(The following article is from the April 16-30,  2010 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)

People's Voice Editorial

     Recent headlines reporting that Inuit communities are describing warming and "weirder" weather to scientists should add urgency to Earth Day events.

     In expressing our support to the actions on April 22, People's Voice again calls for emergency climate change legislation. Environmental problems are not simply a question of individual consumption habits. They are deeply rooted in social-economic realities. The Copenhagen Summit's failure to reach an agreement shows that imperialism aims to transfer the cost of climate change directly onto the backs of the world's peoples. For centuries, imperialist countries have pillaged the global south. Some, like Bolivian President Evo Morales, have recently called for climate reparations allowing third-world countries to economically develop using sustainable technology.

     Yet from international to domestic policy, Canada's Harper Conservatives have consistently allowed the big corporate polluters to set the guidelines, ignoring scientific facts while crafting destructive positions. We need to boot Harper out, and radically re-write Canada's position to one of climate justice.

     Our friends in the Young Communist League are currently debating putting climate change onto their priority areas of struggle (see page 6 in this issue) in the lead-up to their May 23-25 Central Convention. We wish them well in this discussion. Climate justice is an important demand, not just of the youth but also the working class. Serious progress in this direction appears clearly incompatible with a social and economic system based on private ownership of wealth and resources. Protection of the environment requires a deep-rooted social transformation, breaking away from capitalism, and instead putting nature before profits as a critical step towards socialism.