On Thursday, June 30, in the case of West Virginia v. EPA six fascist judges of the U.S. Supreme Court slammed the door on any future power, ability or plans of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to significantly limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the second largest source of emissions in the U.S.¹

This, in a situation where:

• The U.S. is the world's largest producer of oil
• The U.S. is the largest producer of natural gas
• The U.S. is the third largest consumer of coal
• The U.S. is the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases—responsible for twice as much as any other country on earth.

This, in a situation where:

• According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global heat-trapping emissions of gas from fossil fuels must be cut in half by 2030 to prevent climate catastrophe
• New research shows that a total of 7.4 million lives around the world would be saved from deadly heat this century if the U.S. managed to cut its emissions to net zero by 2050. (That's not counting the deadly effects of punishing storms, floods, drought and other consequences of global warming. That's not taking into account the destruction of natural habitat and ecosystems!)

In other words, fuck the planet—and the rest of humanity! Drop Dead!

There are two aspects to this dangerous ruling:

*First, it further dooms any action by the already weakened EPA to seriously cut carbon emissions by power plants using coal and natural gas. Electricity generation by power plants is the second-largest source of carbon emissions in the U.S. (after cars). And beyond the EPA, the ruling effectively limits federal government efforts to broadly act on clean air and water and other environmental concerns. 

*Second, and what may not be so obvious but extremely ominous, this ruling is the culmination of a decades-long effort by fascist forces at all levels of government and society (from well-funded “think tanks” to climate-denying governors of states to fascist “legal scholars”) to restructure the federal government, to hollow out government agencies to prevent them from regulating health, the economy, the environment and more—even when the future of the planet and its billions of people is directly at stake.

In particular and immediately, this ruling blocks in advance plans of the Biden administration to act on reducing emissions. It is a fact—and does need to be plainly said—that nothing being attempted, proposed or planned by Biden or the EPA comes anywhere even close to what’s needed. What’s needed includes a complete overhaul of the country’s energy grid, agriculture system, transportation, and overall system of economic production and distribution. ALL of the plans, proposals, ideas from Biden and the EPA are WOEFULLY INSUFFICIENT in addressing the existential threat to humanity and the planet that the climate emergency poses.

But this ruling accelerates a harmful—and horrific—direction. It holds that the EPA does not legally have the sweeping authority to make even relatively minor changes in the energy industry, and that authority lies with Congress and the states—whole sections of which are dominated by fascists who deny the science of climate change! These fascists desire and represent the unrestrained rule and ability of this capitalist-imperialist system to totally dominate—and ruthlessly plunder—the planet and its environment 

This ruling represents a leap in a systematic and decades-long campaign to gut what some fascist theorists (like Trump advisor Steve Bannon) calls the “administrative state.” This is the notion that the state (the government and its agencies staffed with experts from particular fields) must, in Bannon's words, be “deconstructed.” This has two elements within it: to demolish agencies like the EPA, the Federal Drug Administration, the Occupational and Safety Health Administration; and to escalate the assault on science and any notion of expertise when it comes to issues of public health, workplace safety, and, front and center, global warming (the reality of which these fascists deny in the face of all scientific evidence).

What these fascists are setting out to achieve is a “streamlined” imperial state then restricted to... fascist repression, an ever-replenished military and police, and the enforcement of fascist social policy (liars and hypocrites that they are). In short, not “deregulation” but “fascist regulation,” towards its goals and programs.

Reformist Illusions: Time's Up! Revolution Is THE Answer... and IS Possible

The Supreme Court decision SHOULD lead people to even more deeply confront, and break with, the illusion that this SYSTEM and this government will or even can do anything to stop global warming. The six fascist judges have thrown down their verdict. What is needed from the people is to come to grips with the reality that this shows, once again, that we must get rid of this system.

For years, official leaders of the environmental movement, including its so-called “thought leaders” (like Bill McKibben), have counseled people to elect Democrats, to pressure Congress, to work at the state and local levels to enact environmental policies and legislation. But where the fuck has this led?!? In the 30 years 1990-2020, with all the talk of “renewable energy” the share of coal and natural gas in utility-scale electricity generation in the U.S. dropped a mere 5 percent—from 65 to 60 percent! And now the Biden administration is pressuring oil companies to ramp up their production as U.S. imperialism wages its proxy war with imperialist Russia. In an article right after this ruling, Bill McKibben opined in pathetic words that “convincing banks to stop funding Big Oil is probably not the most efficient way to tackle the climate crisis, but in a country where democratic political options are effectively closed off, it may be the only path left.²

ENOUGH of this bullshit, of trying to work within ever closing channels of this system—especially as this system accelerates further in the wrong direction toward an existential, potentially irreversible, crisis. Every additional ton of CO2 emissions leads to further human and planetary suffering, and potentially leads us to triggering various tipping points that will generate catastrophic effects.

There IS a real—indeed, the only viable—“path” to confront this environmental emergency and all the horrors of this system. It is to make revolution. Not in some far-off future but in this “rare time” we are now in, when, as Bob Avakian has deeply analyzed, revolution becomes more possible. A revolution to overthrow this planet-destroying capitalist-imperialist system, and replace it with a liberatory socialist economy and society so that we can truly go to work on this crisis and interact with nature in a rational and sustainable way (see revcom.us special page on the environmental crisis). 

As a moral imperative, we urge those who care about the environment and who are outraged by the crimes of this system to: read and study Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed, A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution and the concentration of the strategy to make revolution in the present period in “Organizing for An Actual Revolution: 7 Key Points,” and start acting on it.  And read the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America and Some Key Principles of Socialist Sustainable Development and sections of the new Interview with Bob Avakian where issues of global warming and how the new socialist society would act on the climate emergency are addressed.

SYSTEM CHANGE NOT CLIMATE CHANGE!!!

AND SYSTEM CHANGE MEANS REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!