A series of monthly events on the climate crisis, with rs21 hosting comradely conversations exploring crucial aspects of ecosocialism. To suggest further events or get involved with organising, contact us at info@endgames.earth.
Past Events
30 March: Fight for Green Housing for All
How do you build a transformative movement for change in housing?How do we encourage the housing movement to participate in the climate struggle? ENDGAMES’ latest event of 2022 focused on how to build power through housing organising and harness it in the climate struggle.We’ll be joined by activists from within different housing and climate groups in Britain to start the discussion.
21 February: The Housing Question and the Climate Crisis
Across the world, the housing crisis grows. The working class are subject to exploitative and low quality shelter, with ever more of their wage taken by landlords.At the same time, housing has risen up as a climate issue, with poorly built and insulated homes bearing the largest brunt of climate change.How should socialists come together to tackle these problems? ENDGAMES’ second event of 2022 focused on how the housing crisis intersects with the climate crisis, and how we can fight back.
17 January 2022: Fossil Fuel Systems and How to Change Them, with Simon Pirani
Want to understand how fossil fuels relate to modern capitalism?Want to discuss how we make the radical transition away from fossil fuels?Join ENDGAMES’ first event of 2022, focused on how the modern fossil fuel system operates, where its weaknesses might be, and what the future might hold for ecosocialists and society.We’ll be joined by Simon Pirani, a researcher, writer and lecturer, and author of Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption (Pluto Press, 2018) to start the discussion.
17 November: After COP26
Want an update on what was and wasn’t agreed at COP26?Interested in discussing what ecosocialists do after the conference?Join us to meet other ecosocialists interested in building the strength of the climate and workers movement after COP26.
20 October: Post-Growth Living, with Kate Soper
In a society obsessed with ever growing profit, what does it mean to move to a post-growth system?How does an alternative hedonism relate to liberation from capitalism and ecological breakdown?To start the discussion we will be joined by Kate Soper, author of Post-Growth Living. Soper taught philosophy and cultural theory at the University of North London. Her previous works include On Human Needs, What is Nature? Culture, Politics and the Non-Human and Troubled Pleasures.
8 September: Climate Tactics – COP26 and Beyond
With the latest IPCC report making clear the scale of the climate crisis, the question of how ecosocialists are to organise over the coming years rears its head.What are the diversity of organising tactics climate activists can take? When should different tactics be used by the climate movement?To start the discussion we will be joined by activists and organisers from across the climate movement, to discuss the different tactics currently used, and how we can learn from them.
6 August: Fight the Fire, with Jonathan Neale
When so much of modern capitalist society is wired to increase emissions, from transport to energy to housing, how do we begin the climate transition? Crucially, how do we ensure that the solutions to the climate crisis end the current exploitation of people, not just the planet? What does an ecosocialist plan to deal with capitalism and the climate crisis look like? To start this discussion we were joined by Jonathan Neale. Jonathan is a climate activist and professional writer of novels, plays and nonfiction. From 2000 to 2004 he was one of the organizers of the European Social Forum. From 2004 to 2011 Jonathan was international secretary of the Campaign against Climate Change in Britain, where he helped to organize global demonstrations each year. His most recent book is Fight the Fire: Green New Deals and Global Climate Jobs.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOEEO2DXr5Y
7 July: A People’s Green New Deal, with Max Ajl
When the Green New Deal is discussed, it is often by politicians and activists in the Global North, many of whom fail to adequately engage with the role of imperialism and capitalism in climate breakdown. So what does a People’s Green New Deal look like? How do we fight for a Green New Deal that undoes the damage imperialism and colonialism has inflicted on the Global South? To start the discussion we were joined by Max Ajl, author of A People’s Green New Deal. Ajl is an associated researcher with the Tunisian Observatory for Food Sovereignty and the Environment and a postdoctoral fellow with the Rural Sociology Group at Wageningen University. He has written for Monthly Review, Jacobin and Viewpoint. He has contributed to a number of journals, including the Journal of Peasant Studies, Review of African Political Economy and Globalizations, and is an associate editor at Agrarian South & Journal of Labor and Society.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyEoFDVFX-k
9 June: Anticapitalists and COP26
On 1-12 November 2021, Britain is hosting the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). Bringing together national officials, businesses, and a range of civil society groups from across the world. The yearly conference remains one of the crucial events in the calendar of environmentalists of all political backgrounds. How should anticapitalists relate to the COP space and the UN climate system? Practically, how should members of the British and global left come together in November to participate in the climate struggle?
3 May: Fighting Borders and Climate Change, with members of LGSM
When the effects of climate change are discussed, it is common to hear talk of millions of climate refugees from both right and left wing voices. In recent years, Europe and the UK have been expanding their border infrastructure and immigration policies, to the detriment of those moving across the continent. How will these violent border regimes interact with and intensify climate displacement? What ways are there to link the struggle against border infrastructure and policies with those combating climate change? To start the discussion we were joined by Ida Picard and Callum Muirhead, organisers with Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants. LGSM is a queer activist group that, through fundraising and direct action, stand in solidarity with all migrants and refugees.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcngQznjrgs
7 April: Fossil Fuels and Fascism, with Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective
Over the last two decades there has been an increased alignment between the far-right and climate denial. As outright climate denial becomes increasingly untenable and the new far right emerges across the world, how will the defence of fossil fuel interests come to align itself with fascist movements? How best can antifascists anticipate and respond to new alignments between the fossil fuel economy and the far-right? To start the discussion, we were joined by Andreas Malm and George Edwards from the Zetkin Collective. The Zetkin Collective is a group of scholars, activists and students working on the political ecology of the far right. Their book White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism is available from Verso Books.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w207Mf17BZQ
3 March: Just Transition in the Time of Pandemic, with Scot.E3
The pandemic is pushing unemployment in the UK higher and higher, with over 5% of the country now out of work. The decimation of industries like retail has been combined with collapsing employment in polluting industries, like air travel and oil. More than ever, the problem of gaining a just transition, a worker-led movement to a sustainable economic system, rears its head.How best do we organise in workplaces for a just transition? How do we ensure that the decarbonisation of the economy is led by the working class.To start the discussion, we shall be joined by activists from Scot.E3 (Employment, Energy and Environment), a collective of rank and file trade unionists and climate activists. Scot.E3 has been arguing for a worker led transition from North Sea oil and gas, agitating for climate jobs, and is busy preparing for COP26.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIVU3dtFmU0
10 February: The USA, China and the Climate Crisis, with Richard Smith
With Joe Biden’s election, major shifts are occurring in US climate policy, undoing many of the decisions made by Trump – such as rejoining the Paris Agreement. With both the USA and China affirming their commitments to tackle climate change and a potential return to Obama-era cooperation on these issues, what does the next decade look like for climate action?
Will the coming years see substantial action from the US and China on climate issues? Will it result in greenwash? Or worse, will climate change come to define both powers’ imperialism?
To start the discussion, we shall be joined by Richard Smith. Smith is the author of ‘Green Capitalism – the God that Failed’ and ‘China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse’ published by Pluto Press in 2020. He is a founding member of the US group System Change Not Climate Change.