Earth: A planet on the verge of dying?

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We are bombarded daily with shocking news of environmental catastrophes. So regularly, in fact, that it has become commonplace. This has generated much debate, protest, and governmental action-or inaction.

But the crisis progresses. And while consciousness regarding ecological issues has been raised by over 30 years of education by environmentalists, the problems have intensified.

The environment has been discovered by a modern industrial society that took it for granted. The contradictions inherent in the capitalist system's unlimited exploitation of limited natural resources are coming to the fore. How, after millions of years of human life on this planet, could the planet be brought to the brink of disaster in less than a century?

It is this question that this series of articles on the environment will attempt to explore. In order to pose a solution, it is necessary to gain a deeper understanding of the ecological crisis than is currently being offered by either the "establishment" or its environmentalist critics.

Growth of a movement It is now 27 years since the publication of Rachel Carson's classic environmental study, "Silent Spring." In this eloquent statement, Carson documented the immense harm that the use of chemical pesticides caused to humans, wildlife, and the environment.

Carson wrote in a long tradition of American writers expressing reverence and concern for the earth, from Henry David Thoreau to writers of the 1940s and '50s. Trying to draw the attention of the American public to environmental concerns, they warned of certain trends that were becoming increasingly dangerous. At the time, the warnings were heard by only a small segment of society.

"Silent Spring," however, was written in the early 1960s in a different historical context than that of the earlier writers. This fact broadened its impact. Any movement is started not because most people have read about a problem but because they have experienced it first-hand.

By 1962, Americans were beginning to see and feel the effects of widespread pollution of the environment. They could see haze over major cities, "no swimming" signs on polluted beaches, unsightly urban sprawl, waste dumps, and threats from nuclear fallout.

A new generation was becoming politically aware and active and was questioning every I6 SOCIALIST ACTION 3883* 14898 The second is the "greenhouse effect," or global warming, caused by the burning of CFCs and fossil fuels. This can cause catastrophic climactic change and coastal floods— turning now-fertile farmlands into barren dust bowls. Scientists have come to these conclusions by studying the ozone depletion and atmosphere of the planets Mars and Venus. Both planets are uninhabitable.

The third threat would come from even a small explosion of even a fraction of the world's 60,000 nuclear weapons. This would precipitate a Nuclear Winter with extreme cold and dark, agricultural collapse, and famine.

If private industry and the capitalist government which represents its interests are allowed to proceed upon their present course, it will in fact lead to the annihilation of the human race or its reduction to barbarism. Many are beginning to question the greed inherent in the capitalist system of production that is leading to this particular form of madness.

In order to fully understand this destructive course, it is necessary to review the evolution of humanity's relationship to the environment through the productive process. Once done, it is possible to comprehend the current ecological crisis and to pose realistic solutions.

Early humans

Organized interaction with the environment has had a long evolution spanning the entire course of the history of humanity.

It is currently believed that our ape-like ancestors were forest dwellers whose main activities for survival consisted of food gathering. Due to either food shortages or climactic change connected with the first Ice Age, they left the forests and moved onto the savannahs, where they became omnivorous and therefore were forced to compete with other predators for a steady food supply and shelter.

This material fact probably set the context that spurred our ape-like ancestors on to social organization.

Frederick Engels pointed out that the shortened pelvic bone made standing erect possible and this emancipated the hands. The central biological organ in humanity's evolution was the hand. The opposition of the thumb to the other fingers played a key role in the transition from ape to human. The thumb gave the hand exceptional powers of grasping and manipulating objects, which led to tool-making.

Thus the new power humans acquired was the power of production, of securing the necessities of life through the making of tools (continued on next page,