Solidarity-based disaster management: Preparing for climate collapse
By Verena Gradinger – translated from the original Mosaik blog.
A record summer full of tropical nights, forest fires and sea temperatures far above the usual measured values was followed by large-scale flooding in Central Europe in September. The 1.5-degree target, the central demand of recent years in the global climate movement, has receded into the distant future. In the face of their failure, however, new scope for action is also opening up. Verena Gradinger and Simon Weingartner plead for a policy of solidarity in times of climate collapse.
For years, it was argued that the climate crisis was intangible and too far in the future. In the meantime, that has changed. Months of heat waves from the Balkans to the Iberian Peninsula and never measured water temperatures in the Mediterranean and Black Seas were followed by record precipitation totals from Poland to Austria. In parts of Lower Austria, more than 400 litres of rain per square metre fell within 5 days, an almost unimaginable amount until then. At the global climate strike on September 20 in Vienna, around 6,000 people took to the streets a few days after the storms and shortly before the National Council elections. If you consider that just a short time ago entire villages were under water, this is an alarm signal for the climate movement. Instead of convincing large parts of the population of the need for a radical climate policy, it seems to be moving further and further to the right, especially in the face of climate collapse.
The climate movement has failed – and with it the Paris climate goals
The climate movement has managed to bring hundreds of thousands of people, especially young people, onto the streets. With spectacular actions of civil disobedience, it has mobilized thousands of activists into the coal mines. In doing so, it has forced a broad public to deal with the climate crisis at times. Nevertheless, it has essentially failed with its demands.
This is proven by the only relevant statistic: global emissions are still rising. Experts now largely agree: limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, as the UN General Assembly named as a common goal in the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016, is hopeless. Instead, current forecasts point to an increase in global temperatures of at least 2.5 °C. Many scientists still consider these estimates to be too optimistic. The planned focus of the new EU Commission on security and migration policy does not represent the end of a common European climate policy, but its strategic reorientation as a “green” fortress Europe. The climate movement and the trade unions, on the other hand, still seem to be sticking to a class compromise. In view of the economic and social consequences of increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events, this will not be feasible.
With open eyes into the climate catastrophe
So what can radical left-wing politics look like in times of increasing climatic instability? A new approach comes from the group “Preppa tillsammans” from Sweden. In German, this is usually discussed under terms such as “Solidarisches Preppen” or “Solidarische Kollapspolitik”. People organize themselves in local groups to prepare together for exceptional situations of various kinds. They see climate collapse as a process that takes place in the form of increasingly frequent and severe crises, not as an event that reduces the world to rubble from one day to the next. Supplies are stockpiled, how to use medical protective equipment or horticulture for food supply is learned. At the same time, civil society structures are being built up with the aim of strengthening the collective capacity to act by jointly overcoming crises.
With regard to Austria, two problems in particular can be identified, which are increasingly affecting large parts of the population. The increasing heat is hitting cities and agriculture in particular. Severe weather including heavy rain, storms and floods, on the other hand, can affect all regions. In southern Styria and Carinthia, storm damage including regular power outages and villages cut off from the surrounding area are already the norm. With established organizations such as the volunteer fire department, there are structures that function in a broader sense according to the logic of mutual aid. It is important to build on them and find gaps. Even if the moment in Austria still seems far away, state institutions will gradually reach their limits as the climate crisis intensifies.
Becoming capable of action and making others capable of action
A strategy of solidarity-based collapse policy does not mean going to the flood area for a few days, cleaning up a little and then leaving after a social media post. The climate catastrophe is not over when the water drains away again. For the people whose houses were under water, it really begins then. Those affected often feel – not without reason – that they are not represented by anyone and ultimately end up in political apathy. In such scenarios, too, solidarity-based politics can fill gaps for climate collapse.
The insight into the necessity of such precautions must not lead to the abandonment of one’s own political claim. Instead of withdrawing into our (affinity) groups, the concept of solidarity-based collapse politics also includes those people whom the left has often forgotten in recent years. Through the structures that we create together in the crisis, we can convince people of our ideas. To do this, we have to put them into practice. At the same time, we know that not everyone is equally affected by the climate crisis. Workers, migrants, all the people for whom we currently want to make politics are the ones with whom we prepare for the catastrophe together. To overcome the climate crisis, these struggles need to be intertwined.
The question is not if, but how.
The prerequisite for all this is the insight that previous strategies have failed and that the further escalation of the climate crisis cannot be stopped. This does not mean that the fight for every tenth of a degree does not have to continue. However, we must say goodbye to the illusion of a green transformation based on solidarity for all. Only when this step is taken can we learn from the mistakes of the past and let a new movement emerge. The fact is that neither the climate movement nor the Left as a whole can afford to “carry on as before”.
Solidarity-based collapse policy is only one proposal that, like other ways, must be widely discussed. However, preparing for the foreseeable consequences of a climate collapse is not primarily a political program. Rather, it is sheer necessity that drives people to do so. So the question should not be whether the left has to deal with a policy of collapse based on solidarity. It is about how it can pursue it in such a way that it does not remain mere self-defense in the crisis, but also leads to a (re-)politicization of broad sections of the population.
Just Collapse 