Rally against Global Climate Change at the Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City
A girl carried her cardboard poster where she said: “We are in a climate crisis.” She was demonstrating on the esplanade of the Palacio de Bellas Artes [Palace of Fine Arts] in Mexico City (CDMX) along with other young people, adults and older folks. There were also demonstrations in other parts of Mexico, such as Mérida and Guadalajara. All of this was part of the Global Climate Strike on September 24, 2021, in which hundreds of thousands of predominantly young people demonstrated in 99 countries to demand radical and immediate action in the face of the environmental emergency that threatens the future of many species, both animals and flora, and with it also humanity.
At the protest, murders and enforced disappearances being committed against environmental defenders were called out. Under the current government, 30 environmental defenders have been assassinated just in 2020. Therefore, Mexico is the country with the second most murders of environmentalists in the world, after Colombia. A recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) indicates that climate change is a major factor that has given rise to more than 272 million international migrants in recent years. High temperatures, greater and more intense storms and droughts, rising seas, among other catastrophic impacts, are rendering important parts of the globe virtually uninhabitable. In addition to this growing international migration, a potential wave of internal migration (within countries) of 216 million people is expected by the year 2050 (according to the recent World Bank report entitled Groundswell), calamities also called out by people who spoke on the sound system at the protest in CDMX.
The demonstration and rally in the Esplanade of the Palacio de Bellas Artes attracted the attention of the people who were walking through the area. Several of the exposures over the sound system, as well as the banners and posters that people carried, linked in some way the serious danger in which we find ourselves with capitalist production, which is something very true and important. However, false illusions persist among many people that it will somehow be possible to face the danger by reforming the world capitalist-imperialist system that has generated these crises.
The recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has once again documented that global warming and the environmental crisis are proceeding at an even faster pace than anticipated. Virtually no capitalist government (including the current Mexican oil government) has met the goals of the Paris Accords, which in and of themselves are completely insufficient to stop the ongoing catastrophe. What has given rise to this crisis is the unbridled competition between the big capitalists and imperialists for big profits and world domination, based on fossil fuels and other ecocidal practices. All this is the product of the very essence of capitalism-imperialism and can only be stopped with a radical change of the system.
That is why, in the midst of the protest, the Revolution Movement distributed the Revolution flyer from the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico, which was welcomed by the people at the rally and during the march. The flyer states that revolution is necessary, urgent and possible to overthrow this capitalist system and build a new socialist society as a transition to communism. Only with such a system will it be possible to put the needs of the environment and humanity above profits, and thus be able to deal urgently, collectively and scientifically with the environmental crises caused by capitalism. Several people also carried a colorful poster with the slogan, “Have you had enough?... The problem is the system, the solution is REVOLUTION” that the Revolution Movement exhibited during the rally at the Palacio de Bellas Artes.
Climate Change Rally, Mexico City
After the rally, a very lively crowd marched towards the Zócalo [downtown main plaza] in Mexico City. The main streets of downtown, such as Madero, were flooded with the banners, home-made signs and posters that many carried. A variety of slogans were heard that people were constantly chanting: “Mayan Train NO, Guacamaya YES” [The Guacamaya is the Mayan name for a macaw or very colorful parrot, some species of which have become extinct], “Revolution or extinction,” “Not one degree more, not one species less,” “Capitalism is looting and extinction, the only way out is revolution,” “There is no planet B,” and several more, taken up and chanted throughout the march. The banner at the front of the march proclaimed, “Let’s change the system, not the climate.”
The march did not reach the Zócalo because the municipal government posted police and metal barriers along the streets, which hours before, according to comments, were freely accessible. Undeterred by the guardians of the current order, the protesters held another rally in front of the police and their barriers. With this official blockade, the hypocrisy of the honeyed government phrases of “caring for the environment” is demonstrated once again, while in reality the city fuels global warming by annually dumping 547,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In addition, 14,000 people die a year in this city alone due to air pollution.
This Global Climate Strike once again underscores the urgency of facing the reality of the ongoing climate disaster without false illusions. Let us no longer trust the snake oil vendors in the capitalist governments and other representatives of the same system that has caused these crises, jeopardizing the future of life on this planet. Cast away illusions, and prepare for revolution to save the planet and open up a much better future for humanity.
Aurora Roja
Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico