Ecological Civilization’s Socialist Roots

May 22, 2023 CEN_com 0

Professor Arran Gare is an associate professor in Philosophy and Cultural Inquiry with the Department of Social Sciences at Swinburne University, Australia. He argues that the notion of ecological civilization “establishes a tradition of socialist thought that now has the potential to challenge and replace global capitalism.” The notion of ecological civilization has become central to Chinese efforts to confront and deal with environmental problems. However, ecological civilization is characterized by […]

Imperialism & Ecological Marxism

May 22, 2023 CEN_com 0

Critique of 21st century imperialism and the growth of ecological Marxism: a view from China The following was written by two Chinese Marxist academics, Professor Cheng Enfu and Dr Fu Hao, which reviews the positive role by the US magazine Monthly Review (established 1949) in contributing to Marxist political analysis in the 21st Century. A key element of this contribution has been the critique of imperialism and the development theories […]

Ban on super-tall construction in China

May 21, 2023 CEN_com 0

The 632-meter Shanghai Tower easily puts to shame other skyscrapers in China ever since its construction was finished in 2015. Sitting on the Huangpu River bank in Shanghai, it is currently the world’s third highest. Where the next new super-tall construction would come out in China has since been a question on many lips as several cities announced their ambitious plans for erecting their own (even taller) landmarks. But on […]

China’s commercial Small Modular Reactor

May 21, 2023 CEN_com 0

China is building the “Linglong-1,” a small modular reactor (SMR) in the country’s southern island province of Hainan. It’s the world’s first of this type of reactor to be approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and it intends to serve the region’s diverse power needs. A design sketch of a completed Linglong-1 power unit. /Hainan Nuclear Power “We believe that there will be a trend of nuclear energy because it can […]

China improves soil quality with humus

May 21, 2023 CEN_com 0

Originally Posted 19 Dec 2021 A type of biological humic acid, featuring high purity and high activity, extracted from agricultural and forestry waste has been industrialized and used for soil restoration in China. A large amount of agricultural and forestry wastes are burned in the open air due to the lack of large-scale high-value utilization, resulting in environmental pollution and resource wastage. Humic acid is an internationally recognized green and effective […]

Quantifying national excess CO2 emissions

May 20, 2023 CEN_com 0

The following extract is from an important study published 1 September 2020 by the highly respected medical journal, The Lancet. The article provides a key to understanding the response to reducing global carbon emissions in terms of environmental justice. It details a method for quantifying national responsibility for damages related to climate change by looking at national contributions to cumulative CO2 emissions in excess of the planetary boundary of 350 ppm […]

Climate change heat waves ‘new normal’ ?

May 20, 2023 CEN_com 0

It’s not a mirage. Across China, heat waves are becoming more frequent, lasting longer, and getting hotter — with deadly consequences. For more than a month, much of China has been blanketed by extreme heat. From June 16 to July 9, local governments issued 1,372 high-temperature “code reds,” indicating temperatures are expected to rise above 40 degrees Celsius within 24 hours. Nationally, 71 meteorological stations have reported record highs since the start […]

Capitalism and the Ecological Rift

May 20, 2023 CEN_com 0

The Robbery of Nature: Capitalism and the Ecological Riftby John Bellamy Foster and Brett ClarkReviewed by An Li for Science & Society, Volume 86, No 1, January 2022. Foster and Clark substantially extend Marx’s metabolic rift paradigm, insisting that the rift should not be considered narrowly as an environmental issue. Instead, it must be understood as an array of rifts in the metabolic relationship between human society and non-human nature in capitalist societies. Its breadth is […]

Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

May 20, 2023 CEN_com 0

Roland Boer is a Professor of Marxist philosophy in the School of Marxism at Dalian University of Technology in China, and a member of the Communist Party of Australia. He lives in China and is fluent in Mandarin. Earlier, he taught at Renmin University of China and in a number of universities in Australia. He has also been a visiting professor in the Academy of Marxism in Beijing (within the […]

New Environmental History of Socialism

May 20, 2023 CEN_com 0

Review of: Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, Socialist States and the Environment: Lessons for Ecosocialist Futures (London: Pluto Press, 2021), 288 pages, $26.95, paperback. Review by associate professor Andy Bruno. Starting in the late 1970s, a narrative emerged about the extreme levels of environmental damage in the Soviet Union and, by implication, most state-socialist countries. The explosion and initial cover-up at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 did much to crystallize this image […]