Searching for hope in Pandora’s Box

Where we are…

At the beginning of the 21st Century the Planet Earth’s human population’s outlook is one of increasing pessimism and fear; living in a world of increased instability, barbarism and environmental degradation. The contrast with the turn of the 20th Century is significant. An era of unbridled optimism in the never-ending progress of humanity - through the harnessing of science, rationality and technology to achieve mastery over nature thereby delivering mankind freedom from hunger and want - was reaching its apogee. Although the Romantics had already protested genteelly through poetry and literature against the loss of a more serene and noble time unpopulated by industry, proletariats, railways, and urbanisation, it was the horrifying mechanisation of slaughter in the muddy trenches of the First World War which punctured the utopian belief in the potential of modernity.

Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm, called the “short century” that followed the Age of Extremes.[1] A century of unprecedented and accelerating innovation and change that exemplified both the latent promise of modernity and its contradictions or even dark corollary:

· major breakthroughs in health, medicine and treatment of diseases, the discovery of DNA, reductions in infant/ maternal mortality rates, antibiotics and contraception, as well as super bugs, cloning and genetic modification;

· the growth in liberal democracy and universal suffrage, the end of colonialism, the promise of the United Nations and human-rights protection, multiculturalism, as well as the rise of virulent nationalisms, fascism, Stalinism, genocides and the Holocaust;

· unequalled progress in science, technology and electronics, the computer and internet, mass media, assembly lines, the automobile, jet aeroplanes, cheap consumer goods, household appliances, as well as depleted uranium, cluster bombs, nuclear warfare and climate change;

· increased global affluence and the rise of a globalised economy and consumer culture, as well as increasing inequality and recurrent famine.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, estimated that the total of “lives deliberately extinguished by politically motivated carnage” during this time was between 167-175 million.[2] The nature of war has also insidiously changed. At the turn of the century 90% of casualties were military combatants, by the end of the century 90% were civilians[3] - 40% of those children.[4] However, militarism and war should not only be measured in death and mutilation but lost opportunities as another generation is brutalised, with millions of hours and dollars spent researching better ways to kill and maim. The wasted resources, never mind the misery inflicted, is staggering. Last year the world spent $1,035 billion on military budgets alone[5]. While, for half a century, we have lived under the shadow of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) in a world with an estimated 29,000 nuclear weapons,[6] during which the planet and atmosphere has had to absorb 2046 known nuclear tests.[7] The impact of war on the environment is catastrophic. A scattered snapshot shows that; the United States, in the Viet Nam War, sprayed 70 million litres of Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides over 1.7 million hectares of countryside. By the end of the war 1/5 of South Viet Nam’s forests had been annihilated and a 1/3 of its mangrove forests were dead. Much of the land is still scrubby grassland while the consequence in humans has been appalling birth defects due to the dioxins which still linger in breast milk, blood and fat. In the first Gulf War the burning of Kuwaiti oil fields released an estimated 10 million cubic metres of oil.[8] While the use of highly toxic depleted uranium has left a deadly legacy with a half-life of 4.5 billion years in the Balkans and Gulf Region.[9]

The massive numbers of refugees created by war also further impacts on the environment with extra stress on water and deforestation. In central-Africa Rwandan refugees deforested some 300 square kilometres of land surrounding and in the Virunga National Park[10] in only 6 months, taking between 410 and 770 tonnes of forest products each day while searching for food and wood. Poaching and illegal logging are also often used to help fund guerilla armies.[11] Although famine, natural disasters, and increasingly environmental degradation, as well as war create refugees it is sobering to note that in the 1960s the UN listed 1.4 million international refugees.[12] In 2004 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported the number of people “of concern” was 19.2 million (including 9.2 million international refugees and 5.6 million internally displaced persons).[13] Conversely there is also the increasing prospect of environmental degradation and scarcity of natural resources providing the trigger for conflict, in particular over water - described as the “oil of the future” or “blue gold”.[14] Kofi A. Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, states; “Safeguarding the environment is one of the foundations of peace and security.”[15]

One can only speculate at the amount of good that could come of redirecting this money towards alleviating poverty; providing clean water, sanitation and family planning programs; as well as the development and implementation of an alternative energy program.[16] As former U.S. president Dweight D. Eisenhower, reflected in 1953; “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies... a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”[17]

The 20th Century was also the American Century as the United States suffered and capitalised on the First World War, W.W.II and Cold War rising to the world’s sole hegemonic power after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. The ‘triumph’ of the U.S. and free-market capitalism over ‘actually existing Socialism’ was trumpeted as the “end of history”. Not the end of events as such but, the pinnacle of “ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of government.”[18]

At the beginning of the 21st Century, bellicose neoconservatives within the current George W. Bush administration, saturated with contemporary visions of Manifest Destiny and neoliberal open-door capitalism, are attempting to consolidate this unipolar New World Order. This is made explicit by the Project For A New American Century, a right-wing think tank comprising of numerous prominent politicians and powerful businessmen (such as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, etc.), whose "fundamental propositions" are "American leadership is good both for America and for the world". Asserting that the US should through “military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle” seek to “preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the pre-eminence of O.S. military forces".[19] In 2003 America had 702 known overseas bases in some 130 countries, occupied by 253,288 uniformed personnel and an equal number of dependants and Department of Defense civilian officials.[20] However, American pre-eminence is not only proposed for here on Earth but also the new ‘international commons’ of space and cyberspace. The hope for environmental issues seem bleak with the oil and automobile industries major donors to the Republican campaign funds and prominent administration staff maintaining significant ties to both industries, not least the president himself, but also Dick Cheney (Vice President), Spencer Abraham (Secretary of Energy), Gale Norton (Secretary of Interior), Condaleeza Rice (National Security Adviser) and Don Evans (Secretary of Commerce) to name only a few.[21] The refusal to recognise climate change as little more than a debatable theory (never mind ratifying the Kyoto Agreement), the attempt to change legislation (twice) to drill for oil reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the passing of the Clear Skies Initiative (which opponents argue allows utilities to pollute more than they currently do) as well as the Healthy Forests Initiative (described as a give-away to the timber industry) are indicative of the administration’s industry ties and environmental priorities.

Unsurprisingly the global economic architecture has ostensibly been shaped by the United States, through the development of the post-Second World War Bretton Woods financial institutions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Bank. These institution’s agenda has been the global spread of neoliberal (or laissez-faire) capitalism, ever increasing international trade and the transnational liberalisation of markets. This has led to the exponential growth in power and reach of multinational companies. The resultant massive flow of capital and commodities across borders at the end of the 20th Century and beginning of the 21st Century is commonly referred to as economic globalisation. This combined with the digital and information technology revolution[22] has intrinsically linked the economic, technological, political and cultural spheres in new ways; as each is challenged and remade in a time of massive flux. There is much debate as to whether globalisation is something qualitatively or quantitatively different, if it is a positive or negative force, or if it has its own inherent logic. The spread of satellite television, air travel and the internet has collapsed the world’s traditional conceptual understanding of temporal-spatial dynamics. While the power of the nation state, the traditional unit of political organisation, it is argued, has been eroded as the forces of globalisation combine with old and newly perceived threats that fail to recognise borders: terrorism, refugees and immigration, the illegal drug trade, environmental pollution and climate change.

In ideologies as divergent as Marxism, conservatism, and most shades of liberalism the belief that sustained economic growth is not only a good thing but the only way to solve the world’s chronic problems of poverty, inequality, development, health, education and now even environmental issues is axiomatic. The global economic orthodoxy of neoliberalism is presented as not only an ideologically neutral economic theory but also, as it is based on rational value-free objectivity, the best prescription for human progress. As David Korten states; “Perhaps no single idea is more deeply embedded in modern political culture than the belief that economic growth is the key to alleviating poverty & protecting the environment.”[23]

At the core of neoliberalism is the belief that the unregulated market will result in the optimal allocation of resources in society. Through economic globalisation, worker ‘flexibility’ and deregulation competition and efficiency will lower consumer prices and increase consumer choice, leading to increased economic growth, more opportunities and more jobs. Government’s new and only legitimate role is to provide the infrastructure to help facilitate the smooth running of markets and enforce the rule of law regarding property rights and contracts. Services and industries previously run by governments will be run more efficiently by the private sector. In fact it is argued, by some, that the market is “a far more democratic form of organisation” as “their mechanisms of supply and demand, poll and focus group, superstore and Internet, markets manage to express the popular will more articulately and meaningfully than do mere elections.”[24] Although there may be inequality even the poorest will benefit as wealth permeates downwards through the ‘trickle down’ theory. Less explicit is also the elimination of the ‘public good’ or ‘community’ and replacement with ‘individual responsibility’. Social responsibility is inefficient when corporations and nations are trying to maintain competitive advantage which leads to a “race to the bottom” as environmental and workers rights are eroded.

I would argue, however, that to say neoliberal theories are apolitical is a dangerous fallacy as the underlying political and ideological agenda in these theories, often underpinned by crude social-Darwinism, and its impact in reality are far from abstract. Not only do they ascribe principles to the market but also build on assumptions about people. Namely that humans are primarily, if not only, motivated by self-interest and greed; this is expressed through the pursuit of financial gain; the most important goal, for an individual or firm, is gaining the greatest financial reward; competitive behaviour is innate and more rational than co-operation (both in business and personal relationships), and therefore society should be based on competition, while human progress is measured in the value of what is consumed.[25]

Consumerism: a new secular “religion”

It is fair to say that capitalism and the ideology of consumerism, its secular concomitant ‘religion’, has penetrated nearly every aspect of modern society. As Murray Bookchin states; “The commodity has now colonised every aspect of life, rendering what was once a capitalist economy into a capitalist culture.”[26]

“Before we are even born to the moment we die every aspect of our life is exploited and commercialised. Nothing is off limits. Why is the talk of projecting advertising on the moon anymore disgusting than seeing branding on our kids? Like the branding of cattle, our children branded in to lifetime consumers.

The newsreels run and we are shocked at seeing the young brainwashed children in China carrying Mao's Little Red Book but think it is choice when our children, after years of advertising, decide on what they want to buy and clothes to wear: then subsequently which car/ computer/ lifestyle to aspire to.

• The average child in the United States, Australia and the UK sees between 20-40,000 commercials a year.

Whereas we used to create religious rituals around our lives natural events we now mark life with a series of orgies of consumerism.”[27]

Consumerism is more than just buying objects or services needed to get by (food, shelter, clothes, plus the odd personal treat) it has become “...a principal mode of self-expression; consumerism became a common language through which we ‘read’ or ‘interpret’ shared cultural signs. This pattern accelerated after World War II, such that the second half of the twentieth century has witnessed an unprecedented growth of consumerism, and the experience of participation and membership in society today is increasingly contingent on habits of consumption.”[28]

This has been a relatively modern phenomena as “buying habits had to be transformed and luxuries... made into necessities.”[29] Mass media would play a huge part in this transformation. Richard Robbins, in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, states;

“The goal of the advertisers was to aggressively shape consumer desires and create value in commodities by imbuing them with the power to transform the consumer into a more desirable person... In 1880, only $30 million was invested in advertising in the United States; by 1910, new businesses, such as oil, food, electricity and rubber, were spending $600 million, or 4 percent of the national income, on advertising. Today that figure has climbed to well over $120 billion in the United States...”[30]

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in the Human Development Report 1998 Overview, also noted with alarm;

“Globalisation is integrating not just trade, investment and financial markets. It is also integrating consumer markets... [Economically, ] there is fierce competition to sell to consumers world-wide, with increasingly aggressive advertising.

On the social side local and national boundaries are breaking down in the setting of social standards and aspirations in consumption. Market research identifies “global elites” and “global middle classes” who follow the same consumption styles, showing preferences for “global brands”. There are the “global teens” — some 270 million 15- to 18-year-olds in 40 countries — inhabiting a “global space”, a single pop-culture world, soaking up the same videos and music and providing a huge market for designer running shoes, t-shirts and jeans.

...At the same time the consumer receives a flood of information through commercial advertising. An average American, it is estimated, sees 150,000 advertisements on television in his or her lifetime. And advertising is increasing world-wide, faster than population or incomes. Global advertising spending, by the most conservative reckoning, is now $435 billion.”[31]

Which begs the question: is it the market that adapts to changes in consumer behaviour (the neoliberal core premiss) or is it the markets that create the consumer? One can again only speculate as to the impact this money, spent to convince people to buy things they often do not need and increasingly go into debt to buy, would have if used to fund education, scientific research or in helping to bridge the digital divide.

The neoliberal orthodoxy gained ascendancy in the 1980s under the governments of Reagan and Thatcher, however, it was not just the right who have had to embrace the ideology of free markets. As Thomas Frank in The Rise of Market Populism: America's New Secular Religion argues; this state of affairs has meant we are “...in the grip of an intellectual consensus every bit as ironclad as that of the 1950s. Across the spectrum... The leaders of the left parties, both here and in Britain, accommodated themselves to the free-market faith and made spectacular public renunciations of their historic principles. The opposition was ceasing to oppose, but the market was now safe, its supposedly endless array of choice substituting for the lack of choice on the ballot.”[32]

Indicative of the triumphalism of the neoliberal ideologues, New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman described this lack of political options as the “golden straitjacket”. “While once ‘people thought’ there were ways to order human affairs other than through the free market, Friedman insisted, those choices now no longer existed. ‘I don't think there will be an alternative ideology this time around,’ he wrote in August 1998. ‘There are none.’”[33]

The failure of what’s left of the Left

The traditional left, with its roots in socialism and Marxism, was seriously discredited when the repressive Stalinist regimes fell with the Berlin Wall. Although it is possible to argue that it was guilt by association, the identity crisis this engendered led to a radical overhaul of the original parties of labour. The new left resurrected itself as the capital-friendly party of compassionate neoliberalism. Jettisoning class struggle along with much of its core traditional beliefs and much of its credibility in the eyes of its electoral base, the working class. This does not mean it has not succeeded in its parliamentary aims of winning elections or that its traditional voters necessarily vote differently, rather that the left as a true oppositional force is seriously compromised. Arguably the best example is Tony Blair’s New Labour government in the United Kingdom. In fact it is within this void left by a credible left that the ultra-right in the guise of the British National Party (BNP) has gained ground.

The left arguably has not only failed those it is supposed to represent, the poor and the oppressed internationally, but it is questionable as to whether the traditional left is capable of challenging the ecological crises we are facing. Despite both socialism and much of environmental thought being critical of capitalism there seems less common ground than one would at first expect and hope for. It goes beyond the catastrophic environmental record of the old Eastern European ‘socialist’ countries or ‘Maoist’ China today, with their centralised government control, to the relationship of humans and the natural world. At the heart of the socialist project is productivist ethic and a growth orientated world view. Believing that capitalism is a necessary stage in the historical march to a communist society. Ultimately continued economic growth (again through the conquest of nature and its use as a raw material) will provide mankind’s liberation. Only with the means of production controlled by the dictatorship of the proletariat rather than the ruling class. As Trotsky wrote; “The very purpose of communism is to subject nature to technique and technique to plan, and compel the raw materials to give... everything to man that he needs.”[34] The belief that nature is little more than a resource, an economic input, indeed shares more in common with capitalism than an ecologically grounded ontology: where the natural world has a right to exist independent and apart from its human-use value.

Much of the working class understands Green politics as a distinctly middle class concern. The disconnect reflected in socialist protest singer Billy Bragg’s lyrical reflection:

“Sometimes I think to myself:

Should I vote red for my class or green for our children?”[35]

Whether the chasm can be bridged through a theory that synthesises long-term ecological viability and distributive policies remains to be seen.

It would seem that it has never been needed more. Despite what neoliberal globalisation promises the reality it delivers is an unconscionable and growing inequality within and between nations. Approximately 1 billion of the world’s population today lives on less than $1 a day,[36] calculated on purchasing power parity half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day.[37] In 1992, the top 20% of nations took 82.7% of the world’s income the bottom 20% only 1.4% (in fact the bottom 60% adds up to a mere 5.6%). In 1950 when the development process began the top 20% had 30 times the income of the bottom 20%, by 1989 this had grown to 60 times.[38] These figures, however, hide the true level of inequality. When the UNDP based calculations on individual incomes the top 20% earned 150 times the lowest 20%. If this was not bad enough; when the top 20% is analysed it shows that in 1989 the top 20% of American household earned an average income of $109,424, however, households in the 80-90th percentiles received on average a relatively modest $65,900 - those in the top 1% averaged $559,795. Receiving as a group more total income than the bottom 40% of all Americans.[39] A situation replicated to a greater or lesser degree around the world. With the combined wealth of the world’s 200 richest people over $1 trillion in 1999; when the combined incomes of the 582 million people living in the 43 least developed countries totals $146 billion.[40] While the “First World” appeases some of its guilt by handing out aid to the poor - the developing world (in 1997) spent $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it received in grants.[41]

Today every second child is born in to poverty. In 2000, UNICEF reported that 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. They “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”[42] This added up to a total of 10.6 million children under the age of 5 in 2003.[43] While 790 million people in the developing world are chronically malnourished,[44] 30% of American adults over 20 years old or 60 million adults are obese.[45] 1.3 billion people have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no access to sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity.[46] In an age of 958 million internet users,[47] nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.[48] These statistics are more than just numbers; they define peoples lives, the environments they live in, access to resources and opportunities. The brutal irony of ‘we’ and ‘us’ in our ‘Global Village’ is that the richer you are the more globalised the world has become, the poorer you are the more localised it remains with little chance of escape as immigration becomes increasingly difficult and international borders fortified.

This inequality is also mirrored in consumption patterns. The UNDP, in its 1998 Human Development Report, described a world where the top 20% of highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures - the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%. More specifically, the richest fifth:

• Consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%.

• Consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%.

• Have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5%.

• Consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%.

• Own 87% of the world's vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1%.[49]

The US alone with only 5% of the world’s population consumes 40% of the world’s total resources.[50] While 70% of the world’s fossil fuels and 85% of chemical products is consumed by 25% of the world’s population.[51] Significantly 85% of the world’s water is used by only 12% of its population,[52] however, only 10% of the planets fresh water is used by people - 65% goes to industrial agriculture, the remaining used by other industry.[53]

The World Commission on Environment and Development, warned in "Our Common Future" that unless we change many of our lifestyle patterns, the world will face unacceptable levels of environmental damage and human suffering. While the environmental crises the world faces affects everyone the “degree to which the inhabitants of different parts of the world contribute to this crisis depends on the level of their economic development and their consumption patterns.“[54] Simply, those benefiting most from the current economic and political regime are the ones who are taking the most and contributing the most to environmental degradation. However, ironically, we see that both those at the top and bottom are contributing to the environmental degradation - one from over consumption, the other from trying to live a subsistence existence. It is also commonly acknowledged that the impact of environmental issues effect the poor and working class disproportionately.

The challenge of environmentally sustainable poverty alleviation is immense. It has been estimated that 80% of poor people in Latin America, 60% in Africa and 50% in Asia live in fragile ecosystems and remote ecologically vulnerable rural areas. Politically marginal indigenous populations have been joined by new groups displaced from more fertile areas through a variety of processes: including expropriation, demographic pressures, land fragmentation, privatisation of common property lands, and the consolidation and expansion of the commercial sector combined with reduced demand for labour due to mechanisation.[55]

The inequality in wealth and consumption patterns is mirrored in the marginalisation of political power. The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) explains;

“Materially impoverished people may comprise the majority of world's citizens, but their leverage in the global economy is weak and often non-existent. International and national laws and institutions typically fail to recognise the aspirations and rights of local communities, including indigenous peoples...

Linkages between human rights and environmental management of natural resources, meanwhile, have become clearer in recent years. Environmental degradation is often worse in countries and in areas where human rights abuses are rampant. Rights of association, access to information, freedom of expression, and other related issues, however, are critical for the success and durability of environmental and human rights movements.”[56]

This concern is echoed in the Human Rights Watch report, Defending The Earth: Abuses of Human Rights and the Environment, which states; “Abuses of human rights often exist in tandem with environmental degradation. Suppression of dissent - often violent - is frequently employed by governments to silence opposition to harmful political and social policies and development schemes that could not withstand public scrutiny, and to forestall public concern about environmental decay.”[57]

Infinite growth in a finite world

There seems little hope - considering the inability of the free-market to deliver on one of its most basic promises: improved living standards for most of the world’s population - that it will somehow deliver on a secondary issue such as environmental protection. The idea of the free-market as providing the best solution to environmental problems seems to me fundamentally flawed. Capitalism’s very nature is based on the principle of ‘grow or die’ - it must expand, create new markets and increase production, devouring more and more natural resources and thereby seriously impacting on the Earth’s ecosystem.

If it was possible to internalise the negative externalities of environmental degradation how would it be costed across generations and borders? More importantly how would it be implemented and enforced? How are species with little economic value to be saved when in conflict with a more profitable outcome? The argument that through creating a property right the owner will be compelled to care seems to be privatising what is left of the public domain: oceans, water, air, the atmosphere, etc. and ignores the already existing enormous inequality in distribution of ownership which would surely be replicated. This further concentration of ownership has the potential to be disastrous. We are already paying for water, what happens when air is privatised and you can no longer afford to pay? Which can be laughed off for now but who could have foreseen the patenting of genes in seeds and the creation of ‘terminator’ genes? Power differentials are already seen in the pollution rights market with rich polluter nations brokering 'pollution quota' deals with poorer weaker ones. It also asserts that nature only has value as a human-use resource with no inherent value or right to exist in and of itself. As the main proponent of never ending economic growth in the name of progress, production for productions sake and profit, egotism and consumerism as providing the answer to human satisfaction and fulfilment, and selfish atomised individualism instead of real individuality connected socially and ecologically to a greater whole: as it stands, I believe it is the system least likely to provide a long-term ecologically sustainable solution. As George Monbiot says; “Our economic system depends upon never-ending growth, yet we live in a world with finite resources. Our expectation of progress is, as a result, a delusion.”[58]

Murray Bookchin concurs; “Capitalism can no more be 'persuaded' to limit growth than a human being can be 'persuaded' to stop breathing. Attempts to 'green' capitalism, to make it 'ecological', are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.”[59]

In fact I would go further and agree with Brian Tokar when he says;

“Whatever economic model one proposes for the long-term future, it is clear that the current, predatory phase of corporate consolidation is threatening the integrity of the earth's living ecosystems - and communities of people who depend on those ecosystems - as never before. There is little room for consideration of ecological integrity in a global economy where a few ambitious currency traders can trigger the collapse of a nation's currency, its food supply, or a centuries-old forest ecosystem before anyone can even begin to discuss the consequences. In this kind of world, replacing our society's meager attempts to restrain and regulate corporate excesses with market mechanisms can only further the degradation of the natural world and threaten the health and well-being of all the earth's inhabitants.”[60]

The 21st Century and the people who inhabit it have inherited a world in critical condition. The idea and reality of human progress and economic growth from the Enlightenment through to, and accelerated by, the last Century to today has opened a Pandora’s Box. The planet’s ecosystem is under ever increasing systemic pressure with increasingly erratic and difficult to predict outcomes. A tremendous toll has already been taken on the Earth through climate change, pollution, deforestation, desertification, the oceans fish stocks facing collapse, toxic waste and pesticide residues in food and water, resurgence of infectious diseases, by-products and waste of industrialisation and consumerism, the compromising of water systems, and the tragedy of growing species extinction - arguably the first major warning that we stand on the edge of widespread ecogeddon. Abstract scientific theories are now becoming apparent in peoples lives through skin cancer and increasingly regular extreme weather events. Despite the industry backed campaigns of disinformation, think-tanks, public relations industry, ‘sceptical’ scientists and media complicity the lag between the corporate agenda and people’s experience is starting to raise fundamental questions about the legitimacy of how we live our lives. The destruction and poisoning of what sustains us means the human race faces the spectre of its own extinction and some scientists now believe that we may have “as little as 35 years to act before crucial ecosystems are ‘irreparably damaged and massive human die-offs begin’”.[61] However, this very real concern is subsumed in an era characterised by real and constructed anxieties and insecurities: the fear of terrorist attacks, violent crime, the ‘other’ (identified as Muslim extremists, illegal immigrants, delinquent youths, etc.), losing your job, not earning enough, not fitting in or being fashionable enough, not being good enough in bed, being too fat, what your taxes are being spent on, etc.

The need for new understanding of new realities

As we try to fit our square-peg ideologies into the round-holes of a new economic, scientific and environmental reality there is a palpable sense of disconnect between the theories of how the world should be (whether broadcast from media, religious leaders or academics) and how it really is. That the institutions that control our lives (the government, the market, democracy, and legal apparatus, as well as mainstream media) are beyond our control and often flawed. That despite the cheerleading that “we have never had it so good” from the media in the West and ever increasing, ever cooler consumer trinkets and lifestyles to aspire to there is a sense of disillusionment;[62] that the world does not make sense and something has gone wrong. Underpinning this is a widespread feeling of alienation and disempowerment. As 17 years old Jeff Bale, homeless in the richest country in the world, sang with his band Crimpshrine:

“With all this freedom I have no voice

With all this freedom I have no choice.”[63]

This is the historical landscape and politico-cultural context that has created and has to confront the environmental crisis. The social and structural origins of the ecological crisis within which any solutions and strategies must be considered. There are number of ‘practical’ solutions built on the economic system, political processes and institutions that already exist. Or in other words, the very same system that has brought us to this precipice in the first place as, Murray Bookchin states; “...capitalism now delights in avowals of the need to ‘compromise’.”[64] Somehow, through either rational thinking or spiritual awakening, the powerful will have a change of heart and change their ways, leading us all to a point where we halt and reverse the damage done. The question is: why? Or rather, why will those who are profiting from the situation as it is voluntarily give up their power they have and change course? It belies history too, where privilege has always been viciously defended against those who threaten the status quo. None of the major victories we celebrate in history - whether the Civil Rights movement in the USA, women’s suffrage, Indian national independence, the end of apartheid - have been given altruistically by those in power, but gained through struggle. The very core beliefs of capitalism and the structures of power we live under have to be challenged if we are to make any significant progress in making the world not just a better more equitable place to live but one that maintains a delicate balance between human activity and the natural world’s ecosystem.

Surely considering the severity and time scale of the situation what is needed is a topdown authoritarian solution? Dictatorships, although able to rule people for a time through violence and fear, lack any sort of legitimacy in the people it is supposed to rule. Therefore it is hard to see how any green or ecological solution can come from some variety of ecofascism where people are coerced into being “green” or having an ecological consciousness - which surely in itself demands a more lateral understanding of power and interconnectedness instead of a hierarchical or elitist one? It is an exceptionally disempowering system for the individual, built on obedience rather than critical thought and action. Also the idea of ecology being punitive i.e. being punished for not doing the environmentally correct thing instead of something that is positive and fulfilling also seems to be a major problem. If it was supposedly a ‘benign dictatorship’ who would be in charge? Who would decide what the truth was? And what actions should be taken? How would they be implemented? How would you protect the ‘green’ and ‘benign’ elements? What would be the character of nationalism and the economy or none environmental elements? Would it tackle capitalism? Inequality? Consumerism? Who and what would it save nature for? Instinctually there feels something wrong about an ecological benign dictatorship that ignores human rights. Would the world think any better of Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot or Idi Amin if they had saved a few endangered species and left a few pristine rivers and mountains? Anyhow, the militarism that it would take to impose and maintain such a system would create enormous ecological degradation in itself. History has also shown that authoritarian regimes with static world views and rigid highly-centralised forms of decision making, without public scrutiny, have exceptionally poor environmental records. Also the complex nature of the problems faced, unique in manifestation if not in source, demand a high-level of localised and flexible solutions requiring a decentralised form of organisation and decision-making. If, however, it made no claim to the “benign” (i.e. some form of antihuman misanthropy or Nazism) except for some privileged class or race then I suggest we put a gun to its head already. Of course the biggest question is whether a life devoid of autonomy in an ecotopia under a green taliban or ecofascist government would be worth living at all?

Challenging heirarchy and domination

In fact, I would argue the opposite is needed: a bottom up or grassroots solution. Why would we need stricter laws, harsher penalties and bigger prisons if each person held a strong ethical connection to the people and natural world around them? Murray Bookchin’s synthesis of ecological insights and classical anarchist theory offers a starting point I believe on how to fuse environmental and social justice issues, ecological insights, and a society based on inclusion, participation, mutual aid, solidarity, empathy, and empowered individuals.

Bookchin’s work focussed on the twin pathologies of hierarchy and domination - which potentially gives us a more nuanced and fluid analytical tool than ‘class’ and ‘exploitation’: expanding both the nature of oppression and the meaning of freedom. He argues that the exploitation of the natural world is entrenched in the psychology of domination conceptually carried over from the domination within humanity - of human by human. The ecological crises and degradation of the biosphere, ideologically and materially, are ultimately the result of deep-seated social problems. As it has historically manifested itself through the social domination inherent in the hierarchies of class, states, institutions, the market economy and finally, most destructively, capitalism that permeate society. Bookchin argues that "the conflict between humanity and nature is an extension of the conflict between human and human. Unless the ecology movement encompasses the problem of domination in all its aspects, it will contribute nothing toward eliminating the root causes of the ecological crisis of our time. If the ecology movement stops at mere reformism in pollution and conservation control - at mere 'environmentalism' - without dealing radically with the need for an expanded concept of revolution, it will merely serve as a safety value for the existing system of natural and human exploitation."[65]

Social Ecology views the natural world as a process of increasing “complexity and subjectivity”. Human beings have emerged out of ‘first’ nature but the boundary between human and nonhuman nature is real. Articulated in “crucial respects of intelligence, moral capacity, and dexterity...” Built on the understanding of humans within nature, not above or apart from it, it neither denies difference or imposes it in the morally indefensible domination of other species and the biosphere in ‘first’ nature. One distinctive human feature is the capacity to reason, we are also able to care for other people and life-forms, therefore we have the potential to organise society along rational and ecological lines. Social Ecology, however, does not celebrate primitivism, as Janet Biehl argues; “A sensitive combination of ecotechnics and existing technologies prudently applied constitutes the technological basis for post-scarcity, affording humans the free time to manage their social, political, and economic affairs along rational lines and fostering and restoring the ecological complexity of first nature.”[66]

Significantly words like ‘humanity’ or zoological terms like homosapiens conceal “vast differences, often bitter antagonisms, that exist between privileged whites and people of colour, men and women, rich and poor, oppressor and oppressed...”[67] Ignoring these power structures, humanity, as a non-differentiated species, is blamed for the despoliation of the environment - not the wealthy who consume inordinate amounts of the worlds resources or a destructive economic system built on avarice.

Social Ecologists suggest communities should be organised through “libertarian municipalism”; this would consist of grassroots direct face-to-face democracy in public or neighbourhood assemblies of free active citizens. Decisions would be made by those who are affected by them. As Bookchin states; “Such politics is radically distinct from statecraft and the state - a professional body composed of bureaucrats, police, military, legislators, and the like that exists as a coercive apparatus, clearly distinct from and above the people.” This radical reconstitution of democracy directly targets the disempowerment, alienation, cynicism and apathy that we witness today in the political process. Where parties, even if originally premised on progressive ideals, are caught up in the gaining, holding, and extending of their power in parliament ensuring any social change is gradual and reformist. It also often inadvertently serves to legitimate the status quo by co-opting the opposition. Also the question remains, but rarely asked, what would happen if a genuinely radical green party was elected? The history lesson of Sandinista Nicaragua (in the 1980s), Jacobo Arbenz’s Guatemala (1954), Juan Bosch’s Dominican Republic (1963), Dr. Timoci Bavadra’s Fiji (1989), Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Haiti (1991), Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela (2002) and Salvador Allende’s Chile (1973) could well be indicative.

A social ecology based economy would also be radically different. Neither nationalised nor collectivised but a variety of socially owned, worker and self-managed firms run through democratic self-management. The economy would be based on need not consumerism and profit, thereby eliminating a huge amount of overproduction, waste and pointless work. Advertising and the public relations industry would be redundant. By eliminating or greening the production processes we would also significantly reduce our ecological ‘footprint’. As time is reclaimed from wage labour creativity, self-expression and pleasure would be emphasised rather than consumption and mediated experience. Land and enterprises could increasingly be placed in the custody of the community. Citizens in free assemblies would decide how “work should be planned, what technologies should be used, how goods should be distributed... The maxim ‘from each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her needs’ would seem a bedrock guide for an economically rational society, provided to be sure that goods are of the highest durability and quality, that needs are guided by rational and ecological standards, and that the ancient notions of limit and balance replace the bourgeois marketplace imperative of ‘grow or die.’”

Equitable redistribution of wealth is vital. Rational and ecological interpretations of the ‘public good’ would replace class and hierarchical interests providing the “moral basis” for a “moral economy for moral communities”. The “general social interest that potentially underpins all moral communities, an interest that must ultimately cut across class, gender, ethnic, and status lines if humanity is to continue to exist as a viable species. This interest is the one created in our times by ecological catastrophe... Either we will establish an ecological society, or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.”[68]

However, it is not only Bookchin or Social Ecologists who suggest a vision of ecocommunities based on direct democracy and non-hierarchical forms of human relations. It is reflected in much anarchist thought and praxis; which calls for small decentralised non-hierarchical units of political structure interconnected through confederation in a post-nationalist world. Explicitly internationalist, anti-capitalist, egalitarian, antimilitarist, based on autonomous humans within a collective, it celebrates our shared humanity over nationality, language, race, religion, and gender in forming a “unity in diversity”. Its goal is to meet human needs, respond to ecological imperatives, and develop a new ethics based on caring and co-operation. There is also much resonance, even if not explicitly anarchist, with strands of environmentalist theory and grassroots activism in its methods and organisation. Especially in its call for human scale economies and societies, based on variety, diversity, local control and balance - “...such small-scale systems not only conduce to the implementation of environmental values but are of themselves the appropriately ecological mode for human living - large systems being inevitably de-powering and alienating.”[69]

Obviously for such a fundamental shift in societal, economic and political organisation a massive shift in consciousness is also needed. Bookchin calls for a long period of ‘enlightenment’ leading to a holistic “ecological sensibility” through a “remaking of the psyche”. However, this is not to propose a primary focus on personal spiritual needs or redemption, which he attributes to Deep Ecology and New Age spiritualism. As he reflects; “To understand present-day problems - ecological as well as economic and political - we must examine their social causes and remedy them through social methods. ‘Deep’, ‘spiritual’, and humanist, and misanthropic ecologies gravely mislead us when they refocus our attention on social symptoms rather than social causes.”[70]

The time needed, however, is at odds with the acute sense of urgency felt about the impending environmental collapse. Which means complacency is no longer an option, as well as education, what is needed is action. In the past social movements including environmentalism, Civil Rights, feminism, Gandhi’s Indian national liberation, peace, animal liberation and militant antifascism have all used direct action and civil disobedience in attempting to create change. The organisation behind these have often been anarchistic in character - decentralised, non-hierarchical and democratic in decision making. Lindsay Hart, defines direct action, as a person or group who act to achieve a particular social or political goal without the formal processes and structures of state and economic relations.[71] This is often inventive with strategies and tactics continually changing and evolving. It can include anything from letter writing to bombs, as well as squatting, strikes, organising a co-operative, occupations, sabotage, demonstrations, culture jamming, sit-ins, peace camps, obstruction, bearing witness to injustice (i.e. used by Green Peace), mass movement/ using sheer numbers to overturn a law (i.e. mass non-payment of the poll tax in the UK), etc. It does not exclude violence, however, nearly all anarchists, while pointing to the incomparable level of violence inflicted by the State and capitalism, believe in using non-violent direct action (or NVDA) as a means to an end. There is one major exception: self-defence - which expands the traditional meaning to include the defence of a community i.e. against neo-nazi violence or police brutality and some argue should stretch to include the environment. There has always been great debate (and fragmentation) as to what level of disruption or ‘violence’ is acceptable. Which boils down to the balancing of ethics and effectiveness before an action becomes counterproductive. In today’s atmosphere the resorting to terrorism i.e. the targeting of people not things would not only be counterproductive to public opinion but a non-starter as a strategy. It would also only add to the militarism and ecological destruction we are attempting to counteract. Even though it does beg the question: at what point would the line be crossed when things were so desperate to stop their own extinction through environmental degradation that people would take up arms?

Tail-end thinking

Unlike Bookchin, who at times I feel spends so much time “taking the most principled stand against the corrosion of nearly all self-professed oppositional ideas”[72] that he is in danger of losing sight of the real enemy, I believe anarchist can and should work with other groups within both the left and environmental movement. Perhaps anarchism is even more relevant than ever, a breath of fresh air in a world of worn out and stagnant solutions. Ecologically grounded anarchism has the flexibility in theory and praxis to incorporate different concerns in an increasingly fragmented world; such as eco-feminism, it appeals to a sense of place without recall to parochialism or nationalistic conservatism, it grounds itself within an ecological understanding without being antihuman or misanthropic, while it calls for individual freedom and responsibility within collective action. However, at its core is a nonnegotiable attempt to confront domination and hierarchy. This is why capitalism (as it is), authoritarian ecological or Marxist and fascist or elitist “solutions” to the environmental crises we face remain incompatible. I also believe that these insights, even if not under the explicit banner of anarchism or social ecology, can inform how we live our lives now today. Its appeal also lies in not waiting for anyone else to create change but ourselves. We do not have to wait for the revolutionary vanguard to seize power. Or a democratic party to lobby that hopefully will negotiate its way to a (undoubtedly compromised) solution which we can possibly vote on every 4 years - 15 Xs on a ballet paper the sum of political choices in a long lifetime. With anarchism, our lives are reclaimed through autonomy and action: power ultimately lies with us.

Although this essay is way longer than what was asked for it only scratches the surface of the question asked. There is still a massive amount I would like to have explored. Issues that intersect and help create and perpetuate the enormous environmental crisis we face and impede our ability to find solutions: the impact of the media in presenting and shaping the world we live in (specifically relating to capitalism and the environmental crisis), how humans have become alienated from themselves and nature, the radical movements in Developing Nations providing a glimmer of hope and a different way of living (specifically the Zapatistas of Chiapas, Mexico), the debt crisis/ IMF/ World Bank, the rise of China (and to a lesser extent India) as major powers and possible implications for our environmental future, the power of the military industrial complex, the nation state/ patriotism/ borders/ movement of people, the hollowing out and failure of liberal democracy, and question how it would be possible to enforce environmental rights when the world has such an abominable record on anthropocentric human rights.

Anarchism needs to be reclaimed from the shock horror sensationalism of tabloid (mis-)usage, the cliquey scene it often approximates in the West instead of an inclusive movement, and seriously explored as providing the starting point to a radically different society. It addresses fundamental questions both theoretically and in practice of power, ideology, disempowerment, militarism, class, domination and also our interaction with each other and the natural world around us. We need to a multitude of tactics and strategies, including direct action and “threat by example” to reinvigorate politics and build a new society within the shell of the old. To confront the neoliberal world order which at the current juncture of history of threatens the destruction of the natural world and with it possibly our own extinction.

While anarchism is unapologetic ally utopian - and in many ways eminently practical too - the changes that are needed to tackle the environmental crises are so radical that why shouldn’t we try and aim for everything? As the walls of Paris in 1968 encouraged: “Be Realistic: Demand the Impossible.” Realistically though I think there are a number of serious obstacles namely the protection against ‘predators’ and its implementation. The former can only be defeated I believe with militant solidarity and community self-defence. While the idea that it can not happen has already been proven to be a lie by Spain in the 1930s, Nestor Makhno’s Ukraine, and also today in the Lacandon jungle in the State of Chiapas, Mexico with over 1000 Zapatista communities organised into 38 autonomous municipalities.[73] I also grew up during the Cold War with a whole world view of how “things are, have been and will be” which no longer exists (and is now barely remembered) and rejoiced at the end of apartheid which proves that the received wisdom that “nothing can change” and we are living in the “end of history” are at least there to be challenged if not entirely false constructs to be brought down. As Murray Bookchin, states;

“One of the most dangerous aspects of the present cultural and social counterrevolution is the widespread belief that capitalism is here to stay, that it is a ‘natural’ social order, and that attempts to change its basic structure are futile and irrelevant at best and pernicious at worst...

If liberal capitalism is the best outcome we can expect from humanity's long journey out of animality; then any hope that people can ever share this planet with one another in a benign, caring, and ecological way - indeed, that reason can shape social development to achieve the historic aim of an ethical society - has been mindlessly jettisoned.”[74]

There are also a number of fault lines worth considering. The possibility of a 1960s style widespread countercultural upsurge. The 1950s after all were a time of seemingly endless consumer goods and suburban lawns and conformity, of course this was only part of the picture as the dark underbelly was exposed and challenged. Spurred by another globally unpopular war involving America. Is there the possibility of an internationally based resistance incorporating ecological concerns? Perhaps this could bring about a rapid change in ecological consciousness? I think there is some hope. If you look at the numbers who took to the streets disgusted at the Iraqi war. In fact while on those streets (in the UK, the Netherlands, America and Australia) there was a feeling that it was not just a protest against the war but a whole way of how politics and life is run. Consider also the massive anti-globalisation protests too. There are definite seeds germinating that need nurturing further. Perhaps the environmental crisis will provide the catalyst to push people over the rubicon. As Arundhati Roy, so evocatively said at the World Social Forum in 2003; “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

While this may or may not seem optimistic I also believe that there are further crises that could bring the world as we know it down leaving space for both positive and negative reaction. The over reliance on fossil fuels - particularly oil - could easily lead to a major melt down (i.e. Iraq continues as the hell it has been made combined with major instability in Saudi Arabia). Also America is fighting a war that is costing $177 million per day, $7.4 million per hour or $122,820 per minute[75] while it is also over $7,782,816,546,352 in debt (as of April 2005: “That is seven trillion, seven hundred and eighty-two billion, eight hundred and sixteen million, five hundred and forty-six thousand, three hundred and fifty-two dollars, and twenty-nine cents.”)[76] and is rising at an estimated $1.63 billion per day.[77] The fundamental question is how long can this continue? And what happens when it is no longer sustainable? I also believe that if the Earth is continually hit by extreme weather events something will eventually give. Either causing the collapse of the world economy[78] or an uprising of anger against those responsible. Again it is hard to predict which way this will push people.

Unfortunately on the current trajectory, which is the Lifeboat Ethic minus its environmental justification, I can easily see Ron Nielsen’s following suggestion coming true:

“The worst possible future is the Fortress World, in which the rich will rule with complete disregard for the poor and military strength will enforce law and order. It will be a future of uneasy peace, social decay, and deep human misery for most of the population. Fortress World has already been constructed, and we are only one step away from converting it in to a form of global governance.”[79]

I know that however dark things may become I, and those who fight for a better more equitable world, belong to a long vibrant tradition of resistance. In the Greek mythological tale of Pandora the poisoned gift she is given is a box. She is warned not to open it, when she does all the misfortunes of humanity are unleashed, however, as she realises Pandora shuts it in time to keep only one thing in the box: hope. Less metaphorically, I think Noam Chomsky sums up how I feel perfectly; "If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things... there's a chance to contribute to the making of a better world. That's your choice."[80]

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[1] An era Hobsbawm defined from the beginning of W.W.I in 1914 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

[2] Zbigniew Brzezinski, Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century.

[3] David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World (p.20).

[4] Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Shelling Out: How Taxpayers Subsidise the Arms Trade.

[5] New Internationalist, Violent Realities: The Facts.

[6] Quoted in Call to Nuclear Powers to Disarm BBC News World Edition.

[7] National Resource Defence Council, Table of Known Nuclear Tests Worldwide.

[8] Fred Pearce, From Viet Nam To Rwanda: War’s Chain Reaction.

[9] Campaign Against Depleted Uranium, What is Depleted Uranium? .

[10] 95% of the park lies in the Republic of the Congo, 5% in Zaire.

[11] Fred Pearce, From Viet Nam To Rwanda: War’s Chain Reaction.

[12] David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World (p. 20-21). Korten lists the number of international refugees as 18.2 million with an estimated 24 million displaced within the borders of their own country for 1992.

[13] UNHCR, Basic Facts: Refugees by Numbers (2005 edition).This number is down significantly from Korten’s figures (see above) but only lists people the UNHCR agency is involved with. Therefore it is safe to assume the figures are a conservative estimate of the true numbers, which also ignores economic migrants from impoverished nations. The UNHCR is also seriously concerned about the link between refugees and the environment as their website states: “The majority of the world’s refugees are found in marginal regions of poor, developing countries. Here, the ‘footprint’ or environmental impact of their activities is often of great magnitude and long duration. Collecting shelter materials and firewood can cause serious deforestation and soil erosion. Natural resources are threatened by the sudden arrival of large numbers of people. In extreme cases, this can happen almost overnight. Although environmental concerns have taken a back seat to humanitarian needs at such times of crises, the close links between the well-being of human populations and a healthy environment are being increasingly recognised.” From the UNHCR website, Protecting Refugees: Working for People and the Environment.

[14] Jamie Dunn, Private Blue Planet.

[15] Quoted on UNHCR website, Protecting Refugees: Working for People and the Environment.

[16] To give some idea less than 1% spent in 1997 would have put every child into school by the year 2000. New Internationalist, State of the World Issue 287 (Feb 1997). Quoted in Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats.

[17] New Internationalist, Violent Realities: The Facts.

[18] Franics Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man. Quoted in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopaedia.

[19] Front page of Project For A New American Century http://www.newamericancentury.org/

[20] America's Empire of Bases by Chalmers Johnson

[21] See Bush, His Cabinet and their Oil Connections

Drillbits and Tailings: Volume 6, Number 5, June 30, 2001

[22] “The digital revolution goes far beyond multimedia applications. By having digital copies of records stored in databases, and having those databases accessible over digital networks, the digital revolution essentially put an end to privacy as previous generations understood it. As the revolution moves forward, virtually every aspect of life is captured and stored in some digital form. “ from Digital Revolution Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopaedia.

[23] David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World (p. 37).

[24] Thomas Frank, The Rise of Market Populism: America's New Secular Religion.

[25] David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World.

[26] Murray Bookchin, Theses on Social Ecology in a Period of Reaction.

[27] Timothy Hankey, From the Cradle to the Grave.

[28] Trevor Norris, Hannah Arendt and Jean Baudrillard: Pedagogy in the Consumer Society.

[29] Anup Shah, Behind Consumption and Consumerism.

[30] Richard Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism (Allyn and Bacon, 1999: pp. 15 - 16). Quoted in Anup Shah, Behind Consumption and Consumerism .

[31] Quoted in Anup Shah, Media and Advertising.

[32] Thomas Frank, The Rise of Market Populism: America's New Secular Religion.

[33] ibid.

[34] Quoted in Richard Sonn, Anarchism (p. 105).

[35] Billy Bragg, From Red To Blue.

[36] David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World (p. 20).

[37] Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats.

[38] Korten (p. 107). An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about:

• 3 to 1 in 1820

• 11 to 1 in 1913

• 35 to 1 in 1950

• 44 to 1 in 1973

• 72 to 1 in 1992

[39] ibid., (p. 108).

[40] UNDP, Human Development Report 2000 (p. 82). Quoted in Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats.

[41] World Bank, Global Development Finance (1999). Quoted in ibid. It is also hard to underestimate the pressure debt causes on governments and its people to enact environmentally destructive schemes - sometimes under direct orders from the World Bank.

[42] UNICEF, Progress of Nations 2000 (2000). Quoted in ibid. Korten gives the example of El Salvador and Costa Rica, who grow exports bananas, coffee, & sugar on more than 1/5 of their cropland; while export cattle ranches replace rainforest & wildlife ranges in South America & southern Africa; Japan imports 70% of its corn, wheat & barley, 95% of soybeans, 50% of wood; while in the Netherlands millions of pigs & cows are fattened on palm-kernal cake from deforested lands in Malyasia, cassava from deforested regions in Thailand and soybeans from pesticide-doused expanses in south of Brazil in order to provide European consumers w/ their high-fat meat and milk diet. (p. 30)

[43] UNICEF, State of the World’s Children (2005). Quoted in ibid.

[44] World Resources Institute, Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems (February 2001) . Quoted in ibid.

[45] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Overweight and Obesity: Home.

[46] The Reality of Aid 2000 (p.10, Earthscan Publications: 2000). Quoted in Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats.

[47] Internet Usage Statistics, The Big Picture: World Internet Users and Population Stats.

[48] UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children (1999). Quoted in Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats.

[49] UNDP, Human Development Report 1998 Overview. Quoted in Anup Shah, Behind Consumption and Consumerism.

[50] Xinhuanet, China: Reject US Path to Ecological Disaster.

[51] Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Combating Environmental Degradation: Report for Conference on Hunger & Poverty International.

[52] Maude Barlow, Water as Commodity - The Wrong Prescription, (The Institute for Food and Development Policy Backgrounder, Summer 2001, Vol. 7, No. 3) Quoted in Anup Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats.It is stated that this 12% is not in the Third World but does not detail who does actually use it.

[53] Jamie Dunn, Private Blue Planet.

[54] Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Combating Environmental Degradation: Report for Conference on Hunger & Poverty International.

[55] Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Combating Environmental Degradation: Report for Conference on Hunger & Poverty International.

[56] The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Human Rights & Environment.

[57] Human Rights Watch, DefendingThe Earth: Abuses of Human Rights and the Environment.

[58] George Monbiot, Deliver Us From Finity.

[59] Murray Bookchin, Remaking Society (pp. 93-94). Quoted in Infoshop.Org, Anarchist FAQ:Why Must Capitalist Firms ‘Grow or Die?’.

[60] Brian Tokar, Trading away the Earth: Pollution Credits and the Perils of ‘Free Market Environmentalism’.

[61] Donella M. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, & Jorgen Randers, Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future. Quoted in Infoshop.Org, Anarchist FAQ: What is the Relationship Between Capitalism and the Ecological Crisis?.

[62] The World Health Organisation estimated that in 2000, approximately 1 million people will die of suicide and that in the last 45 years sucide rates have increased by 65% worldwide. While In the US, the Centers for Disease Control reports that: “More people die from suicide than homicide. In 1997, there were 1.5 times as many suicides as homicides.” Quoted in Befrienders Worldwide, Suicide Statistics: Background. From 1990 to 1998 the number of anti-depressants dispensed in Australia rose from 5.1 million prescriptions to 8.2 million prescriptions, similar ratio levels (at 34 people per thousand) as the United States. McManus et al., Recent Trends In the Use of Antidepressant Drugs in Australia, 1990-1998.

[63] Crimpshrine, Sleep, What's That?. The song also contains the lines;

“So much food to eat,

and so many homes to sleep in.

Stores so full of food,

So why must I eat from a garbage bin?”

[64] Murray Bookchin, Theses on Social Ecology in a Period of Reaction.

[65] Murray Bookchin, Toward an Ecological Society (p. 43). Quoted in Infoshop.Org, Anarchist FAQ: What is the Relationship Between Capitalism and the Ecological Crisis?.

[66] Janet Biehl, Theses on Social Ecology and Deep Ecology.

[67] Murray Bookchin, Society and Ecology.

[68] Murray Bookchin, Libertarian Municipalism: An Overview.

[69] Peter Hay, Main Currents in Western Environmental Thought (p. 279).

[70] Murray Bookchin, Society and Ecology.

[71] Lindsay Hart, In Defence of Radical Direct Action: Reflections On Civil Disobedience, Sabotage and Non-Violence (p. 43).

[72] Murray Bookchin, Theses on Social Ecology in a Period of Reaction.

[73] Mariana Mora, The EZLN and Indigenous Autonomous Municipalities.

[74] When "Realism" Becomes Capitulation Murray Bookchin

[75] Center For American Progress, The Opportunity Costs of the Iraq War .

[76] Terence Samuel, $7,782,816,546,352 In Debt.

[77] U.S. National Debt Clock.

[78] The biggest insurer in Britain last year stated that, unchecked, climate change could bankrupt the global economy by 2065.Helen Caldicott, If You Love This Planet.

[79] Ron Nielsen, The Little Green Handbook: A Guide To Critical Global Trends.

[80] Noam Chomsky, Third World Traveler: Noam Chomsky Page.