Does the working class have a material interest in saving the environment? Could we harness such an interest to confront the owners of capital responsible for the crisis?

If you listen to much of the environmental left today, it would seem the answer is a resounding no — especially for the working class in the Global North. German climate justice campaigner Tadzio Müller recently said, in no uncertain terms, “The Global North is essentially a global labor aristocracy.” Far from having an interest in saving the planet, Müller thinks “the material interests of the vast majority of people in the Global North” lie in the “continued destruction of the biosphere.”

Self-described degrowth communist Bue Rübner Hansen speaks of “labor’s intertwinement with fossil capital” and suggests the working class participates in an “imperial mode of living.” Hansen asserts that the working class must accept unspecified changes to save the climate: “the end of fossil capital will entail a substantial transformation of working class habits, preferences, and consumption in the Global North.”