Capitalism – The Root Cause Of Global Warming

Josephine Zananiri

The emergence of the industrial revolution and the accompanying rise of the capitalist class in Western Europe are the spark-off point for global warming. Industry provided the mechanism for the growth of the European bourgeoisie and gave the poor of Europe, including children, the most oppressive working conditions during this entire epoch. The “work until you die” or protestant work ethic created great wealth for the few and disaster for the majority.
Part A: We must ask ourselves – if capitalism is the instrument for the creation of global warming, can capitalism save this frightening scenario from occurring?

The rush of the bourgeoisie in usurping the traditional ruling role of the upper class feudal landlords, using their opulent display of machine created wealth, unmistakably and clearly mark the beginning of a momentous and undeviated path to the destruction of the environment of this fragile planet – those supposedly marvelous trains, cars and wealth-creating machinery using coal, oil and gas as their fuels.

The accompanying mineral resources booms including the iron, alumina, uranium industries, used for the construction of machinery and weapons decimates large tracts of land and adds immeasurably to global warming.

The later rise of State Capitalism in the Soviet Union, China, etc did not, of course, create a workers paradise but merely stagnant conditions for the workers and a dangerous further bludgeoning of the environment in the tortured path of state capitalism (that is where the means of production – all industries remain in the hands of the state), versus the bourgeoisie capitalism of the West.

Nuclear power and the horrors of weapons such as atomic bombs, depleted uranium, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction are a legacy of this inter-capitalist feuding.

Wealth and the creation of human comfort at the expense of all other flora and fauna are the aim of either form of capitalism.

Human supremacy and domination over every species is the clarion call. And there remains a great similarity in both of the two capitalist systems, termed the “class divide”. Wealth for the few, the leaders, rulers, controllers of capital is paramount. As to everyone else – wealth is a moderate aspiration, sufficient money to consume, namely, returning wages back to the capitalist hierarchy for baubles of unsustainable crap.

Consumption best describes the capitalist goal because not only does this word indicate the dilemma of so many nations today whose citizens consume food to the point of obesity.

It also illustrates the human desire to consume everything at the expense of all other species, caring nothing for the lives of animals slaughtered for gluttony or displaced for human expansion. For example, day old calves are taken from their mothers and frequently abandoned if male, so that “our children” can drink pails of milk!

However, the word consumption is also used as a medical sense – in earlier times an unfortunate illness.

This describes what our fragile environment is experiencing, consumption as a sickness, a wasting disease ending in annihilation. And it is the truly massive capitalist consumption of resources, water, other species and even each other which fuels and fans global warming.

The mainstays of capitalist survival are of course not only that we consume but that our consumption grows out of our powerlessness. And we have been highly compliant in this regard. Our political masters understand this and provide us with the words that evoke fear: terrorism, recession, etc etc and we cower accordingly.

Advertising gurus have easily shone the light on what makes us fear and what makes us want to consume. Advertising billboards surround our journey to work. Television, radio, newspapers and the Internet swell their coffers on paid advertising and the larger the corporation the greater its ability to fund endless advertising. So the string continues – consume, advertise, consume.

Now in the accompanying picture, let’s look at the problems surrounding global warming including the big issue which no-one wants to discuss. Population.

Coupled with the rise of the industrial revolution comes the ascendance of science. As without science the innovations of capitalism and industrialization could simply not occur. And while there are a number of issues which science and scientist need to answer for, for example nuclear technology, pesticides and synthetic hormones which have invaded every aspect of our environment. Read “silent spring” and “our stolen future” for some devastating information. And while science has provided some terrible uncertainties for all species on the planet, it has certainly assisted in raising the health and life expectancy of many humans.

A good thing you might believe. But people have increased at an alarming rate. The sheer number of us, plays havoc with the lives of other species. We have reached plague proportions, akin to a locust or rat plague.

In a world where one species is rampaging, and many other species are heading into disaster zone, we do need to ask the question how many people are good and more pointedly how many less people do we need to ensure that other species survive?

How much food consumption is required in Australia before we ask about the survival of wetland birds? Extending the argument, in this country, our farmers export a great deal of our water in both crops and meat. How long do we allow this to happen before the ultimate decline and extinction of many native species?

And what of those markets where our water is exported too? Do those folk truly need our food crops or are they simply another avenue where Australian capitalism is trying to thwart the local production of crops?

Should we cap the number of children born as the Chinese have with their one child policy? Do seek to breakdown all the tax advantages given to parents as a dis-incentive to breed? Do we mathematically work out the numbers of population decline needed to allow for the survival of other species?

Should we change our medical services? We love the medical survival story, young child rescued by modern medicine. Should we be saving any human that does not add to the greater well being of the world and environment?

Can we afford to allow the genetically impaired to breed? For example, IVF treatment is by-passing nature’s way of ensuring that the genetically imperfect cannot breed. But IVF ensures that not only do they do so, but adds another round of genetically impaired into the greater community.

And while we may all want to see a mother fulfilled or the damaged child saved, is that really enhancing the greater community including all species in the fragile race for the survival of the planet?

Death and life are inseparable. Should we be asking that our hospitals and doctors provide kind and humane care for the ill but allow them to die when death knocks? Such questions remain bondage to the existing religious ethos of individual countries. For example, Catholics demand the right to life of the unborn and this excessively individual concept can never see beyond human boundaries to the rights of other species.

As both Western bourgeoisie capitalism and the old state sanctioned capitalism of the Soviet block evolved, education emerged as a force. After all, both ideologies needed accountants, engineers and scientists to amass the riches for the ruling elite. Smart people can be paid to create the wealth needed in the extreme modes of both philosophies. And thus even the enlightment of education was simply used to create greater capitalist growth to the detriment of the planet and bring closer the ever increasing global catatrosphe.

Was education a bad tool in the hands of the capitalists? While some individuals in the 1960s simply rebelled for a period and then retired into the four bedroom house with every known labour saving modcon. After fighting the Vietman war experience, did a little of their fury remain – who knows?

Sadly those venturing their way towards that PHD in the West, seem largely motivated by grand salaries, which will provide endless consumption.

Yes, we the consumers, the bottom ninety percent of the wealth triangle, have our part to play in the role of capitalism and the destruction of the environment.

Our moderate salaries for our labour are largely returned to the corporate hierarchy as we try to survive each week. A large proportion returns to the bank providing us a loan for our home, the interest charged over the period of that loan is generally considerably more than the purchase price of the property. Next we pay high interest on our car loan or credit cards. Every transaction we make from our banks costs us money.

And that is just the start of the consumption – utilities, food from the great supermarket chains which produce appalling, over packaged, fatty food and then the Harvey Norman or hardly normal mod-cons which litter our homes. So little of this is required for a slow life. Indeed old fashioned equipment such as the egg beater requires a little muscle and would actually keep us a little fitter.

Consumption is a sad and mournful word and without a sharp halt to its path, the future appears truly bleak for all species. And if we revise our consumerism into community focus, place boundaries on the capitalist structure, we have a collective opportunity to halt the dreadful progress of global warming.

Global warming is the ongoing and ravaging war of the capitalist elite. The engine of rapacious consumption will not be stopped by politicians or the five per cent at the top of the triangle.

It is only we, the small unnamed citizen, termed consumers who are able and capable of halting the awful path of global warming.

Part B: The global warming battle: where the powerless must become the powerful.

Let’s be quite clear, trade and augmentation of goods is inevitable. But it is the defining of what is gross capitalist exploitation and what is fair trade that the collective community must decide, not the powerful few corporations aligned with the political masters.

While many of us contemplate this frightening scenario, how as individuals can any small citizen/consumer escape the consumption frenzy of capitalism, minimize our footprint and help save the beleaguered planet. Collective people based decisions are the optimal medium for achieving solutions.

As citizens we can install solar panels on our roofs or use wind powered energy, collectively drive small cars or catch the train and avoid jet travel altogether. We can grow our own vegetables, and plant fruit trees and live on slow food or what is in season in our gardens, we can pickle and prepare the autumn harvest for the tough times of winter. And as well as a dog, the family friend, perhaps we could indeed have a milking goat and several chooks in the back yard. Yes it is charmingly possible and many of us do this today and remember the fond slow life of our grandparents.

How does this slow life impact on the capitalist state around us?

No corporation wants to see its control minimized, its access to thieve as much of our consumer money as possible. The supermarkets want us to consume their over packaged unhealthy goods. The utilities companies don’t want us off the electricity grid. The car manufacturers want us to buy what ever they have to offer. The large corporations must keep selling and profiting from their activities or their magnificent lifestyle might diminish!

But the problem remains, many of us receive our consumer money, aka salaries, from these large-scale corporates. Do we want to see the end of Monsanto that monstrous company with its vile chemicals and GM crops? A “yes” resounds around the globe.

But do we also want an end a small institution such as Bendigo Bank? And yes while it engages in all the dastardly interest rate tactics of the larger banking consortiums, it does provide a vehicle for community banking. The desire to rid the world of this corporate structure is well, not so certain.

So how do we draw the line? Which capitalist institutes are worthy of support and which should NEVER be supported with the long term goal of seeing them close the ill-gotten marble foyers for ever?

Is the survival of a healthy planet the paramount goal and if so can any piece of capitalism remain? Should forms of capitalism like manufacturers of alternative energy like solar power or small farms producing organically sustainable food remain?

The answer is undoubtedly “yes”.

Food is an excellent example to start with: supermarkets, controlled by giant corporations providing unhealthy, world traveled, over packaged food are immediately avoidable. Conversely the local grocer, deli and butcher will provide healthier, less packaged supplies. That is a clear cut choice.

In the hidden world of the Share Market, we hardly know which large unsavory corporations control other businesses. Who owns SPC, that old fashioned Shepparton canning factory? CocaCola Amatil? Does Gunns have a controlling interest in Bunnings?

And how do we minimize the massive transporting of goods around the world. The food industry again is an easy answer, simply eat local produce, or preferably grow your own.

But what of sustainable industries? If the Chinese can make solar panels more effectively and cheaper, is it better to support the transport of the goods?

And our bureaucracies: taxes, council rates, GST, stamp duties, capital gains taxes and so on maintain a large number of bureaucrats in cushy jobs which achieve very little for the greater community. Where do we draw the line between the government collection of wealth and the good of the citizen and indeed all flora and fauna?

For example, should we call for the end to state governments and expect municipal authorities to function in their place in relation to hospitals, schools, police etc.?

Articulate and informed citizens collectively can make changes.

It is through collective decisions and a very loud collective voice that great changes to our economic structures can take place and our collective voice will slow the pace of global warming.