This article defends the thesis that the capitalist crisis and the ecological crisis are both the result of the dynamics of the capitalist system which transforms human beings and natural resources into goods which are necessary for the expansion of business and the accumulation of profits. The current crisis reflects the difficulties of industrial capitalist civilization and its lifestyle, known as the American way of life, to keep from falling apart. The ecological issue, the environment, is central to capitalism. Attempted solutions, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the environmental agreements made in Copenhagen in 2008, fall far short of the steps needed to solve the problem. Eco-socialism, with its utopian nature, unless it becomes an abstraction, offers itself as a paradigm of alternative civilization.
Ecological crisis; Capitalist crisis; Environment; Way of life; eco- socialism