employed thousands of people in well-paid and skilled work. If this yard, and others like it in Scotland, was taken into public ownership these jobs could be recreated in a more sustainable economy.  

The Nigg site is currently up for sale, but in a triumph for socialists who campaigned for the site to be used for renewables production, the preferred bidder, the publicly owned Cromarty Firth Port Authority has said it wants to turn the yard into a multi use facility where renewable energy turbines could be manufactured in large numbers. 

What do you think of these issues, these campaigns and policies? Perhaps there are other environmental issues you would like to draw our attention to? If you have any questions about our environmental policies or would like to join Solidarity, please contact us via this website.

Solidarity is both red and green and we'd love to hear from you

Further reading