I wasn’t going to post for Blog Action Day; to be honest, I was a little skeptical about the allusions in what this day could achieve.

I guess I still am. Everyone blogging about the environment isn’t going to convince assholes like George Bush and John Howard to become card-carrying greenies, although it’s pretty sickening to see these two pose as wanting to do something about the environment.

But I think the benefit of everyone blogging at once about the environment is the strength in numbers. It’d be great to saturate the internet and the Blogosphere with some fucking politics. But the problem with online activism has always been that it stops online. You can’t change the world from your computer. They key is to use this momentum as a driving force and get out and do something! And I will come to this later.

But firstly, my motivation for posting today is the need to say what most other environmentalists will not say. There is a need to place the blame for fucking the environment squarly at the feet of big business and the whole capitalist system. The reason the environment is going the way it is, is because we live in a system where the rich assholes that rule us only care about making profits.

The state of the environment is not due to too many people, apathetic people or greedy people. In fact, workers are the key to saving the environment and it isn’t through taking shorter showers. Greens leader, Bob Brown, summmed up the position of most environmentalists when he spoke at the Walk Against Warming rally in Sydney last year. He said we need to tighten our belts. He said ordinary people need to use less and pay more and that is the solution. He blamed ordinary people from ruining the environment. And this is where the environmental movement fails.

The majority of waste and destruction is due to big business and industry. Shorter showers means nothing when Roxby Downs Uranium mine in South Australia uses 30 million litres of water a day. And to add insult to injury, the government has not only exempted them from water restrictions, but this water is free. In the midst of a drought, they make us use less to look like they’re taking some action, but of course, all the important stuff like Uranium keeps on raking in the mega-bucks.

Oh, and their solution to energy? Nuclear power. Sure, an energy source reliant on high amounts of water, uses more carbon emissions during contruction than it reduces, and as an added bonus, they get to use the waste to make more bombs. Wow, Howard sure is loving the environment.

And where do the Liberals and Labor stand on the Tasmanian pulp mill? They’re with it all the way. Nothing to do with Gunns donating lots of money to their parties of course, or just the fact that they’re running the system for companies like Gunns. You just have to have witnessed Peter Garrets shift since he joined the ALP. It seems a career in the Labor party comes before values.

But how do we actually fix the environment then? Well, there a numerous examples of workers actually forcing change onto governments. Howard and Rudd can’t be convinced to support fixing the environment because it’s not in their interests because it’s stopping them from making uber-profits. As the mining workers in the 60s showed, workers can force change through their labour power.

Transport workers refused to load the carriages of Uranium, Construction workers refused to build the infrastructure to get the mining towns running, and wharfies refused to transport or move it on the docks. I’d like to see the executives of BHP and Rio Tinto try and do all of that themselves. Those execs want to ruin the environment so they could make a heap of money off of uranium mining but the point is they couldn’t because workers do action to stop it. This isn’t something you can do from your computer.

Blog Action Day represents this growing outrage at what is happening the environment, whether it be Global Warming, Nuclear power and weapons or in Australia, the water crisis. Thanks to blogging, ordinary people have a medium to express their own thoughts on this and not just the thoughts of the established media, who are on the wrong side of capitalism. Rupert Murdoch is no greenie, that’s for sure.

But we need to go beyond rants on our blogs. We need to take action. And for Australians, we’re heading towards an opportunity to do just that. Howard’s going down in the election in 5-6 weeks time and two weeks before the election on November 11, is Walk Against Warming. Not only is it a chance to get out and protest about the environment and global warming, but everything Howard stands for. So, don’t just blog, protest!

Blog Action Day, Walk Against Warming, Environment, Global Warming, Nuclear, Water, capitalism