The Two Drivers of Ecological Collapse and the Two Tasks

After I had posted my essay

For Saving the Earth We Need to Tell the Whole Truth – an eco-socialist's response to Richard Smith

in my own blogsite
www.eco-socialist.blogspot.com

and also published it in an online journal (for link, see the previous post below), a lively and critical debate/discussion ensued in a different online discussion forum (see the following link)

https://scncc.net/threads/climate-crisis-and-managed-deindustrialization-debating-alternatives-to-ecological-collapse.223/

    I contributed two more texts to the discussion/debate – both meant as response to some of my critics as well as clarification of my positions. I am now also posting them on my own blogsite, for which I have revised them slightly.


What Can Be Done Today?– – Response to Richard's response

Richard has clarified his position. In the concluding paragraph, there is this clear statement: Overpopulation is a real problem, which he does not mean to ignore. But it is for him very much "a secondary driver" of planetary ecological collapse. That is why he does not concern himself much with the population problem. His priority is to "overthrow capitalism", the primary driver ….. . This is his analysis and his decision. We have to take cognizance of this. But is it a good decision? Should other eco-socialists follow it? Allow me to say a few words on this question.
    To me, it seems Richard is saying that the two – overthrowing capitalism and stopping population growth – are somehow separate tasks. First we must overthrow capitalism, then ….. . But, firstly they are not separate tasks. (Below, I shall try to show how they are connected.) And secondly, it is not easy to overthrow capitalism and then start de-industrializing the country? Richard himself has shown with the example of the jobs question how difficult it is. Since the mid-19th century, beginning with Marx and Engels, generations of all kinds of socialists/communists have been trying to overthrow or overcome capitalism. But it was "socialism" that was overthrown in the USSR and Eastern Europe in just a span of two years (1989–1991) – both concretely and ideologically, by the very people who had been its champions. In China the process had began a decade earlier.
    This is not the place to explain how overthrowing socialism became possible. I have done that elsewhere, in detail. Here I want to give two part-answers to the other question, namely why it has been (and still is) so difficult to overthrow capitalism. Here we shall see the connection between the two drivers of planetary ecological collapse and that between our two tasks.
    India is a good place to see these two connections. In the early 1990s, (late 1980s???) the country was in the midst of a serious financial and economic crisis. It had to take a big credit from the IMF. India got it, but under the usual IMF conditions, namely opening up of the until then semi-socialist economy for neoliberal-globalist policies. To make the story short, this policy change led to a long economic boom. India is today a big economic power house. At the same time, the population continued to grow as ever. These two trends, economic and demographic, were complementary to each other, the demographic sector (children producing industry) supplying all the cheap laborers, and a huge reserve army of the same, needed in the economic sector. Today, the population of the country (nearly 1.3 billion) is growing at the rate of some 16 million (1.25 percent) per annum. The economic elite are rejoicing at the two growth rates. The population growth is being called "our demographic dividend", growing at a compound interest rate. Today, almost every Indian is using a handi or even a smartphone, and, at the same time, the air in the cities is becoming unbreathable and the waters of lakes and rivers undrinkable. Everybody is worshipping the God Capitalism, and the influence of the communist and socialist parties is rapidly vanishing.
    The working class is no longer a threat to capital, because more people lead to more struggle for survival, more competition for jobs, less solidarity among workers, more fights of national and ethnic groups of workers against each other. The working class and the trade unions are the strongest opponents of the Greens and Eco-activists. Even in rich Western capitalist countries with zero natural population growth, it is easy to get strike-breakers, because they can be imported from Eastern Europe or Mexico and Central America. The Great Crisis of capitalism of the year 2008 came and passed over again to business as usual. All the celebrated movements in the developed West brought nothing but yet another social-democratic party. In Spain we got the PODEMOS, in Greece SYRIZA; and in the USA, Occupy Wall Street fizzled out soon enough.
    I am at a loss to know how my US-American eco-socialist comrades are going to overthrow capitalism soon. I myself do not have any strategy for that yet. I do not see anywhere any revolutionary class, agents or party who are preparing to do this. This state of the world today reminds me of a quote from Schumpeter, from a book entitled Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. He wrote there: "The capitalist or any other order of things may evidently break down – or economic and social evolution may outgrow it – and yet the socialist phoenix may fail to rise from the ashes." (1943: 56f.)
    I think, today, it is infinitely easier to convince couples in the problem countries that limiting the number of progenies to two is a good thing – for themselves, for their children, the future generations, for their environment, for their country, and for the world in general. Let us start with what is easier to do at present. For me, at present, counteracting the rapidly approaching global ecological collapse has top priority. The fight against capitalism we can also take up as soon as the situation is ripe for that.

---------------------------------------

On the Value of the Equation I = P x T x A

Ted F. writes inter alia:

" … what is the point of the formula except to advance the claim that ecological damage of every society is directly proportional to population--a claim that fits in equally well with the right-wing passion to "exterminate the brutes" as our ecological vision."

    The point of the formula is to make clear that three factors (not just one, namely population, as Ted F. alleges) are involved in ecological destruction (and resource use, I should add). As in the case of most equations (formulae), it says that if T and A would remain unchanged, ecological destruction and resource use would rise if population rises and fall if population falls. This is easy to understand. Isn't it? This kind of general equations are used in every walk of life to make things clear. Nobody quantifies a factor at this generalized level. If one would quantify all the factors (e.g. 2 x 2 x 2 = 8), then indeed it would be a tautology, totally useless in any general discussion. But since all the factors here as well as the result are variable and unknown in our discussion, it is better to use this general equation.
    Why I have brought it into our discussion? Because in my long life as a political activist, I have made the experience that leftists, especially radical leftists, Marxists, feminists, liberals and 3^rd world solidarity people, scrupulously avoid the P-word. Why? Because they are afraid of being abused by people from the 3^rd world, for whom the word "overpopulation" is like a red rag to a bull. I have often made the experience (in Germany, Europe, and also in India) of being abused as a fascist, once even as a racist, although I come from India and have a dark-brown complexion. But that is no reason, at least for me, for not telling the whole truth.
    Look at the part-sentence of Ted F. quoted above: "… a claim that fits in equally well with the right-wing passion to "exterminate the brutes" …. ." Is this style helpful for our cause? Is it helpful for our cause to suppress part of the truth? I don't think so. Thank god, Richard is above this kind of political correctness.

Fallacy of One World

Many participants in such discussions say: more than enough food is being produced in the world to satisfy the hunger of all the 7.5 billion humans in the world. Correct! But (1) is that any reason to let the world population go on rising? To about 10 billion by 2050? After all, hunger is not the only problem in this world, also our ecological footprint is a big problem. Isn't it? (2) Moreover, is it not totally useless, because at present unrealistic, to think that the farmers (or farming companies) of the few countries where surplus food grains are being produced should gift away their surplus to the poor people of the least developed countries? And (3) isn't "food sovereignty" a very good idea for all peoples of the world? The planet Earth is one, but the world (of humans) is not one. One world, our ideal, has not yet been realized.

On the Agency Question

I think, most leftists in Canada and USA (the continent of origin of SCNCC), but partly also in Europe, have no real knowledge of the consciousness of the really living proletariat of today. That is why one can find such delusive sentences on the opening page of the Website:

"SCNCC believes the climate justice movement will unite with the labor movement … to create an alternative."

And 

"I am inspired ... to join hands with the working class in China to save the planet."

    Inspiration is absolutely necessary for having any cause, but it is better to mix it with a good dose of knowledge of the reality, of the whole truth.
    My position on the agency question can be summarized as follows: There are "only two camps: those who care and those who don't care." (Erich Fromm, a great interpreter of the best in Marx, wrote that in 1979).

For Saving the Earth We Need to Tell the Whole Truth -- an eco-socialist's response to Richard Smith

By Saral Sarkar

In his article,¹ Richard calls upon his readers to "change the conversation". He asks, "What are your thoughts?" He says, if we don't "come up with a viable alternative, our goose is cooked." I fully agree. So I join the conversation, in order to improve it.
    Let me first say I appreciate Richard's article very much. It is very useful, indeed necessary, to also present one's cause in a short article – for those who are interested but, for whatever reason, cannot read a whole book. Richard has ably presented the eco-socialist case against both capitalism and "green" capitalism.
    But the alternative Richard has come up with is deficient in one very important respect, namely in respect of viability. Allow me to present here my comradely criticisms. It will be short.

Is only Capitalism the Problem?

(1) Richard writes, "Capitalism, not population is the main driver of planetary ecological collapse … .". It sounds like an echo of statements from old-Marxist-socialism. It is not serious. Is Richard telling us that, while we are fighting a long-drawn-out battle against capitalism in order to overcome it, we can allow population to continuously grow without risking any further destruction of the environment? Should we then think that a world population of ten billion by 2050 would not be any problem?
    I would agree if Richard would say that capitalism is, because of its growth compulsion, one of the main drivers of ecological collapse. But anybody who has learnt even a little about ecology knows that in any particular eco-region, exponential growth of any one species leads to collapse of its ecological balance. If we now think of the planet Earth as one whole eco-region and consider all the scientific reports on rapid bio-diversity loss and rapid dwindling of the numbers of larger animals, then we cannot but correlate these facts with the exponential growth of our own species, homo sapiens sapiens, the latter being the cause of the former two.
    No doubt, capitalism – together with the development of technologies, especially agricultural and medical technologies – has largely enabled the huge growth of human numbers in the last two hundred years. But human population growth has been occurring even in pre-capitalist and pre-medieval eras, albeit at a slower rate. Parallel to this, also environmental destruction has been occurring and growing in these eras.
    It is not good to tell our readers only half the truth. The whole truth is succinctly stated in the equation:

                                                        I = P  x  T  x  A

where I stands for ecological impact (we can also call it ecological destruction), P for population, T for Technology and A for affluence. All these three factors are highly variable. Let me here also quote Paul Ehrlich, one of my teachers in political ecology. Addressing leftists, he once wrote, "Whatever [be] your cause, it is a lost cause unless we control population [growth]". Note the phrase "whatever your cause". Ehrlich meant to say, and I too think so, the cause may be environmental protection, saving the earth, protecting biodiversity, overcoming poverty and unemployment, women's liberation, preventing racist and ethnic conflicts and cleansings, preventing huge unwelcome migration flows, preventing crime, fighting modern-day slavery, bringing peace in the world, creating a socialist world order etc. etc. etc., in all cases stopping population growth is a very important factor. Sure, that will in no case be enough. But that is an essential part of the solutions.
    Note that in the equation cited above, there is no mention of capitalism. Instead, we find there the two factors technology and affluence. We can call (and we generally do call) the product of T x A (production of affluence by means of industrial technologies) industrialism, of which there has until now been two main varieties: the capitalist one and the planned socialist one (of the soviet type). Nothing will be gained for saving the ecological balance of the Earth if only capitalism is replaced with socialism, and ruling socialists then try to increase production at a higher rate, which they must do under the pressure of a growing population which, moreover, develops higher ambitions and aspirations, and demands all the good things that middle class Americans enjoy.

(2) Modern-day old-socialists do not deny the existence of an ecological problem. They have also developed several pseudo-solutions such as "clean" and "renewable" energies and materials, efficiency revolution, decoupling of GDP growth from resource use etc.
    Good that Richard rejects the idea that green capitalism can save us. But why can't it? "Because", he writes, "companies can’t commit economic suicide to save the humans. There’s just no solution to our crisis within the framework of any conceivable capitalism." This is good, but not enough. Because there are old-socialists (I know many in Germany) who believe that it is only individual capitalists/companies and the system capitalism that are preventing a rapid transition to 100 percent clean renewable energies and 100 percent recycling of all materials. Thanks to these possibilities, they believe, old-socialist type of industrialism, and even economic and population growth, can be reconciled with the requirements of sustainability. I don't think that is possible, and I have also earlier elaborately explained why.² Said briefly, "renewable energies" are neither clean nor renewable, and 100 percent recycling is impossible because the Entropy Law also applies to matter. What Richard thinks is not clear from this article of his. It is necessary to make his thoughts on this point clear.

Is Bottom-up Democracy of Any Use in the Transition Period?

(3) Richard writes, "Rational planning requires bottom-up democracy." I do not understand the connection between the two, planning and democracy. At the most, one could say that for better planning for the villages, the planning commission should also listen to the villagers. But at the national level? Should, e.g., the inhabitants of each and every 500 souls village in the Ganges basin codetermine in a bottom up democratic planning process how the waters of the said river and its tributaries should be distributed among ca. 500 million inhabitants of the basin? If that were ever to be attempted, the result would be chaos, not planning. Moreover, how do you ensure that the villagers are capable of understanding the national interest and overcoming their particular interests? Such phrases are only illusions.
    In his 6^th thesis, Richard sketches a rosy, idealistic picture of a future eco-socialist society and its citizens. That may be attractive for him, me and other eco-socialists. But this future lies in distant future. First we would need a long transition period of contracting economies, and that would cause a lot of pain to millions of people spoilt by consumerism or promises of a consumerist future. We shall have to convince such people, and that would be an altogether difficult job. We should tell them the truth, namely that austerity is necessary for saving the earth. We can promise them only one thing, namely that all the pains and burdens as well as the benefits of austerity will be equitably distributed among all.

What to Do About Jobs?

(4) Richard writes: "Needless to say, retrenching and closing down such industries would mean job losses, millions of jobs from here to China. Yet if we don’t shut down those unsustainable industries, we’re doomed." And then he puts the question "What to do?" We can be sure that all people who wholly depend on a paid job for their livelihood, whom we must also win over, will confront us with this jobs question. Let me finish my contribution to this conversation with an answer to this question.
    There is not much use talking to ourselves, the already converted. We need to start work, immediately and all over the world, especially in those countries where poverty and unemployment is very high. We know that, generally, these countries are also those where population growth is very high. People from the rich countries cannot simply tell their people, sorry, we have to close down many factories and we cannot further invest in industrializing your countries. But the former can tell the latter that they can help them in controlling population growth. The latter will understand easily that it is an immediately effective way to reduce poverty and unemployment. A massive educative campaign will of course be necessary in addition to concrete monetary and technical help.
    In the rich countries, contrary to what Richard perhaps thinks, it will not be possible to provide new equivalent jobs to replace those jobs we need to abolish. For such countries, reducing working hours and job-sharing in the short term, and, in the long term, ostracizing automation and labor-saving technologies, and using labor-intensive methods of production instead, are together the only solution. That is already known. Another thing that would be needed is to negate free trade and international competition. However, it must also be said openly that high wages and salaries cannot be earned under such circumstances.
    We eco-socialist activists must begin the work with a massive world-wide political campaign in favor of such ideas and policies.

Notes and References

1. Smith, Richard (2017) " Climate Crisis and Managed Deindustrialization: Debating Alternatives to Ecological Collapse."
https://forhumanliberation.blogspot.de/2017/11/2753-climate-crisis-and-managed.html
and
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/11/21/climate-crisis-and-managed-deindustrialization-debating-alternatives-ecological

2. My views expressed in this article have been elaborately presented in my book:
Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? – A Critical Analysis of Humanity's Fundamental Choices (1999). London: Zed Books,
and in various articles published in my blog-site
www.eco-socialist.blogspot.com

Some Thoughts On Resilience and Transition

My knowledge of the Transition Town Movement (TTM) has until now been meager. So I am very thankful to Esther and Samuel for providing us with so much information on it and pointing out the aspects that require sympathetic criticism. Here is the link:

http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/TransitionMovement.pdf

    In the 1980s, I was enabled by the United Nations University (Tokyo) to make a participatory research study of the (at that time) New Social Movements (NSM) in West Germany plus a study of the origin, development and “end” of the German green party Die Grünen.^* I guess it might be useful for all concerned to hear what thoughts went through my head – 30 years later – while and after reading Esther and Samuel’s solid paper.

    I do not want to mention the points with which I concur. So below I am making some other points, only those, which have not been made in the paper and which I consider to be important for developing a strategy for bringing about the changes we want. They are based on my studies as well as experience both in India and Germany, both as an activist and as participant in discussions.

    Problems with the goal

    1. Discussions on strategy presuppose that the participants at least roughly agree on the goals that are to be attained by means of the strategy.

    The goal of the TTM is to make society resilient against the shocks that are coming and are partly ongoing. Specifically mentioned are peak oil, global climate change, and global financial and  economic crisis. Many other less important issues have been mentioned too: localization, social justice, solidarity, inclusiveness etc. They are goals as well as means to attain the main goal. Esther & Sam’s paper shows how problematic the resilience discourse is. The TTM wants to make society resilient, in order that it does not totally break down. The goal is not to change the present social system that not only has caused the shock-like problems the TTM is addressing but is also totally inadequate for the purpose. It is, moreover, an unjust social system. That is too little and too bad. I contend that nothing less than a fundamentally new social system must replace the existing one, so that the shocks in question can be successfully weathered.

    That means, in short, movements like the TTM ought to pursue a greater goal, which, apart from being good in itself, is necessary to attract people and encourage them to join it. We need not set an ideal society as our goal. An ideal will perhaps always remain an ideal. But an acceptably good and peaceful world society is possible and can therefore be our goal. (This naturally requires elaboration and detailed discussion.) Very important here is the term world society. To make Totnes or even one country (England or Germany or Italy) resilient and its society good and peaceful, and to forget the others, would not be a great goal, but a selfish one unworthy of a big social movement. Moreover, the efforts to achieve it would also be a futile one. The wretched of the earth are already storming the gates of these and similar countries in search of a safe haven. Neo-Nazis and xenophobic right reactionary parties are already gaining ground in such countries.

    Despite this criticism, I praise the TTM. It is better than the NSM of Germany of the 1980s. The latter was a conglomeration of several one-point movements. One of it, the ecology movement, was also a conglomeration of various and separate one-point movements: the anti-nuclear-energy movement, the movement against dying of forests, movement for better air quality, movement for protecting endangered species etc. Compared to that, the TTM has a broader spectrum of goals. That is some progress. On the other hand, the TTM is worse than the NSM; for it seems to avoid the subjects of consumption and economic growth, which most activists in the NSM (particularly in the ecology movement as a whole) used to consider as very important. But that was before the mid 1980s, when opportunists of Die Grünen started talking of the possibility of ecologizing industrial society, i.e. capitalist industrial society.

    In Die Grünen, a large number of leftists (including communists)  from various backgrounds had sought to combine ecological goals with their societal goals. Their ultimate vision was some sort of an eco-socialist society (the term was also used). But they were pushed out of the party by the opportunistic majority, who wanted the party to become a governing party.

    2. Another thing to be noted in connection with the goal-question is this: The greatest difficulty in attracting the masses to a genuinely ecological movement is its goal itself. The ecology movement is the only social movement that promises, if successful, a lowering of the standard of living of all, even curtailing to some extent various freedoms: for instance, the freedom to travel, freedom to consume luxury goods and goods imported from far away (e.g. to eat pineapple in Norway), the freedom to publish one’s own newspaper (there will be a scarcity of paper) and, generally speaking, all freedoms which involve a high degree of resource consumption. All other social movements, who assume that economic growth will continue, promise an improvement in these respects. Indeed, for a long time, higher wage demands of the working class movement could regularly be fulfilled. Also their non-material demands can be fulfilled more or less easily. The wishes of the civil rights movement can be granted, women can enjoy more rights, gays can be given the right to marry, immigrants can be given long-term resident permits and even communal voting rights etc. etc.  But the ecology movement opposes economic growth; what is worse, it demands economic contraction. But, although millions of people know about the serious ecological crisis, no one has ever rioted for austerity, as Esther and Sam write. That is also the reason that the trade unions were opponents of die Grünen in the latter’s early years. That is why less developed countries, especially China and India, are vehemently refusing to commit themselves to reducing their CO₂ - emission.  

    3. Of course, this difficulty can be overcome by spreading illusions of sustainable development, green growth, technological solutions to ecological problems (e.g. renewable energies/resources), green capitalism etc. But genuine eco-activists are not (should not be) interested in ephemeral gains in public support based on such illusions. They must tell the ecological truth. So what can they offer to attract more support from people. They can offer the prospect of a peaceful, egalitarian, exploitation- and oppression-free world as compensation for a lower standard of living. They can offer that in their good society nobody will be involuntarily unemployed, nobody will be discriminated against on any grounds, nobody will be tortured by the police. These too are material things. Anybody who has suffered unemployment or insecurity, anybody who has lived in the midst of war or civil war, anybody who has experienced the threat of being evicted from her home or has not been able to take out a medical insurance knows the value of these security guarantees. They will, in such a society, also feel freer to speak out against government policy. Of course, entrepreneur type of people, those who want to produce and sell something, anything, or speculate with stocks and currencies in order to become rich will not be attracted by this vision. We have to ignore them. They are being criticized even in the present system, even by average people.

    I am convinced that for achieving the goals of genuine ecologists capitalism must be overcome and an eco-socialist society must be built up. (For details of my argumentation see my book Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism?**)

    4. One very important point I missed in the program of the TTM (as summarized by E & S) as well as in the critique thereof  is the population problem. In Europe and other rich countries of the North (including those down under), it is a common blind spot in most discussions on the ecology crises and questions of poverty. The reason for this is evident: Firstly, the problem does not exist any more in these countries. And secondly, they are afraid of mentioning it lest the people of the less developed countries (mostly black and brown to boot), where the population is still growing, get furious. After all, even the ecologists of the rich countries of the North, most of them, enjoy their much higher standard of living and are not doing their best to save the planet. Bu no program for saving the planet is convincing unless also the population problem is addressed.

    Problems with Strategy

    5. I share the TTM’s view that at present not much can be expected from the states and the ruling politicians. The latter are careerists. At present, in a democracy of the kind we have in place, any politician will be voted out of power if she dares to speak of the necessity of stopping economic growth, let alone to advocate economic contraction. Even those who are not in power want to be reelected. Politics is after all their profession. So they too would not stand up against economic growth. The simple truth is that the great majority of the voters are not better than the politicians. And a people gets politicians that it deserves.  But some people must do this, i.e. tell the ecological truth. They may be criticized as imagining themselves to be the avant-garde. But nothing will happen unless an avant-garde takes the initiative. Such people must be free from the temptation and/or requirement of getting their projects funded by established foundations or government agencies, so that they remain truly free to tell the ecological truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The ecological truth and the logical and compelling proposals for solving the problems must be widely disseminated, so that in a few years time the intellectual and journalistic hegemony in the sense of Gramsci can be achieved (Gramsci talked of cultural hegemony). The activists of the TTM do not seem to be doing that, not at the moment at least. They are victims of some illusions that they are themselves spreading. 

    When the intellectual and journalistic hegemony has been achieved, it would be manifested e.g. in sentences like this: Yes, you are right with your ecological truths, but what can I do? I am only an ordinary person. We could then hope that voters would not vote a politician out of parliament if she expresses the views that genuine ecologists hold. Later we might have grounds to hope that no matter which politician and which party comes to power, the parliamentary majority would not be afraid to take measures in the direction of true ecological sustainability. This hope can be compared with the situation today. No matter which politicians and which parties govern a country, the government will continue to pursue neoliberal globalized capitalist policies, because this line of economic thought  gained hegemony in the 1990s and is still holding its ground.

    All this may take too much time, in which case the collapse cannot be prevented. But an armed revolution is not possible, because the well-paid and well-armed professional soldiers and policemen of the ruling classes are ready to kill revolutionaries and ordinary people when ordered. The coming collapse will probably lead to some sort of dictatorship, most probably one of right reactionaries. They will try to tackle the problems in their own way and with their own methods and would not care for the state of the planet, welfare of the future generations etc. etc.

    6. In contrast to my top-down strategy of first achieving intellectual and journalistic hegemony which will hopefully lead an increasing number of parliamentarians of the ruling parties to support our ideas, there are also bottom-up strategies for change.  The TTM’s strategy for building up resilience at the local level is a concrete example thereof. But the TTM’s objective is not any systemic change. That is why it is (it would be) easy to co-opt it. In fact, all reformist movements for change can be easily co-opted. History is full of examples of this process. In Germany, today, both the remnants of the NSM (the big ecological associations) and the Party die Grünen are partners of the ruling classes.

    In the 1980s, in Germany, several communes – both rural and urban – were founded by revolutionary young people. They lived and worked there (in the students’ communes, however, the main activity was discussing theory and psychological issues). Their idea was to anticipate and try out the communist society of the future. The point I want to make here is that most of them soon failed. Moreover, most of them were no examples of a self-reliant, self-organizing grassroots economic unit. They were comfortably embedded in a prosperous welfare state. Many members of the communes received transfer payments from the state. They were not responses to any challenge.

    Ted Trainer’s grassroots, self-organizing, radical-democratic (i.e. anarchistic) communes (or communities) must however be self-reliant, because Ted visualizes them as coming up in response to the (impending) collapse of the state. It seems to me that Ted thinks collapse is unavoidable. I would rather still try to prevent it through my strategy. But it is true, mankind does not have much time left for the purpose. So it is rational to exert ourselves at both ends, at the top as well as at the bottom, simultaneously.

    At least in our times, no commune or community would truly be self-sufficient; we are not living and would not like to live in the Amazon jungle. All communities would need things that they cannot themselves produce, salt for example. So some kind of more or less long-distance exchange must take place, and some state-like organization must regulate exchange and maintain order. It would be good if this organization were a socialist one. For when the collapse is there, it will be necessary to share whatever is available. That is why it would be good to promote an eco- socialist perspective and strengthen egalitarian thinking. These are moreover inspiring ideas, as we know from history. We should prepare ourselves for the collapse and subsequent actions. We must also be ready with a convincing perspective and an activities plan.

    7. One last point: Can individuals as individuals do something, i.e. contribute to the project of saving the planet and making human society better? It has often been suggested that reducing one’s own consumption is an effective means of achieving our goal. The great advantage of this strategy is that to do this the private person does not need a law passed by a majority in the parliament. Nor does she need a lot of money from parents or big donors, as most big bottom-up projects like rural communes, eco-villages etc. do. Many sensitive eco-friendly people are indeed practicing this non-consumption strategy; it can also be called a simple lifestyle strategy. However, there are limits to what even a determined non-consumptionist can do. The compulsions arising from living in a present-day capitalist industrial society are many. For example, one must today have a PC with internet connection in order just to be able to communicate with relatives, friends and comrades. Even the good old telephony inflicts a lot of damage to the environment. A person living in a village must have a car. The one area in which a person has more scope is food and clothing. But to forgo e.g. meat is very difficult for a westerner and to forgo sugary snacks is very difficult for a Bengali. After all, it would not be a happy world if people are unhappy even in such simple matters of life like eating. Having said that, it cannot be denied that a wide-spread non-consumption movement would surely have at least some effect on politics and economy. Eco-activists must however refrain from nagging friends and relatives for their eco-sins. That is the surest way to lose sympathizers. Let everybody do what she can and hope that others would emulate her example.  

*

Green-Alternative Politics in West Germany:

Vol. I. The New Social Movements (1993)

Vol. II, The Greens (1994)

Both published by The United Nations University Press (Tokyo)

**

Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism ?– A Critical Analysis of Humanity’s Fundamental Choices. (1999). London: Zed Books.

Completed  on 13.08.2014

Fascism's Recent Resurgence

I recently read an excellent essay on fascism in general and, in particular, on the recent resurgence of fascistic forces in some countries. In it, the author Luis Gonzalez Reyes describes eight factors that caused or, at least, favored fascism’s  resurgence. I largely agree with the analysis, but am unhappy about some omissions. I also have some criticism of his answer to the question as to what now needs to be or can be done. Here is the link to the essay:

https://www.15-15-15.org/webzine/2019/07/18/fascism-is-back-to-stay/

    I request the readers to first read the essay of Reyes and then my critique.


26.09.2019

Dear Luis Reyes,

I read your essay “Fascism is Back to Stay” with great interest, not only because I want to understand the phenomenon, but also because I (a dark-brown Indian migrant in Germany, 83+ years old) am personally affected. As you surely know, since 2016, there is a steep rise of xenophobic/fascist forces in Germany, France, Holland etc.
    I appreciate your analysis of the post-WWII situation in Europe. I largely agree with it. I agree that our situation today is one of impending collapse, But I am unhappy about the contents of the final section (Some Ideas for Standing up to Fascism). So pleaseFascism's allow me to make some constructive critical comments:
    (1) You have too much focused on Europe only. You have failed to see (or to mention) that collapse has already started (is taking place) at the periphery of Europe. How else can you describe the situation in Somalia, Nigeria, DR of Congo, Central African Republic etc.?
    Europe is intimately connected with Africa, not only through colonial history, but also culturally (Christianity and language). A part of Spain even lies in Africa, and a large minority of whites (25%?) still lives in South Africa. It is therefore no surprise that the results of the collapse in Africa is spilling over into Europe in the form of a large and steady stream of illegal migrants and refugees. In the case of the Spanish exclaves and in the case of Greece, one can also speak of a full-blown storming of the gates of prosperity.
    Because in the meantime Europe too has lost (and is increasingly losing) its economic capacity to offer a satisfactory perspective to its own youth and to a large section of its own proletariat, the people, that once welcomed also non-European, non-Christian foreign workers with open arms, are increasingly becoming xenophobic. The xenophobic section of the population is still a minority. But who knows, it may soon become the majority.
    This development is not limited to Europe and Africa. Similar (though not in all respects identical) developments are taking (has taken) place between the UK and Eastern Europe (especially Christian and White Poland), India and Bangladesh, Bangladesh and Myanmar, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the USA and Central and South America. And since recently we are even observing a similar development between the relatively developed South African Republic and its northern neighbors (all blacks).
    Most, though not all, of these migrants are not refugees, but simply unwelcome migrants who are in search of a better life in a country where they hope to find one.
    (2) One factor, a very important one, that you have not considered in your essay is overpopulation and/or continued population growth – combined with poverty and/or violence in everyday life – in the countries from where the illegal migrants and refugees are coming (or are being forced to leave). It is a common feature of these countries.
    (3) What is also missing in your essay is an actionable idea to stand up to the danger, actionable today.
    In the said section, one can find many vague and idealistic concepts and expressions relating to a future ideal society and the movement to create such a society: “human liberation”, “encourage autonomy”, “allow the population to satisfy their needs”, “emancipated societies”, “Promoting a widespread empathy” etc. In Germany, I have taken part in dozens of conversations of activists, in which such expressions were thrown around. I was never sure that all understood the same thing under such expressions.
    Be that as it may, even if a person understands them or gets them explained by an activist, they actually are only relevant for the distant future. In our times, when we are facing the danger of ecological and societal collapse, there are more important concrete things waiting to be done, today. In one word, it is to ensure bare survival. We have to accept that it is impossible to fulfill the continuously growing "needs", demands, wishes, aspirations and ambitions of a continuously growing world population while our resource base is continuously dwindling and the ability of nature to absorb man-made pollution is continuously diminishing.
    Limiting myself to the subject of your essay, i.e. renewed rise of fascism in Europe, I would like to suggest the following:
    I think among all the factors you have mentioned, currently, “fear of the other” is the weightiest. Fascistic, xenophobic right radicals are afraid they are “losing their country”, that “Germany will soon cease to be the home of the Germans”, or “a great change (transfer) of population” is taking place in white and Christian Europe, that Europe will soon become Muslim Eurabia etc. I am sure you too have heard/read about this discourse. This fear comes from the deepest layer of our biological, i.e. genetic, makeup.
    You suggest we should all promote “a widespread empathy with people nearby and far afield, and with all other living creatures”. It is a crucial sentence in your essay. The phrase “with people nearby and far afield” would mean: people in Spain, and people from Morocco across the whole North and West Africa to Bangladesh. It is this empathy that prompted Angela Merkel to open the gates of Germany to one million refugees and illegal immigrants. This event also showed the limits to the human capacity to feel empathy for the others. And it is this event that marks the beginning of the recent rise of the until then dormant fascism in Germany (Europe?).
    Also the phrase “empathy with … all other living creatures” is fraught with significance. You have heard of the ongoing sixth extinction, you know that currently hundreds, if not thousands, of species are becoming extinct every year, that the number of insects (including bees) and plant species as well as of large animals is rapidly dwindling. The main cause of this ongoing extinction is the growth of both the number of humans living on this planet and of their economic activities.
    In the light of this development, I would like to suggest that the most important thing to do today is to stop both kinds of growth, that of our own numbers and that of our economies. Addressing people like us – leftist and ecological activists – Prof. Paul Ehrlich once wrote, ”Whatever [be] your cause, it is a lost cause unless we control population [growth]”. I share this exhortation. Controlling economic growth is at present too big a task for groups of people like us. But we can start a campaign for controlling the numbers of our own species in the known problem countries (of e.g. Africa). That is at present the most important actionable idea that we have been neglecting since long, because most of us have been too afraid to articulate them. But we can start the campaign now.

------------------------

NB. I have elaborated these views and ideas in some of my blog articles. See

http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/search?q=Polemics
http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/2013/11/two-different-demographic-crises-some.html
http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/search?q=Lampedusa
http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/2015/11/the-refugee-migrant-crisis-of-eu-its.html http://eco-socialist.blogspot.com/2017/12/for-saving-earth-we-need-to-tell-whole.html
http://eco-socialist.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-two-drivers-of-ecological-collapse.html
https://eco-socialist.blogspot.com/search?q=whole+truth
https://eco-socialist.blogspot.com/2018/11/indias-unwelcome-immigrants-problem.html

Ted Trainer's Eco-Anarchist Vision 2030 - 2050. --- It is Too Utopian

Dear friends,

My good friend Ted Trainer, a professed eco-anarchist, has recently published a very interesting fictitious Interview entitled

How the Great Transition was Made

    In it he describes how the transition to an ideal eco-anarchist society took place between 2030, when the Great Crash began, and 2050, when the transition was more or less completed.
    I found his vision utopian in the negative sense of the term and suggested that we had better start working on a “soft landing” after the Great Crash, that would certainly come.
    I am posting here the link to Ted’s fictitious interview and then my criticism of his vision. Please read Ted’s interview first.

Here is the link:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-07-18/how-the-great-transition-was-made/



Ted Trainer’s Eco-Anarchist Vision 2030–2050. – It is too Utopian

(a letter to Ted)

24.07.2018

Dear Ted,

I read your article How the Great Transition Was Made with interest. Good that you are still so hopeful. I have lost all hope. If I am still writing, it is only because I still can. And because I want to do my duty. In the latter sense, allow me to make a few comments. I will not repeat my arguments on anarchism vs. strong state/leadership etc.

(1).You are counting on the Great Depression of the 2030, and then you hope that within twenty years, people would transform capitalist society into a model eco-anarchist one corresponding to your vision. But such great depressions took place earlier, in the 1930s and 2008ff. In both cases, nothing happened in Europe and North America. In the first case, it is only the Second World War that helped overcome the depression. Of course, in those days nobody could imagine limits to growth and resource shortages. But in the second case, everybody of importance in politics and economics new about it. Peak oil and oil price of 140 Dollar were realities. Yet nothing happened. Not even in Greece. The country was offered the possibility of “walking out” (your words) of the Euro-zone; Euro-leaders even offered them financial help for the process. But neither the Greek politicians, nor the Greek people were willing to walk out. They even decided in a referendum to remain and suffer in the system. So much for “people”.

(2) You are writing about the whole world, the whole humanity. But it seems to me that you have in mind only the highly advanced countries of Europe, North America, Australia (The First World), and maybe also China and India, where there are many factories etc. It appears you have not considered the situation in the whole continent of Africa, many states of which have de facto already broken down, have become (or are in the process of becoming) failed states. Also in South and Central America (Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Brazil), in South Asia (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan), and in the Middle East and North Africa (Syria, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia etc.), states and/or societies are breaking down. Millions of desperate people/migrants/refugees from such countries are trying to gate-crash into the First World. There are also unwanted migrants from some countries of Europe (e.g. Poland, Balkan countries) into Western Europe, where fascism has already raised its head again and is becoming stronger with every passing day. Violent attacks and insults are taking place there against unwanted migrants, especially in the small towns.
    All such things have been happening for quite a few years/decades now. In the 12 years that remain till 2030, the situation would only worsen. And you are thinking that citizens of the First World would, after the great crash and onset of the Great Depression, start building your ideal basis-democratic, egalitarian, anarchist society! This is utopian in the negative sense of the term. I am afraid, then all hell will break out.

(3) The main (but not the only) cause of this development is overpopulation relative to the resources, which are dwindling. You have not included it in your list of main causes. Only in the context of dwindling Middle East oil supply you mention the problem once, and write: “because their … increasing populations and declining water … and food production meant … they had to use more and more of the oil they produced.” But population explosion is taking place all over the world except in the First World. Let me again quote Paul Ehrlich. Addressing the good people of the world, he wrote: “Whatever [be] your cause, it is a lost cause unless we control population [growth]”. Marx, at least in this particular respect, was indeed wrong. He (also Engels, Lenin et al.) rejected stubbornly the obvious truth that Malthus had already discovered in the 18^th century.

(4) Against the background of the situation described above, community consciousness is evaporating. Remember what Margaret Thatcher once said? She said, “there is no such thing as society, there are only individuals.” When the great crash takes place in 2030, you expect people (not a few leaders/intellectuals) to “realize” (your word) immediately, and then quickly in the next 20 years, what they never realized before. I fear, most people – like those in Africa today – would then think like being on a sinking ship . They would then say “Everyone for himself” or “save yourself if you can!”
    How can you expect that in the coming12 years, the sense of solidarity, frugality, community consciousness etc., all the virtues that you perhaps, wrongly, assume to be still existing in the world, will remain intact in 2030? And after that?

Let me come to a close. The crash will come. That is certain. But I do not want to speculate on what will happen then, or what the “citizens” would or could do then. I would rather think about what we, the citizens, could do before the crash comes. (I have written about that to some of my friends, including yourself, Johny and Steve, 2-3 years ago.). We have just 12 years left. So let us try to utilize the time preparing the world for a “soft landing”. And if we have a little good luck, who knows, a better society may in the long run emerge out of the turmoil. Let us keep it open how that may look like. It may look like your ideal eco-anarchist society. But I would not bet on that.

With warm regards

Saral

The Ecological Clarity that the Ukraine War brings – A Paradox and Its Explanation

 Any modern-day war in and between rich industrial countries has bad ecological impacts. The amount of destroyed built-up material is a wastage that has to be replaced, which entails negative ecological impacts through mining and smelting of non-renewable resources. Same is the case with used up metals and other materials contained in equipment of war and munition. All this is known since long and applies also to the war in Ukraine. What, however, is especially remarkable in the case of the Ukraine War, is the clarity it brings to some dodgy ecological issues. 

Background of some recent Facts 

Facts are nearly always the best proof of the correctness or otherwise of political, economic, and ecological opinions and theories. So I want first to present here a selection of recent facts. Let me begin with two scenes from German TV broadcasts.

     After the beginning of the Ukraine war, many Europeans, but especially the Germans, who since long have been importing huge quantities of relatively cheap Russian natural gas for domestic heating and many industrial purposes, became panicky over whether the Russians would continue to deliver gas in terms of the contract in spite of the various economic sanctions imposed on them by the EU. In the course of his frantic search for alternative sources of natural gas, Robert Habeck, the Green economy minister in the current “traffic-Light” coalition government went to Qatar and met the equally young Emir of the small but gas-rich country. During the handshake – one could see that in the TV-Report – Habeck made a low bow in the style of an humble supplicant, while the Emir stood with his head held high in the style of a patron.

    The next scene: the former foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel of the SPD, now a political has-been, derided the present coalition with the words: “It is really a change of times when the economy minister Habeck of the Green Party breathes new life into CO₂-emitting coal-fired power plants, and the champion of an austerity policy finance minister Lindner of the FDP (Free Democratic Party) incurs hundreds of millions of Euro new debt.

    Fact is also that many other states are taking several retro-steps like building new coal-fired and nuclear power plants. They are doing this because they are anxious to keep their industries and infrastructures, and their whole industrial or half-industrial mode of living supplied with sufficient and sufficiently cheap energy. Worldwide, at present, 200 new coal-fired power plants are being built. In Germany, of course, they are not building any new coal-fired power plants after Datteln 4 (completed in 2019), but they are now repealing the earlier decision to close down all lignite-fired power plants soon. Moreover, they are planning to import from the USA large quantities of LNG extracted by the fracking method which was earlier much reviled by ecologists and the Greens for its evil polluting effects. Together with the Netherlands government, they are also considering gas extraction from under the mud flats of the North Sea – formerly, for ecological reasons, a prohibited zone for such purposes.

    As for nuclear power –  opposed by all kinds of ecologists and Green parties since 1974 –, it is enjoying a new lease of life. At present, eight European countries are building new reactors, or are seriously planning to build new ones. France has decided to keep all its nuclear power plants running. And the EU has decided to change its energy taxonomy, henceforth calling natural gas and nuclear energy green energy.

    Similar things are happening all over the world. China has recently been building more and more new coal-fired power plants. The tempo is increasing. For instance, in March 2020 alone, the authorities gave permission for building of more coal-power capacity (7.960 Megawatt) than in the whole year 2019 (6.310 Megawatt). India is pursuing a similar policy. This is manifested in the data on permission for opening new coal mines. Recently, some 40 such permissions have been given.

    All over the world, at present, also about 55 new nuclear power plants (NPP) are being built. The German Angst of nuclear power does not appear to be too great anywhere else, not even in the underdeveloped world. In India, e.g. at present, two NPPs are being built, in Bangladesh one.

    This worldwide trend has naturally led to very bad results for the climate. Instead of going down, total Co₂ emission is continually increasing. According to International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2021, globally, 36.3 billion tons of CO_{2 –}equivalents of green-house gases were emitted. That is two billion tons more than the figure for 2020. In Germany, after going down steadily since 1990, total CO₂ emission is again rising. Whereas in 2020 it was 644 million tons, in 2021 it was 675 million tons.

    In view of the above-mentioned facts and figures, Antonio Gutierrez, General Secretary of the United Nations, said in despair: “We are committing collective suicide.” Many Germans are thinking that the ambitious goal of energy transition has failed – among them are many leading politicians, such as Michael Kretschmer, Chief Minister of the province of Saxony. Chancellor Scholz and leading Green politicians however think that, despite the obvious setbacks, the energy transition can still be achieved. In their despair, many other European politicians – particularly the French President Macron – have recently declared nuclear power and natural gas to be “green energy”. The German Green Party, but also those of Europe as a whole, the main pillar of whose founding ideology was opposition to nuclear power, are of course resisting. But they may soon buckle. 

The Paradox 

Obviously, it is a paradox. The din of the Ukraine War, the embargo on Russian oil etc. and the fear of Russia turning off the gas taps are only four and a half months old, whereas the euphoric assertions of low costs and all round efficacy and adaptability of the renewable energies are quite old. Let us take three examples:

    The late Herman Scheer, the then President of Eurosolar, and high priest of solar energy, wrote in 1999: 

“For an inconceivably long time the sun will donate its energy to humans, animals, and plants. And it will do that so lavishly that it could satisfy even the most sumptuous energy needs of the worlds of humans, animals and plants experiencing drastic growth: The sun supplies us every year 15,000 times more energy than what the world population commercially consumes …” ¹

In 1999, this euphoria was a bit too far away from the then reality. Photovoltaic and other “renewable” and “clean” energy technologies were actually still too costly. But in 2014 came good news. Ottmar Edenhofer, economist and one of the three co-chairs of the third working group of the IPCC, said something that made us sit up and take notice. He said: “It would not cost us the world to save the planet.” The cost of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius would, he said, be only 0.06 percent less yearly economic growth than what would otherwise be possible. And Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, wrote a few weeks later in NEW York Times an article entitled Climate Change: Salvation Gets Cheap. Referring to the glad tidings on the cost of saving the planet coming from the IPCC, Krugman wrote the [problem of] climate threat is solved. He even wrote: “… there’s no reason we can’t become richer while reducing our impact on the environment.” The reason behind this euphoria was that prices of photovoltaic panels were tumbling.

    And now a more recent example: Greta Thunberg founder-leader of the teenager climate protection group Fridays for Future, that is simply demanding that the politicians finally do something decisive about the problem, was once asked, what then the politicians should do. She is reported to have replied: Why do you ask me? I am only a schoolgirl. Ask the scientists (as if all that the scientists advise were so easy to do!). She once wrote, all the technologies needed for the solution of the problem were already there. They only needed to be used. This was nothing concrete, though many other young people are glibly mouthing concrete “solutions” like their radical elder brothers do: “shut down all coal mines immediately”, “let all fossil fuels remain in the ground”, “all energy supply must come from renewable sources only” etc. etc.

    And now, in 2022, this mad rush for alternative sources of natural gas – a fossil fuel, mind you –  and the US President Biden eating his words of making Saudi Crown Prince Salman a pariah and going to him with the request to increase oil supply on the world market. Inevitably, the question comes to mind: Why couldn’t the renewable energy technologies long ago replace the fossil fuels and nuclear energy? How do we explain this about-turn in energy policy? 

An Explanation of the Paradox 

This euphoria, which had begun much earlier than 1999, was all along baseless. For the sake of brevity, I shall here present only the main points of my arguments and won’t go into details, which the interested reader can find in my theoretical book² and many articles in my blog. ²):

     (1) India e.g. is a tropical sunbathed country. The sun nearly uninterruptedly shines nine months a year. Even in the rainy season the sky is not clouded all the time and everywhere. And the South-West and North-East monsoon winds plus our long coast line can provide ample suitable sites for setting up wind-power facilities. Highly qualified engineers and technicians are also not scarce. Similar are the conditions in China. So why don’t the Indian and Chinese capitalists ditch much reviled fossil fuels, coal in particular, as our main source of power and invest heavily in solar and wind-energy industries? Can’t they calculate chances of making profit? Of course, they can.

    (2) The reason why capitalists do not want to give up fossil fuels, particularly the super versatile petroleum, is that they are the most profitable sources of energy. That is mainly because their energy density is much higher than that of the renewable sources sun and wind. Since for capitalists the ecological and social costs of fossil fuels are mere externalities, they, not being idealists and fashion-conscious, naturally prefer the fossil fuels.

    Moreover, ordinary people are not willing to pay higher prices for energy, not even in rich industrial countries. This was demonstrated in France by the yellow vests movement, the participants in which even violently, and successfully, resisted the increase in prices of fossil fuels for automobiles.

     No large scale use of liquid hydrogen made by using “renewable” energy (so-called “green hydrogen”) is yet being tried. Through any conversion of energy from one state/form to another, a lot of the original amount of energy gets lost. So “green hydrogen” is much costlier and much less profitable than any original form of energy. The greater part of the batteries of e-cars of the world are for this reason still loaded up with electricity made by using conventional fuels, not with solar or wind electricity.

    (3) Krugman and all others of that ilk always look at the market price of solar panels (and wind turbines), which indeed tumbled in the recent past. But serious energy scientists, when they try to judge the basic cost and efficacy of energy technologies, compare mainly their EROEI (Energy return on energy invested) figures.

    The market price of any commodity is in principle a very uncertain thing. It can vary from time to time and place to place, and it depends on many variable and volatile factors: wages, taxes, subsidies, distances etc. But, given that technologies used for the manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines etc. are more or less the same everywhere, the amount of energy required to be invested, from A to Z, for manufacturing them (the EI of the term EROEI) must be roughly the same everywhere, and hence they can be compared. The ER of the term (energy return) varies from place to place, depending on availability of sunshine and blowing wind.

     To measure the ER of any energy technology is easy. We just need to attach a meter to the end point of the system. But to measure its EI is difficult. The equipment needed to produce e.g. solar panels have first to be produced themselves – beginning with all the mining machinery (excavators e.g.) for mining the necessary minerals all the way upwards to the metal frame on which the solar panels are mounted.

    Of course, an excavator e.g. is not used for producing just one solar panel. But the prorata energy consumption of any equipment used in any serially produced object can be estimated. In this estimating process many mistakes can be and indeed are made, many steps in the production line are ignored. This explains why different researchers can and do present very different, often exaggeratedly optimistic estimates of the EROEI (aka net energy) of renewable energy technologies. This is why many false hopes of 100 percent renewable energies, total energy transition etc. could be circulated – particularly by the Green Parties. How controversial the matter still is can be seen in a recent paper.³ But for me, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

    One may now ask: why do we then hear (e.g. in Germany) that today renewable energies are cheaper than coal-fired energy? One brief reply: in Germany, electricity production in coal-fired power plants is almost entirely done with lignite excavated in Germany with equipment made in Germany by high-wage German workers. The solar panels e.g. used in Germany are however all made in China, by using coal-fired electricity and the labor of low-wage Chinese workers. State subsidies, tax benefits etc. also play a role.

    The atmosphere of the earth is a global affair. It does not matter at all where the green-house gases are emitted, they are distributed by the winds in the whole atmosphere. And the whole earth warms up as a result. 

Conclusion 

The truth of the matter has been sufficiently revealed in the months following the beginning of the Ukraine War. Industrial society is basically and mainly a product of fossil fuels. A whole industrial society cannot be run without these fuels. And, moreover, the global ecology problem, the various kinds of global pollution, cannot be reduced to the issue of climate change and green-house gas emissions. It is also and mainly a question of growing amount of resources that a growing number humans consume in an industrial way. Global warming and its consequences are just symptoms of too much consumption of fossil fuels and other resources.

    I have above referred to Greta Thunberg’s belief that all the technologies needed for the solution of the climate change problem were already there. That they only needed to be used. Below the article in which I read this opinion of Thunberg was a comment made by a reader. It read: “The greatest minds in the Western world are working on this. They have produced no solution, because there is none.”

    This comment is convincing, but only partly. There is no solution because nobody is prepared to ditch the industrial society that has made life so comfortable for so many people. “The greatest minds” have failed to find a solution because they all want to have their cake and eat it too. If they were prepared to give up their addiction to the industrial society and their self-sanctification, then the problems could be solved: with a steady state economy at a much lower level with just two billion humans living on the earth. 

References: 

1. Hermann Scheer (1999: 66) Solare Weltwirtschaft: Strategie für die okologische Moderne. Munich: Antje Kunstmann.

2. Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism. A critical Analysis of Humanity’s Fundamental Choices. 1999, London (Zed Books).

My blog:

www.eco-socialist.blogspot.com

3. “Renewables K.0.-ed by EROEI?”

by Craig Morris

https://energytransition.org/2014/09/renewables-ko-by-eroi/