David Brendan O'Meara

The Ecological Front of the Natural Insurrection, Quito, Ecuador

We don’t hate #Greta Thumberg; we hate those who are using her: the same bourgeoisie who are contaminating the earth.

In just the past year, the image of Greta has gained world-wide popularity, in contrast to the hundreds of environmental leaders murdered in Africa and America for defending the Earth from the multinational corporations. We must ask how a girl only 16 years old has acquired so much fame in so little time. Above all, we must ask what class she belongs to and what class interests she represents. Does she really signify a hope of change when we are on the edge of an ecological collapse caused by the economic system, a crisis in which the poor will be the ones who suffer the consequences?

• Greta Thumberg was born in Sweden, a country that occupies 33rd place in the ranking of the largest economies in the world, a developed economy based largely on manufacturing, especially the automotive industry (for example, Volvo, Saab, Scania) and technology (Ericsson mobile phones), which makes it a developed and DOMINANT country in the international division of labor, occupying a position above countries like ours: dominating, a primary exporter, semi-colonial and semi-feudal.
• For these reasons, Sweden, with its industry in growing development, offers its working class (its working aristocracy) sophisticated systems of health and education, far surpassing our own.
• It is from these material conditions that Greta Thumberg emerges, a girl who one year ago stopped going to classes on Fridays in order to start a “Strike for the Climate,” while in the countries called the “third world,” there are close to 25 million anonymous children without education. Not to mention 900 million hungry people.
• It is in this context that Greta’s initiative, “Fridays for the Future,” began to gain popularity among the young people of Europe and North America. Here we must ask another question: Why is it that in those countries the Green movement is so popular, while in “backwards” countries like ours it has so little appeal?
• To resolve that puzzle, we must return to the material conditions that differentiate some classes from others, some countries from others, and the role that each play in the relations of productions both locally and world-wide.
• In other words, while in Europe or North America, where the basic necessities of housing, nutrition, health care and education are, for the most part, adequately provided for the majority of the population –at our expense– people turn out in great numbers to protest for the climate. On the other hand, in our countries, oppressed by theirs, where the same necessities are miserably unsatisfied, the claims of the environment for obvious reasons have not gained much traction, not because the people lack consciousness but because they are worried, for example, about making it to the end of the month, finding work or surviving in precarious working conditions, without health care or education, in spite of which the great majority of play a role as defenders of the Earth without being recognized as “environmentalists” by anyone and what’s more, as we have mentioned, with hundreds of their community leaders assassinated anonymously by the agents of the multi-nationals, after struggling for years and decades: struggles that also have been recognized by no one.
• GREEN CAPITALISM and the businesses allied with Greta: Greta receives the support of magnates like the Swede Igmar Rentzhog, a leading representative of green capitalism and his chain of ecological multinational corporations, and George Soros, the 60th richest person in the world and one of those who move the strings of lifestyles world-wide. And still it’s common to read in social media that “she has done more than you for the planet.” Of course, the outstanding production values of her propaganda videos, her travels and her prominence in the media do not pay for themselves. They weren’t produced from nothing or simply by the good will of Greta. All this publicity has vast sums of investment behind it, a fact that should be clearly visible for even the most nearsighted eyes. On the other hand, there’s the book that her mother (suddenly turned vegan) launched onto the best seller lists delivering large royalties for its sales. And in addition, the sponsorship of BMW, the Royal Family of Monaco, and a Swiss bank for the yacht in which Greta crossed the Atlantic in order to have a voyage of 14 days “free of carbon footprint and friendly to the environment,” thus avoiding a polluting airplane flight.
• Beyond the obvious footprint — not of carbon but of money — of the forces behind the image of young Greta, we must question above all what she is saying, the messages that her followers all over the world are spreading, and whether these messages actually attack the root of the problem of the planetary ecological crisis. Totally empty of content and the possibility of action, these are messages like: “ask the governments to do something,” when those governments are the direct representatives of the polluting ruling classes who will never do anything. Which is to say, it’s futile to appeal in the UN to the moral sensibilities of the oppressors, to the diplomatic representatives of the real polluters in whose hands nothing will change. It’s a childish error for which we pardon Greta because of her age and her obvious lack of political education, but we don’t pardon her elders who have had enough time to study and comprehend the world but haven’t done so. 
• Other things that can be heard from our post here in Quito, for example: “It’s not just the politicians, it’s us as well, getting up in the morning, going to the store and ordering bread in a bag,” in other words, blaming ordinary people for buying bread in a bag and overlooking the big businesses that are destroying the Earth systematically and with impunity. 
• And last among these: “Following the words of Pope Francis, we call for awareness of the climate,” a phrase which only tells us how horribly various are these strikes and demonstrations filled with spontaneous catchphrases while totally lacking any program of political consciousness, liberating, concrete and doable.
• We live on a planet where science says there exist sufficient resources for a population of 10 billion persons, if administered rationally and in harmony with the Planet. Nevertheless, with only 7 billion of us, the Planet is on the verge of collapse in 2030. 
• Is that caused by consumption habits of the majority, or by the mode of production that determines those habits? Or is it because of the fascist-friendly myth of Malthus, contradicted decades ago by the growth of population?
• Let’s not forget that in the ranks of the climate strikers there are many people who literally blame the poor for “breeding like rabbits.” Here’s how they see things, their well-constructed argument: it’s the poor people who are guilty of global warming; and it’s the rich people, the innocents, who hold the hope of the world in their hands.
• Along the same lines, the arguments of Greta and her followers put the blame on “the elders” for not being aware and changing their consumption habits, thereby obligating her to “leave behind her games and studies.” 
• A class distinction should be made here, since the struggle is not of generations or ages, but of classes. 
• Greta’s argument directly blames the vast majority of people, the workers, for “consuming excessively,” rather than the richest 1% on Earth, the ones who hold about 80% of all world wealth (riches obtained by the direct exploitation of the workers and Nature): the bourgeoisie, the capitalists, the owners of the great multinational corporations and the means of production, who, with their anarchic, excessive and irrational production are contaminating the Earth, deforesting Her, burning our forests, fouling our rivers and seas, killing us with hunger and disease, and producing all the solid, liquid and gaseous waste that is killing everything in its path. 
• They’re the ones, the capitalists, who hold the rudder of imperialism, directed principally by the USA, China, Russia and the European Union. 
• The disputes amongst themselves continue to produce inter-imperialist wars all over the world; they are the ones who have, in addition, control of the largest systems of ideological diffusion (communication media, centers of education, publishers, churches), by means of which they conceal the truth, obscure the genuine and honest, block the advance of science (a science that is ready to recover the lost harmony with the Earth, but in the hands of Big Capital works only for pollution, delay, domination and death), and catapults “inoffensive” personalities into fame so that their interests may remain intact.
• And this is how Greta Thumberg has become one of the leading candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. 
• The same Nobel for PEACE awarded to the Machiavellian Kissinger in 1973, the con-woman Mother Teresa of Calcutta in 1979, the opportunist Gorbachev in 1990, the useless UN in 2001 or the genocidal Obama in 2009, to cite only a few examples of what this award signifies, nothing more than a prize for the fraudsters who have been most committed to supposedly maintaining the peace, a peace which for us, the oppressed, and for Nature is nothing but domination and betrayal.
• Considering that Greta Thumberg is a such a young girl, we accept that she’s probably full of good intentions, but the sad thing is that she is being used by Green Capitalism and by all the media apparatus of the richest 1% to ensure that things don’t change, but rather that any “environmental movement” shifts toward its own class interests, at the cost of sacrificing the peoples of oppressed countries, and their jungles, forests, rivers and seas. 
• At the cost of a Planet that cannot be saved while capitalism stays in control. 
• Good intentions are not enough. Or as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
• Consumption doesn’t determine production, but rather the reverse: production determines consumption. Therefore, to blame the working masses for using water, electricity or transport while the rich continue to poison our planet with their multinational industries of mining, oil, logging, livestock and technology, is not objectively correct. 
• The correct thing to do, from an objective perspective, is change the mode of production. Which is to say, get rid of capitalism and organize production in a social form for everyone, in accordance with the needs of all, not aligned for the accumulation of a few. 
• Only in this way, by overthrowing capitalism, by force, can we save the planet, ourselves and the other species. 
• But it’s not easy, it’s not an overnight job. 
• To get it done, there’s no other way but to organize ourselves, the “people’s classes” of the country and the city, to train ourselves and educate ourselves to raise our consciousness so that no one can fool us, and to undertake a strong and resolute struggle that will allow us to take power in our own hands and throw out the parasitic minority, the rich, those who are leading all of us and our Planet toward a catastrophe without precedent.
• It’s necessary to transcend the emotional, sentimental, idealistic and even mystical arguments that abound in the bourgeois ecological movements, and to comprehend in a conscious and objective manner, by means of a concrete study of reality in order to transform it concretely.
• And it’s necessary to develop a revolutionary current in environmentalism as well as an environmental current in the revolutionary movement.

We are not the defenders of Nature; we are Nature defending herself! And to defend ourselves it’s not enough to go to a march once a year and take a selfie, or to do a makeover on our passive individual consumer habits; we must struggle permanently and collectively without rest. That’s the only way that history and the inhabitants of this Planet will see a change that must necessarily be revolutionary and full-scale. 

A change born from ourselves and built by ourselves.

And no, it’s not a matter of “it bothers everyone,” “everyone criticizes,” or “at least she is doing something–more than you.” We can’t be so basic. The important thing is always to view the issues critically and dig deep to find the causes, the roots of the problems, leaving out all romanticizing. And then, based on this objective and materialist analysis, to undertake actions to change the world profoundly, without sponsorship, without interference from NGOs, without opportunist politicians, in other words: without the bourgeoisie, the landowners, or the imperialists. 

Rather we must act independently, under our own direction. The path that we follow will seem strange or nonsensical for many, as we don’t rely on the bourgeois media of communication, but in fact we are many and every day there are more! Every day more activists!

Our path is struggle, not voting or working with the UN!

We must be radical, just like nature herself.

Write to us, and climb up to #Quito, #Cuenca and #Imbabura.

#CumbreporelClima #NU #NY #ClimateChanche #EmergenciaClimaticaYA