THE GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

Sep 29, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The world as we know it will one day end. Whether it is true there will be a Second Coming or because the sun will burn itself out, we can be certain that the world will die.
Scientists predict that this death will probably take place in under three billion years, unless of course other natural phenomena or man-made activities do not precipitate an earlier end.
The most likely scenario is that man will end up destroying the world. At the heart of this destruction will be the materialist system of capitalism.
Despite capitalism’s remarkable ability to adapt to crisis, it is capitalism that will bring an end to the world, because it is a system that survives and can only survive by increased production and consumption.
Right now the world is struggling to keep up with capitalism’s unending appetite for goods and services. That appetite is in turn being pushed by a world population which has surpassed the seven billion mark.
Feeding all of these mouths is a problem. Freshwater resources are being rapidly depleted and simply finding enough grain to avoid hunger is fast becoming a problem. On top of this, man’s activities are taking a toll on nature, which is rebelling. Life is becoming precarious on Earth.
The environmental lobby has long recognized the consequences of what is taking place and has been forewarning humanity. That lobby can no longer be ignored. The capitalists understand this all too well. But capitalism also knows how to survive amidst the threat of an ecological disaster and this survival can only take place by making concessions to environmentalists.
And so capitalism, ever adaptive, has emerged with a new plan to survive. That plan is by promoting green growth. In so doing, capitalism is both neutralizing the environmentalist lobby and at the same time ensuring its own survival.
It has conceived of a plan to create a new economic wave, one that brings together the financial and research might of western capitalism and uses this combination to develop a global green economy that will be dominated by capitalism. The West is therefore actively pursuing research into green forms of development, including alternative and new forms of energy, an information economy, and the development of various technologies that would allow for the more efficient uses of resources.
One would recall that when Obama was campaigning for office, he said that if America could put a man on the moon, it could beat the energy crisis by investing in newer forms of energy. America is making a big push into Africa, not just to follow China, but because it knows that one the largest markets in the future will be the energy market and since the new wave is clean energy, it is American and western technology that will be in demand.
The green economy is therefore about the future of capitalism. That is the newest gig that capitalism has emerged with and it is not in conflict with those environmentalists who wish to see green growth and green development.
But there is one catch that is overlooked. Capitalism is a system premised on continuous exploitation of natural resources, and with more efficient technologies, there is no guarantee that this exploitation will be reduced. In fact, as greater energy efficiency takes root, there will be an increase in demand for resources, not a reduction. More efficient goods and services may mean less unit factors will be used in their production but it will also result in lower costs, and lower costs will drive up demand, thus leading to an increase in aggregate resource use.
Some resources of the earth are renewable, but many are not, and there is only so much that is available. The consequence of greater demand for these finite resources means that there must come a time when the Earth will no longer be able to sustain this demand, more so in light of man-made activities.
As such, Green Growth is not sustainable, so long as it is premised on market considerations. The market cannot solve the problems of sustainable use of natural resources. And this is why people must not be misled into believing that green growth is necessarily good or that a market solution is the way out of the ecological crisis. These market mechanisms are capitalism’s answer to the crisis.
Green growth is the new face of capitalism. Green is now the new colour of capitalism. And we are entering one of capitalism’s new phases, one that threatens the survival of the species.
What is needed is a moral solution, one in which humanity recognizes that there is a need to curtail production and consumption, something that cannot be achieved under global capitalism. What is needed is a new global human order, based on an appreciation of man’s role with nature and the fact that his destiny is linked to how he relates to nature and to his fellow human beings.
Unless humanity returns to ecological roots, then it will destroy itself before either the Second Coming or before the sun burns itself out.

1 thoughts on “THE GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL CRISIS”

wtf2011 September 29, 2013 at 7:59 am

“What is needed is a new global human order, based on an appreciation of man’s role with nature”

…& that order is Population control, by educating the uneducated…so they “can” think twice about bringing another “mouth to feed” into this capatialist/ democratic? society!

…or got to the “(2) child policy like “politically communist” but “economically capitalist” China!