In a recent post I proposed the following three-part response to the ecological crisis – solar radiation management; drawdown and mitigation of greenhouse gases; and decreased per-capita consumption, lower populations, and higher efficiencies.

In my previous post I used the ideas of deep politics to determine that the capitalist ruling class is primarily responsible for the lack of rational action on the ecological crisis. Such action would include immediate solar radiation management (SRM), rapid reductions in greenhouse gas concentrations, and the transition from economic expansion to contraction. In this post I again use these ideas, but this time to locate an alternative social group that might take the necessary steps.

In several of my previous posts, particularly Mainstream Emissions Reductions and The Deep Politics of Ecological Inaction, I explained that nothing of any significance is being done to resolve the ecological crisis. In this post I identify the core reason for this disastrous inaction: the decision by the ruling capitalist class to remain in power after its economic system became objectively obsolete about 60 years ago.

As explained in my last post, sixty years ago the capitalist class refused to cede political power when its economic system encountered the Earth’s environmental limits. Instead it decided to continue its rule and to conceal the biosphere’s rapid degradation, thereby abandoning the populace to a gruesome ecological fate.