Population, Environment and Socialism (again)

The latest New Scientist has a feature on population.

It confirms what we blogged about in June: (female) education, gender equality and the eradication of poverty will play key roles in creating a stable world population. The Ehrlichs (famous for the Population Bomb) argue that point.

The articles also discuss other aspects of the population question. One of them, unintentionally, highlights a problem with the very framing of the issue - when is there a population problem? Well, when there are too few people about, for example! Reiner Klingholz argues that Europe is facing a problem of low fertility rate and ageing populace, which will trouble economies:

High population growth, such as that now taking place in many African countries, is not sustainable. But very low fertility rates are unsustainable too. It will be hard for countries with persistently low fertility to remain competitive, creative and wealthy enough to keep ahead of their country's environmental challenges....[I]t is important to focus less on human quantity and more on human capacity; not on how many people there are, but on how productively they live their lives. Working life must be extended and Europe must invest heavily in education, as fewer young brains will have to deliver increased creativity and productivity. (My emphasis.)

Note how the population issue gets a sort of nationalist slant to it and how it is directly linked to the interests of Capital.

The population question obviously cannot be divorced from other issues (which does happen) such as changes in technology and production, as shown in this interview with Jesse Ausubel. One such change could be the use of farming techniques that give higher yields whilst using less land. There is a whole vista of new possibilities which could be utilised to their full potential in a socialist society.

Possibly the hardest aspect is that of consumption. It is becoming obvious that a large meat diet is taking a toll on the environment. However, socialists don't tend to make lifestyles a central part of their argument. Who are we to tell others what they should or should not eat? Rather, we limit ourselves to arguments along the lines of getting rid of capitalism so that the, at present, billion malnourished people around the world can actually get the luxury of thinking about what to eat.

The population question is, in the final analysis, inextricably linked to how we live and how we could live. The editorial puts it thus: "Critically, it ... means basing success on stability - recognising that economic growth at all costs, not population growth, is the real root of all evil." Economic growth is, frankly, production for profit and Capital accumulation. New Scientist is not arguing for the abolition of capitalism, obviously; it is up to socialists to point out that capitalism cannot function without economic growth and, since that is the case, we need a different and sustainable mode of production.

Population and Socialism

The world's population is projected to grow to 9.1 billion by mid-century. Continued population growth raises serious questions about access to food, water, energy and land and the related issues of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions - with the projected impacts that will have on global climate - and loss of habitat, species and biodiversity.

The issue is certainly one that socialists cannot ignore.

An article in the June edition of Scientific American discusses population

Mostly ignored in the environmental debates about population and consumption is that nearly all the world’s nations agreed to an altogether different approach to the problem of growth 15 years ago, one that bases positive demographic outcomes on decisions individuals make in their own self-interest. (If only something comparable could be imagined to shrink consumption.) The strategy that 179 nations signed onto at a U.N. conference in Cairo in 1994 was: forget population control and instead help every woman bear a child in good health when she wants one.

That approach, which powerfully supports reproductive liberty, might sound counterintuitive for shrinking population growth, like handing a teenager the keys to the family car without so much as a lecture. But the evidence suggests that what women want—and have always wanted—is not so much to have more children as to have more for a smaller number of children they can reliably raise to healthy adulthood. Women left to their own devices, contraceptive or otherwise, would collectively “control” population while acting on their own intentions.

This aspect of the issue is an interesting one. Firstly, Socialism will entail the end of the State, so there is no question of some sort of central authority controlling family size, such as in China. Secondly, as we argue in our principles: "That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex."

The article notes that better family planning services, access to contraception, sexual equality and (female) education all play an important role in reducing birth rates. Religions, with their superstitions and "laws", have a baneful influence - e.g. Catholicism and its views on contraception (which also acts against the prevention of HIV/AIDS).

It would appear that eliminating poverty is a way to achieve a stable world population. Needless to say, there are many wrinkles and complexities in the population, resources and environment issue. Our case is that Socialism is the best framework for abolishing that poverty and liberating women.

Ocean Acidification and Climate Modelling

One problem of human carbon dioxide emission is that the acidity of the world's oceans will rise. This is known; the question is rather how well do we understand this?

A research team from Bristol University will present their findings on this at a climate science conference which opens in Copenhagen today. The Guardian reports

The Bristol scientists cannot talk about their unpublished results until they are announced later today. But a summary of the findings seen by the Guardian predicts "dangerous" levels of ocean acidification and severe consequences for organisms called marine calcifiers, which form chalky shells.

It says: "We find the future rate of surface ocean acidification and environmental pressure on marine calcifiers very likely unprecedented in the past 65 million years." The scientists add that the situation in the deep sea is of even "greater concern".

The scientists compared the current acidification rate with a giant prehistoric release of greenhouse gas, which geologists know caused widespread extinction of deep water species.

The summary reads: "Because the rates of acidification between past and future are comparable, and [because] there was widespread extinction of benthic organisms [lowest living], one must conclude that a similar level of extinction is more likely than not in the future."

Ken Caldeira is quoted thus

"The choice to continue emitting carbon dioxide means that we will be an agent of biological change of a force and magnitude exceeded only by the causes of the great mass extinction events. If we do not cut carbon dioxide emissions deeply and soon, the consequences of ocean acidification will stand out against the broad reaches of geologic time. Those consequences will remain embedded in the geologic record as testimony from a civilisation that had the wisdom to develop high technology, but did not develop the wisdom to use it wisely."

What should be remembered is the incorrect use of "we" implied in using "civilisation" in the above quote. The working class does not own and control the means of production and thus has no real say in how and what is produced.

Simulations by the UK Met Office give some gloomy news, as reported by the Independent

The world's best efforts at combating climate change are likely to offer no more than a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the threshold of disaster, according to research from the UK Met Office.

The key aim of holding the expected increase to 2C, beyond which damage to the natural world and to human society is likely to be catastrophic, is far from assured, the research suggests, even if all countries engage forthwith in a radical and enormous crash programme to slash greenhouse gas emissions – something which itself is by no means guaranteed.

The chilling forecast from the supercomputer climate model of the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research will provide a sobering wake-up call for governments around the world, who will begin formally negotiating three weeks today the new international treaty on tackling global warming, which is due to be signed in Copenhagen in December.

COP 15

Tropical forests may dry out and become vulnerable to devastating wildfires as global warming accelerates over the coming decades, a senior scientist has warned.

Soaring greenhouse gas emissions, driven by a surge in coal use in countries such as China and India, are threatening temperature rises that will turn damp and humid forests into parched tinderboxes, said Dr Chris Field, co-chair of the UN's Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Higher temperatures could see wildfires raging through the tropics and a large scale melting of the Arctic tundra, releasing billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere that will accelerate warming even further, he said.
the Guardian

It doesn't look too good for the sea either

Global warming is changing the distribution, abundance and diversity of marine life in the polar seas with "profound" implications for creatures further up the food chain, according to scientists involved in the most comprehensive study of life in the oceans ever conducted.
the Guardian

These are but two of a plethora of threats to the environment which presumably will inform the UN conference - COP 15 - in Copenhagen this December. The conference will be looking at a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

I'll be giving a socialist perspective on issues and stories all year, so watch this space!