Williams - Ecology and Socialism

Table of Contents

The American way of life is non-negotiable.

George H. W. Bush, Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, 1992

George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2008

International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook,
Executive Summary, November 2008

There is a giant death sentence hanging over much of our world. The once majestic polar bear, reduced to starvation due to dwindling sea ice in the Arctic, is only the latest forlorn poster child for the coming global ecocide that human civilization is visiting upon the earth. With rates of extinction running at a hundred to a thousand times the geological statistical norm, it is a species sadly far from alone. Thousands of species sit on Extinction Death Row awaiting the coup de grace, to be administered by a mutually reinforcing set of human-induced conditions.

At the forefront of these conditions rank habitat destruction and rapid, human-induced climate change. The human species seems well on the way to creating the Sixth Great Extinction as we exterminate other species faster than they can be classified; scientists estimate that we have classified less than 10 percent of all the species on earth. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the worlds largest coalition of environmental organizations, of the nearly 50,000 on its red list of endangered species up to 17,000 face the prospect of immediate extinction. If nothing is done, the IUCN predicts the demise over the course of the twenty-first century of 50 percent of amphibians, 70 percent of botanic life, 37 percent of freshwater fish, 28 percent of reptilians, 21 percent of mammals, and 12 percent of all birds.

Species extinction is natural and nothing new; 99.999 percent of all species that have ever existed have become extinct. Sentient life, as represented by humans, is one outcome of this turnover. Over a period spanning millions of years, from our immediate bipedal forebears, Homo sapiens have evolved on a planet of stunning biodiversity, breathtaking vistas, and awe-inspiring feats of evolutionary development as biotic and abiotic factors have intertwined in a spectacular and ever-changing dance of mesmerizing beauty. However, we live within a social system intent on hacking, burning, and destroying the biosphere in a time period measured in mere hundreds. It is a social system predicated on endless expansion; one that sickeningly combines historic and gargantuan amounts of wealth alongside oceans of poverty and mountains of waste.

It is no exaggeration to state that without swift, dramatic and profound changes to societal priorities, including a fundamental reorientation away from fossil-fuel-based energy and profit-driven capitalist economic growth, the generation growing up today will be, in all likelihood, the last to know climate stability. Nor is it wild-eyed doom-mongering to argue that if humanity continues on its present course, effecting only minor technological changes over the next ten to twenty years, civilization on anything like the current scale cannot be sustained. Capitalist society threatens the breakdown of the basic biogeochemical cycles of the biosphere as we have come to know them.

We are hurtling toward a series of ecological tipping points beyond which we will lose our ability to preserve a stable climate. Indeed, according to research published in 2009 in the journal Ecology and Society, we have already gone beyond three of nine planetary boundaries. A group of internationally renowned environmental and earth-systems scientists delineated nine planetary life support systems that were critical to human survival, and the processes that put them under stress: climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, interference with global phosphorus and nitrogen cycles, rate of biodiversity loss, global freshwater use, land-system change, aerosol loading, and chemical pollution. While stressing that these are only rough estimates that need refining, the group quantified where we are in relation to keeping within boundaries in order to avoid irreversible and abrupt environmental change. By their calculations we have already surpassed boundaries for the nitrogen cycle, rate of biodiversity loss, and climate change. This doesnt mean we cant reverse them, but points to the extreme urgency of lowering the disruption that we are causing in these three sectors and making sure we do not pass through any of the other boundaries.

A world economic system predicated on relentless growth, devouring increasing amounts of raw materials and energy and spewing out ever-larger amounts of toxic waste products, has produced a whole series of environmental threats: species extinction, air and water pollution, genetically modified organisms, desertification, deforestation, soil depletion, and the ever-present possibility of nuclear warfare,

Among the problems scientists say climate change will bring over the next hundred years: rising sea levels submerging island and coastal areas, crop failures, droughts and floods, ocean acidification leading to the death of coral reefs, more extreme and frequent hurricanes, as well as a 20 to 50 percent reduction in planetary species. Indeed, even the most recent scientific estimates seem to be underrating the pace of change. This means that even some of the more alarming predictions about the effects of climate change may actually be underestimates.

A case in point: in November 2008, the International Energy Authority released their World Energy Outlook report saying that without significant policy changes, the world could be on track for new global mean temperature rise to an apocalyptic 6.0C higher than today.

But perhaps 2C, or even 5C, doesnt seem like much, after all people experience much larger seasonal and even daily temperature fluctuations than this. Johann Hari, columnist for the Independent (London) newspaper has put those numbers into useful perspective:

Solving the problem of global warming requires understanding the relationship between capitalism and the environment, examining the solutions on offer within the framework of the system, and determining whether those solutions are up to the task of preventing a runaway greenhouse effect. The world system of capitalism has been, and will continue to be, largely impotent in the face of climate change, not because there are evil, uneducated, backward individuals in powerthough this is arguably true in many casesbut because capitalisms own social relations prevent effective solutions from being realized. The blind, unplanned drive to accumulate that is the hallmark of capitalist productionthe profit motivehas created the problem of climate change, not individuals profligate natures or overpopulation. The economic system needs to be transformed or we will surely be eking out a living on a much less hospitable planet.