One Solution - Revolution

The latest report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can be summed up quite briefly: attain near zero emissions by 2100 or billions of our descendants not yet born will be in deep shit. It is the most comprehensive assessment on climate change to date, conducted by more than 800 scientists, amalgamating their findings into one document, aimed to provoke politicians to end international inaction and get a global treaty signed and sealed in Paris in 2015. There is currently no global agreement on how to tackle climate change. Every year there’s little to report but failure on international negotiations.The target is to stop the average temperature rising beyond 2C. If nothing changes?  Hurricanes and typhoons will become more powerful, floods and drought will be more frequent, there’ll be food insecurity, and sea levels will rise (Florida, for example, is already seeing record high tides, to say nothing of the problems being faced by the low-lying islands of the Pacific). Many institutions outside the scientific field are also acknowledging the dangers - insurance companies, financial centres and not least the military. The US Pentagon issued a report asserting that climate change poses an immediate threat to national security with "increased risks from terrorism, infectious disease, poverty and food shortages."

If we don’t achieve socialism in the very near future it won’t be the end of the world — the planet will carry on with or without us. But it may mean the end of the human species if we do not  oppose the profit-based economic and social system that wages war on our climate. If you aren’t worried about climate change, you are ignoring what is going on around you. The impact of global climate change concerns nothing less than the future of humanity’s existence. The mass of humanity is threatened by the results of its own economic activity over which, however, it has no control, under the present social system. If the current situation is not rapidly reversed, then the peoples of the world faces a catastrophe.  It is now too late to stop global warming. If emissions continue at today’s levels, catastrophic climate change is inevitable. At the very least, large parts of the world will be inhabitable, and conditions in the rest will be harsher than humans have ever experienced. It is becoming abundantly clear today, the Earth cannot sustain this system’s plundering and poisoning without humanity sooner or later experiencing a complete ecological catastrophe.The survival of our species, and of the millions of animal and plant species we share this world with, is at stake. The problem is global and no national solution is possible. The world economy must be brought under the democratic control of the associated producers.

Our critics in the green capitalist movement tell us socialism may be desirable, as a general and ultimate aim, but climate change has to be tackled immediately. Such is the arguments of “realism" . Indeed, we too agree something must be done as soon as possible, perhaps another scientific fact-finding conference, another policy discussion summit, yet one more agreement in principle to do something...sometime in the future...and as long as it isn’t obligatory.  For sure the overthrow of capitalism and the socialist transformation of society will not be easy but just how realistic to expect the capitalist system can be reformed in such a way as to provide a future for the next generation and whatever generations still to come any hope of survival. Any serious proposal to remedy the effects of climate change and halt and reverse global warming runs up against two insurmountable problems: private ownership of the means of production by a handful of capitalists and the division of the world into rival capitalist nation-states. Many well-intentioned  environmental activists argue that with the right mix of taxes, incentives and regulations, everybody would be winners. Big Business will have cheaper, more efficient production, and therefore be more profitable, and consumers will have more environment-friendly products and energy sources. In a rational society, such innovations would lower the overall environmental impact in terms of materials and energy used per unit of output, when substituted for more harmful technology. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a rational society. Tax rates, charges or fines are set well below the level that would impact seriously on profits; so more often than not it is cheaper for big business to go on polluting. Capitalism, an economic and political system based on the never-ending expansion of production of commodities for sale, is incompatible with the basic ecological cycles of the planet.

In socialist society, on the other hand, the means of production would be held in  common  by majority. Humanity would no longer be at the mercy of market forces; a world-wide plan of production could redirect  resources to those regions worst damaged by climate change, and a democratically planned economy would allow the needs of the environment to be taken into account as a serious matter, so that climate change could finally be stopped. Green environmentalists need to be socialists. Just imagine the vast amounts of wasteful production of pointless commodities produced solely for sale that could be eliminated. Without the cynical manipulation of people’s insecurities and vanities by the billion-dollar advertising and marketing industries. As we build the new society, wants and needs will inevitable alter, and so too will consumption habits. Capitalism as a system thrives on the cultivation and celebration of the worst aspects of human behaviour; selfishness and self-interest; greed and hoarding; the dog-eat-dog mentality. Built-in obsolescence would end as products would be built to last, designed to be repairable and when they eventually are due for replacement they would be recyclable. Such basic practices would save massive amounts of materials and energy, all along the production chain. Right now, the technology is available to theoretically generate all the clean electricity we need.

 We do not need any more research or studies. We need action. If you want to eliminate a problem or an evil, you must get to the root of it. You cannot get rid of a poisonous plant and create something healthy in its place just by pulling off the top of the plant. You have to pull it up from the roots and then grow something completely different. That is what a radical solution is. Radical means having to do with the root. And this is why a real revolution is needed and this is what it’s all about. In a society that is organised first and foremost to work together to produce enough to comfortably ensure people’s physical and mental well-being and social security — abundant food, clothing, housing, furniture and appliances, cultural pursuits, and lifelong education and training, and health-care — and in which technological advances benefit everybody without costing the environment, a new social definition of wealth will evolve. It won’t be measured by personal wealth, or by how much “stuff” you’ve got.

  

Is socialism green?

The Amazon rain-forest has degraded to the point where it is losing its ability to benignly regulate weather systems and is likely to lead eventually to more extreme weather events, according to a new warning from Antonio Nobre, researcher in the government’s space institute, Earth System Science Centre, one of Brazil’s leading scientists. The Amazon works as a giant pump, channeling moisture inland via aerial rivers and rainclouds that form over the forest more dramatically than over the sea, the author says. It also provides a buffer against extreme weather events, such as tornados and hurricanes. In the past 20 years, the author notes that the Amazon has lost 763,000 sq km, an area the size of two Germanys. In addition another 1.2m sq km has been estimated as degraded by cutting below the canopy and fire. As a result, the deterioration of the rainforest – through logging, fires and land clearance – has resulted in a decrease in forest transpiration and a lengthening of dry seasons. This might be one of the factors of the severe drought affecting south-east Brazil. São Paulo – the biggest city in South America – is facing its worst water shortages in almost a century. October, which is usually the start of the rainy season, was drier than at any time since 1930, leaving the volume of the Cantareira reservoir system down to 5% of capacity. “Amazon deforestation is altering climate. It is no longer about models. It is about observation,” said Nobre. 
Forest clearance has accelerated under Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, after efforts to protect the Amazon were weakened. Last month, satellite data indicated a 190% surge in deforestation in August and September. The influence of the “ruralista” agribusiness lobby in Congress has also grown in recent years, making it harder for the authorities to push through new legislation to demarcate reserves.

 A new United Nations report that has found that the destruction of the environment has left an area of farmland the size of France useless for growing crops. 7.7 square miles of agricultural land being lost every day because it has become too salty. Climate change is making the situation worse because warmer temperatures require more irrigation and increase the speed at which the water evaporates, the report warns. A total of 240,000 square miles of farmland worldwide has now been contaminated. The Indus Valley in Pakistan is one of the worst hit areas, with salinization cutting rice production by 48 per cent in recent years, while wheat is down 32 per cent. Salty soils also cause losses of around £469m annually in the Colorado River basin, an arid region in the south west of the US. In Turkmenistan, more than half of the irrigated land is damaged by salt. Salt damage can also be reversed through measures such as tree planting and crop rotation using salt-tolerant plants, but these measures are extremely expensive.

Eco-socialism should not be mistaken for anti-technology or an anti-civilisation critique that strives to find balance with nature by returning to some kind of pre-industrial tribal society. ‘Primitivism’ can be described as seeking social transformation along these lines.  Eco-socialism  seeks to synthesise what might be regarded as some of the most desirable aspects of more primitive societies, such as their decentralised and ecological means of existing, with some of the most desirable aspects of modern society, such as its science and technology. Green socialism is not some misanthropic back-to-nature utopia.  Our environmental crises have their roots in the social system of production so  the solutions to these ecological problems must be  radical of social relationships. The goal of a future socialist society will be to maximise human potential in order to stimulate a flourishing of humanity achieved through the free association  of producers within society. Human flourishing cannot be achieved, if we are constrained from exercising or capacities. I cannot quench my thirst without water; I cannot nourish my hunger without food; I cannot protect myself from the elements without shelter.

The political-economic system has overridden our genetic and social makeup, the result of that combination determines all our relationships, and it’s also the greatest influences in the way we think, evaluate our life and nature. The many hunter-gatherers the Arctic, the tropical forests of Congo and Amazon, also of the deserts of the Kalahari and of Australia, relate to one another cooperatively and fairly. Their relationship was due to the political-economic system they had, that system also helps to give those people the feeling of being a part of nature. Best of all is, it’s the way of life our genes evolved for hundreds of thousands of years, therefore that political-economic system suits our make-up, and furthermore, it was very successful. That system was what enabled people, with the most elementary tools and material, to live on all continents, except Antarctica. It was efficient; it allowed plenty of time for social and artistic pursuits. Today, with those attributes, we  have the advantage of our technology.

 Agriculture gradually introduced private property. That private property gave an opening to the warrior class to seize properties; it also reduced cooperativeness and increased competitiveness. To deal with competition within our human social needs, a class structure appeared starting with chiefs then proceeding to more complex hierarchies based on hereditary. Fairness for present and future people no longer dominated decisions – they were increasingly based on power of violence and belief. This hierarchal system produced civilisation, that’s centralised control, with objects being more valuable and important than relationships, resulting in continual oppression with periodical slaughters in wars. To hold society together it required both a brutal domination by a hierarchy and a fervent belief in it and in a deity all the more sacred as it was inscribe.

We see life in fragmented segments. Each bit examined in isolation and detail looks easy to manage. But life isn’t like that. It’s highly interconnected, and it’s that inseparability that has produced and maintains our wonderful divers living planet. Competitions in a social setting, is either overt or covert violence, if it’s physical it will also be psychological violence. Its extent of its potential hurt is proportional to its competitive intensity. The exaltation of winning is counter balance by the pain from other people’s loss and at times of many people. This is so between nations, companies, individuals, and sport people in boxing or playing chess. The intensity of the gratification or distress is dependent on the intensity of the competition.  Winners in capitalist societies gain more power due to “their” wealth, which creates the unseen link to power. This gives them a competitive advantage, over the bottom section of the wealth hierarchy of capitalism in a “classless” unpredictable world.

The capitalist system cannot tolerate nor adapt to declining resources and at the same time increasing demands from the effects of global warming and a growing population. To survive we must gradually but quickly change from a growth economy of capitalism to an economy that can manage its shrinkage until we reach a sustainable life. This can only be achieved by progressing from the unfairness of a competitive economy to the fairness of a cooperative one. This would also improve our physical and mental wellbeing.

The competitiveness turns potential friends into enemies and that has detrimental effects on people’s psyche, which is becoming obvious. Those emotional dilemmas are largely caused by the necessary loneliness of competing. Even when one is in a team, the ideology of competition creeps in, so relationships are still chancy. Solitary confinement can have a permanent injurious outcome according to the time of aloneness, but one can feel alone in the midst of a multitude of people that competition creates. Competition is a factor that produces that overwhelming multitude of people, it’s the most serious problem we will have to face when or if we come to our senses. The competition is spurred on by religious, economic, and military needs, of the necessity to have the greatest number to be the strongest.

It’s in everyone’s interest to change course as quickly as one can. The reality is we have a common interest of survival, but we believe we have diverse interest. Therefore we see a need for a competitive advantage over other people, which overrides the knowledge of the planet’s depleting resources and global warming. Namely under capitalist philosophy, we see people as opponents, even enemies instead of potential colleagues and even friends.

We all have to live under a faulty system, we do the best we can. Change the system and people will change to live under it. People are extremely adaptable if given accurate information we will respond to it.

ADAPTED FROM THIS ARTICLE

Red on the outside, Green in the inside

16th  October was World Food Day.

“It’s not just about production of enough food for everyone; it means that every individual must have access to food,” Adriana Opromolla, Caritas International campaign manager

Today, millions do not have enough to eat and billions lack the right nutrients to be healthy. The  Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO highlights that despite some evidence of progress 805 million people - or 1 in 9 people – still suffer from hunger. ”

Gary Gardner, a researcher with the Worldwatch Institute, in his research found that 13 counties were totally dependent on imported grains in 2013, 51 were dependent on imports for more than 50 percent, and 77 were dependent on imports for over 25 percent. More than 90 million people in the world are totally dependent on imported grains, 376 million are dependent on imports for more than 50 percent and 882 million are dependent on imports for more than 25 percent.

Poor diets stunt the growth of 162 million children every year, 97 percent of them in the developing world, trapping communities in a cycle of poverty and ill health. The consequences for those affected can be devastating. Malnourished children tend to start school later, have poorer levels of concentration and lower scores in cognitive ability tests.  Many carry these burdens through into later life.  According to the WHO, a staggering 2 billion people are affected by iron deficiency which contributes to anaemia. More than 250 million children suffer from Vitamin A deficiency which is a major public health challenge in more than half the countries on the planet, with half a million children going blind each year. Half of these children die within 12 months.

Meanwhile, 1.3 billion of us are classified as overweight or obese, fuelled by a food system that is damaging not just our bodies but the environment too. If trends towards Western diets continue, the impact of food production alone will reach, if not exceed, the global targets for total greenhouse gases.

 A study led by the Harvard School of Public Health found that rising levels of CO2 are stripping staple foods of vital nutrients, rendering crops such as wheat, rice and soya less nutritious for millions of people in developing countries. If these climate and socio-economic trends continue, the number of under-nourished children in Africa alone is expected to rise ten-fold by 2050.

Our current agricultural production system is inefficient. We continue to destroy tropical forests for agricultural expansion and this contributes 12 percent to the total warming of the planet today. And much of the food we produce, we waste.  Figures from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers show as much as 2 billion tonnes of food – 50 percent of all we produce – never makes it onto a plate.

Our basic food systems have to be re-imagined so that the world is producing nutritious food in a more sustainable way. One of the first tasks of socialism will be to rectify the worst effects of capitalism on populations, to ensure that local needs are satisfied in all locations. On the agricultural issue this may, at least initially, curtail the growing of (now-called) "cash" crops such as tea, coffee, tobacco or bananas whilst local populations stabilise their ability to feed all their own inhabitants. Emphasis would be placed on the quality, health and fertility of the soil, sustainability being paramount. Farmers in the developed world would be freed from the constraints of capital, quotas, restrictions and above all competition, enabling them to produce foods required by the local populace and, if need be, in other parts of the world. This means supporting the world’s small-holder farmers. One of the legacies of the colonisation of the South by the North has been the imposition of methods of farming along with the types of crops to be grown. Huge areas of previously diverse multi-crop forests were reduced to plantations growing single crops specifically for export – bananas, sugar cane, pineapples – decimating the land through soil erosion from this unsuitable method of farming and taking away the land and livelihood of local peasants. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports that 11 percent of the world’s land is highly degraded and 25 percent is moderately degraded. The heavy-handed, arrogant approach of incomers showing no regard for centuries old successful sustainable methods of farming. It means converting degraded lands back into productive farms. A healthier, more sustainable future is possible. But, the sustainability, food and health nexus must be dealt with together if we are going to fix the global food system. Socialists have always contended that the world could produce enough to feed every human being on the planet. This has been confirmed time and again by bodies such as the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Health Organisation as well as by agronomists and other specialists in the field.

Alison Power, a professor at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of Cornell University in New York state, said the concept is an umbrella that can encompass too many different factors. “There are two approaches to grow production, intensification of conventional agriculture and agroecology. In the last 20 years food production has doubled, but problems like poverty aren’t solved only with that,” Power told IPS. “ In the last 20 years food production has doubled, but problems like poverty aren't solved only with that. So what is needed then is adaptation by small farmers with innovations based on agroecology,” said the expert.  The initiative includes techniques such as conservation agriculture, agroforestry, intercropping, conservation agriculture, crop rotation, improved extreme weather forecasting, integrated crop-livestock management and improved water management. The aim is to increase the ecological production of food in order to reduce carbon emissions.

The capitalist system is the most productive mode of production in the history of humankind. Enough food could be produced to feed all of the world’s population, yet people go hungry. Why? People are starving simply because they lack the means to pay, not because the food cannot be produced – as this new output demonstrates, there is plenty of scope for increasing supply. What could the production of food be like in a society without the need for profit, without competition from big businesses, without promotional advertising, without any money changing hands? Processing plants, packing houses, transport vehicles from local to international, cold storage, warehousing facilities, stock keeping know-how, all the necessary components are already on hand with individuals well-versed in logistics adjusting supply to demand and ensuring sufficient supplies for each and every area, the main difference from now will be satisfying need not profit. To re-establish common ownership and co-operation would in fact revert to relationships which were normal for humanity for the very long period of pre-history. Now, of course, we would enjoy these relationships with all the advantages of modern technology and know-how.  To save the species and the planet, what we need is a return to the communal life of hunter-gatherer days but at a higher technological level. In future years, people will look back  agog as they hear of millions of preventable human deaths because capitalism can't, won't, daren't raise the lives of these people above the rights of private property.

 Daniel Maingi works with the organization Growth Partners for Africa. The Seattle Times reported him as saying that while the goal of helping African farmers is laudable, the ‘green revolution' approach is based on Western-style agriculture, with its reliance on fertilizer, weed killers and single crops, such as corn. As much of Africa is so dry, it's not suited for thirsty crops, and heavy use of fertilizer kills worms and microbes important for soil health. Maingi argued that the model of farming in the West is not appropriate for farming in most of Africa and that  the West should invest in indigenous knowledge and agro-ecology. Growth Partners Africa works with farmers to enrich the soil with manure and other organic material, to use less water and to grow a variety of crops, including some that would be considered weeds on an industrial farm. For Maingi,  food sovereignty in  Africa  means reverting back to a way of farming and eating that pre-dates major investment from the West.

Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biosafety in South Africa says that many countries are subsidizing farmers to buy fertilizer as part of the chemical-industrial model of  agriculture, but that takes money away from public crop-breeding programmes that provide improved seeds to farmers at low cost. “It's a system designed to benefit agribusinesses and not small-scale farmers.”

While small farms produce most of the world's food, recent reports show they face being displaced from their land and are experiencing unnecessary hardship. The evidence shows that small peasant/family farms are the bedrock of global food production. The bad news is that they are squeezed onto less than a quarter of the world's farmland and such land is under threat. The world is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of the rich and powerful. A global trend that is being driven by big agritech that seeks to eradicate the small farmer and undermine local economies and food sovereignty by subjecting countries to the vagaries of rigged global markets. Institutional investors, including hedge funds, private equity, pension funds and university endowments, are eager to capitalise on global farmland as a new and highly desirable asset class. Financial returns, not food security, are what matter. In the US, for instance, with rising interest from investors and surging land prices, giant pension funds are committing billions to buy agricultural land.

 Giant agritech corporations like Monsanto with their patented seeds and associated chemical inputs are working to ensure a shift away from diversified agriculture that guarantees balanced local food production, the protection of people's livelihoods and environmental sustainability. Agritech corporations are being allowed to shape government policy by being granted a strategic role in trade negotiations. They are increasingly setting the policy/knowledge framework by being allowed to fund and determine the nature of research carried out in public universities and institutes. They continue to propagate the myth that they have the answer to global hunger and poverty, despite evidence that they do not. The Gates Foundation and Western governments are placing African agriculture it in the hands of big agritech for private profit and strategic control under the pretext of helping the poor and end hunger.

We urgently need to build a worldwide movement to bring a speedy halt to the carnage. As the Kenyan activist, Dniel Maingi says “ …  take capitalism and business out of farming in  Africa . The West should invest in indigenous knowledge and agro-ecology, education and infrastructure and stand in solidarity with the food sovereignty movement.”

Ecological Socialism

The Socialist Party argues that the sole driver of economic activity in  our society is the crude  imperative to capital accumulation. We recognise the inherent instability and brutality of capitalism and the limits to our ecosystem; that our planet’s resources are finite and that the ecological balance that makes all life possible on it is fragile and under threat. Today, humanity faces the unprecedented threat of an ever worsening series of catastrophes, caused by the interlocked economic and environmental crises brought about by our current economic system.

Capitalism has always been ecologically destructive, but in our lifetimes these assaults on the planet have accelerated. Ecological devastation, resulting from the insatiable need to increase profits, is not an accidental feature of capitalism: it is built into the system’s DNA and cannot be reformed away. Capitalism is increasingly demonstrating its total incompatibility with the maintenance of our ecosystem through its ruthless exploitation of ever scarcer natural resources, its pollution of the environment, the growing loss of biological and agricultural diversity and increasing climate change.

New but equally as damaging technologies such as underground coal gasification (fracking) now
threaten environments and communities around the world. The climate change crisis we
face is being driven by unsustainable energy  consumption and finding evermore damaging new ways to extract oil and gas will simply make it worse in the long run.

We do not believe that some form of ‘business as usual’ is an option.  It will be necessary to radically reorganise the industry. We will require dramatic changes in the ways in which we
generate the energy we use, the ways we build, heat and cool our homes, the ways in which we
travel and the ways in which we produce our food. It will require the restructuring of our energy
generation, transport and manufacturing industries, the rebuilding or refurbishment of millions of our homes and workplaces and the re-ordering of our land use.

Look through Green Party policy documents and it becomes obvious that a lot of faith is put into international and European organisations (e.g. the UN and the EU) in order to build a fairer world, something that is particularly naive considering how both organisations were created by capitalist countries to serve the interests of capitalist countries, and this still remains the case, with most summits and protocols aimed at controlling climate change hamstrung by the pressures of the governments involved to appease the needs of their capitalist economics – the inadequate demands of Kyoto being one example, and the shambles which was the 2009 Copenhagen summit being another. Yet these are the vehicles which the Green Party will think will save the world.

Just as damning is their willingness to work with people who promote the status quo to the detriment of ordinary people. The Greens are looking like any other party that capitalised on the disillusionment with Labour during the course of the last decade. The fact that the Green Party is becoming a more and more desirable option for people disillusioned with mainstream politics cannot be dismissed – and in spite of their actions not meeting their promises, many on the left still call for a vote for the Greens – if only tactically. The Green Party certainly propose a lot of “nice things”, and have become the go-to protest vote for many people on the left of the status quo. However when push comes to shove, the Greens become just as much of a disappointment as the mainstream parties. In Brighton, they did a U-turn and implemented a cuts budget, whilst stoking up a dispute with the refuse workers over pay which has boiled over into further industrial action in September 2014.

The Green Party tends to attack the symptoms rather than the cause – the cause being a capitalist system that ultimately puts profit above all else. This stems from a lifestyle-activist mentality which is prevalent amongst much of the environmentalist movement (including the political party that was set up to act in their interest) that states that all would be well if we all bought organic food, made sure all our tea, coffee etc is Fair Trade, never took a holiday anywhere which would involve flying, and put on half a dozen jumpers in winter rather than put on the heating (which ironically many of the poorest trapped in fuel poverty are actually forced to do). Of course, this is not true of all Green Party members and supporters, but there are many examples found within the party where the beliefs indeed match the stereotype. A standard charge is that the Green Party is by middle class people and effectively for middle class people, and no matter how many people in the party attempt to refute this over the years, this charge has not gone away. Red Pepper wrote a piece on the Green Party in 2008, it commented on their conference in February of that year “that delegates were indeed overwhelmingly white and well-spoken; many of them boasted a Dr before their name.

The environmentalist movement has its fair share of people who distrust anything to do with modern technology and put their faith in pseudo-scientific beliefs, mistakenly believing that every scientific development since the Industrial Revolution is intrinsically part of the problem whilst happily adopting double standards when scientists warn of the imminent danger of rising greenhouse gas emissions and the resultant climate change. This is reflected in the Green Party too. For starters, this is in their present health policy: “The safety and regulation of medicines will be controlled by a single agency… The agency will cover existing synthetic medicines as well as those considered as natural or alternative medicines.”So, in other words, they are “keeping an open mind” regarding treatments where scientific evidence supporting their efficacy is sketchy to non-existent. However this is a marked improvement to what their health policy stated in 2009:
“The Green Party will set up within legislation the practice of patient empowerment, with the right of individuals… to have full and detailed knowledge as to their condition and the range of treatments available, both conventional and complementary/alternative… [The Green Party] oppose attempts to regulate complementary medicine, except by licensing and review boards made up of representatives of their respective alternative health care fields… [The Green Party will] encourage the development of a wider and more relevant range of research techniques, including methods appropriate to the assessment of complementary therapies.”

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett had stated that homeopathy has a very small and limited place in the NHS, by virtue of its placebo effect. Caroline Lucas signed an Early Day Motion backing homeopathy in 2010, although to give her credit she later withdrew her signature. However she has stated that she welcomed the recommendations by NICE to allow more “complementary” treatments on the NHS.

As can be expected from a party which has its roots in the environmental movement, the Greens are anti-nuclear power (as are many on the left in general). However the Greens often go beyond making reasonable arguments against nuclear, resorting to unverified research and scare-mongering. Their former science adviser, Chris Busby, made claims – oft repeated by environmental campaigners, of “leukaemia clusters” in north Wales – which are not peer-reviewed and have been refuted by credible scientists. Even worse still, Busby implies that the Japanese have deliberately spread radioactive waste throughout Japan after the Fukushima accident. The reason? Busby assumes that “when” clusters of childhood cancer start appearing in Fukushima, the parents of the victims will want to sue the Japanese government. To prevent this, Busby stated that the government plan to raise background levels of cancer throughout the country in order to mask any elevated incidence of cancer in Fukushima. Busby provided no evidence for this – a typical problem with conspiracy theorists, and regardless of where you stand on the nuclear debate it can only be solved by calm and rational discussion, not emotive scare-mongering, resorting to gross distortion of facts and unsubstantiated claims. Such dishonest behaviour will quickly be discredited. Unfortunately Busby is far from the only conspiracy theorist in the Green Party.


There is no such thing as overpopulation, only economic incompetence. Wired magazine recently published an article titled, "Boom! Earth's Population Could Hit 12 Billion by 2100," that uickly became viral amongst many environmentalists The chose to ignore withing the article what  statistician and sociologist Adrian Raftery of the University of Washington stated:
“A rapidly growing population with bring challenges. But I think these challenges can be met.”

 Despite systematically being proven wrong, alarmists regarding population growth continue to insist on rationing, population control, and other constrictive, totalitarian political measures to deal with the challenges that are to come as more people populate the planet. The issue of climate change in relation to growing populations humanity's impact on the environment are definitely challenges that can be overcome.

For those who believe in the concept of "overpopulation," human beings have been "overpopulating" the planet for millennia.  Most catastrophes attributed to "overpopulation" are instead the result of resource scarcity - and while sometimes such scarcity is the result of variables outside the control of governments and individuals, most of the time it is the result of  avoidable pitfalls such as our exploitative and acquisitive social system.

John P. Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in 1977 ludicrously concluded that the United States would collapse when its population reached "280 million in 2040." America's population is now well over 300 million with nearly 3 decades to spare. Holdren would add in his now entirely discredited co-authored book titled, "Ecoscience," that:
"...if the population control measures are not initiated immediately, and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come."
Holdren's "population control measures" included a despotic "planetary regime" that would have made the architects of the 3rd Reich blush.

When governments and international organizations begin demanding the population pay for the burdens of "overpopulation," it is an indictment of their own incompetence and inability to solve the basic challenges facing the societies they presume dominion and responsibility over.

Hat-tip to LU

Eco-Socialism or Barbarism

We are on a climate change path that, unless radically altered, will lead to an unsustainable global warming of seven degrees Fahrenheit or greater. We also face the most serious employment crisis since the Great Depression, with wages that have stagnated for four decades and economic inequality now at levels not seen since the 1920s. A few unions have supported strong climate protection policies and have actively participated in the climate protection movement; many have stood aloof; a minority have feared their members’ jobs are threatened by some climate protection measures.

Organized labor’s approach to climate change has been primarily employment-based. Unions like green jobs, but they fear the potential job losses from phasing out carbon-fueled industries. This should not be surprising because unions are organized primarily to look after the specific employment interests of workers. Even the most far-sighted trade union leaders have a very difficult job: They must represent the immediate interests of existing members, some of whom may face job losses in the transition to a low carbon economy, while keeping in mind the longer term social and ecological concerns. The AFL-CIO and most unions have failed to endorse the basic targets and timetables that climate scientists have defined as necessary to prevent devastating global warming. They have promoted an “all of the above” energy policy that supports growth rather than reduction in the fossil fuels that are responsible for global warming.

Those in organized labor who are skeptical about climate protection efforts identify genuine problems in the policies proposed by environmentalists. They point out that the closing of coal-fired power plants, for example, will lead miners, truck drivers, and utility workers to lose their jobs—in many cases, the only well-paid union jobs in their localities. They argue that projects like the Keystone XL pipeline will provide jobs for workers who suffer from historic rates of unemployment. They maintain that a prosperous economy depends on cheap and abundant energy—so restrictions on fossil fuel energy could well lead to economic catastrophe. And they point out that restrictions on fossil fuel energy are likely to lead to rising prices for the energy to heat our houses, run our appliances, and drive our cars—price increases that will most hurt workers and the poor and further increase our society’s unjust economic inequality. But criticizing the weaknesses in mainstream climate policy proposals is not a strategy for combating climate change. Many mainstream climate protection programs—whether proposed for congressional legislation or for international agreements—embody or at least take for granted  austerity policies that will gouge workers, increase insecurity, aggravate inequality, and enrich speculators, while leaving our climate-destroying fossil fuel economy largely intact.

Nearly 12 million Americans are officially unemployed today, more than 8 million want full-time work but are only employed part-time, 2.6 million want to work and have sought work within the past year but are not currently looking for work.9 So a labor reserve of more than 20 million workers is available to go to work protecting the climate. Many unions are painting a portrait of themselves as an obstacle to climate protection. By putting workers  back to socially constructive work labor organisations can lead the struggle for a more just and sustainable economy

The Socialist Party are not the only ones who understand that capitalism cannot deliver a sound self-sustainable society. other writers too have contributed their critiques. Although we cannot  agree 100% with everything in the article the following is an extract that expresses much of our own view.

Eco-Socialism or Barbarism

“What has posterity done for me that I should do something for it?” 

The environmental crisis is different from all previously experienced crises in world history. For the first time in the history of mankind it seems probable that the human species will nearly wife itself out within a few decades. That means that the ecological crisis is not limited to certain
regions, but has a global dimension. The continuous degradation of the natural basis of life impairs the material basis of livelihood of a large part of humanity. A growing number of climate related catastrophes are generating frequent emergency disaster situations. The main cause of the destruction of nature on the one hand and that of the world-wide process of impoverishment or economic-social exclusion on the other are the same: the capitalist economic system.

The most serious defect of capitalism that is the cause of its unresolvable contradiction to sustainability is its growth dynamics. It is not just that the greedy capitalists want to have more and more. Brutal competition also compels them to try to earn and accumulate/invest more and more. “Expand or perish“ is an inexorable law of capitalism. Since no entrepreneur wants to perish, it generates a growth compulsion. Because of the ever larger investments that they are compelled to make to remain competitive, they must search for and create ever larger markets. In capitalism, all firms can make a profit only if the economy as a whole grows. The satisfactory functioning of a capitalist economy is so strongly dependent on continuous growth that even a growth rate below 2% is perceived as a crisis. But sustainability, as we have argued above, requires economic shrinking. Capitalists are willing to contribute to environmental protection
by producing more and more filters, sewage treatment plants and so on, but they can never be interested in any kind of shrinking of the economy.

Capitalists as capitalists are not interested in such growth in benefits to society; they are only interested in increasing their sales so that they can make more profit. Increase in sales can result either from selling more goods and services or from charging higher prices for less goods and services sold. But competition generally makes it very difficult for any entrepreneur to make more profit by selling less at a higher price. Long-lived and easily repairable products are therefore, generally, of little interest to entrepreneurs. Built-in obsolescence is therefore rational policy in capitalism. Any policy of drastically reducing resource consumption, which is ecologically necessary and inevitable in the long run, would, firstly, entail a massive redundancy of plants and equipment and destruction of financial capital (share value) in the mining industry. That would then, secondly, lead through a chain reaction to a general crisis in the economy. What factories, machines and workers in all other branches of the economy actually do is to transform raw materials and energy into goods and services, which are sold at a profit. If they are now allowed to process only one-fourth or one-tenth of the hitherto processed quantities of raw materials and energy, as some protagonists of sustainable development demand (Weizsäcker et
al. 1995; Schmidt-Bleek 1993), then a proportional quantity of factory and machine capacity and a corresponding part of the labour force would become superfluous. The end result of all that would be a great depression.

Competition also results in the compulsion to increasingly automate and rationalize production. A firm that does not do this will perish. That is why it is not possible to solve the problem of unemployment within the framework of a capitalist economy – not even if it is growing, let alone if it is compelled to stop growing or shrink.

Also the on-going dismantling of the welfare state is the result of a particular kind of competition: In the context of globalization, industrial locations compete with those in other countries to woo transnational capital.

Without questioning this system, we cannot halt or even credibly protest against this “race to the bottom“. Also societal sustainability is impossible within the capitalist system

Eco-capitalism is, therefore, a misnomer, a self-contradictory term. We cannot have both ecological sustainability and the growth dynamics of capitalism. Whatever fiscal, financial or direct regulatory tools governments might choose to use – green taxes or tradable pollution certificates or depletion quotas –, a shrinking capitalist economy would mean a catastrophe for the whole society, a never-ending great depression. Moreover, no capitalist can willingly accept a low-level steady-state economy. Therefore, the state must take up the task of organizing the retreat. It must be a planned retreat, otherwise there will be terrible chaos and calamity. The
state must overrule the primacy of profit and growth compulsion. That means, an economic framework-plan must take the place of the chaos of a free market economy. Society must consciously reach an agreement on what, how much and how to produce, how much energy and
how many resources are to be allocated to what.

In order to ensure that an eco-socialist society does not become an authoritarian one, suitable forms of active popular participation at all levels must be created. Since the economic regions would be small – or of amanageable dimension – and largely self-provisioning, the political units
would also be small or of a manageable dimension. So it can be made possible that the concerned people are included in the decision-making process.

A socialist society is not only a necessity that arises from the growing scarcity of resources and the imperative of conservation of the natural basis of life, it is also desirable if we consider equality, justice, co-operation, solidarity and freedom to be highly important values. A solidary and peaceful coexistence of individuals and the peoples of the world requires an eco-socialist society, in all countries of the world

Sourced from here 

Sarkar, Saral & Bruno Kern (2008) Eco-Socialism or Barbarism – An Up-to-date Critique of Capitalism. Mainz, Cologne: Initiative Eco-Socialism. 
http://www.oekosozialismus.net/en_oekosoz_en_rz.pdf

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/10/12/if-not-now-when-labor-movement-plan-address-climate-change

Capitalism is a poisonous society.

Some may consider these environmental posts as unnecessarily repetitive but when we have to confront the continuous continual mainstream media's messages  we are required also to say the same thing over and over again, too. 

When we look at the world around us we cannot fail to notice the extent to which nature is being ravaged in the name of short-term economic gain. It is all too clear that the prevailing economic system of capitalist competition is quite incapable of seriously taking into account the long-term considerations of a healthy planet. On a global basis the alteration in the natural balance is taking place on a massive and unprecedented scale. One of the gravest criticisms that can be leveled against the capitalist system is that the application of the profit motive have been disastrous to the land. Throughout virtually the entire world, land is not used to produce the crop best adapted to it on a permanent basis but to produce as much cash as possible, as cheaply as possible, and as quickly as possible - the same system exalted by the industrial manufacturer. Almost everywhere, the land is being impoverished; its fertility flushed down the world's rivers or blown away by its winds or simply buried under an expanding carpet of concrete.

Every vote seeking politician in the world waxes eloquently about the urgent need for a curb to be placed on global emissions. They fly hither and thither across the world addressing congresses about their deep concern for the planet's future. Behind these vote catching antics however lies a more pressing problem - how to compete against international rivals in obtaining a larger share of the profits. For national governments to reduce industrial pollution would be economic suicide. Their costs would go up and they would not be able to compete with other nations that had not reduced their pollution. Inside capitalism in the battle between less pollution or more profits there is only one winner.  Businesses pollute because it is in their economic interests to do so. Oil companies. Supermarkets. Petro-chemical firms. Airlines. Globally they spend millions of pounds undermining environmental policy. Big businesses spend serious money on advertising and PR telling us that they are doing their bit for the environment. But away from the public eye they’re spending many millions holding back environmental progress. Airlines are spending millions to persuade governments to expand airports. Petro-chemical companies are blocking environmentally friendly measures because of the cost to them. Oil companies are funding ‘independent thinktanks’, designed to undermine serious climate change research. And they are all doing it for one thing. Profit. The big businesses concerned are only doing what they were set up to do – preserve and increase the wealth of their shareholders. This is an economic imperative as well as a legal obligation. The directors and executives of a business who did not seek to maximise profits and grow bigger could face legal action from its shareholders.

So what do many of the environmentalist propose to do about it? Campaign against the whole profit system and for a society in which there would be no profit-seeking businesses controlling production because productive resources would have become the common heritage of all and be used to directly provide for people’s needs? No, not at all. They accept the profit system and merely offer to restrain profit-seeking activities of big businesses by lobbying against their excesses. “We have nearly 40 year’s campaigning and political lobbying experience. So we know how to take on, and beat, the corporate bullies.” Friends of the Earth optimistically and unrealistically boast. They claim an “ability to influence change”

How might socialism approach the problem of maintaining the world’s eco-systems.

 Firstly, in socialist society, free of the constraints of the marketplace, it would of course be entirely feasible to allocate resources in such a way as to ensure their most productive use. Underpinning this freedom would be the unity of common purpose, a unity forged in the basic structure of a society in which all had free and equal access to the wealth that society produced.

Secondly, socialist society would obviously want to halt and reverse the long-term decline in soil fertility by improving the humus content of the soil. Not only would this make for the more efficient absorption of chemical fertilisers but would help contain further topsoil loss as a result of erosion. Whilst this would involve more labour intensive work which would require a larger agricultural workforce it should be borne in mind that one of the greatest productive advantages of socialism over capitalism is that it would release a tremendous amount of labour for socially productive work. At least half of the workforce today are engaged in activities that, although vital to the operation of a modern capitalist economy would have no purpose in a society where production was directly and solely geared to the satisfaction of human needs.

Thirdly, and most importantly, as a society freed from the profit motive and competitive pressures "to produce as much cash as possible, as cheaply as possible, and as quickly as possible", socialism will be able to adopt agricultural methods which achieve a working compromise with nature (for, as explained, all agriculture unavoidably upsets the pre¬existing ecosystem to a greater or lesser extent) respecting the long-term considerations which ecological science teaches are vitally important.

Fourthly, socialism would have no difficulty in developing and applying existing technology. Conservation production would mean employing methods that avoid using up and destroying natural resources. For example, standardised machinery could be designed with the minimum number of wearing parts which, with simple maintenance, could be easily replaced and the materials re-cycled and used again. For parts of machinery not subject to wear, durable materials which do not deteriorate could be used. If for some reason such machinery became redundant, the materials involved could be recycled and used again. The principle of conservation production could establish the practice that once materials became socially available after extraction and processing, they would be available for permanent use in one form or another. Thus socialism would bring into use means of production, permanent installations, structures and goods which would last for a long time, and even when redundant could be re-cycled for other uses. With its shoddy goods, built in obsolescence, and the pressure of the market to constantly renew its capacity for sales, capitalism is incapable of applying this production principle.

 If  environmental destruction are to be minimised then human behaviour — human productive activity, to be precise — must change, in such a way that what humans take from nature, the amount and the pace at which we do so, as well as the way we use these substances and dispose of them after use, should be done in such a way as to leave the rest of nature in a position to go on supplying and re-absorbing them. We call for a change of social system. We plead guilty to being human-centred for we do have a human-centred approach: we want a socialist society primarily because it will be good for human beings. It will also be good for the biosphere but, then, what is good for the biosphere is also good for humans.

We have indeed spoken of socialism in terms of abundance and our  green critics claim that human wants are "infinite" — interprets this as meaning that socialism will be a society of ever increasing personal consumption, of people coming to consume more and more food, to take more and more holidays, and to acquire more and more material goods. If humans wants were "infinite" then this would be the result of a society based on free access and geared to meeting human needs, but human wants are socially-determined and limited. Humans can only consume so much food, for instance, and only seek to accumulate more and more material goods in a society of economic insecurity like capitalism. In a society, such as socialism would be, where people could be sure that what they required to satisfy their needs would always be available  then we would soon settle down to only taking what we needed and no more. This is all we meant by talking of socialism as a "society of abundance": that enough food, clothing and other material goods can be produced to allow every man, woman and child in society to satisfy their likely material needs. It was not a reference to some orgy of consumption, but simply to the fact that it is technically possible to produce more than enough to satisfy everyone's material needs, thanks, we might add, to technology and mass production.

Meeting everybody's likely material needs will indeed involve in many cases an increase in what people consume. This will certainly be the case for the millions and millions of people in the so-called Developing World who are suffering from horrendous problems of starvation, disease and housing. So, yes, Socialism will involve increases in personal consumption for three-quarters or more of the world's population.  Impossible, say many Green environmentalists, this would exceed the Earth's carrying capacity and make environmental destruction even worse. Not necessarily so, we reply.  They confuse consumption per head with what individuals actually consume. To arrive at a figure for consumption per head, what the statisticians do is to take total electricity or whatever and then divide it by the total population. But this doesn't give a figure for what people consume as, in addition to personal it includes what industry, the government and the military consume. It a grossly misleading to equate consumption per head with personal consumption since it ignores the fact that consumption per head can be reduced without reducing personal consumption and that this is in fact compatible with an increase in personal consumption. This in effect is what Socialists propose: to eliminate the waste of capitalism, not just of arms and armies but of all the overhead costs involved in buying and selling. It has been estimated that, at the very least, half of the workforce are engaged in such socially-useless, non-productive activity. In a socialist society all this waste will be eliminated, so drastically reducing consumption per head. This will allow room for the personal consumption of those who need it to be increased to a decent level. Diverting resources to do this — and ensuring that every human on the planet does have a decent standard of living will be the primary, initial aim of socialism — will put up consumption per head again, but to nowhere near the level now obtaining under capitalism.

After clearing up the mess inherited from capitalism, then both consumption and production can be expected to level off and something approaching a "steady-state economy" reached. In a society geared to meeting human needs, once those needs are being met there is no need to go on producing more.  Population levels will stabilise too. This is a reasonable assumption, and is already beginning to happen, even under capitalism, in the developed parts of the world.  Population growth is a feature of the poorer parts of the world, suggesting a link between it and poverty and the insecurity that goes with it (the more children you have the more chance there is of someone to care for you in your old age). If you reject socialism all that is left is to envisage either compulsory sterilisation programmes, the revival of eugenics or letting starvation, disease take their course. Socialists emphatically reject such an anti-human approach. If that's what an "Earth-centred ethics" teaches then we want nothing to do with it. We'll stick to our human-centred approach, which embraces the view that the balanced functioning of the biosphere is something that humans should try to achieve since, as part of the biosphere, it is in our interest that it should function properly. There is in fact no antagonism between the interest of humanity and the interest of the biosphere.

In “Green Capitalism” James Heartfield reminds us that the profit system is essentially a system of rationing, which is now, in certain circles and in a variety of ways, being dressed up as “greenwashing” by Big Business and Governments – as the contemporary ruling elites reinvent scarcity in an age of abundance. His book has much to recommend it, not least for cocking a snook at both the modern-day misanthropes who see mankind as a plague upon the planet.

The Green Party imagines that, by firm government action, capitalism can be tamed and prevented from harming the environment. This is an illusion. You can't impose other priorities on the profit system than making profits. That's why a Green government would fail. The Green Party fails to realise that what those who want a clean and safe environment are up against is a well-entrenched economic and social system based on class privilege and property and governed by the overriding economic law of profits first.We say that no government can protect the environment. Governments exist to run the political side of the profit system. And the profit system can only work by giving priority to making profits over all other considerations. So to protect the environment we must end production for profit. Environmental degradation result from the inappropriate ways in which materials from nature are transformed into products for human use. But what causes inappropriate productive methods to be used? Is it ignorance or greed, as some Green activists claim? No, it is the way production is organised today and the forces to which it responds.  Business enterprises, all competing to sell their products at a profit and it doesn't matter whether they are privately owned or state-owned—aim to maximise their profits. This is an economic necessity imposed by the forces of the market. If a business does not make a profit it goes out of business. Under the competitive pressures of the market businesses only take into account their own narrow financial interest, ignoring wider social or ecological considerations. All they look to is their own balance sheet and in particular the bottom line which shows whether or not they are making a profit. The whole of production, from the materials used to the methods employed to transform them, is distorted by this drive to make and accumulate profits. The result is an economic system governed by uncontrollable market forces which compel decision-makers, however selected and whatever their personal views or sentiments, to plunder, pollute and waste. Governments do not have a free hand to do what is sensible or desirable. They can only act within the narrow limits imposed by the profit-driven market system.

Having said this, governments sometimes do intervene, in the overall capitalist interest, to restrain the activities of some business or industry where these activities are endangering the interests of all other businesses and industries. But they can work this out for themselves without the lobbying of no doubt well-meaning ecologists and charities.


If the climate change crisis is to be solved, this system must go. Capitalism has long been a world system and created the potential for abundance so there is no need for further globalisation and the concomitant wars and impoverishment of peoples and the planet.

The four-letter word: hope.

Another blog-post about socialism and the environment.

The Scottish Greens have said they expect their largest-ever conference when they gather in Edinburgh. They have reported a surge in party membership since the independence referendum.  Membership has more than trebled to 6,300.

Capitalism now threatens the continued existence of the world. The profit motive of capitalism is the driving factor and social mechanism of its malfunctioning. It is the social philosophy of class warfare. Given centuries of accumulated capacity to defend itself, the most likely outcome is that capitalism ends itself. With global wars and rapidly accumulating climate crisis, this end is not likely to be socially constructive.

The link of greenhouse gas emissions to industrial production, to capitalist production, is unequivocal. The motivation for capitalists to treat the world as their very own garbage dump is simple: it raises profits. This can be seen in the corporate profit equation: Revenue minus Costs = Profits, R – C = P. Here it is evident that reducing costs raises profits. Capitalists can either pay to prevent pollution, compensate those affected by it or they can ignore it. The first two ‘options’ are costs that reduce profits. The latter, simply ignoring pollution, doesn’t eliminate its costs, it shifts them from the capitalist to those affected by it. In the case of environmental destruction like global warming, dead and dying oceans and widespread toxic contamination, these costs are borne far and wide. Viewed in this light the profit motive makes it the political economy of catastrophe. Capitalist profits are directly linked to the capacity to force other people to bear the costs of production.

Governments and many of the mainstream environment lobby have sold out to big corporate interests who profit from dirty energy and false market-based climate change ‘solutions.’ Government and business have shown themselves incapable of responding to the climate crisis. Government and Big Business are taking actions that will result in damage from the corporate trade agreements that are designed to create massive profits for transnational corporations. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TAFTA) will drive an increase in fracking and off-shore oil drilling in the US for export to Europe. In addition, these agreements undermine the ability of communities to protect themselves because they give transnational corporations the legal power to sue governments if laws interfere with the profits corporations expect to make. (Adapted from here)

The New York Declaration on Forests was signed  by some 150 parties at a United Nations-organised climate summit. Outlining pledges and goals for both the public and private sectors, for the first time the declaration set a global “deadline” for deforestation: to “At least halve the rate of loss of natural forest globally by 2020 and strive to end natural forest loss by 2030.” The accord was formally backed by 40 multinational companies and financial firms, and seeks to “help meet” private-sector goals of halting deforestation linked to commodities by the end of the decade. Separately, the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), consisting of 400 large companies with global sales of three trillion dollars, has pledged to remove deforestation from its supply chains by 2020.

 Since the agreement’s unveiling, some groups have voiced stark concerns, particularly around the declaration’s extended time-line and weak enforcement mechanisms. Indeed, the agreement is legally binding on neither states nor companies. “The 2030 time-line would allow deforestation to continue for a decade and a half. By then the declaration could be self-fulfilling, as there might not be much forest left to save,” said Susanne Breitkopf, a senior political advisor with Greenpeace, “Equally, private companies shouldn’t be allowed to continue deforesting and sourcing from deforestation until 2020 – they should stop destructive practices and human rights violations immediately.”

Greenpeace points out that the agreement is weaker than certain existing deforestation accords, and thus could even dampen forward momentum. “Most governments long ago signed up to the Convention on Biological Diversity,” she says, referring to the 1992 treaty. “That agreement obliges them to halt biodiversity loss and manage forests sustainably by 2020. Now, the New York Declaration threatens to undermine previous commitments.”

“The declaration seems to make those who have the capacities for massive destruction of community forests to think that they have up to 2020 to continue destruction unchecked, and unencumbered. This is dangerous. Some of these companies have the capabilities to wipe out forests the size of Cross River State of Nigeria in one year. Collectively, they have the capacity to wipe out valuable community forest areas up to the size of India in a few years.” the Rainforest Resource and Development Centre said in a statement. According to U.N. statistics, some 13 million hectares of forest are disappearing, on average, each year. Deforestation is fuelled by large-scale agricultural production to supply commodities to other countries. According to findings published last month by Forest Trends, a watchdog group here, at least half of global deforestation is taking place illegally and in support of commercial agriculture – particularly to supply overseas markets. Overall, some 40 percent of all globally traded palm oil and 14 percent of all beef likely comes from illegally cleared lands, Forest Trends estimates.

This is a cynical political ploy, a forest protection greenwash figleaf designed to placate the concerns of people. Any agreement labeled "voluntary" is doomed.  Governments are agreeing that it's perfectly OK for interested corporations to keep on destroying forests until they're basically all destroyed, and then they must STOP! As a corollary, it's okay to go on polluting the atmosphere and the oceans until the time they are open sewers and completely dead wastelands, and then such practices must definitely STOP! What's good for capitalism is total destruction of everything that lives.

Protest marches possess a feel good factor. We take pleasure in each others’ company. They invigourate, they excite and they give us a sense of hope. Sadly, more often than not, that hope ends when the streets empty and people return to their daily routines. We don’t need more marches.  We need the truly radical political awakening of opposition to the capitalist system and we need it now. They won’t fear us until we give them a reason to. The fate of the planet depends on us. Corporate trade is a huge global battle, but there are hundreds of battles we must fight at the local level as well. Understanding that all our issues are connected is essential. We are all stronger if we can all work on the issues about which we are passionate but when we plan specific activities, if we cast a wide net and join together, it moves all of our work forward. Instead of waiting for political leaders and international bodies, we must take action ourselves. This is already happening to a certain extent around many issues and in many places where new approaches are being tried. It’s important to understand that when we do this work we are connected to a world socialist movement and for us to share what we are learning with each other. We build community power as we take our future in our own hands, educate ourselves and connect with each other. Working together moves us quickly forward, not just as one community but as a global community acting locally. Coordinated action sends a clear message to corporations and to the government that we will not compromise our aim nor engage in collaboration with our class enemies.

Resistance alone will fail. People need to build a new system outside of the current capitalist system. If we act together we can do this.  We will build connections to each other, to our global community and to the Earth. We will create a society that is healthier for ourselves and for future generations. The power is in our hands when we link them in solidarity and refuse to leave anybody behind. This is our path forward and there are ways for everyone to travel on it.

We are all in this together. We are one human family and in a globalised world no region is an island unto itself. We need to learn the meaning of enough against an over-consuming society of capital accumulation  and we must learn how to share or it is the end of being. Money and stock-markets don’t sustain or feed you. Healthy ecosystems and fellow workers do. We must now all work to change our current economic system, which is the source of the problem. We must construct an economy based on human need rather than capitalist greed. The foundation of this new economy must be an understanding that our most basic human need is a safe and healthy environment. To ensure that our economy works for the benefit of all it must be fully democratic, rather than run by and for a wealthy minority.

Re-making the world by re-making society

Continuing our exploration of the environmentalist movement and eco-socialism.

Murray Bookchin points out in ‘Remaking Society’ that human beings are both a part and a product of nature; that humans do have a unique significance in nature since they are the only life-form capable of reflective thought and so of conscious intervention to change the environment. It is absurd to regard human intervention in nature as some outside disturbing force, since humans are precisely that part of nature which has evolved that consciously intervenes in the rest of nature; it is our nature to do so. It is quite true that at the present time the form human intervention in the rest of nature takes is upsetting natural balances and cycles, but the point is that humans, unlike other life-forms, are capable of changing their behaviour. If humans have a "place" in nature, says Bookchin, it can only be to consciously intervene not just to meet their needs but also to ensure nature's balanced functioning; in this sense the human species is the brain and voice of nature, nature become self-conscious. But to fulfil this role humans must change the social system which mediates their intervention in nature. Bookchin is explicit enough on what this change must be: a change from capitalism  to a "community where each contributes to the whole to the best of his or her ability and takes from the common fund of produce what he or she needs":
"The earth can no longer be owned; it must be shared. Its fruits, including those produced by technology and labour, can no longer be expropriated by the few; they must be rendered available to all on the basis of need. Power, no less than material things, must be freed from the control of the elites; it must be redistributed in a form that renders its use participatory."
 Bookchin goes on to say:
"To substitute words like industrial society for capitalism can thus be misleading . . . To speak of an 'industrial society' without clear reference to the new social relations introduced by capitalism, namely wage labour and a dispossessed proletariat, often wilfully endows technology with mystical powers and a degree of autonomy that it does not really have. It also creates the highly misleading notion that society can live with a market economy that is 'green', 'ecological', or 'moral', even under conditions of wage labour, exchange, competition and the like. This misuse of language imputes to technology - much of which may be very useful socially and ecologically - what should really be directed against a very distinct body of social relationships, namely, capitalistic ones."

The Green Party stands for the continuation of capitalism complete with its commodity production. Though they might think it is a new idea, in fact the notion that a controlled re-development of capitalism can be politically stage-managed through the taxation system is an old and failed idea. The central contradiction in the arguments of the Green Party is that they would be seeking massive government funds for what they consider to be desirable objectives.. Yet at the same time they seek to break up the structure of economic viability in energy supply, use of materials, and industrial and manufacturing production methods from which government funds in the form of taxes are derived. In these circumstances, where do they imagine a Green Party government would get the money? The structure of commodity production and the particular production methods taken up is not something determined by free choice about what is socially desirable. These production methods are determined by competition in the market.

It is totally unrealistic to imagine that commodity production, whereby goods are presented for sale in the market, can embrace a section of the world capitalist economy which has adopted production methods which are significantly less competitive than the rest. With lower productivity and higher costs the goods produced simply would not sell for a profit and therefore production would not take place. A Green Party government would depend for its funds on the prosperity of the national economy and the inevitable result of imposing higher costs on the capitalist economy, either through high taxes or uneconomic production methods, would be collapse and the rapid demise of such a government. If the Green Party government seriously attempted to implement its programme it would not last months.

Derek Wall, one-time a Green Party co-spokesperson in the days before they had a Party Leader, explained in ‘Getting There - Steps to a Green Society’
"A Green government will be controlled by the economy rather than being in control. On coming to office through coalition or more absolute electoral success, it would be met by an instant collapse of sterling as 'hot money' and entrepreneurial capital went elsewhere. The exchange rate would fall and industrialists would move their factories to countries with more relaxed environmental controls and workplace regulation. Sources of finance would dry up as unemployment rocketed, slashing the revenue from taxation and pushing up the social security bills. The money for ecological reconstruction – the building of railways, the closing of motorways and construction of a proper sewage system – would run out"

Wall calls for: "The use of what is useful and beautiful must be pursued, while exchange values must be rejected. . . . The rejection of exchange values is essential to reducing resource consumption and human alienation."

By accepting that capitalist production should continue the Green Party has destroyed the credibility of its best aspirations. Worse, they are now diverting concern over desperately serious problems into a political dead end which can only have the effect of delaying real solutions.

The underlying principle behind the changes which is demanded by the need to take proper account of the ecological dimension, is that the productive system as a whole should be sustainable for the rest of nature. In other words, what humans take from nature, the amount and the rhythm at which they do so, as well as the way they use these materials and dispose of them after use, should all be done in such a way as to leave nature in a position to go on supplying and reabsorbing the required materials for use. In the long run this implies stable or only slowly rising consumption and production levels, though it does not rule out carefully planned rapid growth over a period to reach a level at which consumption and production could then platform off. A society in which production, consumption and population levels are stable has been called a "steady-state economy" where production would be geared simply to meeting needs and to replacing and repairing the stock of means of production (raw materials and instruments of production) required for this.

It is obvious that today human needs are far from being met on a world scale and that fairly rapid growth in the production of food, housing and other basic amenities would still be needed for some years even if production ceased to be governed by the economic laws of capitalism. However it should not be forgotten that a "steady-state economy" would be a much more normal situation than an economy geared to blindly accumulating more and more means of production. After all, the only rational reason for accumulating means of production is to eventually be in a position to satisfy all reasonable consumption needs. Once the stock of means of production has reached this level, in a society with this goal, accumulation, or the further expansion of the stock of means of production, can stop and production levels be stabilised. Logically, this point would eventually be reached, since the consumption needs of a given population are finite. So if human society is to be able to organize its production in an ecologically acceptable way, then it must abolish the capitalist economic mechanism of capital accumulation and gear production instead to the direct satisfaction of needs. The function of the working class is to apply its labour power to natural resources for the object of profit and capital accumulation. Thus oil, coal, natural gas, metals, the land, seas, forests and atmosphere function economically for the object of capital accumulation. This is the system which many environmentalist activists want to perpetuate. The kind of world environmentalists aspire towards where society could make definite decisions about how best to provide for needs and then be free to implement those decisions outside the economic constraints imposed by capitalism can be only achieved through the success of the world socialist movement. It is inconceivable that the life of world society can achieve equilibrium with nature unless it first achieves unity and common purpose within its own organisation.

The fatal error of the Green Party is in thinking that the mere winning of an election, and the establishment of their own government to run capitalism, will enable their aspirations to be advanced. The problem does not resolve itself solely as a question of who runs capitalism. The continuation of capitalism on its blind and uncontrolled course is a gamble on the conditions of life itself and expectations of governments implementing policies that will end the destruction of the world eco-system is a losing bet. This is surely within the understanding of anyone seriously concerned about ensuring a stable balance of natural systems in which humanity can enjoy being part of nature.

Glasgow Green?

Glasgow University has become the first academic institution in Europe to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Decisions are also imminent from the University of Edinburgh, which conducted a staff and student consultation that was overwhelmingly in support of divestment. More than 800 global investors – including foundations such as the Rockefeller Brothers, religious groups, healthcare organisations, universities and local governments – have pledged to withdraw a total of $50bn (£31bn) from fossil fuel investments over the next five years.   Writer and activist Naomi Klein said that Glasgow University had joined “a fast-growing global movement providing much-needed hope to the prospect of climate action.”

“Students around the world are making it clear that the institutions entrusted to prepare them for the future cannot simultaneously bet against their future by profiting from corporations that plan to burn many times more carbon than our atmosphere can safely absorb,” said Klein. “They are sending an unequivocal message that fossil fuel profits are illegitimate – on par with tobacco and arms profits – and that brings us a significant step closer to demanding that our politicians sever ties with this rogue industry and implement bold climate policies based on a clear, progressive ‘polluter pays’ principle.’” [Socialist Courier however notes that both the tobacco business and the armament industries still successfully function around the world and neither are burdened by the social costs of the effects of their products]

Andrew Taylor of the People and Planet Network said: “ It’s time to stop profiting from wrecking the climate, whether you’re an institution with lots of money like Oxford or Edinburgh, or a world leader in climate research such as the University of East Anglia. Glasgow has helped make the moral case crystal clear and we expect more universities to very soon put their money where their research is.”

The Market has failed, long live the Market!

There are plenty for socialists who agree upon the urgent need to localise and decentralise political power, the need for sustainability and balance in our relationship to the environment, and a consequent rejection of the values of rampant consumerism. Socialists have for years railed at capitalist market production for being on a relentless collision course with the environment, and have been more than once been guilty of tired clichés like 'profits of doom' and 'merchants of menace' yet the global crises are generated directly by the operation and structure of the world economic system with its untrammelled pursuit of accumulating capital. We never claim that socialism would have no problems. But by sharing the world democratically, without leaders and without buying and selling property, an entire class of ‘commodification’ problems would certainly vanish.

Many green economists propose as supposedly viable solutions is the creation of  international enforcement of a mixture of environmental taxes and regulations, so there is long-term protection and management of natural resources through market forces. The present off-sets of carbon emissions is just one example of putting these proposals into practice, and it has been taken up by those who are of the opinion that market forces hold all the solutions to the problem of environmental and health "external costs", i.e. the money that has to be paid for clearing up the environment or on health care that don't have to be paid for by capitalist firms whose activities cause them. Under the carbon trading scheme there is an international agreement fixing an overall level of carbon emissions for each country which would be less than what it currently emits; that country would then set enterprises within it an allowed level of emissions. If they exceed this level they would be fined. On the other hand, if they emit less carbon than allowed they can sell the unused part of their quota to some other enterprise even in another country. This other enterprise can then emit more carbon than allowed to it, without having to pay the fine. Carbon trading is the buying and selling of such "permits to pollute". It is supposed to help the environment by giving polluting firms a monetary incentive to reduce their emission even lower than the allowed level; the more they reduce their emissions below this level the more money they can make from selling their surplus permits. The buyers of these permits would be firms having difficulty reducing their emissions below the level allowed them; if they failed to reduce to this level they would still have to pay something, but the idea is that buying a permit would be cheaper than paying the fine. A market for "permits to emit carbon dioxide" would thus develop. Where there's a market there will also be middlemen, who in this case will specialise in the buying and selling of these permits. There would also be the possibility of speculating on future changes in their price. Instead of governments vying with each other to reduce carbon emissions, they have sought to win advantages for their own industries by asking for, and then allocating, over-generous quotas, with a view to allowing their industries to profit by selling permits they never needed in the first place. The trouble is that, if the quotas are too generous, the supply of permits far exceed the demand, so undermining the whole scheme.

There's a lot more of such similar proposed 'solutios’ in the pipeline, but when stripped of their jargon, in practice it means that for capitalism to go green it must factor in all the possible and the expected environmental and health "external costs" and in effect set limits on the accumulation of capital. If the green economists have their way - and it's a very big if - it would mean that a brand new set of market conditions will have to be enforced, ignoring the realities of how capitalism actually operates. The green economists include the false assumption that a so-called 'common interest to protect natural capital' can be created within capitalism and adopted by society as a whole and that by increasing our understanding of the interaction between the natural environment and the impact of human activity, society will be in a better position to minimise the damage on natural resources, and be able to arrive at rational judgements on whether or not any interference in the natural environment is justified and warranted.

However, capitalism is not at all a rational system because the capitalist class have their own agenda which is totally blind to the creation of a common interest. The only interest the capitalist class have is to obtain profits through the quickest and easiest way possible so that the accumulation of capital continues. A fundamental contradiction of capitalism is that although the capitalist have a common interest - as a class - to cooperate to keep the system going, by necessity they also have to compete within the market. If they don't compete they go under or are at best taken over by other capitalists. This built-in rivalry between the sections of the capitalist class always results in casualties in some form or another. At one end we have the everyday casualties of lay-offs and redundancies. Whilst at the other end from time to time inter-capitalist rivalry erupts into a full scale war - with extensive human casualties, refugees, communities being destroyed - and extensive damage to the environment and the destruction of wealth on a tremendous scale.

It is these conditions of competition which make it extremely difficult to reach any regulatory agreement which can have a global application. But not impossible. When it has been in the common capitalist interest to facilitate an expansion in the global market capitalist governments have drawn up international agreements, for example on postal services, maritime law, air traffic control, scientific research at the poles, etc. These agreements are generally abided by, specifically because they do not reduce the rate of profit. It's when any such proposals come into conflict with the rate of profit that the competitive self-interest of the various national sections of the capitalist class becomes focused on the problems of winners and losers appears. This is usually announced in the media as, "There was a failure to reach an agreement over who is to pay the bill".

 In order to achieve an accumulation of capital, market forces must not only create and produce commodities on a mass scale but also destroy them in a systematic fashion never known in human history. When confronted by barriers of environmental legislation which are designed to diminish the rate of expected profits and the accumulation of capital, the capitalists will do what they have always done in their search for short-term profits: finding or creating loopholes, moving the goal-posts, corrupting officials, trying to bribe the local population with empty promises, or shifting the whole concern to an area or region where a more favourable reception is expected and profits maintained.

If market forces essentially cause and create environmental damage by literally encouraging an irrational human impact, how can you realistically expect those self-same forces to solve it? A greening of capitalism is a fool's errand. If we were living in a rationally-organised world a co-ordinated global response to climate change would be organised as a matter of course, the problems encountered in doing so would only be technological, not political or economic, as there would be no vested interests lobbying to prevent or delay what needed to be done from being done. But of course we are not living in a rational world. We are living under capitalism where there are vested interests galore – of the states into which the world is artificially divided, of the capitalist corporations seeking to make a profit by supplying some market or other. Those concerned about the threat to the environment should be campaigning not for capitalist governments and corporations to change their spots but for the end of capitalism.

Government is the executive arm of the capitalist system and forms the basis of capitalism with the enactment of private property laws. It is its job to maintain and revise those laws to ensure the private ownership of the means creating and distributing wealth in the interests of the owning capitalist class. The government’s collaboration with the capitalist enterprises encompasses protection of the latter’s national and international rights to operate as freely as possible through diplomacy, bribes, and even war, if necessary, and create a not-so-level playing field of economic activity, tipped, naturally, in favour of their capitalists. Many environmentalist groups complain that this state of affairs came about with globalization and ascendancy of greedy multi-national corporations. To socialists, this state of affairs is simply the normal operation of the capitalist system. Socialist productive and extractive processes will be driven primarily by consideration of human need in harmony with the planet’s eco-system. Capitalism  follows the money, wherever it leads, even into the depths of hell, while human society and the environment inevitably get dragged down with it.