Protecting the Planet

Will capitalism lead the world to ecological disaster? It is certainly having a good try. Socialists have for decades railed at capitalist market production for being on a relentless collision course with the environment, and have frequently used clichés like 'profits of doom' and 'merchants of menace'. Now, rarely a day goes by when our attention is not drawn to the various issues of environmental degradation and how the increase in human activity is impacting on large areas of the natural environment globally.

It is time to stop the rape and pillage of the Earth. It is time to protect the environment and to enjoy its bounties in a sensible and sustainable way. The world has the technology and the human expertise. It just needs the political will to make the change. Democracy has been reduced to a tiresome routine that involves electing the rulers once in five years. They have become election machines with their own vested interests. These machines are designed to gather votes and use them as fodder to convert money into power, and power back into money. Substituting one party for another, or making a change of administrative power is not enough; we need an entire new politics. This cannot be done leaders or by a political party but instead if everyone joins together, understanding that this is their work, then a dream becomes a reality. People’s movements need to come together.

The fact that more and more people are becoming concerned about the way the environment is abused is encouraging. But campaigning for increased legislation is not the answer. We need to get rid of a society where a small minority can manipulate nature for their own ends and replace it with one where we all have a real say in how nature is used. While the non-violent direct action policies of the environmentalists may achieve limited success against government policies by lobbying for better regulation, at the end of the day, they will never be able to overcome the profit motive which is the root cause of the problems they wish to ameliorate and are destined to struggle endlessly against capitalism.

The built-in rivalry between vying sections of the capitalist class always results in collateral damage in some form or another. At one end we have the everyday casualties of austerity measures and redundancies. Whilst at the other end extensive damage to the environment. 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 goalposts, 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.

Before anything constructive can be done, capitalism must go and, with it, the artificial division of the world into separate, competing states. The Earth, and all its natural and industrial resources, must become the common heritage of all humanity. A democratic structure for making decisions at global as well as at local levels must come into being.  When such a united world has been established (or is about to be established) we can decide how to repair the damage capitalism has done to the biosphere. Then what scientific consensus already know should be done can be done, and humanity can begin to organise its relationship with the rest of nature in a genuinely sustainable way. The world's resources are owned by a small minority who use nature to produce goods to be sold in order to make profits. Production for profit means that costs must be kept as low as possible. In this atmosphere the cheapest methods of production must be used and the cheapest methods are rarely those which have a minimal impact on nature. As long as production is carried on for making profits and not for needs the same problems of pollution, resource depletion and species extinction will remain.  Capitalism is simply unable to run on green lines, as its motive force is expansion and domination, with no thought for the consequences for the people or the environment. 

Fishy Denials

Scotland's No. 1 food export is fish-farmed Atlantic salmon.

Last year, almost $786 million worth of Scottish salmon was exported globally, with the United States as its largest market. The aquaculture industry, which already contributes $2.85 billion to the U.K. economy, has ambitious targets for growth. The Scottish Salmon Producers' Organization, the main industry group, aims to more than double production to as much as 400,000 tons by 2030.

That growth, however, comes with high costs for Scotland's environment according to a government report, which echoes the concerns of environmental and community groups. The report, part of an ongoing inquiry by the Scottish Parliament's Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, found that the country's farmed salmon sector is reaching a critical point in which "the status quo is not an option."

"If the current issues are not addressed," the report says, plans for expansion "may cause irrecoverable damage to the environment."

The link between Scotland's wild fish declines and the rise of salmon farms is one of the many points of contention between pro- and anti-fish farming interests.

On the one side are the aquaculture businesses, and the supporters of the 2,472 jobs that the sector brought to the Scottish Highlands in 2016. On the other side are wild fish advocates, environmental organizations, and coastal community groups concerned about the sector's environmental impacts.

Government reports lay out the environmental issues — as well as responses to them — such as sea lice infestations, disease outbreaks, fish escapes, feed sustainability, and biological and medical waste. Because Scottish salmon farms consist of large, open metal cages that sit above the seabed, everything that goes in or comes out also affects the marine ecologies surrounding them. The reports note that the issues in this year's review are not new; they were in fact highlighted in an earlier government inquiry from 2002 and, according to the new data, the sector has made little progress in addressing them since then. Instead, the salmon industry has continued to grow, with each new or expanded fish farm amplifying the negative impact on the environment. This year's reports conclude that the industry's ambitious growth targets fail to "take into account the capacity of the environment to farm that quantity of salmon."

Pro-aquaculture interests, such as the Scottish Salmon Producers' Organization(SSPO), the largest industry group,contend that "any potential impacts on wild fish are not understood, and the science is particularly lacking for Scotland." The SSPO says that many of the studies rely too heavily on data from Norway and Ireland, but "Scotland is different in many regards, for example, in its regulatory framework, farming environment, and scale of production."

For Dr. Richard Luxmoore, a conservation advisor for the nonprofit National Trust for Scotland, SSPO's questioning of the science is just "mental acrobatics" in an attempt to "highlight uncertainty and undermine the overwhelming evidence."

"It's the same species of fish in both places. Ireland is south of Scotland and Norway is north," says John Aitchison, a documentary filmmaker who led a successful community petition against a planned farm site in the Sound of Jura in western Scotland.

Aitchison continues, "And it's the same fish that go to the same places. All their life cycles are the same, so you could turn that question on its head and say, on what basis do you think this wouldn't apply to them if it's close to those two countries with oceans straddling Scotland?"

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/17/657539821/scotlands-2-billion-salmon-industry-is-thriving-but-at-what-cost

Scottish Greens Enter Government

 

The Scottish Greens have formally entered government. It isn't the first time a Green Party has become a part of a ruling government coalition. It has happened in the Irish Republic, Germany and New Zealand. And of course, the Green Party have been running the city of Brighton for a number of years.

 Can we expect the Scottish Greens to make such a different impact on policies as all those failed to accomplish?

The blog will not question the good intentions or challenge the sincerity of the green activists but do they seriously expect the outmoded, profit-motivated, competitive and class-divided capitalist system that has created the mess we are in, to get us out of it. 

Change is to be made within the framework of the existing capitalist system. Ignored is the waste and destruction of raw materials and natural resources by the anarchy of capitalist production—its unplanned, senseless duplication of effort in a mad, competitive drive by each capitalist to “capture” the market. 

The harm and damage already done to all of us and to our environment by capitalism’s existence are now beyond exact calculation. If it is not abolished and replaced with a viable socialist cooperative commonwealth by the politically and industrially organised working class there is the distinct possibility that it may destroy civilisation in the process. 

The Scottish Green Party sees itself as the political tool of the wider environmental movement, arguing that it is not enough to be a pressure and lobby group, however militant, like Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, or Extinction Rebellion.

 The Greens says it should organise to contest elections with the eventual aim of forming a Green government that could pass laws and imposes taxes to protect the environment. 

The Socialist Party says 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. 

The choice facing the world is one of the ruination of civilisation or the construction of world socialism. We address ourselves to those who agree that the capitalist society must be replaced with a free association of producers and citizens. We are committed to building a world that prides itself on having a sustainable environment and society that co-exists in relative harmony with undeveloped areas of the planet. We insist that our environment not be sacrificed on the altar of profit — either in the form of corporations devouring our forests and waters or in the form of urban sprawl and unnecessary development. 

We, in the World Socialist Movement, seek to build a society where the barriers between rural and urban are broken down through the reorganisation of society for the benefit of all life on the planet. We understand that we are not isolated from the world community. On the contrary, our internationalism allows us to understand how what we do has an effect on what happens across and around the world.

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.

Sellafield story (1986)

 

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Half a tonne of uranium is dumped in the Irish Sea; fifteen workers are affected by highly toxic plutonium nitrate; contaminated water is accidentally discharged . . . another few weeks like that and Sellafield — formerly Windscale — had better start looking for another name.

Not to worry though, after one incident British Nuclear Fuels calculated that only two workers were affected. That this figure grew to 11, then 15, should not be unexpected in an industry with a particularly notable history of lies and deception. Indeed it was this general lack of information that forced 800 workers at Sellafield to come out on strike.

At the same time, local communities in four areas around Britain are having their wishes ignored, their protests ridiculed, and their lives threatened by the proposed dumping of radioactive waste. Recently, the government — promptly for once — pressed ahead with a public inquiry into a new kind of fuel reprocessing plant at Dounreay. The inquiry is being held half way between Cape Wrath and John O' Groats and is being boycotted by all the major anti-nuclear groups because of the haste with which it is being carried out.

Back at the source of the waste, at Sellafield, the chairman Con Allday was living up to his name — he criticised public concern with radiation as being "born of ignorance". However, according to the Guardian (March 1). only about 10 per cent of the research carried out into the pollution and biological effects of radiation is readily available to the public.

Of course, you can have all the access to information that you want, but the real decisions are based on economics, the figures under the headings "profit" and "loss". And the story that these tell is that profit must be maintained. Compared to that, the figures for the ten-fold rate of leukaemia around Sellafield might as well come under "other costs'.

Make no mistake, in the socialist alternative locked doors, secret files or codes on computer files will be as impossible as money or markets. Socialism will be a society in which decisions will not be made by an owning minority or a state, nor will decisions be subject to the anarchic fluctuations of the market, which can favour nuclear power one week and oil the next. Instead decisions on. for example, energy production, will be made by the whole of the community concerned.

But talk of socialism is all very well we are told. In the meantime, however, "workers must be given a lead". But what sort of lead has come from the politicians? For example, Jack Cunningham? Now as Labour spokesman with responsibility for issues concerning the protection of the environment. Cunningham has shown his sincere concern and abiding interest in protecting his seat from any nasty fallout. To hell with the environment. and to hell with the health of a large proportion of the population of Britain, because Sellafield employs 11.000 people, and that's 11,000 votes.

Of course, such a lead has angered many Labour supporters, but what they don't realise is that such political hypocrisy is not limited to one Labour shadow minister; Jack Cunningham need have no worries about selling out on Sellafield. because he had been given assurances anyway, that the Labour Party conference resolution on stopping the nuclear power programme, would not even be included in the next Labour election manifesto.

If you take the view that politics is only about what politicians offer you, then we have no choice. Workers and local communities have no real choice when it comes to such an area as energy production: the workers in and around Sellafield are choosing between keeping their local cancer factory or suffering immense unemployment in the area. Not that they should really worry — when Thatcher visited the plant last year she said that she would be happy to live near Sellafield. Presumably Barratt 's did not have any houses in the right price range in the area.

Similarly, at the Scottish Labour Party conference in Perth recently, the choice was seen as being between nuclear power (hazardous to health and the environment but provides jobs for some workers), and coal (similarly hazardous but provides jobs for other workers). The stale politics of the Labour Party and of working within capitalism, divides workers into different apparent groups when what is required is the recognition of the common interests that workers have under capitalism, and the common interest all workers have in getting socialism as soon as possible.

But if the Labour Party has been shown to be powerless to protect the environment, what about the likes of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace? The first thing that can be said about such "single-issue" campaigns is that they aren't. Both Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are starting to realise that you cannot just concentrate on one problem at a time. Now the Socialist Party has been saying for years that the vast majority of social problems have at their root the present social system — capitalism — and the consequent domination of profit over people and their environment; the problem of pollution can only be seen, and solved, with an understanding of the society that causes it.

However all that the environmental pressure groups are doing is supporting a variety of fragmented and futile reform measures. For instance, faced with official censorship of information on the extent of radiation in the environment, the environmental pressure groups have been forced to broaden their campaigning to include demands for Freedom of Information. Similarly, in their arguments for the closure of Sellafield. FoE have calculated that reprocessing is currently uneconomic. Now you can bet that if profit was the only reason to keep Sellafield open, it would indeed have been closed down years ago. However, closure of the plant would in a real sense have "cost a bomb” as that provision is also integral to Sellafield. So the environmentalists are also having to face up to the part that nuclear power can play in the whole area of nuclear weapons. The lesson is clear — once you start to deal with problems bit by bit, you will never finish.

The environmentalists have called for the closure of Sellafield. but the demand will be ignored if it runs counter to the economic logic of capitalism. However the environmentalists have succeeded in the minor but still futile demand to get rid of BNFL's chairman (as if changing the chairman's name will make any more difference than changing Windscale's name). The chairman was due to retire last month anyway, but at least now the members of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth can sleep at night in the comforting knowledge that the unfortunately-named Con Allday has been replaced by the even more unfortunately-named Neville Chamberlain.

It is tempting to think that problems can be reformed away one by one. bit by bit; that the problems of pollution are just unfortunate accidents, sad aberrations in an otherwise perfect world. But experience shows that reforms rarely remove the problem. One example of the ineffectiveness of reformism is the ReChem plant at Bonnybridge, Scotland, which incinerated a toxic chemical and in the process could produce an even deadlier chemical, dioxin. After much protest the plant closed down (due to economic reasons, said the company). A success for the environmentalists, you might think? Not really, the problem has only shifted — to South Wales to be exact, where the only other factory for the disposal of these chemicals (called PCBs) is now incapable of dealing with the increased load. So now more and more toxic waste is having to be stored before incineration, in itself creating more problems. Another example of the "success" of reforms in the field of environmental protection is the simple solution to emissions of smoke and chemicals from factories and power stations polluting the nearby countryside — build chimney-stacks and kill a fjord or German forest instead.

All these examples (and more) of environmental destruction — from Bonnybridge to Bhopal. Sellafield to Seveso. or the Black Forest to the rainforests — have a common cause in capitalism, and the socialist alternative is relevant to them all. For inside socialism, the choice will not be between polluting your own backyard or someone else's; neither will it be a choice between having a job or having your health.

Brian Gardner

Glasgow Branch

Climate Change - Socialism is the Answer

THE CAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE IS CAPITALISM

Today many thousands of youngsters are expected to walk out of their schools to protest the inaction of governments over the climate crisis we are all confronted with. Since one teenager – Greta Thunberg – held a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament the school student movement has spread across the world. Anna Taylor, 17, who co-founded the UK student climate network, said: “Young people in the UK have shown that we’re angry at the lack of government leadership on climate change. Those in power are not only betraying us, and taking away our future, but are responsible for the climate crisis that’s unfolding in horrendous ways around the world,”  adding that “those least responsible for contributing to climate change are already suffering the worst effects”. She continued: “It is our duty to not only act for those in the UK and our futures, but for everyone. That’s what climate justice means.” 

In Scotland, the Guardian is aware of strikes planned in 19 different locations, from South Uist in the Outer Hebrides to St Andrews on the east coast, with large gatherings expected in Glasgow’s George Square and outside the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh.

One of the UK’s most prominent school strikers, Holly Gillibrand, will be taking part, after staging a weekly action outside her school in Fort William, in the Scottish Highlands. Asked whether she feels optimistic about the potential of Friday’s protest, Holly replied: “I wouldn’t say optimistic is quite the right word. It shows there are thousands of students out there who care very deeply about the environment and are willing to miss school to demand that politicians take this ecological crisis seriously.”

Méabh Mackenzie is organising a protest with about 30 fellow pupils from Daliburgh primary school on the island of South Uist, with the express purpose of standing in solidarity with other threatened island communities across the globe.

The 11-year-old explained: “I just wanted to share what I believe in. Uist is really low lying and I really love the place and don’t want it to disappear. I think all the striking around the world will let politicians and lawmakers know that they have to do something because it is falling down the list of priorities. They are arguing about things like Brexit but we need them to act now on climate change because in 12 years we can’t turn anything back.”

During the last hundred years or more, irreversible damage has been done to the natural environment by human action than in any previous period in recorded history. Rarely a day goes by when our attention is not drawn to the various issues of environmental degradation and how the increase in human activity is impacting on large areas of the natural environment globally. There’s a lot of proposals in the pipeline, but when stripped of their jargon, in practice it means that capitalism has to go green. This shows a lack of understanding of the workings of capitalism. No sensible person is going to deny that the sooner we work with nature, rather than against it, the better. 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.

But capitalism is not a rational system when you consider that 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 has 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. 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”.

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? This conundrum will almost certainly intensify. 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 goalposts, 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. The simple fact is that businesses will not take the risk of falling behind in the struggle for profits and nor will any government enforce policy that will result in a drop in the profits of its respective capitalist class. Capitalist businesses survive by forcing out their competition, by cutting costs and sidestepping policies that hinder their expansion. They seek new outlets for their wares, to sell more and more, because this is the law of capitalism, and it is a law antagonistic to ecological concerns. It is the crazed law of capitalism that compels the big oil producers to pay teams of scientists to prepare reports that refute the findings of environmentalists who forewarn of the dire effects of current production methods.

The market economy demands that businesses only take into account their own narrow financial interests. Pleasing shareholders takes far more priority than ecological considerations. The upshot is that productive processes are distorted by this drive to make and accumulate profits. The result is an economic system governed by anarchic market forces which compel decision-makers, whatever their personal views or sentiments, to plunder, pollute and waste. They may well be loath to contaminate ecosystems, but the alternative is closure should they invest in costlier eco-friendlier production methods. Little wonder then that nature’s balances are upset today, and that we face problems such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels and the like due to global warming from carbon emissions.

Once the Earth’s natural and industrial resources have been wrested from the master class and become the common heritage of all humanity, then production can be geared to meeting needs in an ecologically acceptable way, instead of making profits without consideration for the environment. This the only basis on which we can meet our needs whilst respecting the laws of nature and to at last begin to reverse the degradation of the environment caused by the profit system. The only effective strategy for achieving a free and democratic society and, moreover, one that is in harmony with nature, is to build up a movement which has the achievement of such a society as its objective.

Hot Scots

Unless greenhouse gas emissions are cut substantially, researchers say every summer in Scotland could be like 2018 towards the end of the century. The report by researchers from Edinburgh and Oxford universities and Met Office staff analyses UK climate projections. They suggest there is a substantial increase in the likelihood of temperatures reaching 2018's levels between now and 2050.

The Met Office said 2018 was the joint hottest on record for the UK.

A heatwave saw temperatures reaching 30C in parts of Scotland during June and July.

The researchers say the warm weather led to an increase in "staycations" and boosted sales of garden furniture, fans and ice cream.

But they found there were a series of negative impacts which may have been under-reported at the time. They include:

• Foreign holiday operators and indoor recreation businesses suffered
• Fashion retailers reported a drop in profits due to lower sales of coats and jumpers
• An increase in pests like wasps, jellyfish and mosquitoes
• Lower yields of peas, broccoli, potatoes and cauliflower due to water shortages and pests

A 30% increase in water demand, putting pressure on the utility company

Other consequences of the heatwave include:

• A lack of food and water had a significant impact on grouse numbers
• A large number of wildfires damaged newly-planted trees and local biodiversity but could generally be contained
• Whisky distilleries were closed longer than normal due to low stream flow in rivers used for cooling
• Reports that the roof of the Glasgow Science Centre and asphalt on the roads "melted"
• Buckling rails and signal faults caused rail disruption. Rails were painted white to reduce heating and trains had to run at a reduced speed.

Lead researcher Professor Simon Tett, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, said: "Despite its cool climate, Scotland must start to prepare now for the impact of high-temperature extremes. The bottom line is that heatwaves have become more likely because of human-induced climate change."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-51347881

Environment activists are right to argue that the choice of technology should be a matter of public discussion and democratic social decision and not left to capitalist enterprises or government bureaucrats. Where many go wrong is in believing that this is possible within the framework of existing capitalist society. Decisions on the technology are constrained by the capitalist framework 

Capitalism is based on the ownership and control of the means of production by a minority, either privately or through the state. Under capitalism production is carried on to make a profit. Capitalist firms and states compete to sell their goods profitably. If an enterprise can produce its goods cheaper than its competitors it can make an extra profit until they too introduce the cheaper method. There is thus a stimulus under capitalism to continually introduce cheaper methods of production. One business or one nation can win a competitive edge over its rivals if it can cut down on the costs. Environmental considerations only enter marginally (to the extent that other capitalist interests might be harmed by the pollution) into decisions about which method to use. The prime consideration is cheapness, the competitive position and profits of enterprises. As long as capitalism continues this will happen, despite your protests, peaceful or otherwise. It is the logic of capitalism, its law of profit, which dictates this and which all governments must apply or risk hampering the competitiveness of goods produced in their countries.

Environment campaigns divert attention from the need to get rid of capitalism before anything meaningful can be done to tackle the problems of the environment. Our alternative is world Socialism. Already a number of writers on green issues understand that there are no national solutions to the problems of the environment, pollution and waste. The planet forms a single ecological system so it is only on a planetary scale that ecological problems can be solved. Unfortunately, this world consciousness does not go farther than demanding a world government or world bodies to deal with environmental problems, without changing the capitalist basis of society. This is why the solutions they propose can at best only be palliatives; they deal with effects while leaving the cause—the ownership of world resources by a section only of mankind and the production of goods to be sold with a view to profit—intact.

Only when freed from the vested interests of capitalism, can mankind deal rationally with the question of its relationship to the rest of nature. The production of wealth would then be under democratic social control and would be geared not only to satisfying, in accordance with the principle “from each according to abilities, to each according to needs”, mankind’s material needs but also to protecting the environment and sensibly conserving resources.

What could be done on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the world’s resources can be sketched (we emphasise that this is not in any way a blueprint). The burning of coal and oil could easily be phased out and, in addition to the development of clean alternative sources of energy such as water, winds, tides, the earth’s heat and the sun’s rays could be properly investigated.

Such a world plan presupposes that commercial and nation-State interests have been swept away and that all the world’s resources, man-made as well as natural, have become the common heritage of all mankind. In short, world Socialism. This is why we concentrate all our efforts towards the spread of socialist consciousness without which socialism cannot be established. Socialism can only be established when working people want and understand it and take the necessary democratic political action to achieve it. We feel that this is a much more worthwhile activity for you who are concerned about the environment than negative and ultimately futile protests at the effects of capitalism. We invite those of you who want to know more about our viewpoint to contact us.

For a sustainable socialist world

Driving the message home.

The environment is constantly in the news and has become a major political issue. And rightly so, because a serious crisis really does exist. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat have all become contaminated to a greater or lesser extent. Ecology - the branch of biology that studies the relationships of living organisms to their environment - is important, as it is concerned with explaining exactly what has been happening and what is likely to happen if present trends continue. If it's not global warming and climate change, there is concern over future energy resources and rain forest depletion. The list of problems seems never-ending with the increasing human impact making serious inroads on finite resources. Hardly a day goes by when politicians, economists, environmentalists and the scientific community are not voicing their opinions and offering various explanations for the continual global degradation. The planet is now under threat of a worsening, dangerous environment for human and other forms of life. Without exception none of the solutions query the root cause of global environmental destruction. Consequently, all of the solutions are pro-market and pro-profit and the degradation continues unresolved. What is needed is an alternative solution outside of the capitalist mind-set and one that takes into consideration the ownership and control of our productive processes; in short the social ownership of the means of life. Only then will we be able to address solutions which will not only benefit all of humanity but also the global environment.

We live in a social system predicated on endless expansion. The blind, unplanned drive to accumulate that is the hallmark of capitalist production – the profit motive – has created the problem of climate change, not individuals profligate natures or overpopulation. There can be no such thing as sustainable or environmentally friendly capitalism. If the argument has been that it is capitalism that has caused the ecological crisis then the solution must be single and particular: get rid of the cause. Things won't change without a system change. Competing capitalist states cannot plan and coordinate on the global level required and that such planning could only realistically come about through a completely different way of organising production – one based not on making a profit but meeting human need. Only a society not driven by the profit motive would benefit both people and nature positively. Nothing short of totally re-modelling the world on a social, political, technological, cultural and infrastructural level within a fully democratic process carried out by those who will be affected by those decisions, with no nation states or borders and therefore no resource wars.

 Research on increasing environmental degradation has painted an alarming picture of the likely future if the profit system continues to hold sway. Voices claiming that the proper use of market forces will solve the problem can still be heard, but as time goes on the emerging facts of what is happening serve only to contradict those voices. The motor of capitalism is profit for the minority capitalist class to add to their capital, or capital accumulation. Environmental concerns, if considered at all, always come a poor second. The waste of human and other resources used in the market system is prodigious, adding to the problems and standing in the way of their solution. Earth Summits, conferences and treaties over the past decades show a consistent record of failure, unjustifiably high hopes and pitifully poor results. The Green Party and other environmental bodies propose reforms of capitalism that haven’t worked or have made very little real difference in the past. Socialists can see no reason why it should be any different in the future. There exists a vital need for a revolution that is both based on socialist principles of common ownership and production solely for needs, and environmental principles of conserving - not destroying - the wealth and amenities of the planet.

Production under socialism needs to be both co-ordinated and de-centralised. If we remove the agents for profit (corporations and governments of the capitalist system) and engage in honest democracy of the people, by the people and for the people, decisions can be made to halt damaging practices and implement methods of farming, fishing, mining, extraction, energy production, manufacturing etc. that do no harm to either man or environment. Safe working practices will be the norm. Resources can be protected and used carefully when incentive for their rape and pillage is gone. Energy usage can be reduced drastically in 1001 ways using alternative energies, building using integral insulation and energy conservation techniques, vastly reducing transport as work and societal practices change, stopping air freight of “luxury” and unnecessary goods, producing and manufacturing locally wherever feasible, etc. Local communities could have the final say on resources in their area with the possibility that sometimes the resource will be deemed off-limits and so remain untouched, and if no one is prepared to work mining or drilling to extract a particular resource then an alternative will need to be found.

There is the need for a revolt from below in support of social and ecological transformation, pointing beyond the existing system. The transition to socialism and the transition to an ecological society are one. Anyone who has heard our socialist case will know, the ‘abundance’ referred to has never referred to the open-ended consumerism encouraged by the advertisers but has rather as its target a stable and more satisfying way of life in which the scramble to get things is no longer central. With material survival removed from the casino of the marketplace by the abolition of commodity production we can expect that individuals will calm down their acquisitive desires and pursue more satisfying activities. 

Socialism NOW!

The Socialist Party believes there is a way to overcome the world's economic and social problems and it is to replace the capitalist system with a socialist one. The only way to end poverty, unemployment, environmental destruction, war is to take society out of the hands of the capitalist class. The Socialist Party's objective is the socialist reconstruction of society. In a socialist system, commonly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprises would become the dominant form of ownership in our economy. For socialism to work, the working people must be intimately involved in helping to run the country and industry. Workers would be involved in management and in decision making at all levels. Socialism and democracy go hand-in-hand.

Right now the earth is producing more than enough to feed every human being — both on a global scale and within the countries associated with starvation. Enough grain is produced to provide everyone with ample protein and more than 3,000 calories a day. However, over one-third of this grain is fed to livestock. People are not hungry because food is scarce or because there are too many people. Pressure on the environment does not come from demands to produce more food — there is already enough.

In Mexico, where at least 80 per cent of the children in rural areas are undernourished, livestock — mostly for export to the USA — consume more basic grains than the country’s entire rural population. However, the system of ownership and control in agricultural production and the market economy prevents everyone being fed. The capacity to produce food is immense yet a large proportion of the world’s population lives in conditions of abject poverty and deprivation. 700 million people go hungry throughout the world. Hunger, deprivation, and homelessness are not limited to the under-developed world but increasingly hitting the poor in the rich countries. In the United States, about 40 million people are classified as “hungry” but no one can argue that this is because not enough food is being produced. Hunger exists in the face of plenty.

It is revealing that the assertion that hunger is caused by “over-population” is so widespread. It says a lot about how ordinary people are regarded. People are pictured as an economic liability when, in reality, all wealth begins with people, with human labour. The blame for growing poverty, hunger, and environmental degradation should not be placed on the poor and hungry, the victims. It should be placed on the pursuit of profit. Capitalism is based on the exploitation of labour and nature. Land, natural resources and energy sources are exploited at one end of the production process and the waste-absorbing capacity of the environment at the other end. The primary cause of the spiralling human and environmental crises on our planet is not the growing world population but capitalism’s unfair global economic policies. If “too many people” cause hunger, we would expect to find the most hunger in countries which have the most people in each area of land producing crops. But no such pattern exists. In reality, a food system where a few are in control inevitably under-uses and misuses food-producing resources. Throughout the world, larger landholders consistently produce less per hectare than the small producers. The environment is not being destroyed because people are trying to produce more food to feed growing populations. It is being destroyed because production is directed into the most profitable areas, regardless of the impact on humans or the environment, by predatory corporations which have concentrated control over food-producing resources in their hands. In Africa, large tracts of land perfectly suitable for permanent crops such as grazing grasses and fruit or nut trees have been torn up to make way for cotton and peanuts for export.

The best approach to combat poverty, world hunger, and ecological degradation is not through population control but through the fairer distribution of wealth and resources. It is not growing populations that threaten to destroy the environment, but forces of capital. Because of the nature of capitalism, millions starve to death each year — or survive year after year in a chronically malnourished state — because they are too poor to constitute an ‘effective demand’ on the market, and so they get nothing.  The root cause of today’s global crises is the globalisation of the market economy. Capitalism makes every effort to conceal this.

It was St Ambrose (340-397 AD) who said:

“Nature furnishes its wealth to all men in common. God beneficiently has created all things that their enjoyment be common to all living beings, and that the earth become the common possession of all. It is nature itself that has given birth to the right of the community, while it is only unjust usurpation that has created the right of private property.”

The right of private property, the right of a few to own and control the means by which all must live, the right of the owners of the means of production to utilise it to exploit the rest of the community in the interest of their personal profit, the right to determine what shall be produced and how, regardless of the misery and wretchedness of those who produce it.

In the wake of that principle, that so-called right, came slavery, in which the multitude toiled in chains that a few masters might live in luxury; feudalism, when a handful of nobles feasted and wallowed in idleness on the enforced labour of others; then capitalism, when the masses were herded into factories, to get the wherewithal to live, while the product of their labour was appropriated by the new lords of capital. The right to private property, the right to exploit, the right to rob, the right to over-produce and cause crises, the right to compete, and cause wars. The basic cause of capitalist ills, and the basic answer? The abolition of the right of private property, and instead the common ownership of the means of production, so that all may enjoy the fruit of their labour, and consume it, thus eliminating the crises of over-production, and the crises of military wars. For there is no other way. It is capitalism or socialism.