Capitalism and the Disaster of Environmental Pollution

Volume Two

April 2016

Hassan Abbasi

Foreword

Only the anti-capitalist workers’ council movement is capable of solving the environmental problem

While most left-wing theorists, without any critical view of capitalist production relations, are busy bargaining with ruling parties and powers over this or that reform or participation in the state rule of capital. In conditions where these thinkers who claim to be the saviours of humanity consider environmental issues as a matter of work for the green bourgeois parties, anti-capitalist and proletarian criticism of environmental issues is also making its way into the space of life, protest and struggle, albeit slowly and slowly. The theoretical foundations of this critique are Marx’s understanding of capital and Marx’s critique of bourgeois political economy. As soon as we follow Marx’s materialist approach further and extend it to the environment, the true picture of the proletarian revolution, the greatest and most profound social revolution of mankind in history, will also become clearer to us. A very important point about this revolution or the dynamic of transformation of the capitalist production order has been ignored until today, and that is that in the current circumstances, no labour movement will be a comprehensive movement without emphasizing and clarifying the dimensions of the environmental disasters of capitalism and what capital does to the environment, nature, and humans. A closer look reveals that the capitalist mode of production in all spheres of production has added a new dimension to the inhuman dimensions of these relations. The exposure of this dimension is not only a severe blow to the public supporters of capitalism but also exposes the hands of green parties and leftist groups who intend to use the tools of state control and the magic words of “sustainable capitalist growth” to attack it. From a Marx perspective, all environmental destruction is a direct product of capitalism, and any challenge to it depends on a real struggle against the foundation of this system. The anti-capitalist investigation of the matter is a beacon of light that, on the one hand, brings before us another of the most inhuman and criminal areas of capital’s aggression and invasion of human existence, and on the other hand, emphasizes the ever-increasing urgency of the need to expand the struggle against capital in these areas. Here it should be noted that communist consciousness is not based on a handful of scientific discoveries, academic training, or the results of intellectual investigations. Rather, it is precisely the conscious protest cry of the working class against the crimes that capital has been inflicting on it moment by moment and is committing every day. This consciousness can only be observed in the proletariat’s movement against capital and for the abolition of wage slavery, it is not a science that can be learned in universities. This is exactly the opposite of the bourgeois work process and thinking of environmental parties and groups that are trying to act based on scientific proof of the correctness of their positions regarding environmental destruction. However, science is not outside the dominant production relations, it does not have a neutral nature, but rather serves capital and, in the form of research institutes and organizations, is in front of the workers, constantly making the lives of workers the target of aggression. It is very obvious that science, when workers take their destiny out of the hands of capital and abolish the buying and selling of labour power, will be the perfect weapon to improve their lives as much as possible. But now, unfortunately, it is in the hands of capital and plays its role in deepening the exploitation, disenfranchisement, and humiliation of workers, destroying their lives, the natural environment, and degrading them. If you form an organization of the most prominent thinkers in all fields of technology, ecology and biology, medicine, sociology and other sciences, and all of them are a great manifestation of determination and resolute will to, for example, challenge this or that problem of human life within the framework of existing relations! In conditions where the dominant relations of production are wage labour relations, everyone will definitely believe that the need for capital is profitability, and therefore they will simply add problems to the problems of humans. If the capitalist class and all its apparatuses, including the government, institutes, universities, production, distribution, advertising institutions, etc., are not currently rushing forward with the greatest speed with the aim of increasing the process of capital accumulation and preventing the fall of the rate of profit, how is it that despite the existence of a world of institutions called environmental improvement institutions, pollution, destruction, and environmental disasters are still increasing and becoming more terrible moment by moment? The answer is clear. As long as capitalism exists, these disasters will exist and will become more widespread. An important question is what necessity makes these points to be raised here. Some will surely say that for a worker who does not have at least bread, water, medicine, clothing, a doctor, and shelter, discussing the environment is meaningless! The real pains of the working class are too deadly to give them the opportunity to think about this. There is no need to say anything about the pains, sufferings, misfortunes and misery of the working class having no boundaries or limits. But capital does not only make the worker hungry, naked, homeless, displaced and without medicine. In all areas and from all channels of existence, including and very catastrophically in the field of the environment, it makes him the target of the most brutal attacks. We have discussed this issue sufficiently in previous writings. More importantly, workers, especially in recent years, have shown very well that they are not indifferent to what capital has done and is doing to their living environment. They do things, but this is not enough. Especially since what they do is not pursued out of anti-capitalism and as a stage of the battlefield against capital. We need to talk about both the above questions and what workers do and can do. Let’s start with what happened in Paris. At the Paris Environmental Conference, the leaders of more than 150 capitalist governments gathered on November 30, 2015, to deliver the ugliest lies to the workers of the world, with pompous speeches and the issuance of deceptive posters, wrapped in a decision to combat global warming! At the same time, in the first round of local elections held throughout France, the right-wing National Front party won a majority in 8 regions. Journalists wrote about these elections and their results as follows:

“But we would be wrong to attribute Ms. Le Pen’s victory solely to the fear of terrorism. Her party has been steadily improving over the past four years. It should not be forgotten that economic and social issues are as important to voters as security issues. The latest unemployment figures were lost in the chaos of the attacks and were not widely reported. The number of unemployed people is rising again after a short period of stagnation. “In the eyes of many voters, the solutions offered by the two major parties are no different from each other.” Two trends occurred simultaneously in France. The working masses of this country, tired and disobedient from the pressure of unemployment, poverty and misery, instead of searching for the real roots of this situation and the correct and fundamental way of fighting against the disasters of the day, very easily turned to the most fierce and fascist section of the bourgeoisie to solve them. At the same time, they allowed the representatives of the world bourgeoisie to talk about solving environmental problems with slogans that deafened the ears of the world and to applaud all the demagogues in this passage. It is as if these invisible spirits have filled the world with filth, poisons, smoke, fumes, stench, and the terror of capital. The French working class has not only forgotten its entire past history, but has also, with humiliation and abject humiliation, become its own most vile and brutal class enemy. In “Class Struggles in France” in 1850, more than 150 years ago, Marx said the following about the French working class: “By dictating the republic to the provisional government and through it to all of France, the proletariat suddenly placed itself in the forefront of the political scene as a self-governing party, but in doing so, it also challenged all of bourgeois France.”

What the proletariat achieved was only the ground for its own revolutionary emancipation, but this was by no means that emancipation itself.” And regarding unemployment, which was one of the fundamental problems of the workers, Marx wrote: “One of the workers… dictated a decree by which the provisional government, which had not yet been formed for hours, guaranteed the existence of the workers, on the basis of work, and undertook to provide work for all citizens, and so on.” This was the situation of the French working class at that time, and now, unfortunately, this same class, despite at least 150 years of experience in confronting the bourgeoisie and creating epics such as the Paris Commune, rises and falls with the call of the most right-wing evil forces of capital. Why is this so? How could there be such a stark difference in the behaviour of the working class on similar issues at two different points in time? The simple and straightforward answer might be that the working class is now, and has been for a long time, following the bourgeoisie. But this is only the form of the problem, not the answer. However, how the problem is posed is also how it is solved (quoting Marx’s writing “On the Jewish Question”) The correct critique of environmental problems in capitalist relations of production is also the proletariat’s method of solving these problems. For this reason, the new topic we are opening here is the approach to all circles, individuals and political and social groups, not only on the abstract issues of the environment, but also on their class positions in this regard. Environmental problems are an inseparable part of human life in capitalist society and, as a result, an inseparable issue of the working-class liberation movement. Our point is why and how the working class in the world has fallen into such a deplorable situation and what it should do about it.

We mentioned the Paris Conference, one of dozens of gatherings of heads of state of capital and its colourful experts on environmental issues in the last three decades. In order to address the main issue, namely the struggle of the working class, the political and class positions of the social forces in question, we must shorten the current discussion very much. Figures and information published by financial organizations show that the annual increase in carbon dioxide has been on an upward trend, and only the 2008 global financial crisis was accompanied by a decrease in this gas. Currently, more than half of the budget allocated for carbon dioxide has been spent to control the increase in global temperatures by more than two degrees. Even if there is a start now to reduce the use of fossil fuels, the use of these fuels must end by 2030. Otherwise, the scenario of a 4-degree temperature increase (RPC8.5 scenario) will be a realistic scenario by 2100. But are the capitalist governments really concerned about the fate of the working masses who are gathering together in such a hurry and after repeated promises and agreements, it is still the same soup and the same bowl?

Again, capital continues to destroy the environment with the greatest aggression. Are they concerned about the human consequences of this destruction? Consequences that are already clearly felt. Parts of the world, the banks of rivers and seas where hundreds of millions of poor workers live, will be submerged, and this will be the end of the life of this huge, cursed population of capitalist hell. Before this catastrophe, the working masses living in these areas will be exposed to floods, various types of devastating atmospheric and marine disasters and severe storms thousands of times. The slightest increase in global temperature will lead to floods and incidents that will lead to homelessness, hunger, poverty, misery, destruction and misery for hundreds of millions of workers. Poor workers in areas with few living resources are most vulnerable to the damage caused by global warming. Heat, drought, floods and the diseases they cause, combined with the acute shortage of drinking water, are seriously threatening the entire life of the working masses in these areas. On the eve of the Paris conference, UNICEF (i.e. the children’s agency of the United Nations) published a report. According to the document, about 690 million children are at risk of disease, poverty and even death due to climate change. About 530 million children live in countries that are constantly exposed to floods combined with man-made and natural disasters. Most of these countries are located in Asia. 160 million children live in areas of Africa that are constantly exposed to drought. Nicholas Reis, one of the authors of the study, says: Global warming will intensify phenomena such as cyclones, floods and droughts, and the consequences will be an increase in malaria, diarrheal, lung diseases and malnutrition. Children are more vulnerable to these injuries and diseases than others, and their mortality will be much higher. Meanwhile, according to a new study by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, more than 90% of natural disasters and accidents in the past 20 years, including floods, storms, heat and droughts and similar events, have been caused by climate change. The data suggests that climate-related disasters have killed at least 600,000 people worldwide in the past 20 years. Another 4 billion people have been injured or displaced. The study says that between 2005 and 2014, an average of 335 natural disasters occurred annually around the world, a 14 percent increase over the period 1995 to 2004. This figure is twice as many as the natural disasters in the years leading up to 1995. If so, they are thinking about the fate of humanity! Then how is it that no step forward has been made over the course of three decades, despite the holding of numerous conferences and all the information that their various research organizations provide to the capital authorities? The reality is that every step in the challenge of environmental problems is tied to a fundamental attack on the existence of capitalism, and capital governments are not supposed to challenge this system! It is enough to look at the NASA report published by the US Meteorological Organization in August of this year, before the Paris conference, and declaring the 2-degree scenario of global warming to be over, in which Michael Frailes, head of the Geological Research Division at NASA Space Agency, considers the continuation of this trend a threat to the submergence of low-lying areas such as the US state of Florida, island cities and large cities such as Tokyo and Singapore. Or, right after the end of the Paris conference, the same US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced on Wednesday evening (December 16, 2015) that climate change is rapidly warming the world’s lakes. According to the report, the world’s lakes have warmed by 0.34 degrees Celsius every ten years in the past 25 years, and this rate is faster than the rate of warming of the Earth’s atmosphere. But why is such a trend advancing at such a speed? One of the most important factors in climate change is the type of energy production. I have discussed this topic in detail in my book “Capitalism and the Catastrophe of Environmental Pollution” and I will now summarize it here. For more than 200 years, the capitalist system has relied on fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal) to provide the energy needed for the cycle of profit and capital production and has created a system of communications and technologies (Energy Infrastructure) because of their cheapness and accessibility. Not only does changing this building and foundation require enormous costs, but the replacement system must also be as reliable and robust as possible. In other words, it must be reliable and robust. The biggest obstacle to renewable energy production is not technical obstacles (which are important in their own right), but the very high costs of replacing existing fossil fuels. The following obstacles stand in the way of such a system:

1. Creating a communication system and alternative energy technology requires the consumption of a large amount of energy, the environmental consequences of which will be greater than what we are currently witnessing because for a long time we will see two or more parallel systems.

 2. Meeting such a need would certainly break all boundaries of energy consumption control and its consequences.

 3. As long as the cost of producing fossil energy is low and will continue to decrease, given its evolution over the past hundred years, and access to new sources of this fossil energy is increasing, no alternative energy can compete with it.¹. In addition, alternative energies such as solar and wind energy are ultimately complementary to the main fossil energy. To clarify this issue, I will focus on solar energy, which has received more attention in recent years. If humans could somehow absorb and store a small portion of the energy that the sun sends to the Earth, they would have no need for any other type of energy, but this is a solution that has no place in capitalist production relations (for the reasons mentioned above, capital will never sacrifice its vital need for accumulation for that which requires huge expenses to provide). In 30 minutes, the sun delivers a volume of energy to the earth that is equal to all the energy produced on earth. The sun is present in all parts of the earth at different and specific times, and it only needs a global and planned technical and social system to use it without hindrance. Today, only 1% of all energy produced on earth is solar. Germany has multiplied the amount of solar energy it produces in a few years (although this production was very small). Remember, this is done with huge government subsidies and aid. The production of energy from sunlight is done by solar cells, which are made of harmful metals such as copper, indium, gallium and selenium. The technique of producing solar energy has a history as old as the capitalist system. In 1873, the first product produced by this means was a newspaper in Europe, and about a hundred years ago, the first solar cells were produced industrially and commercially. If this work, i.e., the production of solar energy for the wage slavery system, was affordable and sustainable, it should have replaced energy from fossil fuels by now, because the lifespan of these two products in industrial production is the same. There have been enormous obstacles to the production of the second commodity. The uncertainty of the constant presence of sunlight in places where capitalism has all the industrial and technical facilities, as well as the capacity and possibility of storing the energy obtained, were among these obstacles. While energy produced with other raw and auxiliary materials (fossil fuels) did not face any particular obstacle other than the lack or scarcity of their mines, and this is also the case with the advancement of constantly advanced techniques in each period, new mines and resources were discovered and extracted. Regarding the use of solar energy in places such as African regions with a high number of hours of sunlight and its transmission to industrial production centers, there are always issues such as which government, which company and how much cost is required for the communication network. The high figures of these costs and other issues have been the subject of discussion and conflict.

Let’s go back to the Paris conference, where it was predicted that the 2-degree increase in global warming would be controlled by 2050, while the Yokohama and Copenhagen conferences in 2014, where researchers from capital dominated, had a quorum of only 5 years. At those conferences, it was said that if we wait until 2030, it would be very difficult to maintain the 2-degree increase in global warming by 2100. The participants in those conferences made it clear that the real solution in the area of ​​controlling greenhouse gases and preventing global warming was to limit or even completely stop world economic growth and postpone this growth to the future. The Paris conference was held in conditions where the increase in global temperature had progressed by one degree compared to the late nineteenth century. In other words, half of the disaster had already happened. At the Paris Conference, as in other similar conferences, capitalist governments engaged in bargaining and blackmailing each other over the distribution of pollution. They divided capitalist societies into poor and rich blocs to provide a basis for blackmail and silence against each other. This division is also formal. Countries such as India, Nigeria and many Latin American capitalist powers are in the poor bloc, while, for example, India is the third-largest capitalist country in the world in terms of economic growth in the last decade, and Nigeria is the second-largest country in Africa, and in terms of economic growth This clearly shows that the conferences are bargaining circles for the bourgeoisie, their various blackmails to each other, and the race to silence the main issue, which is climate destruction. The trumpets and clarions of the capitalist states in these places are merely a veil over the tragedies that capital has brought and is bringing to human life. I will only list these cases here, each one explained in detail and in its own place:

1.Climate change. 2. Reduction and destruction of animals, plants and forests on earth. 3. Expansion of destructive cycles of nitrogen, phosphorus, new substances and elements. 4. Acidification of water, air and soil. 5. Depletion of agricultural soils of nutrients. 6. Increasing decrease in drinking water on earth. 7. Increasing consumption of pesticides. 8. Increasing consumption of chemicals. 9. Spread of heavy metals in the environment. 10. Spread of wars and their environmental destruction. 11. Increase in global temperature and its destructive environmental effects. 12. Genetic changes in plants in order to produce labour. 13. Increasing and increasing spread of epidemics, cancers, allergies and suspicious diseases. 14. Increase in air pollution and spread of fine dust.  

The heads of capitalist governments gathered in Paris on November 30, 2015, to deliver the ugliest lies to the workers of the world, with pompous speeches and the issuance of deceptive posters, wrapped in a decision to confront global warming! They gathered this time especially at the level of presidents, kings and rulers of capital, because they were afraid of a repeat of what happened at the Copenhagen summit.  The participants in the Copenhagen meeting were researchers. They were not capable of creating any danger to capital and were not in the business of doing so, but they raised issues that: 1. Even in a toneless language, they exposed the lies and deceptions of capitalists and governments about supposedly thinking about human environmental issues! 2. It put on the agenda of governments the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. The entire effort of the Paris Conference was, first, to exempt the criminal global bourgeoisie from taking on this task, and second, to wrap up the Copenhagen-type revelations. Let me explain a little more.

The Earth is already one degree warmer than it was a hundred years ago. The biggest increase in temperature occurred in 2015, and if this trend continues at this rate, it will reach 4 degrees by 2100. A few degrees of warming may not seem like a big deal, but we are already seeing the devastating and catastrophic effects of even a tiny one-degree increase. A two-degree increase in global temperatures will become a reality by 2035. First of all, it should be said that this increase will occur in different parts of the world to different degrees. The Arctic will see a 10-degree increase in temperature. Many parts of the Earth will become uninhabitable. The reason is clear. The amount of carbon dioxide from traffic, factories, deforestation (which could absorb a large amount of carbon dioxide), etc. is increasing every year.

In 2013, this amount was 36.3 billion tons, and in 2014 it exceeded 39 billion tons. (NASA, IPCC).

Now, if we do not limit ourselves to the annual increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but also consider its concentration, the dimensions of the catastrophes of capital become even clearer. Because the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the result of the action of two factors: one is the production of this gas by capital, and the other is the reduction in the absorption capacity of this gas by destroying trees and forests by capital. Between August 2019 and July 2020, the rate of destruction of the Amazon forests increased by 9.5 percent compared to the previous year. In this regard, the upward trend in the destruction of the Amazon forests continues. This is the highest level of destruction in the past 12 years. Satellite images indicate an increase in forest destruction around the world. To calculate the amount of forest destruction each year, experts consider the period between August of one year and July of the following year. The reason for choosing such a period of time is related to calculating both the dry and rainy periods of these forests in the year. The result is clearly shown in the monthly chart below by NASA, where the concentration of this gas was around 400 ppm (parts per million) at the 2015 COP and reached 415 ppm in November 2020. The United Nations Meteorological Organization also announced that despite the new coronavirus pandemic and the related quarantines, the level of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere has once again set a record. The organization announced that in 2019, the growth of greenhouse gas emissions was significant, and the rate of increase was higher than the average rate of increase of the past decade. The effects of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from capital production are becoming more apparent day by day. 2020 is one of the warmest years on record, with September the hottest September on record. Overall, temperatures from 2010 to 2019 were about 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average. The organization announced in January 2021 that 2020 was the warmest year on record, with the Earth’s average temperature 1.25 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

As can be seen from the above figures, the annual increase in carbon dioxide has been on an upward trend, and only the 2008 global capital crisis led to a decrease in this gas. Currently, more than half of the budget allocated for carbon dioxide has been spent to control the increase in global temperatures by more than two degrees. Even if there is a start now to reduce the use of fossil fuels, the use of these fuels should end by 2030. Otherwise, the 4-degree temperature increase scenario (RPC8.5 scenario) will be a realistic scenario by 2100. Although carbon dioxide only makes up 0.058 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere, changes in its concentration have enormous impacts on nature, both on land and in the seas. The acidification of sea water, which is the result of more carbon dioxide dissolving and forming carbonic acid in it, is one of these fatal changes. Global warming and rainfall changes are not happening equally in different parts of the world. 2 or 4 degrees increase in average global temperature by 2100 means different temperature changes in different parts of the world. And this in practice means the destruction of polar ice caps. Similarly, a terrifying scenario is happening in terms of changes in precipitation on the Earth’s surface. There will be about 40 percent more rain in the Earth’s poles, and at the same time, large parts of the Earth’s surface will become uninhabitable deserts and deserts. On the other hand, parts of the world, the banks of rivers and seas where hundreds of millions of poor workers live, will be submerged, and this will be the end of the life of this huge, cursed population, the hell of capitalism. Before this catastrophe, the working masses living in these areas will be exposed to thousands of floods, devastating air and sea disasters, and increasingly violent storms. The slightest increase in global temperature will lead to floods and other disasters that will cause homelessness, hunger, poverty, misery, destruction and misery for hundreds of millions of workers. The poor workers in areas with few living conditions are most exposed to the damage caused by the increase in the degree of land degradation. Heat, drought, floods and the diseases caused by them, together with the acute shortage of drinking water, seriously threaten the lives of the working masses in these areas. On the eve of the Paris conference, UNICEF (i.e. the children’s agency of the United Nations) published a report. According to this document, about 690 million children are at risk of disease, poverty and even death due to climate change. About 530 million children live in countries that are constantly faced with floods combined with human and natural disasters. Most of these countries are located in Asia. 160 million children also live in areas of Africa that are constantly exposed to drought.

Nicholas Rees, one of the authors of the study, says: “Global warming will intensify phenomena such as hurricanes, floods and droughts, and the increase in malaria, diarrhoea, lung diseases and malnutrition is one of its consequences. Children are more exposed to these injuries and diseases than others, and their mortality will be much higher. Meanwhile, according to a new study by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, more than 90% of natural disasters and incidents in the past 20 years have included floods, storms, heat and droughts and similar events caused by climate change.”  The data suggests that climate-related disasters have killed at least 600,000 people worldwide in the past 20 years. Another 4 billion people have been injured or displaced. The study says that between 2005 and 2014, an average of 335 natural disasters occurred annually around the world, a 14 percent increase from 1995 to 2004. This is twice the number of natural disasters in the years leading up to 1995. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO 2015 likely to be Warmest on Record 2011-2015 Warmest Five-Year Period WMO) says in its latest report that the global temperature this year is likely to be the highest since the temperature was recorded by this UN-affiliated organization. But even these three degrees of increase in global temperature is optimistic because, first, the global temperature will almost certainly increase by one degree Celsius in 2015 since 1900. In 2014, the temperature increase set a new record and reached 0.9 degrees. 2015 broke the previous year’s record in terms of warming. Secondly, these increases do not only include these two years. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report considers the last five years (2011 to 2015) as the warmest period on Earth during the period of temperature records. Moreover, the main factor of global warming is also variable and constantly advancing. A look at the annual increase in carbon dioxide from 2006 to the end of 2014, which has increased more than in previous years, shows this fact. It should be noted that carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases. There are 9 other gases emitted by factories that are no less destructive and warming than carbon dioxide. The fact that it is said here that a 4-degree temperature increase should be expected by 2100 comes from this conference and the like. The goals of the Paris Conference are to reduce 3 billion tons by 2025 and 4 billion tons from 2025 to 2030. Looking at the annual figures for carbon dioxide and its annual increase, it is easy to see the demagoguery of capitalist governments. Even if these governments meet the goals they have set, what they will reduce will still be far less than the annual increase in greenhouse gases that capital sends into the atmosphere.