Created by: The Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association’s Historical Materialism Group
On the 7th, the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the EU Climate Monitoring Agency stated that temperature data for the first ten months of 2024 indicate that this year will be the hottest since records began in 1850. The global average temperature for the first ten months of 2024 is 0.71°C higher than the average for the same period from 1991 to 2020, the highest on record, and 0.16°C higher than the same period in 2023. Unless the remaining months of 2024 see an average temperature drop close to 0°C, 2024 will become the hottest year on record, with an annual average temperature estimated to be 1.5°C higher than the temperature levels between 1850 and 1900, possibly exceeding 1.55°C. Besides the extremely high temperatures, various extreme weather events continue to erupt—typhoons, floods, and other disasters almost nonstop in China, severe flooding caused by heavy rains in Spain, and hurricanes “Helen” and “Milton” making landfall in Florida and other parts of the United States. The bourgeoisie, in pursuit of profit, has recklessly destroyed the environment, and the consequences of discharging “three wastes”[1] have clearly spread worldwide, forcing the working people to suffer from the crimes committed by the bourgeoisie.
Regarding the severe climate anomalies and meteorological disasters of 2024, the bourgeoisie cannot deny this objective fact. However, they are desperately covering up the destructive impact of the capitalist system on the environment reflected by these disasters. The phrase “from 1850 to 1900” in the news was preceded by the qualifier “pre-industrial,” turning the statement into “the annual average temperature in 2024 will be 1.5°C higher than the pre-industrial temperature levels of 1850–1900,” cleverly attributing the climate anomalies and frequent disasters to “industrialization,” as if the development of productive forces was the cause of today’s climate crisis, with no relation to the capitalist system. This rhetoric leads to an even more absurd conclusion—that since humans cannot truly live without modern heavy industry, and industrial production inevitably causes environmental pollution, then environmental pollution has become an incurable disease, and humanity’s only options are to stop expanding or even reduce production, cease transforming nature, and learn to “revere nature.”
But the reality is entirely different. The increasingly severe environmental pollution and the undeniable facts that expose the extreme decay of the capitalist system precisely demonstrate its utter corruption. Whether it is “global warming” or the frequent natural disasters caused by climate chaos, these clearly show that under capitalism, productive forces are no longer properly utilized, and this has nothing to do with the specific form of productive forces—large-scale machinery and industry. Indeed, the discharge of “three wastes”[1:1] from industrial production does pollute the environment, and the larger the scale of industry, the more “three wastes” are produced. However, what kind of smoke factories emit, how much they emit, or whether they emit smoke at all is not determined by heavy industry itself, but by the capitalists who own the factories. Is there really such a thing as “incurable waste”? Absolutely not. In modern science and technology, most of the “three wastes” caused by industrial production can now be managed and transformed into harmless substances through reasonable technical means. Yet, due to capitalist greed for profit, they prefer to discharge “three wastes” that pollute the environment and harm people’s health, saving costs at the expense of the environment. The notorious main “raw material” of acid rain—sulfur dioxide—could have long been converted into harmless sulfur and sulfuric acid using scientific technology, but capitalists found such environmentally friendly technology too expensive and long ignored it, leading to serious environmental pollution like acid rain. The tragic Minamata disease in Japan was also caused by unscrupulous Japanese capitalists dumping toxic mercury-containing waste into the sea instead of using effective but costly methods to extract and purify mercury from waste, resulting in a catastrophe. Clearly, the true culprits of environmental pollution are not heavy industry itself, but the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system that control it. History has convincingly proven that if people were not under a capitalist system that subordinates everything to profit, if they did not pursue personal gain at the expense of the people’s interests like the bourgeoisie, but instead properly managed the enormous productive forces brought by heavy industry—just as primitive humans learned to control fire for their own use instead of being burned by lightning—then the situation would be vastly different. During the socialist period in the Soviet Union, to curb water and soil erosion caused by large-scale mechanized agriculture and to transform the long-desolate desert, the Soviet people, under Stalin’s personal initiative and leadership, launched a grand environmental project called “Stalin’s Natural Transformation Plan,” which built eight massive forest belts totaling over 5,300 kilometers in the steppe regions from 1949 to 1965 to conserve local water and soil, improve ecological conditions, and prevent drought. By Stalin’s death, the USSR had established 2.87 million hectares of protective forests and preserved 1.84 million hectares. However, after Stalin’s death, the Soviet Union experienced a capitalist restoration, and the revisionist traitor group in the USSR, in pursuit of higher agricultural yields, recklessly cut down forests and refused to invest heavily in environmental protection projects, causing this plan to fail. In socialist China, the Chinese people, under Mao’s leadership, studied how to treat “three wastes,” achieving a series of promising results—such as discovering the principle of “waste as raw material,” sending waste to other factories that need raw materials, or researching the composition of waste and developing various “waste-to-wealth” technologies. During socialist China, despite being the sixth-largest industrial country in the world, the country’s industrial pollution—whether air pollution, sewage, or foul-smelling garbage—disappeared from China, unlike in capitalist countries. Could this not prove what is truly the cause of environmental pollution?
The fact that environmental pollution now causes such significant natural and social impacts, and that the bourgeoisie is so anxious yet helpless, precisely demonstrates that capitalism is already in its sunset phase, on its last legs. The bourgeoisie, once confident in transforming everything in the world—including God—through capitalist heavy industry, now hangs its head in despair, pessimistically declaring that environmental pollution is incurable, that industrial production will inevitably cause pollution, and that humans can only surrender to nature and learn to “revere nature.” Isn’t this the same as Confucius’s doctrine of “fear heaven’s decree” and “life and death are predestined, wealth and nobility are in heaven,” which preached that humans cannot transform nature? The bourgeoisie’s stubborn adherence to “heaven’s decree” only shows that they are a declining, dying class, just like Confucius more than two thousand years ago. But environmental pollution has long been proven to be solvable; the “three wastes” considered “incurable” by the bourgeoisie have already been demonstrated in practice to be transformable into “treasures.” Humanity’s hope to avoid extinction and fully solve environmental pollution can be realized and will be realized—only capitalism will perish!
