It
was the biggest-ever environmental protest the UK had seen, with
300,000-350,000 taking part. There were more than 200 demonstrations
across the UK. Around the World, millions more participated in
demonstrations and marches. In Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas,
school-students voiced their displeasure at the lack of action and
urgency shown by governments on the climate emergency we all now
face. Politicians fell over themselves to jump on the bandwagon but
it was a genuine display of grassroots feeling.
The
Socialist Party has frequently expressed its anger at the waste and
the despoliation which capitalism generates. We are fully aware that
the profit system poses a serious threat to the environment and have
been sounding the alarm about the state and future of the world’s
ecology for decades. We contend that it demonstrates the urgent need
to establish world-wide socialism. Then, attention to need would take
its proper place alongside unjaundiced consideration of the health of
the world’s population, biosphere and resources. The environment
campaigners, though deserving credit for exposing the details of this
threat, would do well to bear in mind that what angers them are
symptoms of a sick world economic system; a cure can only be obtained
by removing the cause of the sickness.
Many
eco-activists tell us that on the resources/population/ pollution
problem they disagree with the Socialist Party claim that, with the
present state of our knowledge, and with the present level of
technical development, the world is capable of abolishing scarcity.
That of course is hardly surprising as our ideas are in conflict with
generally held opinion on most things — war, poverty, human nature,
leadership, nationalism — even on “socialism”. That does not
make our ideas wrong — or right. Briefly their argument is that
humanity is heading for various forms of disaster unless population
is either reduced or stabilised and technology halted or reversed. We
say that the present environmental crisis arises not from population
or technology but from the nature of capitalism, the world society in
which we live.
When
we say that capitalism causes climate change we mean that because
production is for profit there is an artificial (an economic) barrier
to the implementation of known solutions. The technology are already
available by which the pollution of our air, water and land can be
avoided; all that is needed is the will and the money to apply them.
However politicians are most unlikely to insist on businesses
spending money on preventing carbon emissions if this means the loss
of their competitive position in world markets. An there are some
frightening predictions as to what might happen if nothing is done
pretty soon.
Things look bleak but what nearly all the criers of doom
assume, and what they fail to question, is the continued existence of
capitalism, of production for the market, of buying and selling. When
confronted with all the evidence for the need for a new way of life
all the scaremongers, can offer is the observation that it will
involve governmental intervention, changes in tax and formidable
changes in life-style attitudes. If the laws are too harsh, or if
the cost involved is too heavy, they will be either circumvented or
ignored. The world’s resources are not owned by everybody. They 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.
Yet
in all this there are hopeful signs. There is a growing awareness
that pollution is a world problem and that as such needs world
answers. Effective action however is hampered by the existing
division of the world into competing and often mutually antagonistic
nation states. We are in no doubt that
our environment could be safeguarded and improved if we gave it our
full attentions and energies. The same technology that is causing so
much destruction could, properly used, safeguard the future of the
planet.
A
rationalisation of use of the resources of the biosphere on a
world-wide scale is imperative if satisfactory living conditions of
future generations are to be guaranteed. The problems which mankind
faces in this area cannot be tackled piecemeal. The biosphere, and
man’s place in it, must be envisaged as a whole. 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. If capitalism really wants something then wild life,
natural beauty or anything else, will take second place. But
campaigning for new laws and more environment protection is not the
answer.
Politicians and other authorities cannot put an end to the
climate emergency because it means getting rid of the profit motive
in society, which they are committed to maintaining. Up to now they
have only spread confusion. No amount of legislation and regulation
will remedy this crisis. The numerous conferences to deal with
climate change are bound to fail in the same way as the disarmament
conferences in the past failed, and because of the same reason. The
prime cause of global warming is capitalism itself, for capitalism
cannot function without polluting the world. No doubt efforts will be
made to stem the tide, but capitalism is bound to fail to conquer
this problem for it is capitalism itself that is creating it. 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.
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