(This article originally appeared in Socialist Action Winter 1997)
Why does Socialist Action devote space in each edition of its paper to looking at environmental problems? Certainly there are those who believe that environmental issues are little more than a distraction from the real-life, bread and butter battles that pit workers against the capitalist system.
Some critics on the left argue that environmental questions should be left to future generations that will possess technological capabilities far beyond those of today, notwithstanding the potential severity of the environmental problems that we now face. They argue that our main goal as workers should be to fight to preserve and create jobs, improve working conditions and to ultimately overturn the present capitalist economic system based on private greed and the profit motive, and replace it with a socialist economy based on satisfying the needs of all.
But is it true that as workers we really have no interest in protecting our environment from the ravages of an economic system that places private profit ahead of public welfare? Is it impossible to have both a healthy environment and create more jobs? Ultimately, can environmental and labour interests be reconciled in the interests of all?
It may be possible that future generations will have more advanced technologies to better deal with some of today's environmental problems. But the tragic fact remains that we cannot ignore today's environmental problems and trends until some undetermined future date when the forces of socialism have triumphed internationally. By then we may have passed the threshold beyond which it will be impossible to correct many of the world's most severe environmental disasters.
This point is illustrated in the examples below which outline the pace at which some of these problems (i.e., deforestation and global warming) are mounting and why we must take concerted action before it is too late. They also demonstrate the links between environmental and economic problems, and outline employment alternatives that can protect the interests of the labour movement.
Global Deforestation and Its Consequences
Forests once covered 40 percent of the earth's surface. This has been reduced to 27 percent, mostly since 1950, primarily because forests have been cut to expand cropland, build cattle ranches and extract timber to feed growing world demand for wood. Between 1980 and 1990, 9.95 million net hectares of forest were cut world wide annually — an area about the size of South Korea. In Canada, we are cutting as much as one million hectares of forest annually, most of which is clear-cut in our northern boreal forests.
Why are forests important to us, aside from the economic benefits we derive from their use-values in the timber and pulp and paper industries? The world's forests play a crucial role in the environmental sphere in two particular ways. First, forests provide an important source of biodiversity, i.e., plants and animals. While the amount of biodiversity in tropical rainforests is much higher than in temperate forests, the loss of biodiversity in temperate regions is nonetheless significant. Although reforestation projects in temperate climates like Canada have shown signs of potential success on a macro level, reforestation tends to be in the form of monoculture tree farms that are not nearly as high in biodiversity as in an ecologically complex natural forest.
Second, forests perform an important climate modifying role by regulating the amount of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere. The world's forests as a whole absorb a net total of roughly 1.5 billion tons of carbon each year. That is equivalent to one quarter of the carbon released by fossil fuel combustion.
Many aspects of the natural world tend to operate in a symbiotic or positive feedback relationship in which the occurrence of one phenomena will have a positive impact on another phenomena, further increasing its impact. In the case of global forests, if global warming accelerates (see below), large areas of forest may die as temperatures rise. This will cause billions of tons of additional carbon to be released into the atmosphere, further accelerating the process of climate change and global warming.
Jobs and the Canadian Forest Industry
Forests also play a vital role in the economies of modern industrial society, directly through the jobs created in the timber extraction and pulp and paper industries and indirectly through the spin-off jobs created to service this sector. In British Columbia, for example, the forest industry is the province's number one economic sector. However, if the present rate of timber cutting continues, Canada's entire temperate forest will be gone in 10 years and with it the jobs of tens of thousands of Canadian workers.
In British Columbia, the spring and summer of 1997 was once again dominated by conflicts between environmentalists trying to protect areas of unlogged old growth forests and forest workers determined to protect their jobs and livelihoods. Timber workers are understandably upset and concerned because major technological changes in the method of timber cutting have already drastically reduced the number of workers employed in the forest industry in the past decade.
Employment in the forest sector will inevitably continue to decline if the trend to larger and more mechanized clear-cut logging machines continues. Clear-cut logging is destroying millions of acres of forest unnecessarily and simultaneously putting thousands of loggers out of work. By contrast selective logging practices, demonstrated to be both environmentally sensitive and more labour intensive, could be used effectively in the Canadian forest industry. This would ensure that we maintain a continuous stock of lumber for the future and that jobs continue to exist in the forest industry. Unfortunately, forest industry workers have not yet understood that their present struggles to maintain jobs using the existing capital-intensive technology will inevitably lead to the destruction of their entire industry over the coming decade.
Global Warming and Its Consequences
"Global warming" is in the news on a regular basis. But what does it really mean to us in our everyday lives? Do we even believe that it exists? To be sure, many people doubt its existence, especially after living through a winter in which record low temperatures were achieved. But yes, sad to say, it is now an accepted scientific fact that the earth's temperature is rising and that as the temperature rises there will be associated, serious environmental and socio-economic impacts. What do the scientific experts have to say?
In a report released in December 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that the observed warming of the earth's surface is "unlikely to be entirely natural in origin". The dominant human influence on climate is the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, released largely by the burning of fossil fuels to produce electricity and to fuel the transportation industry.
In 1995, we saw average global temperatures set a new record high. The earth's surface in the 20th century has experienced the fastest warming since the end of the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago — and the 10 hottest years in recorded human history have all occurred in the '80s and '90s.
Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have grown 30 percent since fossil fuel burning began with the Industrial Revolution. The IPCC predicts that if carbon emissions continue to increase at their present rate, which will double the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by the end of the next century, average global temperatures could increase by another 1-3.5 degrees Celsius. This may not seem to be significant but in real terms it means an average temperature increase of between 7 and 19 percent, a figure that could have catastrophic implications for future human life on the planet.
The Impacts of Global Warming
Scientists are not just concerned about warmer temperatures, but more so their impact on other natural phenomena. For instance, a warmer world will result in rising sea levels, more frequent floods and droughts, and an increase in the number and severity of hurricanes, all of which would create major social and economic disruptions. These fears are illustrated by the massive flooding in Manitoba this spring, the largest flood in the province in the past 100 years, and the recent flood of the Oder River in Germany, again one of the largest in recorded memory.
The IPCC also predicts that if sea levels continue to rise at their current pace most of the beaches on the East Coast of the United States will disappear during the next 25 years. Similar impacts can be expected on Canada's East Coast, decimating a thriving summer tourist industry and further depressing an already distressed Maritime economy.
Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Global emissions of carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) hit a new peak in 1995 (the most recent available data) at 6.06 billion tons — Canada's share of carbon dioxide emissions in 1995 was a seemingly insignificant 500 megatonnes. However, on a per capita basis Canada ranks as one of the world's four worst carbon dioxide emitters.
The United States is the world's largest source of carbon emissions (1.4 billion tons in 1995) and also the highest emitter per capita at 5.25 tons of carbon per year; its per capita emissions are more than seven times those of China, and 25 times those of India. Carbon emissions in developing countries are rising quickly — in 1994 developing countries accounted for an estimated 40 percent of total global carbon emissions, up from 30 percent in 1990.
If concrete action is not taken immediately, global carbon emissions could reach 7 billion tons by 2000 and 8 billion tones by 2010 with dire environmental consequences, according to International Energy Agency predictions. However, the leading Western industrialized nations have been unable (i.e., unwilling) to set and enforce concrete emission reduction targets. Each capitalist government is primarily concerned with safeguarding the "international competitiveness" of its own industries, ahead of the long-term interests of its own population and that of the rest of the world. Consequently, rhetorical statements of support for environmental initiatives by Western capitalist politicians are given little credibility by the peoples of the Less Developed Countries (LDCs).
Jobs In The Energy Sector
It is already technically and economically feasible to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This goal can be achieved by replacing today's carbon-intensive fossil fuels with natural gas and renewable energy sources and by improving energy efficiency. These changes in our economy with respect to our choice of energy and how we employ it need not come at the expense of jobs. It is true that different energy sources require different labour skills but the overall effect of a switch to natural gas and a greater commitment to energy efficiency will be an overall increase in employment in the energy sector.
Investment in renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy (e.g., photovoltaics) creates far more jobs than the equivalent financial investment in the traditional fossil fuel industries. It is crucial that we not fight to maintain jobs in the traditional dirty fossil fuel and nuclear industries just because these happen to be traditional bastions of organized labour. To the contrary, we should ensure that new jobs are created in the clean, renewable energy sector and that these new jobs be unionized. Re-training schemes can ensure that workers in today's energy sector are employed in tomorrow's clean energy industries. This eliminates the futile opposition between labour and environmentalists in the energy industry. Both employment and the environment prosper.
This discussion has focused on forests and climate to demonstrate that jobs and a healthier environment do not have to be either/or choices. There are many other examples that we could use to arrive at the same conclusion, such as the ongoing crisis in our fishing industry on the East and West coasts. It is possible to achieve a healthier environment and jobs for all but this requires planning to achieve. That is the major crux of the problem. In a capitalist economy, each and every individual owner of capital is free to deploy his/her own capital in the pursuit of the highest profit possible. And workers and the environment be damned if their interests do not mesh with those of capital!
The crucial point for workers is that we must wake up to the idea that it is in our own immediate and long-term interests to protect our environment. If we do not do it, the capitalists will destroy every last inch of earth in their insatiable quest for profit.
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