This year was ushered in by a series of devastating floods: in Queensland, Australia, covering an area greater than France and Germany combined, in Sri Lanka and in the Philippines. There has been further flooding in the Australian state of Victoria, with Cyclone Yasi battering Queensland, and a murderous mudslide in Brazil.

Capitalism in its death throes cannot offer any perspective to humanity and the planet. In fact, the longer the oil continues to gush, the clearer the bankruptcy of the system becomes.

Even before the world leaders sit down at the climate change conference in Copenhagen, it has been widely predicted that it will come out with nothing concrete, binding or effective. The following article explains why we cannot expect any real solutions from those whose first concern is to maintain the present social system.

We are publishing here a statement by one of our contacts in the Dominican Republic after the hurricanes which devastated neighbouring Haiti, leaving several thousand victims. It very rightly denounces the primary responsibility of capitalism in the sombre balance-sheet of catastrophes which have little that is ‘natural' about them.