:-: With our planet’s future at risk, only anarchist principles can help solve the ecological problems humanity faces :-:

:-: With our planet’s future at risk, only anarchist principles can help solve the ecological problems humanity faces :-:

As the twenty-first century has progressed, humanity has increasingly faced challenges presented by climate change and finite resources. However, capitalism has proved incapable of solving these problems; by its very nature, it is a system based on continuous, infinite growth, ever-increasing consumption and expanding markets.

But as capitalism currently seems to show no sign of abating, anarchists and their allies in the green movement have realized that we must take our future into our own hands. If capitalism cannot solve the ecological crises it’s created, then we have to do something about it ourselves and change our lifestyles accordingly.

Peter Harper, a leading proponent of sustainability and environmental politics, identifies two contrasting strains of green lifestyles that have formed over the last decades – light greens and deep greens.

Light greens, having money to fund an alternative, individualized lifestyle, concern themselves with investing in expensive green technologies, such as electric cars, solar panels and organic food. On the other hand, deep greens, with less emphasis on money and more on collectivization, promote public transport and cycling, localized and homegrown food initiatives and alternative currency schemes.

Harper contends that those practicing a deep green lifestyle inspired by anarchist principles of collectivization combined with environmental sustainability will be best-equipped to face the many inevitable ecological crises.

But this isn’t all. Anarchist ideas are prominent in the battle against ecological collapse.

Take localized, urban farming, for example. Again, we go back to the timeless ideas of Kropotkin, who, a century ago, identified the potential issues of exhaustible resources and the need to promote small-scale, local food production over cheap, international food supply chains.

Kropotkin suggested that an island like Great Britain could itself grow all its food needs, an idea that, at the time, was considered absurd.

But, as with many other anarchists who were ahead of their time, his ideas have been redeemed – UN reports show that in Chinese cities, for example, 90 percent of vegetables are grown and consumed locally.

As with many of the anarchists we’ve discussed, Kropotkin’s ideas remain vital for a reimagining of how future human societies can function as collectivized, egalitarian units – and how our planet might survive upcoming ecological catastrophes.