A record breaking summer heat has swept Europe, with Spain, France and Switzerland reaching their highest temperatures ever recorded in June. Heatwaves, are becoming hotter, longer and more frequent. Over 10,000 excess deaths due to the heat have been reported across the continent, though this figure is likely to increase. Wildfires rage across Europe, infrastructure is falling apart and healthcare facilities are failing to cope with the surge in emergency treatments. This extreme heat, wholly impossible without climate change, is unprecedented but will soon become the new normal.
The climate crisis has long been understood as one of capitalism’s deepest crises, with scientists warning for decades about the sharp rise in greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution. Powered by coal and later by oil and gas, the Industrial Revolution built the wealth of Britain and other early capitalist powers. Studies have shown greenhouse gases driving today’s heatwaves are not the product of a few decades of carelessness, but of over 150 years of industrial growth built on burning fossil fuels at an ever-increasing scale. Despite this, corporations such as Shell have consistently buried their own research showing the damage that burning fossil fuels would cause, choosing profit over the survival of the planet and now we are suffocating under its consequences.
Climate devastation affects us all but it intensifies pre-existing inequalities and its first and heaviest impacts are felt by the poorest. While doctors and the Met Office issued warnings that people should avoid travelling as much as possible, this is not an option for most of the working class in Britain. Bus drivers reported having to work in temperatures over 40°C. Prisoners across Britain were forced to endure extreme heat for days on end as some inmates are locked up in their cells for more than 20 hours a day. Poorly ventilated schools with no air conditioning confined children and staff in extreme heat. The elderly and those with chronic illnesses are particularly in danger due to the heat and increased humidity, which amplify heat risks and many are trapped in homes not built for such high temperatures. People experiencing homeless-ness are particularly vulnerable to extreme heat, often with no shelter and little to no access to the healthcare measures that a heat emergency demands. Over and over again we see those who are already exploited by the capitalist system are also the ones least able to cope with its climate crisis, with no option to simply stop working, nor mitigate its effects.
As the capitalist system continues on its apocalyptic path, the Earth’s average surface temperature is on course to increase by between 2.1-3.3C by 2100 and possibly more. Even this catastrophic projection is only an underestimation as land absorbs far more heat than oceans, meaning many regions will become uninhabitable for humans. In the face of this global struggle between capitalism and survival, the planet is in urgent need of a socialist revolution.
Komal Toor
