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Global pollution threat
ecosystem breakdown
«What threatens mankind is a lethal and unpredictably volatlle mixture of global warming with associated floods, ozone layer depletion with attendant cancers and disruption of ocean foodchalns...the acidificaton of forests, lakes and crops, all combining to precipitate recurring cycles of famine and drought."
This was the devastating scenario of the breakdown of our ecological system by atmospheric pollution produced by the US National Academy of Science In 1987. The calamitous flooding of Bangladesh and the severe weather fluctuations which have devastated major food-growing areas of the world during the past year have catapulted the issue of global pollution into much greater prominence. Deforestation and soil erosion, serlous stratospheric depletion of the earth's protective ozone layer, together with colossal Increases in gaseous emisslons - principally carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) - have underlIned the fears of working people.
Such is the general concern on this Issue that even
Thatcher has been forced to make sympathetic nolses. In the greatest metamorphosis since St Paul fell off
his horse on the way to
Damascus, she has suddenly discovered that the Torles
have been 'green' all along.
Phrases about 'acid rain'
and concern for the 'Green-
house Effect tripped from
her lips.
This is sheer hypocrisy.
Britain Is the only major
European country to so far
refuse to make a 30 per
cent reduction In sulphur
emissions that cause acld
raln. At the same time
Ridley, the misnamed En-
Secretary,
vironment
delayed an Interational
treaty to control ozone-
destructive chemicals. Per-
32
haps this new-found concern Is not unconnected with the fact that 74 'green' motions were originally tabled even for the tame Tory Party Conference.
Scientists have long argued that dramatic changes in the earth's atmosphere through gaseous pollution, mainly carbon dioxide, would have a disastrous effect on the ecological system, the so-called 'Greenhouse Effect. It Is now generally accepted that If present trends in the production of carbon dioxide and deforestation continue, the resulting global temperature rise will produce enormous weather varlations which will disrupt agriculture and submerge some presently low-lying land area as the polar Ice cap melts.
Aral Sea
The planet only supports life because of the delicate and harmonlous relationship between the sun's rays, oxygen and carbon dioxide. The small quantity of carbon dioxide Is essential directly or indirectly for all forms of life. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and convert it into essentlal foodstuffs and oxygen. These in turn are consumed by humans and other animals who release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - completing the cycle. But today this fine balance Is being disturbed and on a massive scale. The anarchic development of capitalism and the rapaclous greed of today's multi-natlonal corporations now threaten humanity with extinction.
The Stalinist bureaucracy have also displayed a hooligan attitude to the environment. Lake Balkal, the world's largest freshwater lake, Is grossly polluted, so aiso Is the Inland Aral Sea. This sea is located in Uzbekis-
tan. The Uzbeki elite used the waters of the Aral Sea to irrigate the deserts of the area, which is now the mafor cotton-producing region of the USSR. But in so doing they have polluted the Aral Sea and the water table in the surrounding area. Irrigation canals were bullt without concrete linings and therefore the water seeped Into the ground. The excess minerals in the land combined with the naturally saline ground, making the land so salty it can no longer produce crops unless It is flushed out with even more water. The high sallnity is now affecting the underground artesian wells. With most of the marine Ilfe In the Aral Sea killed, this area, which was once rich In fish, now has to Import fish from Murmansk for the canning factories situated on the shores of this now barren sea.
It must not be forgotten that the Issue that triggered the upheavals In Armenla was pollution. It was a demonstration of workers from Aboyan protesting against the bullding of a rubber factory which merged with nationalist demonstrations In Yerevan. The whole of the Transcaucasus is recognised as a heavily polluted area, as also is much of Eastern Europe. One third of
Poland has been described
by the Polish government as 'ecologically damaged.' The
Chernobyl disaster in the
Ukralne spread throughout
Europe, but was especially
dangerous In Eastern
Europe and Scandinavla.
For centuries, man has
used coal as the principal
source of fuel - for cooking
and heating. But the burn-
ing of coal produces many
alr borne pollutants inc-
luding smoke, dust and sul-
phur dloxide which are in-
jurious to health and the
growth of plants and ani-
mals. In England as early as
1273 attempts were made
By Ronnie Sookhdeo
to prohibit the use of coal in London. in 1306 a committee of inquiry was appolnted to "Inquire of all such who burnt sea-coal in the city or parts adjoining, and to punish them for the first offence with great fines and ransoms, and upon the second offence to demollsh their furnaces." By the seventeenth century coal burning was so out of control that John Evelyn submitted a report to Charles Il claiming that "London's Inhabitants breathe nothing but an Impure and thick mist accompanled with a fullglnous and filthy vapour... corrupting the lungs." The rapid industrialisation of England's major cities during the industrial revolution was entirely due to the use of coal as a primary energy source. Combustion of coal was on such a scale that a permanent pall of smoke hung over many towns obscuring the sunlight and causing rickets in chlidren. Sunlight contalns ultra-violet rays which can synthesize the essential vitamin D in the skin.
Ozone
The large scale combustion of fossil fuels - oil, coal and gas - for energy In modern times, together with the destruction of much of the world's rainforests, has enormously disturbed the carbon dioxide concentration In the atmosphere. Air monitoring in Hawall and the Antartica since the early 1950s has shown an expotential Increase In carbon dioxide concentration. From an estimated 270 parts per million (ppm) in the 1850s
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It has risen to an alarming 335 ppm today. Unless halted, it is predicted that the concentration could increase to as much as 600 ppm by the year 2030. Combustion processes alone release over 6.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually whilst jungle clearances add a further 1.5 billlon tons.
The released carbon dioxide creates a dense blanket around the earth permitting the sun's rays to enter but trapping the heat that otherwise would be radiated into outer space. This 'Greenhouse Effect' has already raised global temperatures by over 0.5 degrees centigrade over the past 100 years.
This condition is made worse by a cocktall of chemicals dumped into the atmosphere - the most notorious being the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used as a propellant In aerosols. Around 1 million tons of CFCs escape into the air each year. Every molecule of CFC released is 10,000 times more effective in trapping the sun's heat than carbon dioxide - producing a doubling heat effect. There Is also now Irrefutable evidence linking CFCs with the vast holes in the ozone layer In the stratosphere.
Agriculture
The ozone layer acts as a glant filter of the extremely harmful ultra-vlolet radiation from the sun. A one per cent depletion, according to the US National Academy of Science, will cause a two per cent Increase in cancer.
CFCs and carbon dioxide could push up the planet's temperature by as much as 4.5 degrees by 2030 and a staggering 8.6 degrees over the next century. Using the most conservative results, they conclude that sea levels would rise by as much as 4-5 feet. Yet a rise of just 18 Inches would submerge Asla's rice growing areas. The 'Greenhouse Effect will make the climate hot-
Fil
ter, wetter and cloudler. The
climatic changes would
have a disastrous effect on
agriculture. For example,
high carbon dloxide levels
could stimulate plant growth. But this potential benefit would be offset by the higher temperature which would stimulate plant growth which in turn would facilitate greater energy consumption. Moreover the thicker cloud cover could Inhlbit photosynthesls the process by which plants manufacture their food.
But a more serious consequence of global warming could see a gradual shift of Important
agricultural reglons to much higher latitudes. The great corn and soya bean belts at middle latitudes in the USA, for example, would move northwards to areas where the soll would be unsuitable for Intensive farming. The same story would be repeated for central Europe A much changed rainfall pattern would also exlst and move north to northern Canada, Siberia and Scandinavia. These areas with their poorer soils wlll be unable to replace the present worid's granaries. The USA and Canada supply 80 per cent of the world's trade In
Diminishing wheat.
food would reserves
create mass starvation and famines that would dwarf those presently occuring in the Sudan and Ethlopla.
There Is mounting evidence that this frightening picture of the Irrevers/ble breakdown of our world Is now occuring and at an alarming rate. Among many tell-tale signs has been the discovery that the artic permafrost has warmed up by as much as three degrees over the past 100 years. Alaskan glaciers have been melting and drifting has increased. Retreating snowlines on mountains the world over, the observed movement northwards of the agricultural cropline In the Canadlan Prairies, the changed distribution of plants and animals: all have added credibility to the argument that the ecological system Is breaking down.
Deserts
Marxists have never opposed the tremendous achlevements that science has contributed to society. But under capitalism it has been used and developed In an irrational and unplanned manner which has resulted in many catastrophes. On a global scale capitalism has
proved incapable of using the capacity of moder sclence and technology to ease the nightmare conditions of the 4.4 billion people of the 'Third World', described in a recent World Bank Report as "conditlons of llfe so characterised by malnutrition,
Illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high Infant mortality and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable definltion of human decency." While advances In science and technology have made possible the development of the microchip, computers and robots, the real 'energy crisis' for over 2 billion people is to obtaln the flrewood and dung they stlil depend on as fuel for cooking. For them, firewood can only be obtalned by systematically destroylng forests which, in the ex-colonial world, have been disappearing at an horrendous rate of one milllon hectares a month.
Denuded of any vegetaton, the top soll quickly becomes washed away creating deserts and reduc- Ing rainfall. In Indla, the 250,000 sq mile Rajputana desert was once heavily populated. In Roman times the granary of the Empire was in North Africa. Now, without Irrigation and water
33
[page 34]
MIR Autumn 1988: Ecology
management, this area Is afflicted by droughts, floods, soil erosion and creeping deserts. Today the Sahara consumes 30,000 hectares each year.
Throughout the ex-colonlal world capitalist monopolies distort whole economies to produce a single commodity, cash crops or minerals, with no concern for the environment or the delicate Interrelationships of nature. Thus In north east Brazl!, whereas In 1900 an area known as the Hump was 40 to 50 per cent forest, today It is less than flve per cent.
A searing indictment of the short sighted and disastrous policles of big bus- Iness has been In relation to the Amazonian rain forests. The devastation of the mighty forests and its ecological system has been on such a magnitude and feroclty as that of an atomic explosion. The greatest ecological disaster In history is now making a dec- Islve intervention on our weather.
Amazon
The rain-forests, covering an area larger than the whole of Western Europe, have been described as the lungs of the world. The trees, accounting for over a third of the world's total, produce through photosynthesis over a half of the world's annual productlon of oxygen and in turn contribute to the balance of carbon dioxide. Undisturbed, the forests exist as a result of a delicate and complex Interexchange with the limlted amounts of nutrlents in the blomas which Is recycled within the system. Living almost Independently of the soll, as much as 50 per cent of rainfall Is recycled, also maintaining a constancy of temperature.
Such Is the abundance and diversity of plant and animal IIfe that sclentists have as yet been unable to make a comprehensive classification. There are at least 17,000 Insects, 500 to 600 species of flora and
34
over 2,000 specles of birds alone. The brutal transformation of the rainforests which has now reached Inconcelvable proportions, not only threatens the extinctlon of the ecosystem but has also done Irreversibie damage to the environment. This has, in turn, reverberated upon the competing monopolies and has had serlous repercussions for local farmers.
With the blessing of the Brazllian govemment the competing multinational companles launched a feroclous assault on the jungle to transform it Into a vast pasture land for cattle for the world market. In Just over two decades over a quarter of the forests of the Amazon basin and Mato Grosso were destroyed. In the last decade alone over 11 million hectares were cleared - corresponding to hundreds of millions of trees. Seeking spectacular proflts for minimum Investments and no controls, the companles ignited the great forests with napalm bombs and defollants. The vast jungle fires, consuming hundreds of millions of trees, lasting many months, were first observed by a Landsat satellite In 1975.
The fires and smoke in turn killed off the insects
whose
and rodents
presence was essential for
the cultivation of many
plants, especially the nut
tree. Thus in the province of
Acre, the entire population
of nut trees were lost -
resulting in over 10,000 nut
gatherers losing thelr
Ilvelihood. Moreover, once
the resldual nutrients were
washed away from the ex-
posed soll, It became hard,
brittle and Infertile. The
cleared jungle was planted
with quick growing guinea
grass whose fertility levels
were such that after flve
years their growth declined.
The lasting effects of the
defollant also killed off the
vitaily important broad leaf
legumes, which enrich the
soll by capturing nitrogen
from the alr and not from
the soil. Problems of bush
Invasion, fungus and soll
leaching Instensified. The loss of vegetation immediately disrupted the ecosystem. Rainfall declined by almost five per cent and the temperature soared to over 30 degrees.
Under a socialist plan for energy all types of energy production would be considered on the basis of safety, efficiency and environmental concern. An Immedlate programme to eliminate waste through insulation and conservation would be implemented. This could save energy and create thousands of jobs in the bullding Industry. It has been calculated that 75% of heating for homes is lost through walls, roofs and floors and that 60% of total energy In power stations Is lost as heat - through cool- Ing water - into the environment. With recent advances In technology, combined heat and power stations can supply hot water to entire communities. These stations are already In use in Denmark, where they supply over half the country's I heating requirements.
Energy
Such a programme could be linked to re-equiping existing power stations to make them more efficlent. Coal fired stations, presently only operating at 30% efficiency, could be made far more efficlent with the Introduction of the fluidised bed combustion process whereby air Is blown through a moving flow of burning coal. A Department of Energy paper has estimated that such a programme would create half a million jobs between now and the year 2000 and, at the same time, conserve valuable coal and oll reserves.
Priority would also be given to the development of renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal energy which do not produce harmful pollution and Irreversible damage to the
environment. Research In the USA, Japan and Australla has shown that such an integrated energy programme could provide up to 6 times as many jobs as the equivalent nuclear programme. The prestiglous National Science Foundation of America recommended as far back as 1972 that an Investment of $3.5 billion In solar energy would provide 35% of the country's heating and cooling needs, 40% of fuel and 20% of electricity. A similar study in Britain in 1974, which has recently been re-examined, showed that solar power, mainly for domestle and Industrial heating, could provide as much as 14% of energy needs here with wave power providing over 30%. The recent advances In solar power technologies, principally a new type of photo-voltaic cell, has made possible the large scale productlon of cheap energy.
Future generations may beneflt from a near infinite energy source In nuclear fusion when that process is perfected and made safe. Fusion uses as Its fuel Deuterlum (heavy water) which is present in vast quantities in the oceans of the world - sufficient for
millions of years. In stark contrast to nuclear flssion, fusion would, as far as is
presently known, be a safe form of energy without pollution. But the limited amounts avallable for
research has meant that
there are still technical pro-
blems to overcome.
The destruction of the en-
vironment has now reached
calamitous proportions. The
'Greenhouse Effect', wanton
destruction of rainforests
and ozone depletion is in-
evitable in a society
dominated by blind market
forces. The Inherant cont-
antagonisms
radlctions,
and the competition of in-
terests makes capitalism
absolutely incapable of
developing the immense
natural potentlal energy
sources that exist or even
adequate
Introduce
safeguards against pollu-
tlon and harmful effects.
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