It is generally accepted that a greenhouse effect has been and is being created and that the ozone layer above the Earth is being dangerous depleted, both representing enormous potential disasters looming up for the not-so-future generations. Socialists argue that the fault lies with the capitalist system and its blinkered, all-consuming quest for the maximisation of profit from its industrial and commercial output.
The threat of global warming is the result of perhaps a century of the pouring of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by capitalist industry while the ozone situation is attributable to the massive use of CFCs since the 1950s as a cheap and easy-to-produce chemical serving many industrial and domestic purposes.
We do not ask you to take the Socialist's word for it that it is capitalism's motivation with profit and therefore with cost that is the fundamental cause of present environmental problems. W. Fay, administrator of the influential US industrial lobby grouping, says “congressional environmental bills must pass the affordability test’’ (Time, 16 April). In plain language this means if it costs a lot, pare it down, compromise, cut corners, think about it again, fight a rearguard action, anything in fact except putting human concern first. For in capitalism the bottom-line of profit is the all-important factor. If you have any doubts on this turn to the financial pages of the “quality’’ press and just glance at the long list of companies all parading the latest gains and losses in their stocks. Then turn to the accompanying pages and peruse the analysts' comments and considerations of the various companies to invest in. These will have nothing whatsoever to do with the usefulness of the products being produced or even whether these are vital to human life. Profit and profit alone is the god, and this hysteria pervades the whole of the global financial world and is now a 24- hour frenetic international affair.
Business as usual
President Bush heads the biggest capitalist state in the world and in his election campaign liked to term himself the “environmental president". Once in office he has found governing more difficult. Now he is pursuing “a balance" between sharply competing interests on environmental issues. Urged on by John Sununu, White House Chief of Staff, and Richard Darman, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, “who have viewed environmental protection with scepticism if it impugned on economic growth", Bush told an international conference in Washington on global warming "that more study was needed to help resolve ‘uncertainties’ about the effect of global warming and the costs of pollution control" (International Herald-Tribune, 21 March). Translated, this means ‘take it easy, not too fast, don’t lets go round spending a lot of money’.
The same paper had earlier reported (6 March) that each year US manufacturers belch thousands of tons of ozone-depleting chemicals into the stratosphere. Until last year IBM's circuit-board plant, one of the largest users of these chemicals in the US. released more than two million pounds annually. Even though these emissions have been reduced as a result of regulations:
According to the National Resources Defense Council two chemicals that are as yet unregulated—methyl chloroform and tetrochloride—together account for 33 percent of man-made ozone-destroying chlorine in the stratosphere . . . As long as these are used the ozone will be unable to recover even if CFCs are phased out entirely', said a spokeswoman for the group and she continued that although 200 companies reported less methyl chloroform emissions in 1988 almost as many others increased emissions’.
Methyl chloroform, the report went on, is still used by IBM because no substitute has yet been found. Just imagine finding out you were being fed on a slow poison but then being told this would have to continue till a substitute was found!
D. A. Hayes, an organiser of Earth Day that took place on 25 April, spoke of the last ten years as “a decade of greed, sleaze and mendacity". Yes, indeed they were, but you would need to be motivated by unbounded optimism to think that the problems of the environment can be terminated whilst leaving the capitalist profit motive firmly in place:
Although environmental issues are now firmly on the political agenda in many countries action to clean up the earth is rare . . . because it is costly. A pledge by the seven wealthiest industrial nations last summer to undertake concerted and determined action to help the environment has so far achieved nothing. This week the EPA released figures indicating that US plants spewed 4.57 billion pounds of poisonous chemicals into the air, land and water in 1988. (International Herald-Tribune, 21 March).
This is not the complete picture because the Environmental Protection Agency requires reports only from industries discharging more than 50,000 pounds of the chemicals that are considered most harmful to humans or the environment. Los Angeles, for example, is being overwhelmed by foul air, trash, and water shortages. The EPA has also reported 112 million people—nearly half the US population-living in areas still exceeding the smog standards (Time, 16 April).
Same the whole world over
The problem of “balancing”, as Bush called weighting up cost versus environment, affects the whole world, in Australia only one of Sydney's 35 beaches is free of pollution. Many of the others, including Bondi and Manly, are frequently fouled by household sewage and industrial waste. The sewage contains significant amounts of toxic chemicals and heavy metals such as mercury and lead but "the government authorities in Sydney have been reluctant to risk unpopularity by putting up taxes and being tough on industrial waste discharges" (International Herald-Tribune, 1 April). This is pretty much the tale round the globe.
There is an obverse side: 'where there's muck there's brass'. Capital will seek investment high or low and recruit every laudable human sentiment to justify its activity. That's why we re all green now:
Spinning gold from garbage is the alchemy of the 1990s. That's the message to entice investors into targeting environment-control companies. Cleaning up our polluted planet will be the growth industry of the 90s says D. McKercher of the Oppenheimer Global Environment Fund. Government spending on environmental programs could soar providing a bonanza for well-positioned companies. (International Herald-Tribune, 9 April).
It is just as though the capitalist monster had spawned a parasite to feed on its maggoty and putrefying flesh.
So one suggestion we could put to capitalist investors is to split their money between the polluting industries and the cleaning-up ones. That way would provide a never-ending round-about of profit-taking. Facetious? Perhaps, but that's certainly the face that capitalism presents. Socialists have a much more logical suggestion. Why not dispose of the society which is self-evidently responsible for the appalling pollution of the world environment? Stop the terrible mess being made in the first place and then there'll be no clearing up to do. That saves resources twice over.
To the millions expressing their support for Earth Days and joining in parades, planting trees, recycling waste, and taking part in nature walks and demonstrations. we say consider whether a profit motivation of production can be reconciled with a clean planet. Taking the evidence put forward in this article as being just a tiny corner of the general picture of the rapacity of the capitalist system, ask yourself whether the answer can truly be an affirmative one.
Max Judd
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