Should you read the latest book by Andreas Malm, co-authored with Wim Carton? Pessimists and those prone to anxiety should avoid it, as the findings are truly eye-opening. However, if you want to take stock of the climate emergency, you absolutely must delve into this book.
The authors construct a powerful narrative about humanity's suicidal race. Despite a very precise and sophisticated understanding of the issues, the worsening climate catastrophe is undeniable, and the powerful figures who govern our world, through COPs and international meetings, have never attempted to stop or reverse this unbridled irrationality. On the contrary, an analysis of the Covid-19 period and the years that followed demonstrates that after this abrupt pandemic pause, the race resumed with even greater intensity.Oil production and profits have exploded in recent decades, and drilling, pipeline, and gas pipeline projects have proliferated worldwide. Today, we have reached a "tipping point." The leaders of global capitalism are fully aware that they will not be able to keep the planet's average temperature within the infamous 1.5°C limit. This threshold, set in 2018, was a limit commonly accepted by scientists. Over the years, the acceptable target has shifted toward 2°C.
Now, for oil and gas magnates, the price of economic stagnation would be exorbitant. If the world were to definitively halt fossil fuel production today-and it would be vital-billions of dollars would be tied up, or lost to investors. Caught in a vicious cycle, these would-be sorcerers convince themselves that drilling, production, and the construction of gas and oil pipelines, as well as thermal power plants, must continue. All these projects under consideration are headed for disaster, but the financial windfall at stake is colossal.
Faced with these deadlines, multinational oil and gas companies, driven by competition and greed, respond cynically, turning their backs on reason. They plunder, displace populations, and brazenly destroy ecosystems, jeopardizing life on Earth. Seeing massive capital investments pay off and maximizing shareholder profits become the only objectives, even at the cost of eradicating animal and plant species.
The authors demonstrate that any demand for a slowdown or economic freeze on fossil fuel capital would directly lead to a questioning of the very foundations of the global capitalist system. This clash between the imperatives of survival and those of exponential profit growth would lead to a potentially revolutionary situation. It would impact all economic sectors, including finance.
Before this limit was crossed, climate disasters were occurring with unprecedented force, while the fossil fuel industry was simultaneously recording record profits. The idea gradually took hold: we are hurtling towards a 2°C warming, and the best course of action would be, using technologies yet to be developed, to try to cool the Earth. This discourse would be an expression of resilience, combined with innovative and life-saving technologies.
The ideology of overcoming this limit could offer an alternative to revolution, or even an escape route. Malm and Carton argue that the first victims of climate change would be agricultural workers, industrial workers, the poor, and especially those in the poorest countries.
Based on extensive research and references, the authors conclude that capitalism is the major problem, and that it is impossible to reform it since only profits matter.
Dominique Sureau (UCL Angers)
Wim Carton, Andreas Malm, Overshoot: Resisting the Ideology of Transcendence, La Fabrique, 2026, 300 pages, EUR22.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Wim-Carton-et-Andreas-Malm-Overshoot-Resister-a-l-ideologie-du-depassement
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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