by G.G. Zangar
It is necessary to bring to the attention of Communists, non-communists, anticommunists, and everyone in between, what is arguably the most pressing situation of our lives. The condition has to do with a fundamental global function called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. The AMOC is a foundation upon which the majority of the relative stability of our global climate has depended upon for the last 12,000 years.[1] Acknowledging that the very climate we are used to, as tumultuous as it is becoming, depends on the stability of the AMOC should arouse concern when the reputable science journal Nature publishes an article titled “Warning of a Forthcoming Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation”.[2] The article is significant because it shows “that a transition of the AMOC is most likely to occur around 2025-2095 (95% confidence interval)” and that “the tipping time is estimated to be in the year 2057”.[3]
If one does not give pause to the direness of the situation upon reading such a statement from such a journal, then it is necessary to learn more about what the AMOC is, its associated tipping points, and the far-reaching implications of its now imminent collapse for the planet.
The AMOC is a current that encompasses the whole of the Atlantic Ocean and more than an entire hemisphere of the globe. The currents that make up the AMOC are slow-moving compared to other currents and are largely perpetuated by a process called thermohaline circulation. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “it takes an estimated 1,000 years for a parcel of water to complete its journey along the belt”. Thermohaline circulation is a process by which the salinity and temperature of the ocean water provide the forces necessary for the movement of the current via the water’s temperature and the salt content’s effect on density. The state of the world right now is marked by record-high sea surface temperatures and ever-diminishing sea ice extent at a rate of 147 billion tons per year.[4] The melting of the ice caps is dumping billions of tons of fresh water into the AMOC thus affecting its thermohaline circulating engine by essentially diluting it. From CNN: “more freshwater flows into the ocean and reduces the water’s density, making it less able to sink. When waters become too fresh, too warm or both, the conveyor belt stops.[5]
With a general understanding of what the AMOC is, we should then ask: why is it important? A brief example is that the last time the AMOC slowed down, Europe and parts of North America were 10°C-15°C (18°F-27°F) cooler than today and had entered a mini ice age called The Younger Dryas.[6] This extent of temperature drop will completely wipe out agriculture in some of the most agriculturally developed places in today’s world. The current inter-imperialist squabbling about “the breadbasket of Europe” that is today Ukraine will be totally irrelevant when the AMOC collapses for the fact that it will likely be a frozen wasteland that will produce no food at all this century.
There are many more peripheral effects that would reverberate from the collapse of the AMOC which is why The Guardian refers to it as “one of the climate tipping points scientists are most concerned about”.[7] Such effects include; “increased sea level rise in the Atlantic, a drop in precipitation over Europe and North America, and shifts in monsoon patterns in South America and Africa”, and PBS reports that “weakening of the AMOC could also bring less summer rainfall to South Asia and the Sahel, the semiarid African region stretching from Senegal to Sudan.”[8]
The above paragraphs are filled with words and phrases and terms that we have all heard before regarding climate news. What you need to take away from it all is that we are now 95% sure that there will be widespread global starvation as rapidly as 10 years after the AMOC collapses and that this collapse could happen as soon as one year from the time this paper is being written, as soon as 2025. In fact, the slowing that precedes the collapse of the AMOC is indicated by what are called “early warning signs…which have already been reported”.[9] In contemplating the looming global food crises that hinges on the AMOC, we should remember that capitalism has slaughtered for food under much less pressing circumstances. The Banana Wars come to mind where “an estimated 1,000 campesinos were machine-gunned at Finca Jocotán” in Guatemala as a part of a broader murderous campaign by U.S. imperialists to maintain control of the fruit market.[10] One could think back to as recently as the Iraq War which Brown University claims killed 900,000 people and that CNN even has to admit was largely initiated at the behest of “big oil”.[11] If life is so cheap under capitalism during times of plenty, then the militarization of society under the scarcity a collapse of the AMOC will bring will be truly unprecedented.
I have said in previous articles that the prognosis given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is skewed conservatively to avoid alarm or panic and the author of the Nature article, Ditlevsen, agrees by saying “the models used [by the IPCC] have coarse resolution and are not adept at analyzing the non-linear processes involved, which may make them overly conservative.”[12] A class analysis of the impending climate catastrophe leads us to realize that our government-enlisted panels fail to tell us the complete truth. Should the leaders of our bourgeoise state make an effort to inform the populace, they would risk a revolution. The matter is so beyond the capacity of the bourgeoisie to handle that if a critical mass of people begin to truly grasp the present circumstances, there will be a revolution.
With knowledge of what the AMOC is, its far-reaching implications, and dismal prospects, what are workers supposed to do about it? First, we must understand our material reality. Like every other detrimental circumstance under the catastrophe that is climate change, the problem boils down to carbon and other greenhouse gasses.[13] The short and narrow of it all is that we need to reduce emissions. Scientists have warned about this since the 1950s at the very latest.[14] The earliest mention of the greenhouse effect was in 1896 by Svante Arrhenius which indicates that capitalism has been avoiding the problem for at least 127 years.[15] The truth is that greenhouse gasses (GHGs) are tightly coupled with GDP, or in other words, the rate of profit.[16] The bourgeoisie is directly profiting off of releasing ubiquitous amounts of GHGs into the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate despite their handshakes, conferences, and political theatre. It is in their class interest to maintain the status quo and persist in burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon at a rate that only increases due to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall to zero. The tendency of the rate of profit to fall is sometimes referred to as “the business cycle.” It is an observation in Karl Marx’s Capital, Volume III that posits how the value of a commodity is based on the amount of labor put into creating it and yet this same value is undermined by the incentive of capitalists to cut the amount of labor required through scaling up productive technologies.[17] Trapped in the perpetual cycle of maintaining their rate of profit, our capitalist rulers cannot decouple themselves from GHGs even if to save their own skins, as any move toward lowering emissions would accelerate their loss of profits and thus power.
We live in a bourgeois state in which the ruling class owns the means of production. That is, the obscenely wealthy upper micro stratum of our society owns all of the factories, most of the farms, the boats, and the land which produce the majority of the inputs required to produce commodities, not for the wellbeing of the population, but for profit. Those means of production need to run at maximum capacity all of the time to produce profits despite redundancies. According to The Natural Resource Defense Council, 20 billion pounds of food is wasted at production in the US due to dubious reasons like “[Failure to] meet contract requirements, or to speculate on the possibility of higher prices. [Or] [w]hen prices are low, growers may leave entire fields unharvested if those prices will not cover the costs of bringing the product to market.”[18] As well as food, precious metals, and other valuable items like laptops and TVs are dumped into landfills to keep prices high.[19] Evidenced by the Banana Wars and countless other precedents, the Bourgeoisie would, without question, rather commit atrocities against working-class people rather than relinquish profits.[20] With such heinous inefficiencies and disregard for life being integral to capitalism, it is inconceivable to think this system will take action toward climate change mitigation. It is impossible for the bourgeoisie, who run the US and the world, to resist the allure of dumping carbon into the atmosphere despite its suicidal trajectory because doing so would necessitate relinquishing profit and thus power.
That being said, it is necessary now more than ever for workers in the United States to understand our material reality and raise our class consciousness. That is, the US needs a vanguard party to direct angst felt by the working class into organized and directed action against the parasitic institutions that are happily profiting off of our misery. When heat waves cause Texas workers to endure wet bulb temperatures lethal to human beings, they raise the price of the necessary electricity to cool workers by 800% and ban mandatory water breaks.[21] When the water in Flint Michigan, Jackson Mississippi, and East Palestine Ohio are poisoned by corrupt state officials and billionaires who run Norfolk Southern, they ignore those affected or litigate against workers in bourgeoise courts to tactically subdue resistance by imposing poverty. Toxic byproducts of plastic production called “per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances” (PFAS), have been found on every single continent on earth and currently contaminate 50% of all drinking water in the US. Deafening silence resounds on these domestic maladies endured by the working class from the bourgeoisie and yet there are tens of billions of dollars rapidly mobilized for a war or a bailout at a moment’s notice.[22]
It is the task of the most class-conscious workers to educate themselves in the tried endeavors, success, and failure, of implementing a society run by and for the interests of the working class: the dictatorship of the proletariat. It will take nothing less than the complete seizure of the means of production by the workers and oppressed peoples to begin rolling back the fate forced on us by the parasitic bourgeoisie. With the means of production seized, the working class must implement a planned economy for countless reasons, including but not limited to the eradication of the profit-motive from society, the aversion of the inevitable capitalist crisis of overproduction, and the freedom to produce for humanity what is needed based on use value rather than exchange value. That is, “The usefulness of a commodity vs. the exchange equivalent by which the commodity is compared to other objects on the market”.[23] In the current predicament of humanity, revolution is needed to fundamentally change workers’ fettered relationship with production to make it and labor one of liberation. With a centralized and planned economy, especially in the United States, human necessities can be produced without the need for ever-increasing profit. Food, transport, shelter, and even electronics can be produced adequately for people without the need to bury them in landfills to keep the price high. Greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the globe to mass starvation and perpetual war can immediately be drastically cut without worry for loss of profit and the global remediation of the environment necessary for the preservation of our species could finally begin. The advent of socialism is an absolute imperative for our health, wealth, happiness, and existence. The predicament can truly be summed up as “socialism or extinction”. We need revolution now.
Endnotes
[1] Peter Ditlevsen and Susanne Ditlevsen, “Warning of a Forthcoming Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation,” Nature Communications 14, no. 1 (July 25, 2023): 4254, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39810-w.
[2] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration US Department of Commerce, “What Is the AMOC?,” accessed August 15, 2023, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/amoc.html.
[3] Ditlevsen and Ditlevsen, “Warning of a Forthcoming Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.”
[4] NASA Global Climate Change, “Global Surface Temperature | NASA Global Climate Change,” Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed June 22, 2023, https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature; NASA Global Climate Change, “Ice Sheets | NASA Global Climate Change,” Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet, accessed August 15, 2023, https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets.
[5] Laura Paddison, “A Crucial System of Ocean Currents Is Heading for a Collapse That ‘Would Affect Every Person on the Planet,’” CNN, July 25, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/25/world/gulf-stream-atlantic-current-collapse-climate-scn-intl/index.html.
[6] Richard B. Alley, “The Younger Dryas Cold Interval as Viewed from Central Greenland,” Quaternary Science Reviews 19, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 213–26, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-3791(99)00062-1.
[7] Damian Carrington and Damian Carrington Environment editor, “Gulf Stream Could Collapse as Early as 2025, Study Suggests,” The Guardian, July 25, 2023, sec. Environment, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/gulf-stream-could-collapse-as-early-as-2025-study-suggests.
[8] “A Major Atlantic Current Is at a Critical Transition Point,” February 17, 2022, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/amoc-shutdown-gulf-stream-climate/; “What Happens If Climate Change Causes the Atlantic Ocean Current to Collapse?,” Yahoo News, July 26, 2023, https://news.yahoo.com/what-happens-if-climate-change-causes-the-atlantic-ocean-current-to-collapse-221433345.html.
[9] Ditlevsen and Ditlevsen, “Warning of a Forthcoming Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.”
[10] Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas (Duke University Press, 2003), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv120qqss.
[11] “Costs of the 20-Year War on Terror: $8 Trillion and 900,000 Deaths,” Brown University, July 7, 2023, https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar; “Why the War in Iraq Was Fought for Big Oil | CNN,” accessed August 24, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html.
[12] Carrington and editor, “Gulf Stream Could Collapse as Early as 2025, Study Suggests.”
[13] Ditlevsen and Ditlevsen, “Warning of a Forthcoming Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.”
[14] Patrick Pesterpublished, “When Did Scientists First Warn Humanity about Climate Change?,” livescience.com, December 12, 2021, https://www.livescience.com/humans-first-warned-about-climate-change.
[15] Jan Corfee-Morlot, Mark Maslin, and Jacquelin Burgess, “Global Warming in the Public Sphere,” Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 365, no. 1860 (2007): 2741–76.
[16] Larry Hughes, Ayesha Herian Originally published on Policy Options September 12, and 2017, “The Correlation between GDP and Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” Policy Options, accessed August 15, 2023, https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/september-2017/the-correlation-between-gdp-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions/.
[17] “Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall,” ProleWiki, January 15, 2023, https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall.
[18] “Food Matters,” accessed August 24, 2023, https://www.nrdc.org/food-matters.
[19] Zoe Wood, “Amazon Faces MPs’ Scrutiny after Destroying Laptops, Tablets and Books,” The Guardian, June 22, 2021, sec. Technology, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/22/amazon-faces-mps-scrutiny-after-destroying-laptops-tablets-and-books.
[20] Banana Wars.
[21] Maanvi Singh, “Texas Governor Signs Bill Rescinding Water Breaks as Deadly Heat Grips State,” The Guardian, June 23, 2023, sec. US news, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/greg-abbott-texas-governor-bill-water-breaks-heatwave; “Texas Power Prices to Surge 800% on Sunday Amid Searing Heat – Bloomberg,” accessed August 15, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-05/texas-power-prices-to-surge-800-on-sunday-amid-searing-heat#xj4y7vzkg.
[22] “Biden Asks Congress for More than $13 Billion in Emergency Defense Aid for Ukraine – CBS News,” August 10, 2023, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-asks-congress-for-13-billion-to-support-ukraine/; Jen Christensen, “Nearly Half of the Tap Water in the US Is Contaminated with ‘Forever Chemicals,’ Government Study Finds,” CNN, July 5, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/05/health/pfas-nearly-half-us-tap-water-wellness/index.html; “Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS),” National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, accessed August 15, 2023, https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/exposure/pfas/index.cfm.
[23] “Marxism Terms,” accessed August 24, 2023, https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/marxism/terms/termsmainframe.html.
References
“A Major Atlantic Current Is at a Critical Transition Point,” February 17, 2022. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/amoc-shutdown-gulf-stream-climate/.
Alley, Richard B. “The Younger Dryas Cold Interval as Viewed from Central Greenland.” Quaternary Science Reviews 19, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 213–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-3791(99)00062-1.
Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas. Duke University Press, 2003. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv120qqss.
“Biden Asks Congress for More than $13 Billion in Emergency Defense Aid for Ukraine – CBS News,” August 10, 2023. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-asks-congress-for-13-billion-to-support-ukraine/.
Brown University. “Costs of the 20-Year War on Terror: $8 Trillion and 900,000 Deaths,” July 7, 2023. https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar.
Carrington, Damian, and Damian Carrington Environment editor. “Gulf Stream Could Collapse as Early as 2025, Study Suggests.” The Guardian, July 25, 2023, sec. Environment. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/gulf-stream-could-collapse-as-early-as-2025-study-suggests.
Change, NASA Global Climate. “Global Surface Temperature | NASA Global Climate Change.” Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet. Accessed June 22, 2023. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature.
———. “Ice Sheets | NASA Global Climate Change.” Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet. Accessed August 15, 2023. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets.
Christensen, Jen. “Nearly Half of the Tap Water in the US Is Contaminated with ‘Forever Chemicals,’ Government Study Finds.” CNN, July 5, 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/05/health/pfas-nearly-half-us-tap-water-wellness/index.html.
Corfee-Morlot, Jan, Mark Maslin, and Jacquelin Burgess. “Global Warming in the Public Sphere.” Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 365, no. 1860 (2007): 2741–76.
Ditlevsen, Peter, and Susanne Ditlevsen. “Warning of a Forthcoming Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.” Nature Communications 14, no. 1 (July 25, 2023): 4254. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39810-w.
“Food Matters.” Accessed August 24, 2023. https://www.nrdc.org/food-matters.
Hughes, Larry, Ayesha Herian Originally published on Policy Options September 12, and 2017. “The Correlation between GDP and Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Policy Options. Accessed August 15, 2023. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/september-2017/the-correlation-between-gdp-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions/.
“Marxism Terms.” Accessed August 24, 2023. https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/marxism/terms/termsmainframe.html.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS).” Accessed August 15, 2023. https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/exposure/pfas/index.cfm.
Paddison, Laura. “A Crucial System of Ocean Currents Is Heading for a Collapse That ‘Would Affect Every Person on the Planet.’” CNN, July 25, 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/25/world/gulf-stream-atlantic-current-collapse-climate-scn-intl/index.html.
Pesterpublished, Patrick. “When Did Scientists First Warn Humanity about Climate Change?” livescience.com, December 12, 2021. https://www.livescience.com/humans-first-warned-about-climate-change.
ProleWiki. “Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall,” January 15, 2023. https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall.
Singh, Maanvi. “Texas Governor Signs Bill Rescinding Water Breaks as Deadly Heat Grips State.” The Guardian, June 23, 2023, sec. US news. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/greg-abbott-texas-governor-bill-water-breaks-heatwave.
“Texas Power Prices to Surge 800% on Sunday Amid Searing Heat – Bloomberg.” Accessed August 15, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-05/texas-power-prices-to-surge-800-on-sunday-amid-searing-heat#xj4y7vzkg.
US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “What Is the AMOC?” Accessed August 15, 2023. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/amoc.html.
“Why the War in Iraq Was Fought for Big Oil | CNN.” Accessed August 24, 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html.
Wood, Zoe. “Amazon Faces MPs’ Scrutiny after Destroying Laptops, Tablets and Books.” The Guardian, June 22, 2021, sec. Technology. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/22/amazon-faces-mps-scrutiny-after-destroying-laptops-tablets-and-books.
Yahoo News. “What Happens If Climate Change Causes the Atlantic Ocean Current to Collapse?,” July 26, 2023. https://news.yahoo.com/what-happens-if-climate-change-causes-the-atlantic-ocean-current-to-collapse-221433345.html.