I first became aware of the threat of global warming in the early 1970s from the writings of social ecologist Murray Bookchin.[1] In Common Sense for Hard Times, Tim Costello and I, citing Barry Commoner, warned that environmental degradation could destroy the capability of the environment to support a reasonably civilized human society.[2] In 1988 I wrote a widely reprinted op ed for the Chicago Tribune called “The Opening Shot of the Second Ecological Revolution.”[3] In maintained that a movement responding to global warming and other results of global environmental connectedness will have to “impose its agenda on governments and businesses.” It will have to say that “preserving the conditions for human life is simply more important than increasing national power or private wealth.” And “it will have to act globally — with international petition drives, worldwide demonstrations and boycotts, and direct action campaigns against polluting countries and corporations.”[4]
[1] Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism (Ramparts Press, 1971) p. 22.
[2] Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, Common Sense for Hard Times (New York: Two Continents/IPS, 1976) p. 134, quoting Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971) p. 215.
[3] Link to file.
[4] Jeremy Brecher, “The Opening Shot of the Second Ecological Revolution,” Chicago Tribune, August 16, 1988.