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Our writing on social class, climate justice, and where society stands today. Search for a topic or use the filters to browse by theme.
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Privatising the Beach
Capital accumulation turns natural environments into exclusive commodities, with governments constantly enabling the process and local communities bearing the cost.
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The Real Issue With Plastic
More than a waste-management problem, the plastic crisis is an overproduction crisis.
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So What Is Social Class, Exactly?
What exactly is social class? WCCA Director Emma River-Roberts writes a brief explainer.
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Is Climate Change a Working Class Issue? Reflections From the Climate and Nature Education Festival
Last month I chaired a panel at the Climate and Nature Education Festival, a one-day event bringing together educators, activists, politicians, business leaders, governors, parents, and charities from across the education spectrum. The panel’s question was a simple one: is climate change a working class issue?The question itself, as panellist Tahir Latif (Greener Jobs Alliance)…
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Demilitarisation and Environmental Justice
The institutions behind “national security” efforts are structurally implicated in accelerating planetary instability, while simultaneously positioning themselves as managers of the chaos that will follow. Explosions erupt following Israeli strikes at Tehran Oil Refinery on March 7, 2026. Source: Atta Kenare / AFP 13th March 2026 As bombs fall on Iran and Lebanon, a new…
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Making Apartheid Bloom
How Israeli companies transformed water into an instrument of settler rule and profit. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons 4th February 2026 In a previous piece I examined a range of Israeli companies in the agricultural sector and their role in the Zionist settler-colonial project. Here the focus narrows to just two of them – Netafim and…
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Apartheid Agribusiness
What began as a tool of settler colonialism in Palestine now circulates worldwide as a development template, financed by international capital and imposed on rural economies from Latin America to North Africa. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons 23rd December 2025 Israeli agribusiness has become a powerful export industry, one deeply entwined with the settler-colonial project in…
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A Human Right to Energy?
“Do I drink lithium? Do I eat copper? // Protect the territory”. Protest poster against extractivism in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Photo Credit: “IMG_0909” by Becker1999, CC BY 2.0 2nd December 2025 A rights-based approach to energy can extend access, but also risk legitimising an extractivist status quo. For years, the idea of an energy transition…
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The Material Basis of the Knowledge Economy
Artisanal cobalt miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo Photo Credit: The International Institute for Environment and Development 29th October 2025 Capitalism has never operated evenly across space. It has always organised the world into zones of extraction and zones of command. At one end, territories are devoted to removing resources from the earth. At…
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We Need To Talk About the Tourism Industry
Barcelona, Parc Güell – Main stairs Photo Credit: Txllxt TxllxT 13th October 2025 What looks like prosperity to outsiders frequently doubles as slowing disappearing neighbourhoods and ecological degradation for the locals. When visitors arrive in large numbers, the pressure on housing and services alters everyday arrangements. Long-term units are frequently converted to visitor accommodation for…
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There Are No Green Landlords
Photo Credit: The All-Nite Images, CC BY-SA 2.0 28th August 2025 Rent is a social relation where a small class of owners extracts wealth from a bigger, non-owning class without producing anything in return. Landlords make their living from owning, not from working. Their growing wealth comes from rising land values. This means that their interests…
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Heat and Inequality: No Shade for the Poor
Photo credit: Darren Stone 5th August 2025 Extreme heat has become a regular feature of life in many parts of the planet, but the way it is felt depends on who you are and where you live. People with wealth and better access to infrastructure can manage high temperatures with air conditioning, shaded homes, and…
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Why Should We Care About the Aviation Industry?
Photo Credit: Basile Barjon/Stay Grounded 18th July 2025 Aviation’s climate impact is far greater than most people realise. Air travel is the most carbon-intensive mode of transport, responsible for roughly 4% of global warming (once non-CO₂ effects are taken into account). This footprint is not only large but growing rapidly. In the five years before…
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Degrowth Needs Workers
Photo Credit: Red Duck on vacations 10th July 2025 (What is degrowth? Click here to read a brief explainer). Mainstream climate politics has spent years pitting climate against the working class. It paints miners and factory workers as the problem, puts them on one side of the fence and ecology on the other. This framing…
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From Pahalgam to Palestine – Decolonise Now!
Indian Aggression and the Ongoing Oppression of Kashmir: A Cycle of Imperialist Violence (Photo Credit: Max Desfor/AP Photo) Written by Minhaj ul Arifeen 11th May 2025 On the night of May 7th India launched a provocative air assault, violating Pakistani airspace with fighter jets and drones, striking nine major cities under the pretext of neutralising…
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Book Review – The Sustainability Class: How to Take Back Our Future from Lifestyle Environmentalists
Written by Kevin Picado14th February 2025 Norway, widely praised for its green policies and renewable energy initiatives, has cultivated a reputation as a global leader in sustainability. Its landscapes are dotted with hydroelectric plants, its cities boast extensive electric vehicle adoption, and its government actively supports international climate agreements. Yet this green image is starkly…
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WCCA Statement on the Far-Right Violence in the United Kingdom
7th August 2024 Statement co-written by the WCCA team (Emma River-Roberts, Sasha Josette, Ashley Sheets, Kevin Picado and Minhaj ul Arifeen) and members. The United Kingdom has recently seen a rapid escalation in violence organised by the far-right; people have been beaten on the streets and verbally abused because of the colour of their skin,…
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A Zombie Garbage Incinerator Divides a Working-Class Town in Massachusetts.
In an article originally published by Grist Greta Jochem describes how for two decades residents in Revere, Massachusetts, have seemingly had to choose between jobs and their health. This story was originally published by Grist on 25th January, 2018. Photo Credit: Google Earth Via Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. Republished 30th April 2024. Sitting…
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Inside Indonesia’s Climate Movement: A Discussion With Eno
We spoke to WCCA member Retno (Eno) Widowati about her experience of the climate movement in Indonesia, what inspired her to join it, and the challenges of raising climate awareness.
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The Struggle Against Apartheid Will Not Stop!
Minhaj ul Arifeen writes about the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the establishment of a new political ground in the Middle East. 19th March 2024 The mainstream media has led people to believe that there is a country fighting against terrorists. Does it sound old? Yes? Then perhaps you know the history of Western illegal…
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To the Halls of Death, Alive and Breathing: Reading Sophocles in the 21st Century
Comrade Aazad explores the importance of literature – as a powerful tool capable of prompting us to reflect more critically upon contemporary struggles. In this article, he draws upon Sophocles’ Antigone to draw parallels with the ongoing fight for justice in Balochistan, Pakistan. 12th February 2024 “This war is old of tyrants and mankind: Their…