Why ecosocialists support the ‘Restore Nature Now’ demonstration

Join Left Unity’s online public meeting: 18^th June at 7pm with speaker Allan Todd

Zoom link here

With the Ecological/Biodiversity Crisis, sometimes called the Sixth Mass Extinction, getting worse every day, ecosocialists should get behind the ‘Restore Nature Now’ demo (London, 22 June) in a really big way. Particularly worrying is the massive collapse in insect numbers, many of which pollinate most of the food we eat. We need both to make the point that the system where money rules all, capitalism, is killing the crucial ecosystems of planet Earth and describe how this catastrophe can be averted.

Many people focus on getting by week by week, especially in this time of low pay and high cost of living but during elections there is a greater focus on wider issues. Palestine, war, austerity, child poverty, the NHS, and the environment can get a wider hearing than normal.

Climate crisis is making brutal changes to the lives of many people, and damage irreversible on the scale of human lifetimes has already been done to nature itself, to the vital web of interconnection between all living organisms. The degradation of our lived environment, the damage to insects, damage to the soil itself, and to sustainable food production, all call for action.

Socialism has deep roots in the movements to protect nature – as Gerrard Winstanley of the Diggers said, in 1649, and organised accordingly:

To dig up George Hill . . . we may work in righteousness and lay the foundations of making the earth a common treasury for all, both rich and poor. . . . Not enclosing any part into a particular hand, but all as one man, working together, and feeding together; . . . not one lording over another, but all looking upon each other, as equals’. Moreover, ‘every single man, male and female’ should have equal access to what is a ‘common store-house for all’.

Many organisations who rarely take a political stance are calling this march. It is described as A legal, peaceful, inclusive and family friendly march and rally which aims to be the biggest gathering of people for nature and climate that the UK has ever seen. It is both a celebration of British nature and a protest calling for urgent political action on the nature and climate emergencies.

Organisation is essential. Organising can affect public opinion. Organisation can spread crucial ideas. The huge potential power of the working class can change the world. Building working class organisation in the workplaces and in the community has to start with ideas, discussion and action. Workers must be involved day by day in all the moves to restore nature so that the fruits of this work are not hijacked by the huge corporations, nor this challenged used to further impoverish working people, both in their incomes and in the quality of their lives

Find details of the demonstration here

The Zoom link for our meeting is here