This summer has brought terrifying news: heat waves across the world have led to hundreds of deaths in the US alone; July 2023 was the hottest month in the past 120,000 years. In addition, flooding has been reported in countries across the world. In Juneau, Alaska, a melting glacier led to the flooding of the Mendenhall River, which set a new depth record. Two buildings collapsed and were washed away while multiple other buildings were damaged.
Tragically, at least four people were killed in Slovenia where floods that have been called the “worst natural disaster” in the country’s history have struck. These floods have also caused hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage to buildings and infrastructure, and two-thirds of the country’s homes have been left without electricity.
China faced extreme flooding throughout the entire month of July; 147 people are either dead or missing because of the floods. But what’s worse is that these floods have destroyed essential crops across the country, raising the specter of hunger and food shortage in one of the largest food-producing countries in the world.
These climate disasters around the world are only a terrifying taste of what’s to come if we don’t stop the climate crisis. The capitalist class has no place to confront this catastrophe – so we must!
