As the climate change talks in Paris come to an end, Back in the USSR focuses on the elephant in the room: global capitalism. All of the catastrophic effects of global warming are the result of a system based on infinite expansion and limitless accumulation and which places profit over human needs, and ultimately over human survival. Capitalism has placed the biosphere itself in jeopardy and offers no solutions to the present crisis, only massive obstacles. Climate change can only be stopped through economic planning, the rational allocation of resources based on need, and the systemic adoption of sustainable energy and technology on a vast scale that can save it. In short, socialism is the only option humanity has left. But socialism can only be implemented if capitalism and the imperialist dynamics that sustain it are overthrown. Therefore I also discuss the recent elections in Haiti and Venezuela and what they tell us about the face of imperialism today.
With music by Georgy Sviridov, Roger Waters, Midnight Oil, Canserbero, The Decemberists, and Lee Reed.