When capital sows the wind, the worker reaps the storm! Hassan Abbasi
In today’s world, we have several major air currents, some very old and some new. Both the old ones are changing in their structure, their role in the flow and movement of air and water, and the amount of water vapor, and new phenomena are becoming increasingly important. I have discussed some of them in the second book, “Capitalism and the Disaster of Environmental Pollution,” and I will now begin this chapter by mentioning them as titles and end by mentioning new ones. Capital in its general sense, global capital, both in terms of volume and value, has grown and increased thousands, millions, and in some areas billions of times compared to one hundred and seventy years ago, for example, in the fixed and circulating parts of capital (raw materials, auxiliary materials such as energy). During the same period, environmental destruction has reached astronomical proportions and is growing in both breadth and depth. Does environmental destruction occur as a result of mistakes, negligence, and miscalculations by capitalists and their governments? If they took into account the consequences of nature and humans in their calculations and reduced their negligence to a certain extent, such disasters would not occur, and capitalism would become a good thing for humans and nature?! Research by the British Met Office in January 2020 shows that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere this year will reach its highest level since records began in 1958!! According to the British institution’s forecast, this concentration will exceed 417 parts per million (or parts per million, a unit of measurement of substance concentration) in May 2020. Its annual average will also reach 414 parts per million (ppm), which is 3 parts per million higher than the average of the previous year. This means that the acceleration of the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been accompanied by terrifying leaps in recent years. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports that the world’s oceans have not been this acidic for 300 million years. It is worth noting that the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is reducing the ability of the biosphere (life on Earth) to absorb this gas. This increase can be explained by the El Niño weather phenomenon this year. These climate changes, which are associated with the warming of the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean, have a direct impact on the relationship between the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean water, and are associated with storms and heavy rains that sweep the world’s oceans, especially the Pacific Ocean, every four to seven years (the frequency of their occurrence has decreased in the last 15 years). We mentioned the Yellow Dust phenomenon in China, Korea, and Japan, which began in Central Asia and the eastern Caspian Sea and reached China and Japan. We said that this began with the drying up of the Aral Sea (Khwarazm Sea) during the Soviet occupation. The incalculable increase in salt, like other lakes, rivers, and wetlands on the planet that are being destroyed, in addition to the consequences of years of military-nuclear tests in the region, the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and all the remnants of industrial projects during the Soviet state capitalism and after, led to the emergence of a new phenomenon. This phenomenon, which generally begins in spring with winds from the eastern side of the Caspian Sea and travels to East Asia, carries light and low-weight particles of salt, sediments from the plains left by the lake, other pollutants such as those mentioned above, and finally pollutants from industrial cities on its way into the air flow under discussion. The indicator of the occurrence of this ominous environmental incident is thick yellow fog and smoke (Smog), which obstructs human vision and causes pulmonary complications and other diseases. Meanwhile, the increase in sulphur particles, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, carbon particles, aluminium, heavy metals (cadmium, lead and zinc), other carcinogenic substances including polyaromatics and phthalates, radioactive substances, bacteria and fungi, give new dimensions to this disaster. The field of passage of this air flow is the vast distance of the plains of Kazakhstan, the cities of China, Russia, the plains of Mongolia, the cities of Russia, North and South Korea to Japan Monsoon rains: The world’s most powerful weather phenomenon, which plays a crucial role in determining the seasons from Australia to the Himalayas, is known by this name. When the Asian monsoon rains fail, the resulting drought can determine the fate of large parts of Asia, almost half the world’s population. For thousands of years, the inhabitants of countries such as India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma, parts of China, Cambodia, etc. have lived by celebrating this phenomenon, by transforming these celebrations into religions, rituals and traditions. Whether the monsoon rains of this season begin and end on time is a matter that deeply affects the lives of humans and animals from Australia to India, at least for parts of the following year. Let’s look at the capital’s role in these waters, rains, and lakes and their impact on human life. In recent decades, these life-giving rains have become environmental disasters. The Asian monsoons, which for thousands of years brought greenery, increased and enriched soil content for thriving agriculture, have now become a destructive factor. This is due to acid rain, the death, disease, and misery that capitalism has brought to the workers of Asia. Data from recent decades show that when monsoon rains are more intense, their acidity also increases more than usual. In other words, the acidity of monsoon rains during their intensity is tens of times higher than that of moderate monsoon rains (in history about 50 years ago). The destructive effects of monsoon rains and winds are as clear as day to us, considering the location and living conditions of hundreds of millions of poor working masses in the areas that are under the pressure of this weather phenomenon every year. If millions of poor agricultural workers in China, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, and Laos used to obtain edible plants and fish suitable for their diet a few decades ago, thanks to the benefits of monsoon rains and, of course, in proportion to the price of their labour, today they no longer have the same. A large part of these workers, enduring the more severe pressures of capitalism, have joined the vast hordes of chained people who live in slums and slums on the outskirts of cities and on riverbanks, seashores, and in short, places where even animals avoid living. These places are the worst places due to their exposure to winds and monsoon storms and the subsequent rains, and we witness their huge victims every year. A large part of these workers, enduring the more severe pressures of capitalism, have joined the vast hordes of chained people who live in slums and slums on the outskirts of cities and on riverbanks, seashores, and in short, places where even animals avoid living. These places are the worst places due to their exposure to winds and monsoon storms and the subsequent rains, and we witness their huge victims every year. For hundreds of millions of poor workers in these regions, the monsoon rains are no longer life-giving rain. Under the influence of capitalist relations, they have now become the focus of humanitarian disasters that claim the lives of thousands of workers and displace hundreds of thousands every year. With the onset of monsoon winds and rains, all the sewage and factory water enters the lives of its residents and causes various diseases. These cities, which were created without any accounting, without any water supply and sewage systems, were created only by the gathering of workers. Even with a strong breeze, all their affairs collapse and the environment of their residents becomes a swamp of faces and factory sewage. Environmental pollution caused by the spread of urban and industrial sewage into the surface and deep waters of these regions not only directly causes illness to their residents, but also creates a plague, along with monsoon rains, that humanity has never seen before. Most importantly, it is the new dimensions of these disasters every year that give the history of capitalist relations a new colour in terms of criminality. In late 2020, a series of devastating storms hit the world. A warming climate has led to more of these storms forming in the mid-latitudes, where most of the world’s population lives and most economic activity occurs. As the world warms, the temperature difference between the equator and the poles decreases, affecting the “jet streams”. Normally, these very high-altitude air currents keep storms away from the ground. As the climate warms, this type of air activity, known as the jet stream, which occurs in the mid-latitudes (in the northern half of Korea above the equator), weakens, allowing this type of storm to form in extreme cases. Last August (2020), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the first part of its sixth assessment of the science of climate change. The results showed that climate change is increasing the impact of tropical cyclones and hurricanes. New studies suggest that climate change is increasing the range of tropical cyclones, exposing millions more people to these devastating storms each year. Currently, hurricanes (and cyclones) are mostly confined to areas north and south of the equator. But research shows that rising temperatures will also cause these events to occur in the middle latitudes, which include cities such as New York, Beijing, Boston and Tokyo, the study, published in the journal “Nature Geoscience”, found. The researchers say their study shows that by the end of the century; hurricanes are likely to spread over a wider area than they have in the past three million years. North Atlantic hurricanes are now maintaining their power more than in the past when they make landfall, which is linked to global warming. Evidence suggests that in the recent past, these storms were less destructive after they made landfall. But in the last 50 years, hurricanes have stayed on land for almost twice as long on average. The researchers say that global warming is giving hurricanes more momentum, so they are more likely to stay on land longer. They predict that this will make them more destructive in the years to come. In 2020, the North Atlantic saw 29 extratropical hurricanes, a new record.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey lingered over Houston, Texas, for several days, bringing some of the heaviest rainfall in hurricane history. Now, research shows that climate change is preventing these storms from rapidly waning after they make landfall. Hurricanes are powered by moisture from warm tropical waters. Climate change is making the air above the ocean’s wetter and heavier, which increases the intensity of hurricanes. But once a hurricane makes landfall, it can no longer draw on this moisture and must quickly dissipate. However, a new study suggests that this is no longer the case. In the 1960s, hurricanes typically lost 75 percent of their intensity on the first day after making landfall, but now they lose about 50 percent on the first day. Researchers believe that the key to hurricanes’ staying power is the warm moisture they pick up along the way. This acts as an extra fuel tank, keeping the hurricane active even after it makes landfall. This phenomenon is expected to intensify as the Earth warms. A UN report in August 2021 in preparation for the Glasgow conference stated:
In a new report on the state of the planet’s climate, UN experts have stressed that humans are “unequivocally” responsible for climate change. The report states that humans have no choice but to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the devastating consequences of climate change. UN experts have also warned that global temperatures will rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030 compared to pre-industrial times. This is while it was previously thought that humanity would face a one and a half degree increase in the Earth’s temperature by 2040. The new three-thousand-page report was prepared in collaboration with 234 experts and researchers. According to the researchers, some of the consequences of climate change, such as rising sea levels, are “irreversible.” On the other hand, the increase in unusual weather phenomena has been described as “unprecedented.” The capacity of oceans and forests to absorb carbon dioxide has declined, according to a report by UN experts. The British government, which will host a UN climate change conference in November 2021, called the new report by the organization’s experts a “stark warning” about the impact of human activity on the planet. The report says that today a total of 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide are emitted per year and that instead of reducing, emissions are increasing every year. This figure is the sum of all greenhouse gases based on carbon dioxide. The report says that the evidence linking various types of extreme weather to human impacts has strengthened since the last report was published in 2013. The capitalist deception and demagoguery are clearly evident in these phrases, “human activity”, “human impacts” and that humans are considered the cause of such environmental disasters! It is only patched up with the camouflage of capital and capitalist relations of production. How can this humanity, which the charlatans, managers, and capitalist governments who are the cause of these disasters pretend to have lived on Earth for tens of thousands of years, create so many environmental disasters in just about 170 years? Yes, this human being actually exists, but in the form and image of personified capital, the state of capital, and the capitalist human being. However, they are trying to suggest that as if a human being without a class identity is the cause, and therefore, if individuals and humans do this and that in their daily consumption and life, all environmental destruction will disappear! While billions of workers around the world workday and night to produce energy, transport it to industries and cities, and accumulate astronomical amounts of capital in this area, approximately 3 billion of these workers lack adequate cleaning and toilet facilities, and more than 1.5 billion workers lack electricity. About 3 billion of these masses, producers of capital and various goods, whose surplus value from exploitation amounts to thousands of billions of dollars a year, use firewood and wood, not electricity, for their daily cooking. The demand for energy in various areas of capital investment will increase by one-third of its value in 2013 by 2035, and the demand for electricity will increase by 70 percent during the same period. And these are the demands of capital, not the energy needs of the world’s billions! The growth of capitalism, which coincides with the mass production of goods and the growth of cities, will increase the need for water by 55% in 2050 compared to 2015. In 1990, about 1.9 billion of the world’s population (mostly the working masses) used water that was contaminated by untreated sewage. This figure increased to 2.08 billion in 2015. The number of these working masses who produce astronomical mountains of profit and capital while themselves are increasingly deprived of the bare minimum of daily living is undoubtedly much higher than this number. These workers are currently suffering the most from polluted water, lack of access to water supply and sewage systems, and finally from natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods. This is about increasing the risk of more intense heat waves, torrential rains and severe droughts, severe storms, and longer, more frequent events. Meanwhile, coastal cities in India, Bangladesh, Latin America, and Africa, like all cities formed by the development of slums that have emerged from the accumulation of migrant workers in search of work, are highly vulnerable to climate change, storms, floods, and the like. With the smallest incidents like this, all the sewage and factory water enters the lives of its residents and causes various diseases. These cities, which were created without any accounting, without any water supply and sewage systems, were created only by the gathering of workers. Even with a strong breeze, their entire structure collapses and the environment of their residents become a swamp of faces and factory sewage. Environmental pollution caused by the spread of urban and industrial wastewater into the surface and deep waters of these regions directly causes illness in their inhabitants. According to a United Nations report, 90 percent of wastewater in Latin American, African, and Asian countries enters rivers, lakes, seas, and wetlands without the slightest treatment system, and ultimately enters the irrigation, drinking, and washing systems, thereby causing skin diseases and a wide variety of environmental disorders. The number of people in the world at risk of flooding will double by the end of this decade. Climate change is the main cause. By the middle of this century, the numbers will be catastrophic. By 2030, 147 million people, mostly workers, will be at risk of flooding worldwide. River and coastal areas will experience devastating floods. Ten years ago, the number of people at risk of flooding worldwide was only 72 million. Three-quarters of the world’s oceans are moving faster. According to current scenarios for the consequences of global warming, the acceleration of ocean winds and waves was supposed to happen by the end of this century. This dramatic change is already taking place. The acceleration of ocean circulation on a global scale in the past two decades is now a reality. Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan have reached similar conclusions to those described above, that climate change is causing more severe storms to occur, which will last longer than before and will therefore have more catastrophic consequences. According to the journal Nature, storms that form over oceans that are warming carry more moisture with them, so they stay strong and don’t lose their intensity over land. As a result, hurricanes and typhoons will become more destructive in relation to global warming, affecting people living in areas that were never hit by storms in the past, including those that were previously unaffected, according to researchers. At the same time, coastal areas will be at risk of being submerged due to heavy rains and flooding. In their new work, the researchers analysed hurricanes that have occurred in the North Atlantic over the past 50 years. They found that the intensity of hurricanes decreased almost twice as slowly during their first day after making landfall than 50 years ago. Computer simulations have shown a direct relationship between rising ocean temperatures and the intensity of hurricanes. As hurricanes carry more moisture, the amount and frequency of rainfall increases, potentially reaching catastrophic levels. The increased moisture, which is caused by faster water circulation, is causing more rainfall in a shorter period of time. A month’s or even a year’s worth of rain in a few days in a limited area can cause great damage to the weaker residents of these areas. This phenomenon, which has been observed for years in India, China, large parts of Latin America and Africa, has now reached the northern regions. Last year’s storms and heavy rains that led to flooding in Germany and Belgium affected only a limited number of states but caused the flooding and destruction of homes of the lower social classes in these countries. Dozens of wildfires are burning across the prairies and forests of the western United States in September 2020. The largest fires have affected the three states of Washington, Oregon, and California. The fires are now being fanned by strong winds. The largest wildfires in the western United States California wildfires: California recorded its hottest day on record this year, with temperatures reaching 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius). The original fire was ignited by lightning on August 17 and grew into the state’s largest wildfire in the following weeks, furled by strong winds. Six of the 20 largest fires in state history have occurred this year. The “August Series” of 37 smaller fires later became the largest wildfire in California history. This period of fires, known as megafires, is characterized by its length and the presence of tornadoes. The fires in the western United States began on August 17 and ended on September 5. Strong winds have caused a wildfire in Washington state to spread rapidly, prompting evacuations. California wildfires have increased eightfold since the 1970s. “Climate change isn’t just making the heat waves that fuel wildfires worse,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA who studies wildfires. “The bigger, more important effect is happening under the skin: “A gradual warming, a few degrees of average temperature increase over a few decades… you don’t feel it that much, but it’s still there in the background, taking moisture from the soil and the forest floor and the grasslands.” It’s not just the US that’s been experiencing such climate changes in recent years. The Russian Arctic has seen record-breaking heat in 2020, and fires caused by these extreme temperatures have destroyed parts of the Siberian taiga forests. The smoke from these fires has also released millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further increasing global temperatures. On June 20, 2020, one of the coldest cities in the world made headlines when temperatures hit 38 degrees Celsius. This was a record for the city of Verkhoyansk, located in the Yakutia region of northeastern Russia. It was also the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic Circle. Researchers at the World Meteorological Organization confirmed that in some places, temperatures in May were more than ten degrees above average. It wasn’t just May that was very warm. Throughout the winter and spring, researchers saw repeated periods of above-average temperatures. The vast Siberian region has always experienced significant fluctuations, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a program supported by the European Commission, but “it is unusual that these high temperatures persisted for such a long time.” Meteorologists at the Russian Hydrocenter, the state agency for weather analysis and forecasting, also confirmed this. They say the first half of 2020 was the warmest six months of the year since temperature records began, going back 130 years. The immediate consequences of climate change and global warming are widespread forest and grassland fires (the recent fires in California and Australia are vivid examples; 2021 was also full of extreme weather conditions. Summer floods in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany were one of dozens of examples), desertification of parts of the world, sinking of coastlines, severe droughts accompanied by torrential rains, and the death of large numbers of coral reefs. But this is not the only factor, other factors that are themselves affected by global warming and its atmosphere have become independent factors that expand the entire process of environmental destruction. Fires usually start in May and peak in July and August, but in April 2020, fires that were 10 times larger than last year’s fires broke out in the Sakha region (Yakutia Republic), located in Russia. As the Siberian forests in northern Russia experience unprecedented heat, researchers say the Arctic Circle saw a new heat record on Saturday (38 degrees Celsius). The European Union’s satellite system (Copernicus Institute for Climate Change) confirmed on January 10, 2022, that the past seven years have been the hottest on record. Western Australia has been hit by massive bushfires this month. A blaze near Margaret River has burned more than 6,000 hectares of land, forcing people to evacuate their homes and flee. Earlier this year, weather models predicted a La Nina weather event in the Pacific Ocean in 2022. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (US), the upcoming winter in the United States, especially in the southern states, will be relatively warm. Therefore, the possibility of drought in the southwestern states of the US in the summer is not far-fetched. These conditions could be a breeding ground for dangerous fires in the summer and fall of 2022. Global warming is expected to continue throughout 2022, with the polar ice caps melting more rapidly. In this regard, a new study (published on August 11, 2022) shows that the northern region of the planet has warmed four times faster than other regions of the planet over the past 40 years. The warming of this region, known as the Arctic, which includes the areas around the North Pole, affects sea levels. This figure shows that the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated in 2019 that temperatures in the Arctic region are rising “more than twice the global average” due to its unique climate characteristics. Although researchers agree that the Arctic is warming faster than other parts of the world, their estimates of this phenomenon vary depending on the time period and geographical area of the Arctic studied. Experts from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believe that sea levels have risen by 20 centimetres compared to 1900. This is despite the fact that the rate of sea level rise has almost tripled since 1990. Ocean and sea levels are expected to rise another 40 to 85 centimetres by the end of this century. Meanwhile, the Greenland ice cap, which researchers say is approaching its melting point, alone contains a volume of frozen water that, if melted, could raise ocean levels by up to six meters, far more than the United Nations estimated in 2019.
Major and catastrophic changes in the water and water vapor circulation system over the Amazon
The Amazon rainforest has approximately 400 billion large and small plants and a complex climate mechanism of its own. This complex, in a specific harmony and complex organic connection, emits 20 billion tons of water vapor and clouds every day, which causes the phenomenon of “rain in the forest” and a river flowing in the space between and above the plants, which is much larger, more voluminous and heavier than the Amazon River on Earth. This phenomenon, similar to it but on a smaller scale in the forests of Congo, Liberia and Ivory Coast, is the main reason for the name rainforest. One of the wonders of this phenomenon is that during times of drought, water scarcity and low humidity, the amount of water and vapor that transpire increases. Annual deforestation over several decades (in the last two decades, about one million square kilometers of Amazon forests have entered the capital cycle; in 2019 alone, 200,000 square kilometers were destroyed, which is about 3% more than in 2018) has caused this harmonious ecosystem to be torn apart and fragmented. Large parts of this harmonious rainforest system have been lost for centuries. The disruption in this system has caused large areas of Brazil, Peru, and even California and Texas to become dry in recent decades (more on that later). Researchers estimate that the loss of 25 percent of the Amazon rainforest would cause the rainforest to die and stop. Some say we have already reached this point. In 2015, the space river stopped flowing, leaving the great city of São Paulo without water, leading to riots by millions of people and the poor living on the outskirts. One recent phenomenon that has occurred in the wake of this drought and low humidity is the reduction in the water levels of the rivers surrounding the city, which has caused phosphates and chemicals from industrial and agricultural wastewater to crystallize into foam several meters above the water level of the riverbed. Now let’s turn to Africa, but before that, let’s say that the above phenomenon and the disruption caused by the capitalization of the forests of this continent have also severely affected nature, the human environment and animals. However, in the case of this continent, we will discuss the resurgence of the Malaria epidemic, a monster that seemed to have lifted the shadow of death from the inhabitants of this continent. The Asian water dragonfly is an insect from the dragonfly family that lays eggs in the rice fields of India. When the monsoon rains reach the southern coast of India, this insect takes flight and travels between the two continents at an altitude of 1,500 meters in the Earth’s atmosphere, along with the humidity of the Indian Ocean, and due to its extremely high ability to fly long distances (this insect, with a length of approximately four centimeters, can fly more than seven thousand kilometers continuously). In the vast, humid river that flows like the Amazon between India and southeast Africa across the Indian Ocean, dragonflies travel about 4,000 kilometers in a week. The Amazon creates seasonal ponds, lakes, and wetlands in the African plains, where the insects lay their eggs. The young of these insects feed on the metamorphosing babies of malaria mosquitoes. Now, as this spatial river has undergone changes due to global warming and, more importantly, as India’s industrial agriculture uses more and more pesticides to combat insects and small animals, both of these have contributed to the decline in the number of waterfowl and the resurgence and spread of the malaria epidemic in recent years. According to the World Health Organization, in recent years, between 200 and 300 million people are infected with malaria annually, of which about 400,000 people die, making the malaria epidemic the fifth largest in the world among the ten major epidemics. A researcher from Kenya reported in early 2021 that “We started organizing periodic trips to Kenya in 1984, and we have returned regularly over the years. The weather there has been changing regularly between dry and rainy seasons. Everything used to be predictable. Now the weather is much more unpredictable. In Nairobi, when we were there in 2016, five years of drought had been replaced by rain and extreme cold. In general, researchers believe that dry areas are getting drier and rainy areas are getting wetter. In northern Kenya, Lake Turkana has dried up”. The decline in the number of water dragonflies due to the increasing use of insecticides and its impact on the increase in the malaria-carrying insect is just one factor in the increase in the incidence of this epidemic and its mortality. Other factors are affecting this increase. On World Malaria Day on April 25, 2022, the World Health Organization announced. Climate change and rising temperatures in various parts of the world will mean the spread of this disease in areas where there was no sign of it before. “Increasing temperatures will make mosquitoes more capable of transmitting the malaria parasite and spreading the disease,” says Dr Isabel Fletcher, technical director of scientific information at the Wellcome Trust. Climate change will make more parts of the world more suitable for malaria-carrying mosquitoes to live,” she warns. “As the world warms, malaria is expected to spread to higher elevations in the world that have previously been too cold for the disease to spread.” Researchers warn that in addition to rising temperatures, increased rainfall and humidity, and even droughts, will lead to a rapid increase in malaria-carrying mosquitoes in areas where the disease has never been seen before. “Research shows that in countries in the Caribbean and Brazil that have had periods of drought, people have been storing more water. Storing water creates a good habitat for mosquitoes. That’s why we may see an increase in dengue transmission even in drought conditions,” says Dr. Fletcher. The concern is that if this factor increases the incidence of dengue fever, there is a similar possibility for malaria.