The murder in 2011 of José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo hit international headlines. Both were environmental activists in the northern Brazilian state of Pará. Their deaths drew comparisons with other prominent campaigners who were killed in the Amazon basin, including Dorothy Stagg in 2005 and Brazilian trade unionist and environmental campaigner Chico Mendes (Francisco Alves Mendes Filho) in 1988.

Recently, the U.S. government levied a $4.5 billion fine against BP, ordered to be paid over the course of four years. Despite being touted as the largest corporate negligence fine in US history, the settlement promised BP that no criminal charges would be pressed.

On February 17, 2013 nearly 50,000 people turned out for the largest climate action rally in American History. The sheer size of the crowd shows the level of concern within the population. However, 50,000 is far less than what is necessary to force government to stop dragging its feet. In comparison, nearly 200,000 people showed up for Jon Stewart’s Rally for Sanity in 2010. If the aim is to grow the environmental movement to a comparable size and beyond, the movement must change strategy and widen the demands to include human well-being.

Since 1750 industrial activity has unearthed and burned approximately 500 billion tons of fossil fuels. The addition of this carbon, mostly in the form of carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere has caused the average global temperature to increase 0.8 degree Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Scientists are now projecting a global temperature rise of 4 degrees Celsius (about 7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.

The recent explosion of environmental activism can be attributed to the concrete effects of climate change that people are seeing around them. It can be linked to the devastation wrought upon many in the U.S. and around the world by Hurricane Sandy, the persistent droughts affecting food crops, forest fires, flash flooding, or the desperate plea of the tiny Maldive Islands. More than anything else, the proposal to transport the Alberta tar sands oil by constructing the Keystone XL pipeline has recently propelled the struggle against global climate change into the consciousness of many, especially a new activist element created by the Occupy movement.

Tar sands oil production is now Canada's fastest-growing emitter of carbon dioxide. It's extraction has left swaths of forests barren, with open pits as far as the eye can see.

A consortium of corporations want to build the Gateway Pacific Terminal - North America’s largest coal export terminal north of Seattle in Bellingham, WA.

Climate scientist and Socialist Alternative activist Jess Spear speaks at a rally on January 14, 2013 on the steps of the state capitol building in Olympia, WA. She explains how we can build a mass movement against climate change, the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and the proposed coal export terminals on the west coast.

Barbara Kingsolver is familiar as a fine novelist whose work is extremely relevant for socialists. The Poisonwood Bible (1998), partly based on her childhood in the Congo, is set amid the anti-colonial struggle in that country. The Lacuna (reviewed in Socialism Today No.141, September 2010) explored sexual diversity and political rebellion against the background of the anti-communist witch-hunts in the USA of the 1950s, and included a sympathetic portrait of Leon Trotsky. Her latest novel, Flight Behavior, confronts a dirt-poor farming community in Tennessee with global warming and the potential destruction, not only of their livelihood, but of their very existence.

The sea of self-made signs, placards, and banners at the historic Keystone XL protest in Washington DC showed that the destruction of the environment and climate change are definitely on the minds of ordinary people. After Hurricane Sandy and growing severe weather patterns, many more people realize climate change affects our day-to-day lives.

Unlocking vast natural gas reserves through hydraulic fracturing, popularly known as fracking, is hailed as a solution to global warming and an economic boom for towns and cities that won the geographic lottery: a win-win in the eyes of the ruling class. But mounting scientific evidence indicates further development of natural gas will not solve global warming and actually delays badly needed investment in renewable technology.

The extended Kyoto Protocol, which covers just 15 percent of global emissions – and now Canada, Japan, Russia and New Zealand have pulled out (the U.S. has never participated) – involves no new emission reduction commitments. The result, which means a new lost decade as far as the climate threat is concerned, drew scathing criticism from environmentalists and experts around the world. Greenpeace called it “a magnificent failure.”

The loss of the Arctic ice cap nearly half a century earlier than predicted suggests we are far closer to a point of no return and have less time to act than we thought just a few years ago. If we are to seriously tackle global warming, we must challenge the logic that got us into this mess in the first place: capitalism and its inherent need for profits at the expense of humanity and the environment that sustains it.

It is hard to overstate the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy across much of the eastern seaboard, but especially in New York and New Jersey. In New York City alone, there are up to 40,000 people who have been made homeless and, nearly two weeks after the hurricane hit, 200,000 remain without power. The Jersey shore essentially has to be rebuilt. Estimates of the total cost for clean-up and rebuilding after Sandy stretch up to $50 billion.

While both Obama and Romney avoid any mention of climate change, millions correctly see this hurricane as another dire warning. Violent and extreme weather is on the rise, and unless we overcome corporate resistance to transforming our energy economy, working people will pay an ever-growing price of death and destruction.