Socialist Action /May 1999
PROFITS VS. THE PLANET: Does Humanity
Have a Future? The Environmental Crisis of Capitalism
by Roland Sheppard
Since the development of capitalism, the natural resources of the planet
have been consumed on a larger and larger scale by the profit system. A
result of this process has been a rapid change in the earth's ecological
balance that could eventually lead to the extinction of humanity.
Whole forests have been destroyed, whole oceans are undergoing life-threatening
changes, as the air we breathe is becoming more and more contaminated by
the expansion of capitalist production.
From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the burning of fossil
fuels, the earth's ecosystem has been greatly altered. The bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki by U.S. imperialism at the end of World War II demonstrated
the technological development and the capacity of capitalism to destroy
humanity. This potential of nuclear pollution and destruction has been a
glaring reality from that time to the present.
The less apparent product of World War II was that the technologies developed
for wartime purposes had changed chemistry and physics forever. These products
were tested for their effectiveness during war-not for the safety of humanity.
Under the banner of "Better Living Through Chemistry," life
and production changed. The "miracle fiber" asbestos was used
everywhere and everything was dusted with DDT. Twenty years after their
introduction, the death toll from cancer caused by these two substances
began to come in.
The development and production of synthetic organic chemicals, used in
everyday life, has increased over 100 fold since World War II in the United
States. The increase has been geometric, doubling every seven to eight years.
In the United States, by the late 1980s, production had reached over
200 billion pounds per year. Many of these new compounds and medicines have
been to the benefit of humanity. Unfortunately, only approximately 3 percent
of these chemicals have been tested for their toxicity and potential long-range
harm.
Rachel Carson's warnings
Rachel Carson was the first scientist to come forward and explain the
potential dangers of the new pesticides, fertilizers, and other toxic pollutants.
Her first book, "The Silent Spring," is credited with the beginning
of the environmental movement. This book explained that cancer and other
diseases have become part of the world's food chain and even present in
the air we breathe and the water we drink.
Predicting the coming catastrophe if the mode of production does not
change, Rachel Carson wrote in "The Sea Around Us": "It is
a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now
be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though
changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather
to life itself."
Despite Carson's warnings and the beginnings of the environmental movement
over 35 years ago, the destruction of the environment by capitalism and
the capitalist mode of production has only escalated.
An example of this escalation is global warming. The melting of glaciers
throughout the world is one demonstration of this phenomenon.
The Quelccaya ice cap in South America, home to some of the world's largest
glaciers, is rapidly melting. From 1930 to 1990, it had been shrinking at
the rate of three meters a year. Since 1990, it has been shrinking at the
rate of approximately 30 meters a year.
The Antarctica ice shelves have been in retreat for 50 years, shrinking
approximately a total of 7000 square kilometers in that time span. In the
past year, from October 1998-March 1999, the Antarctica ice caps have retreated
approximately 3000 square kilometers.
These quick increases in glacier decline are foreboding. Recent studies
of ice cores in the Arctic and the Antarctic demonstrate that global warming
may not be a gradual phenomenon.
The ice core studies demonstrate that during the last global warming,
the earth's climate warmed gradually and then abruptly increased by approximately
20 degrees Fahrenheit to end the ice age 12,500 years ago. The ancient
carbon dioxide levels that provoked these abrupt changes, while significant,
were far lower than the rising concentrations in today's atmosphere.
Until these discoveries, global warming had been described as a gradual
event (4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 60 years) that will reach dangerous
levels around the year 2050 or 2100. This new evidence demonstrates that
the present gradual warming could develop into an abrupt change.
An increase of this magnitude (20 degrees Fahrenheit) would flood most
cities and industrial centers in the world as the ice caps melt into the
sea raising the sea level. (If all of the ice caps melted, sea level would
rise approximately 260 feet.) The potential catastrophic results of global
warming and the threat to humanity's future should become an immediate concern.
Along with global warming, the increasing pollution of the oceans, the
fresh water, the land, and the air throughout the world has put into question
the future of our species and other species.
Fidel Castro expressed the urgency of these problems in his speech to
the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro in 1992. He opened with these words:
"An important biological species-humankind-is at risk of disappearing
due to the rapid and progressive elimination of its natural habitat. We
are becoming aware of this problem when it is almost too late to prevent
it. It must be said that consumer societies are chiefly responsible for
this appalling environmental destruction. ... Tomorrow will be too late
to do what we should have done a long time ago."
In this context, the fight for the spotted owl, the snail darter, and
other endangered species, while important in their own right, are indicative
of a far greater concern-the survival of humanity.
A fight for human rights
It is becoming clear that the struggle for the environment is a fight
for human rights and the survival of the species-a struggle for environmental
justice. We need to defend, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, humanity's
"Unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
We should demand:
- All products must be tested for toxicity before being produced for
the market. The present practice of experimenting on human beings and waiting
for the human body counts before determining that substances are toxic
must be stopped;
- The production of toxic substances must be stopped and the least toxic
alternatives must be used until all toxins can be eliminated from use;
- Gravity, wind, and solar power must be developed to replace fossil
fuels as a source of energy.
- The top priority throughout the world must be the elimination of pollution
and the development of science to maintain the earth as a healthy biosphere
for humanity;
- The squandering of trillions of dollars on military spending must stop
and these trillions of dollars must be used to repair the environment.
(In 1991, even after the end of the Cold War, military spending was almost
1 trillion dollars.);
- There must be a 100 percent tax on the profits of companies that pollute.
The environmental movement has raised many of these demands. In the past
30 years, many laws have been written incorporating some of these concepts.
Yet despite these laws, environmental destruction has been allowed to proceed
because these regulations have always been compromised by the incorporation
of the concept of "economic feasibility."
Economic feasibility means that the profitability of an economic enterprise
cannot be subordinated to environmental needs. Therefore, environmental
and safety laws, under capitalism, have always been a compromise between
science and business.
In fact, environmental destruction, pestilence, and death are factored
into production the same as casualties of war are factored into military
battles.
The most glaring example is the occupational environment, where workplaces
have become "killing fields." In the United States alone, at least
350,000 workers get occupational diseases (cancer, etc.) and 50,000 workers
die each year from these diseases. In fact, some estimates are higher!
Blue-collar workers and agricultural workers all have higher rates of
cancer and other diseases because they receive higher doses of the toxic
chemicals at the workplace than the rest of the population. Eventually,
these toxins spread to the entire working class as they become part of the
environment.
Scientific technology exists to prevent the high rate of occupational
diseases, but the profit motive and capitalist competition prevent the implementation
of preventive action and proper safety precautions.
Science and technology are not an obstacle to maintaining a safe environment.
The barrier to a safe environment is capitalism and its paramount principle
of production and science for profit.
Most environmental studies demonstrate that environmental destruction
has become globally intertwined within our society and that the globalization
of capitalism has speeded up the destruction of the planet.
Under the conditions of global capitalist competition, it is not economically
feasible to invest the capital necessary to reverse this destruction.
In the present world, the rights of the capitalists to make a profit
are in direct conflict with our basic rights. In this sense, the capitalist
system has become a threat to humanity.
Jefferson's words that human rights are "unalienable" means
that these rights can never be superseded. At all points of conflict the
rights of humanity to survive must supersede the right of the few to make
a profit. The right to a safe environment is an unalienable human right!
Since environmental illness and destruction are a global concern, it
requires all of humanity to act collectively, in our overall interests for
our survival as a species, to correct the problem and to remove the obstacle
of capitalism.
It requires a society where humanity has social, economic, and political
control over the entire environment.
Such a society, a socialist society, is needed to ensure that all decisions
affecting the environment are under the democratic control of humankind
so that the production of goods will be done for the needs and survival
of humanity instead of the production and the destruction of humanity and
other species for profit.
With common ownership of the means of production, and common control
and protection of all property and wealth, science and society will be in
harmony with the ecosystem and humanity's future.
With these goals we can begin to build a more effective environmental
movement. As we continue to organize against capitalism and its destructive
course, we can and will transform the world.
In the words of Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist: "Never
doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the
world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
Socialist Action /May 1999 |