By Emma Webb
(Continuation of a debate)
Diana Evans (Green Left, April 13) says that in my earlier article I put the environment at the end of what she refers to as a wish list of human needs (health care, education etc). Contrary to this, she says, AESP "does put the environment first".
She has missed the point. We can't simply say environment number one, then health, followed closely by education, housing, employment etc. When we talk about priorities, the starting point is whether a society puts profits, or people and the environment first. The answer to the question "What is an ecologically sustainable population ?" is primarily determined by the social conditions of the people who make up the population. Environmental and social issues can not be separated: environmental and social justice come together or they don't come at all.
In Brazil, for instance, governments have tried to solve enormous environmental and social problems through population control measures. Women have been victimised, blamed for what is actually a problem of land ownership. The World Health Organisation has estimated that 45% of Brazilian women of child-bearing age have been sterilised, yet many would argue that Brazil still has a population problem.
The reality is that in Brazil 2% of landowners own 60% of the land. Peasants are forced to live off tiny plots of increasingly over-farmed land. The rest of the fertile land lies idle or is used for cash crops to pay off unfair debts. There is enough land in Brazil to sustain the population — if it were equitably distributed.
Four-fifths of the world's population live in poverty. How do we change this situation short of raising the standard of living in the Third World and without drastically changing the way in which decisions regarding production are made?
Diana says that standard of living is part of the problem. She says that all people have a negative impact on the environment because, "Even relatively poor people in Australia have homes, take showers, drive cars, buy packaged food, clothes, soap" etc.
We live in a wasteful society — one that squanders resources in the pursuit of profit. The fact that we eat or take showers is not the problem. The problem is that a small minority decides how food is produced and packaged, whether clothes are made from synthetic or natural fibres and so on. Big business makes these decisions in accordance with what will bring in the greatest profit, and without regard for the environment.
US ecologist Barry Commoner found that pollution levels increased by over 1000% in the 20 years after World War II. The increases in population and levels of consumption were not dramatic enough to explain such significant increases in pollution. What did change was the nature of the technology and the raw materials. This was a decision made by US big business.
When we talk about "people" causing environmental destruction, are we talking about Brazilian peasants, workers at a Mitsubishi plant, or the owners of BHP and Western Mining?
Diana Evans says that even left-wing internationalism ignores the environment. I would say that solidarity with people and their liberation movements all over the world is crucial now more than ever in order to confront the global environmental crisis. Using the example of Brazil again, instead of blaming the dispossessed peasant population we should be actively supporting the Brazilian Workers Party in its efforts to bring about fundamental social change.
Diana says that the only way we in Australia can have an impact on the world is "to remove ourselves from the capitalist/consumerist/exploitative global economic treadmill" and "trust that our example of a conserver rather than a consumer society would influence others".
Is this intended to be taken seriously? The world is in ecological crisis because, through some unfortunate accident, no-one has happened to set a good example? Brazilian landowners deprive peasants of land because they don't know any better?
And does Diana think that Packer, Murdoch, BHP, Western Mining and all the other Australian multinationals would happily sit back and observe our example as we somehow disconnected ourselves from the rest of the planet?
This doesn't mean that we have to wait for a world revolution before tackling environmental problems. Obviously we need to act locally, in the sense that we run campaigns in our own country and city. But we have to understand the global nature of the crisis, the need to link up with other movements in other countries and the need for the environmental movement to make alliances with other social movements. We need to recognise that solutions to particular environmental problems under capitalism are not enough to solve the overall crisis. And that is true of almost any conceivable reduction in population numbers.
If we are talking about global solutions, "de-developing into small interactive communities" is a very unrealistic ask of Third World communities. Diana talks of small communities producing their own clothes, food, housing and so on in labour-intensive ways. There is a tendency to romanticise this sort of production.
Many communities in Third World countries already produce what little clothing, food and housing they have in very labour-intensive and often environmentally destructive ways. This is one of the main reasons they have large families; a larger family means more available labour.
In the First World too, it is unrealistic to expect people to work harder and longer for less when their standard of living is already declining. Moreover, people do not need to live like that.
If we were to follow the de-development that Diana and ecologists such as Ted Trainer advocate, with the current world population we would not be able to meet the needs of people. And isolated, labour-intensive communities would never be able to create the scientific and technical means to repair the damage already done.
The environmental crisis puts a time limit on social justice struggles, but it certainly doesn't reduce their importance. It makes it more crucial than ever that dialogue and joint actions between green and left movements continue and that strong alliances are built nationally and internationally to ensure a global solution to the crisis facing our planet.