Yes, the global environmental crisis is upon us.
At the same time, capitalism isn't capable of meeting the challenge (a la "green industries" to accommodate ecological reality) because capitalism is now at a stage where only financial wealth meets the demands of the profit maximizers. They aren't going to fund the manufacture of solar panels, wind farms, rapid transit, building retro-fitting, etc., etc., because paying people to produce stuff is so 1970s.
We need to eliminate the power of the profit-making class, and implement genuine democracy. It's this class that denies global warming and insists on exporting the carbon-based economic model to the rest of the world, to hell with genuine limitations. It's them who control the political system that renders our votes meaningless. It's they who are behind the redundancy of workers in the over-developed countries.
We need to remove them from power. Then, the majority (who cannot delude themselves that "it's all going to be okay") can do the work of trimming our consumption and stopping the rat-race of production that is killing us.
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There are some highly intelligent sorts who have already opined that we're embarking on a "century of revolution." As we continue to cling to 19th century capitalism and dysfunctional notions of perpetual growth, revolution is probably in the cards.
Governments are failing us on so many fronts and allowing oligarchy to take hold as corporate lobbyists insinuate themselves between the elected and the voting public. America is already being brought low by its "bought and paid for" corporatist Congress.
You might find interesting Crane Brinton's 1938 classic, "The Anatomy of Revolution." Here's a Wiki comment on this book:
"...Brinton summarizes the revolutionary process as moving from "financial breakdown, [to] organization of the discontented to remedy this breakdown ... revolutionary demands on the part of these organized discontented, demands which if granted would mean the virtual abdication of those governing, attempted use of force by the government, its failure, and the attainment of power by the revolutionists. These revolutionists have hitherto been acting as an organized and nearly unanimous group, but with the attainment of power it is clear that they are not united. The group which dominates these first stages we call the moderates .... power passes by violent ... methods from Right to Left."
It's an ugly business and those who wish most for it at the outset usually wind up getting the chop before it is finished. Most revolutions are the product of middle class discontent but once they overthrow the oppressive order the radicals seize the moment and turn on them. It's how the Mensheviks were destroyed by the Bolsheviks.
Mound of Sound,
There's no way that you could have known this but the revolution that i have, for years, advocated, is a revolution in terms of who controls our political system and not against the political system itself (which ought to be reformed democratically).
The revolution would involve the granting of constitutional rights of workers within their workplaces, to negate the power of ownership to dictate to people in their workplaces, and to dictate (as a class) to the political system.
Quick example: Capitalists say "don't impose these regulations on us or we will invest and create jobs elsewhere while firing the employees here in this political jurisdiction."
If workers had control over such questions, there's no doubt that they would disagree with companies relocating to punish democratically-elected politicians for legislating democratically-desired policies.
Imagine the changes to our society if this system were in place.
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