Los Angeles Eco-Socialism or Extinction: Can We Overcome the Existential Threat of Capitalism?
Sunday, January 6, 2019, 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Westside Peace Center
3916 Sepulveda Blvd., near Venice Blvd. (free parking in rear–reserve spacing not in effect on weekends)
Suite 101-102, press #22 at door to get into building
Culver City (LA area)
From the devastating wildfires that have raged recently in California—coming unusually late in the calendar year, likely due to ongoing drought conditions—to the melting of the polar ice caps and the death by overheating of coral reefs—the “rainforests of the oceans”—it is clear that we confront an ecological crisis of vast proportions. It is equally clear that the global dominant class has no solution to these problems of capital-induced global warming and mass-extinction. While Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Mohammed bin Salman, and Jair Bolsonaro shamelessly seek to facilitate the maximum extraction of profit from the working classes and an imperiled Earth, even so-called “progressive Democrats” have no strategy to mitigate climate change. We forget how much Trump’s catastrophic climate-denialism follows from Barack Obama’s ecocidal legacy. Indeed, several new studies have stressed the likely terminal near-term consequences of climate breakdown: in its October 2018 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that we have at most 12 years to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown, whereas, in late November, the United Nations reported that the world must triple its efforts to prevent global warming from becoming a self-perpetuating phenomenon.
Amidst the significant obstacles that the environmental crisis poses to human welfare and the integrity of ecosystems, we ask whether we can wield the alternative vision of eco-socialism in time to stave off the destruction of humanity and the biosphere—and, if so, how?
Please join us for this important panel discussion with a number of thoughtful eco-socialists.
Speakers:
- Mariah Brennan Clegg, Bonfire Anarchist Collective and UCSB Campus Marxist-Humanists
- Sydney Ghazarian, Democratic Socialists of America-Los Angeles Climate Justice Committee and DSA Ecosocialist Working Group
- Sherry Lear, 350.org South Bay
- Gene Warren, Converging Storms, Solidarity Los Angeles, and Socialist Party USA
Moderating: Javier Sethness, Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation (personal capacity) and author of Imperiled Life: Revolution against Climate Catastrophe
Sponsored by The Los Angeles Coalition for Peace, Revolution & Social Justice https://cprsj.wordpress.com/