By now, we have all seen the shocking images of the Amazon rainforest, the ‘lungs of the earth’ up in flames, while at the same time we watch as western government’s pay minor lip service and argue about responsibility and use trendy hashtags to boost their own personal popularity.
The fact of the matter is, the capitalist economic system not only allows this environmental destruction but encourages it. Over the last 50 years, the amazon rainforest has been cut dramatically in size to make way for industrial scale agriculture to facilitate the hungry apetite of cheap beef to boost the profit of the billion dollar multi-national corporations, and to free up land for western exploitation mining and drilling of earth’s precious mineral resources.
Capitalism in its most basic form is always looking to find cheaper and cheaper resources to maximise the profits of the global financial elite with zero consideration given to the long term environmental impact on the earth.
Within the last month the EU have put the final arrangements in place to pass a new trade deal with Brazil that threatens to flood EU markets with cheap South American agricultural products while at the same time opening up South American land for European Mineral exploitation. A perfect storm for the ultimate complete distruction of the Amazon Rainforest.
The IRSP call for a complete boycott of Brazilian agricultural products as an act of defence of not only the Amazon Rainforest but in defence of the approximate 1 million indigenous inhabitants, whose homes are under constant threat from multinational corperations and their hired security thugs.
We can all go out and try to afford an electric car, put solar panels on your roof, or cycle to your place of work or education, but the ongoing climate change emergency will not stop unless the global economic and political capitalist system is destroyed and replaced with a system that puts the needs of the entire population before the profit of the few.
The IRSP believe that any future socialist government in Ireland, must at the first instance pass a climate change emergency bill. This would trigger a ‘green industrial revolution’ and ensure every economic, social and political decision must provide a positive long-term environmental consequence and to inevitably make the Irish nation completely environmentally sustainable.
