WHAT LIES IN BETWEEN THE RED AND THE GREEN?

Please fill in the survey. When you fill it in, it will be emailed to me. Sending me your email would be helpful as we can start a dialogue and at some point I would like to use this material.
Question 1: I am concerned that the environmental crises are reaching or have reached tipping points. Carbon Dioxide emissions need to be reduced and the burning hydrocarbons in the current quantities needs to be stopped. How do we do this?
Question 2: Many people are also worried about rising fuel costs and 'peak oil'.George Caffentzis wrote that "two things are missing from most contemporary debates about the 'peak oil curve': capitalists and workers" This is very interesting. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Question 3: Sometimes when debating with people about 'peak oil' there is an unspoken acceptance that the current market system is natural, unchallengeable,invisible.
Accepting the current oil price rises without also questioning the current systems of overproduction,product obsolescence & supply chains that ship products over entire continents to generate profits through cheaper labour seems to be letting the actual systems at the root of this crises off the hook. Because of this then, it appears as though the only possible response in this case, is to withdraw entirely from conversation about how hydrocarbons are produced and used. To leave the coal in the hole, or the oil in the soil.
Solutions become a different less polluting energy source. An alternative energy source without an alternative society. But this could be seen as confusing systems with inputs. This narrative works to obscure the role of States and Capital in determining how hyrodocarbons are used.
It collapses States and Capital into 'we' and then says if 'we' don't stop using so much oil 'we' will 'inevitably' be led into resource wars over the dwindling supplies. Is there a way to bridge this divide?

Question 4:How can we reconcile the need to reduce consumption on one hand with the incredible statistics of rising inequality in the UK since the 70s? Is there a way to pre-empt State imposed austerity measures by pushing the cost back onto Capital, and at the same time organise against consumer society – in short recognising the needs of both our species and that of the ecology?

Question 5: Sometimes people of my age (33) have no memory of unions & radical working class struggles. Our collective history started in Seattle and the environmental protests and direct actions of the 1990s.
As a consequence of this forgetting, our idea of work as a site of struggle, or of unions as having something to offer the ecological movement or a role to play in any transition from hydrocarbons are lacking. Is there a way to bring these two currents together?

Question 6: The other day I went to speak to some of the striking Shell dockers. We talked about oil/ecology/wages/austerity and I gave them a pamphlet about 'Transition towns and what it means for social change'. Afterwards whilst reading an article about them on a local newspapers' website I posted up comments defending them both from environmentalists who accused them of polluting the earth, and from other people who accused them of destroying the economy and making their life harder. How do we increase the concept of solidarity?

Question 7: In a similar theme it isn't uncommon to encounter the sentiment that it's good that the price of oil is going up, that everything is running out as it will stop people consuming as much and force them to change their behaviour. I'm not so sure it is. What do you think?

Question 8: One reason why I think the Transaction Towns movement has got so popular so fast is that they are inclusive, that they are offering a positive vision of the future, and that they are also busy getting things done. They are not waiting for that moment in the future when the revolution finally happens and capitalism is swept away. On the other hand they are committed to engaging with local councils and local businesses. They say that 'we are all in this together'. Some people would say that this is an entirely skewed view of the world,that denies class struggle as one of the driving forces of social change and is in effect offering a ceasefire to the forces of capitalism and endless accumulation, which is inevitable going to be rejected. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of TT?

Question 9: What are the politics of carbon rationing?

Question 10: What do you think lies in-between the red and the green?

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