Lecture & Discussion in Leipzig
Date: Thursday, July 27, 2023
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Stadtgarten H17 (Hähnelstraße 17, 04177 Leipzig)
Drinks and vegan snacks
Free admission
The Climate and biosphere are changing so dramatically that parts of the planet are becoming uninhabitable and the arable land is dwindling. The lives of billions of people, especially in the global South, are at stake. Many will starve, die in the struggle for scarce resources, or outside the walls of the fortresses of prosperity.
Some leftists therefore favor a Green New Deal, the eco-Leninism of an Andreas Malm flirts with eco-dictatorship. Others ignore the danger because of the consequences. For a society beyond competition and wage labor does not promise luxury for all anymore.
For ecological reasons, the total global consumption of land and resources must decrease, but under capitalist conditions less growth means unemployment and impoverishment. Instead, billions of people need more and better homes, clothing and food, access to health care, education and culture.
This is the challenge that a modern left must take on. It must understand the ecological catastrophe as a social question. Capitalism must be overcome in order to shape the process of human metabolism with nature in such a way that ecological limits are respected and everyone can live a materially carefree life.
The speaker will give a short overview of left positions on climate change and present considerations for a socialist-ecological perspective.
Peter Bierl is a freelance journalist, member of the trade union Verdi and active in the Left Ecological Association (LEA). His most recent publications are “Unmenschlichkeit als Programm” (2022) on Social Darwinism and Biologism, “Die Legende von den Strippenziehern. Verschwörungsdenken im Zeitalter des Wassermanns” (2021), “Die Revolution ist großartig – Was Rosa Luxemburg uns heute noch zu sagen hat” (2020), and “Einmaleins der Kapitalismuskritik” (2018).
In cooperation with Freiraumsyndikat H17 and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Sachsen.
