Don,

Your remarks seem deliberately provocative, and I know from your Marxist-Lenninist background that you're probably going to see this as greenie bollocks. Well it's also a class issue...

As you know, capitalism, with its unsatiable apetite for growth and its ultimate control by a small elite, is not compatitable with the environment. It pits jobs against the environment and it's not a matter of picking one or the other, its about overthrowing the whole fucking thing.

Climate change isn't just going to destroy much of the planet and upset delicate ecosystems, but is going to have catastrophic consequences for humans too. Off the top of my head, I think it is by 2050 that more than 1 billion people will be without fresh water due to climate change alone (I have a feeling its more), large parts of the globe will undergo desertification and many others will be pounded by storms etc. - and you know who will bear the brunt of this? It'll be the poor the world over, once again, taking the rap for the actions of the rich. They'll be the ones doing the starving in ever greater numbers, doing the dying from the storms in ever greater numbers and who will be relegated to the most infertile areas of the globe.

It's hard to choose when the options are destroying the environment or making people unemployed (and I totally disagree with Duncan about the small-scale capitalism he seems to be suggesting as a solution). I'm part of this campaign because I believe the rammifications of climate change are worse than a few jobs being lost, but at the same time I really believe that the whole capitalist system has got to go and I think it's fucked we have to make a choice (hence the banner "Kill Capitalism Not Kiwis").

I also think this campaign could potentially be really politicising and make people aware of the contradictions within capitalism.

In terms of energy, well I reckon we'd all get along just fine with a little bit less (and a whole lot more of the pie). Energy use has to be reduced dramatically and I'm afraid the Marxist conception of technological progress is totally outmoded - it'll hardly be liberating if there's no one alive to enjoy it!

Revolutionary greetings,
Errico.