WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE GRENOBLE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL AL #336 - Grenoble: An ecology of struggle in the face of the climate emergency (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

 On January 21, the local group in Grenoble organized a public meeting for a whole

day around the following question: what strategy for an ecology of struggle ?
About one hundred and fifty people were present on the day. Here is a summary of
the analysis carried out by the Libertarian Communist Union and a return to this
event. ---- The organization of this event starts from an observation: ecology
has made its hole, which looks a lot like a funeral. Liberal thought has
insidiously inserted itself into the "struggle" through personal development, do
it yourself and other practices that individualize and shift responsibility to
the individual. These withdrawals lead to potentially fascistic reasoning, as
Antoine Dubiau demonstrates in his book Écofascismes [1].
Our objective as a libertarian communist organization is to provide a Marxist
reading grid that analyzes dominations as classes and not as simple interactions
between individuals. Today, the richest 1% (the bourgeois class) consume and
pollute twice as much as the poorest 50% (the proletarian class). Today, the
richest 1% (the bourgeois class) deteriorate the climate more than the poorest
50% (the proletarian class) [2].

The day opened with a presentation of UCL's positions on ecology, during a
two-hour conference.
Photo: UCL Grenoble
Moreover, it is essential to also analyze the other dominations that maintain and
accentuate the ecological crisis. This is the case, for example, of imperialism,
which enslaves other peoples in order to dominate and destroy nature in order to
extend capitalism, by practicing forms of neocolonialism [3], such as
extractivism, which allow feed the race for growth.

Organize for an anti-capitalist ecology
For the most assiduous readers, you must have noticed that we are talking about
ecological and not climatic crises. We believe that looking only at the issue of
climate change does not make sense because it obscures the crisis of
biodiversity, the water cycle, nitrogen... what are called planetary limits [4].
Today most of these planetary limits are exceeded and we are in a profound change
in the balance of life on Earth.

Photo: UCL Grenoble
Despite well-documented effects, the capitalist world continues to turn and
destroy the planet, caring little about the consequences, putting on blinkers and
ignoring the various warning signs launched by the population, or even experts in
the field. The capitalist class needs to plunder the environment to produce ever
more. The inaction of governments in the face of this destruction is not
insignificant. They are the same people who benefit from the profits of
production and who decide the country's policy.

This analysis, certainly anxiety-provoking, obliges us to be realistic. However,
it seems important to us not to succumb to the panic of the emergency. The
revolutionary project that we defend is democratic and we (as a social class)
must take the time to build it and take ownership of this struggle so that it
does not become a niche for a few people.

For this, we must get involved in counter-powers (unions, associations...) in
order to bring self-management tools but also to bring an anti-capitalist
ecological vision.

A double ecological task ?
As the CGT introduced with the Charter of Amiens, our role as revolutionaries and
trade unionists is twofold: first, to take everything we can from capital, in
order to improve our living conditions (better wages, security welfare,
unemployment, retirement). It is also about participating in the construction of
a world where the means of production are managed by our social class, in order
to prepare for a complete revolution of the production system. It's double duty.

Photo: UCL Grenoble
This social vision of activist investment can be transposed to environmental
struggles. First, do everything we can to limit the damage, produce better by
pushing environmental issues in the unions, for example. In a second step, build
the revolution, to bring down capitalism, and democratically organize production
in order to meet real needs and not to increase profits which only benefit the
richest.

Since the capitalist system of production is based on imperialist domination, it
is all the more important that, as libertarian communists, we proclaim our
internationalism loud and clear.

Back to the day of January 21
During the day, in order to make counter-powers and local struggles visible, four
organizations (Droit Au Logement, Atelier Paysan, the Ecological Anti-Capitalist
General Assembly of Grenoble and the Stop Métrocâble collective) were invited to
speak.

The DAL fights against precariousness and poor housing. The collective campaigns
for the renovation of buildings and denounces the destruction and then the
reconstruction of new buildings, a costly and anti-ecological approach. The DAL
denounces urbanization, the artificialization of soils, but also energy
expenditure. Indeed, the energy impact for the construction of new buildings is
higher than that of a renovation. Capitalist speculation around housing leads to
precariousness, to the construction of new useless buildings, for the sole
purpose of enriching investors. The DAL project is therefore anti-capitalist,
ecological and social.

The Atelier Paysan is a cooperative that supports farmers in the design and
manufacture of machines and buildings adapted to peasant agroecology [5].

The Green Anti-Capitalist AG of Grenoble is the unitary framework created
following the announcement of "Grenoble Capitale Verte" [6]. It deals with the
ecological issues of the metropolis by bringing anti-capitalist and social demands.

Finally, the group fighting against Métrocâble opposes the project of a cable
transport axis in the agglomeration. This public transport solution does not
actually meet any need, and leads to the artificialization of the last local
agricultural land.

During the afternoon, the screening of the documentary Dams, water under high
tension, produced by SUD-Énergie was accompanied by a debate with a comrade from
the union. Then, we welcomed Antoine Dubiau who was able to make a presentation
of his book Écofascimes. Finally, the day ended with a round table on ecology and
trade unionism, led by UCL, with the presence of the CGT, SUD and the
Confédération Paysanne.

This day was a huge success in terms of the number of people present, their
diversity (half of non-militants) and the quality of the discussions as well as
the good organization of the day (daycare, vegan meal, several press tables ).
The very positive feedback from people who came to the day shows the importance
of the fight for a social and popular ecology and this motivates us even more to
mobilize to defend revolutionary ecology !

UCL Grenoble

To validate

[1] Antoine Dubiau, Ecofascisms, Grevis editions, 2022.

[2] See the Global Inequality Lab Report, Chapter VI, on the link between wealth
and greenhouse gas emissions, 2022, available online at wid.world -World
Inequality Database-.

[3] Malcolm Ferdinand, A decolonial ecology. Think eco

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Grenoble-Une-ecologie-de-lutte-face-a-l-urgence-climatique
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