As Evidence Mounts of Catastrophic Global Warming...

Climate Scientists Fear New Report Will Be Suppressed by Anti-Science Trump/Pence Regime

August 15, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Science in the New Socialist Society

As an important part of moving toward communism—a world free of all forms of class divisions, exploitation, and oppression—the new socialist society will deal with science in a radically different way than under capitalism-imperialism, as outlined in this excerpt from the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

Article 1. The Central Government. Section 2. The Executive. G. Science and Scientific Endeavor.

1. The promotion and support of science and scientific endeavor in the New Socialist Republic in North America is aimed at continually increasing the storehouse of scientific knowledge, and broadly fostering the scientific spirit and method, for the benefit of humanity. One very important dimension of this is furthering the development of the socialist economy and the material basis for carrying forward the transformation of society, and the world, toward the final goal of communism and the emancipation of humanity. But the role and purpose of science cannot be reduced to that, as important and crucial as that is. Beyond that, encouraging curiosity about the natural world, in its manifold dimensions, including human society and its historical development, and fostering and applying creative and at the same time rigorous scientific means for exploring and learning about all this, is fundamental to the full flowering of human beings and to their ability to contribute to the advance to a communist world.

With this orientation, the government, particularly through the central Executive, shall support both scientific projects and pursuits which relate and can contribute more directly to the objectives and policies of the government at any given time and scientific experimentation, research and theoretical exploration which may have no direct and immediate relation to and bearing on those objectives and policies but may hold the potential, or represent the possibility, of making new breakthroughs in scientific understanding or contributing to the process through which such breakthroughs may be made, and which in any case contribute to fostering the scientific spirit and the scientific method.

2. It shall be the orientation of the government, and concrete efforts shall be made, not only to promote and foster the scientific method but to share scientific discoveries and breakthroughs, and scientific knowledge in general, with scientists (and the broader population) in other parts of the world, and to enable this to become part of the general storehouse of knowledge of humanity as a whole, to the greatest degree possible, while also paying necessary attention, where relevant, to the security concerns of the New Socialist Republic in North America and its people.

3. While providing the necessary means, conditions and atmosphere required for and conducive to scientific work, including theoretical research and exploration, efforts shall also be made not only to provide students and the people more broadly, through the educational system and in other ways, basic scientific knowledge and grounding in scientific principles and the scientific method, but also to involve growing numbers of people in scientific research and experimentation—including in projects where they are working together with and are led by full-time scientific professionals—and to draw on the vast experience and accumulated knowledge of the people in society as a valuable resource for scientific endeavor.

This Revolution special issue focuses on the environmental emergency that now faces humanity and Earth’s ecosystems. In this issue we show:

the dimensions of the emergency...
the source of its causes in the capitalist system, and the impossibility of that system solving this crisis...
a way out and way forward for humanity—a revolutionary society in which we could actually live as custodians of nature, rather than as its plunderers.

Read online....

Also available in brochure format (downloadable PDF)

A near-complete draft of a major new scientific report presents further evidence and sounds the alarm about the dangerous effects of climate change already being felt—and that will be made much worse if drastic measures are not taken, threatening human and other life on earth. The report—“U.S. Global Change Research Program: Climate Science Special Report,” part of the National Climate Assessment—is the work of scientists from 13 different U.S. government agencies. The report deals with issues that have to do with the very future of humanity and the planet we live on. But the scientists who put huge efforts into this report are afraid that it will be distorted or suppressed by top-level officials of the government. If that happens, it will be a monumentally criminal act!

Just a few among the many points made in the report:

* The rise in global temperatures is “unambiguous”: “2014 became the warmest year on record globally; 2015 surpassed 2014 by a wide margin; and 2016 surpassed 2015. Sixteen of the last 17 years are the warmest years on record.”

* “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” (The major human influence is the emission of carbon dioxide [CO2] and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.)

* More than a quarter of the CO2 emissions are absorbed by the world’s oceans, “making them more acidic” and leading to “potential detrimental impacts to marine ecosystems.” (Already, large stretches of coral reefs around the world have been destroyed, and other enormous and even irreversible destruction of ocean life is taking place.)

* Significant advances are being made in scientifically linking global climate change to specific extreme weather events, like devastating droughts, heat waves and storms.

All this flies in the face of the rantings of climate deniers leading the regime in power—from Trump, who claims climate change is a “hoax”... to Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who denies CO2 is the main cause of global warming... to others in key positions. The draft report must be approved by Pruitt and other agency heads before it is made official. So there is very good reason for the scientists involved to be “concerned that it would be suppressed,” according to a New York Times report.

We will be writing more on this report and developments around it in coming weeks. But consider the utter outrageousness of the fact that scientists coming forward with crucial evidence on an issue having to do with the future of human and other life on the planet must fear being silenced by the government they work for!

Many people across the world, especially in the poorest areas, are already suffering due to climate change—tens of millions forced to become “climate refugees” because they can no longer survive where they are, and two billion people potentially displaced by the end of the century. As the new report makes clear, if greenhouse gas emissions are not immediately and significantly reduced, climate change and its dangerous effects will accelerate and intensify to horrendous levels. Faced with such a situation, leaders of a society organized in the interests of humanity would approach this as a real emergency, bend every effort to work closely with scientists, bring in whatever resources that are needed, and mobilize the masses of people to grasp the problem scientifically and on that basis act on the urgent situation confronting the world.

In contrast, those heading up the U.S. today are not only deniers of the reality of climate change but, more overall, deadly enemies of science and truth. This is a fascist regime of “alternative truths,” of sidestepping and undermining the role of science and scientists in critical areas like global warming and public health. The Christian fascists in the regime, led by Mike Pence, are gearing up assaults on evolution and other sciences in schools and other areas. This is a nightmare, and it must end: the Trump/Pence regime must go.

But as monstrous and grotesque as the Trump/Pence fascist regime is, it is an extreme form of the capitalist-imperialist system that in its “normal” workings has brought horrors for humanity: imperialist wars... oppression of Black and other oppressed people... degradation of and violence against women... extreme exploitation and hounding of immigrants... and more. And destruction of the environment is also a part of the “normal” course of this system.

It’s going to take a radically new system—a socialist society organized and led on a whole different basis than the capitalist-imperialist system—to fundamentally tackle the danger of climate catastrophe facing humanity. Get into the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, written by revolutionary leader Bob Avakian—a concrete and visionary plan for the new society, which must and can be brought about through actual revolution.

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