Climate Change as Class War with Matt Huber - Author and Professor of Geography

Empathy Media Lab

“If you do look at the renewable industry today, it's very hostile to unions. They're very hard jobs to organize. They're spread out, they're dispersed, very transient workplaces and so they're very low density unions. And also, renewable energy projects because of the tax credit system in our country, are owned by Wall Street. Some of the wealthiest people in the whole economy are the ones that have financing and stakes in these renewable energy projects. So, renewable energy right now is a very anti-labor, pro-Wall Street kind of regime.”

Matt Huber, Author and Professor of Geography

During this interview, we discuss Matt’s new book, Climate Change as Class War - The climate crisis will take a class struggle to solve. In this book, Matthew T. Huber argues that the carbon-intensive capitalist class must be confronted with its disproportionate effect on the climate. Yet, at present the climate movement is unpopular and rooted in the professional class, where it remains incapable of meeting this dizzying challenge. As an alternative, Huber proposes a climate politics to appeal to the majority—the working class—and he evaluates the Green New Deal as a first attempt to channel working-class material and ecological interests. He advocates building union power in the very energy system that must be transformed. In the end, winning the climate struggle will require an internationalist approach based on planetary working-class solidarity.

You can buy Climate Change as Class War - The climate crisis will take a class struggle to solve from Verso Books.

About Matt T. Huber

Matthew T. Huber is Professor of Geography in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is also the author of Lifeblood Lifeblood (2013) that uses oil to retell twentieth-century American political history and finds a deeper and more complex explanation in everyday practices of oil consumption in American culture.

You can follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/Matthuber78.

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About the Labor Solidarity Podcast

The Labor Solidarity Podcast highlights the work of labor leaders while discussing historic struggles and the importance of organizing with the goal of building international labor solidarity. Learn more at: https://www.empathymedialab.com/laborsolidarity/

The Labor Solidarity Podcast is a part of the EML Publishing brands and we are a proud member of The Labor Radio Podcast Network. Learn more: https://wlo.link/@empathymedialab

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