Sugar in the fuel tank!
In the past years, the movement for climate justice has intensified further. Many climate camps and actions against global capitalism – organized in mass actions as well as small affinity groups – have taken place, and there’s no end to be foreseen. We’re getting more in number and more multifaceted. That‘s great!
We see ourselves, “Zucker im Tank” (German for: “sugar in the fuel tank”), as an addition to the other structures that already exist – aiming for an even stronger and more diverse resistance. „Zucker im Tank“ as one of the players wants to support affinity groups and their actions and increase their visibility.
We continue focusing on the support of unpredictable, direct and creative actions anytime and anywhere.
Our common basis with other players is the insight that climate change needs to be confronted right where it is created. And it’s never been only about lignite excavation … we welcome that also issues like industrial farming, hard coal and traffic are being targeted by the movement more and more.
Skill-sharing
We want to empower people to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills for being able to do direct actions – also in the long term. Therefore we’re going to continue organizing skill-shares in different cities, regions and at camps. The goal is to share knowledge about actions, organizing in small groups and practical skills. We do not imagine one big action but rather diverse forms of action, no matter whether they are seen as legal or illegal by the state.
Feel free to request skill-shares for your region or affinity group!
Critical Solidarity
We will react with solidarity to repression und create support and public attention. We do not want to come up with a strict action “consensus” – we count on self-responsibility and mutual respect instead. We cannot and do not want to universally codify the forms of action that are legitimate or a definition of “violence”. More importantly, it is necessary to show critical solidarity and thoughtfulness between each other. No action shall make another impossible.
Capitalism and state versus climate
We want to connect the struggle for climate with other struggles against authority.
The short-lived logic of profit and the never ending pursuit of economic growth that are created by capitalism present the opposite of a sustainable solution for the climate crisis. Therefore, this crisis cannot be solved within the capitalist logic. The state is no institution in which we put hope because it enforces exactly this economical and social order. Only by overcoming capitalism climate change won’t be stopped, but we won’t rescue the climate and the basis of existence within a capitalist system either.
Connected struggles
But we do not only want to fight capitalism and the state. Also, other forms of authority like patriarchy or racism are tightly connected with the climate crisis. While everyone is affected by the impacts of climate change, the individual damage strongly depends on the place of living, class and is defined along criteria like gender and race. (1)
People in the Global South already suffer most from climate change although, historically, they have produced the least amount of greenhouse gases. People who flee from the impacts of climate change and its interlinks with other crises are faced with the blatant violence of the European border regime. Also in the global north, People of Color are more strongly affected by climate change than white people. An example: after hurricane Katrina, the destroyed public housings that had mostly been populated by Black people have been replaced by housings for people with mixed income. (2)
We’re standing in solidarity with other progressive, social movements and are convinced that we can learn a lot from each other. Our solidarity is supposed to be practical – our focus stays on lignite but we support other emancipatory struggles with skill-sharing and with their actions.
(1) Although race and gender do not represent biological reality but social constructions, we think it’s important to have words for how people are affected by racism and sexism.
(2) https://www.geo.de/natur/7087-rtkl-hurrikan-katrina-arme-sollen-draussen-bleiben
Jakob, Christian/Schorb, Friedrich: Soziale Säuberung: Wie New Orleans nach der Flut seine Unterschicht vertrieb, Münster 2008
[sources in German]
Climate justice
While rich people can move to hotel rooms with air condition or easily change their home town during heat waves, this priviledge is not given to people of lower classes. In agrarian communities in the Global South, women* suffer even more than men* from the effects of climate change because they usually are responsible for the accommodation of families and additionally cover the major amount of work in the agricultural production. Additionally, they are frequently more strongly affected in case of extreme weather events as they have a more restricted access to resources and knowledge.
We also see the exploitation of non-human animals as part of the problem. Not only because the animal “production” industry contributes a large part to climate change but also because we cannot imagine a liberated society in which animals are being exploited like this.
The list of topics which we regard to be related can be more extended. Another example is the production of weapons that takes up a large fraction of the electricity that is produced in the Rhineland. Those weapons are also used in the war of aggression that is currently been led by Turkey against the self-governing regions in Syria.
With all these explanations we want to show that the struggle against climate change also is a feminist, anti-racist, anti-state and anti-capitalist struggle, a class struggle and a struggle against animal exploitation and militarism. Or in short: a fight against authority in general.
Some details on how the problems we see in the world are interlinked can be found (in german) in our broschure “Kämpfe zusammen_führen. Warum Klimawandel kein Ökothema ist” that has been published in summer 2019.
… manual labour!
We want to stop climate change and abolish its cause, capitalism.
But not only that:
We fight for a future as free of authority as possible.
We are looking forward to continue a diverse struggle against the injustice of the climate crisis – until it won’t be necessary anymore!