Which road forward for environmental activists Personal solutions or challenge the system?

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12 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1990 associations—to gut legislation such as the Clean Air Act and the Humphrey-Hawkins This is the final installment of a five-part bill for Equal Opportunity and Full series of articles on the environment. Employment.

Public agencies protect polluters While money, unfortunately, does not really "trickle down" in the capitalist system, The numerous government agencies and pollution and toxic wastes do. Instead of departments that are supposed to protect our providing people with an improved standard national resources have actually facilitated of living, capitalism is offering us a syn- the ability of the capitalist class to dominate thetic and dangerous "imitation of life." public life.

It has become clear that industry and the The Environmental Protection Agency, giant corporations are responsible for most under the leadership of Reagan-appointee ecological disasters on a global scale. Anne Burford, became embroiled in charges The National Wildlife Federation has re- of criminal wrongdoing. EPA officials were leased a report naming the top 500 toxic-pol- said to have held secret meetings with people luting facilities in this country. Together representing Super Fund waste generators in these big corporations are responsible for 70 order to cut deals favorable to the polluters. percent of the 10.3 billion pounds of toxics Public trust in the agency was badly shaken. released in the United States in 1987. Their Learning from this experience, Bush ran sites legally spewed 7.J billion pounds of on an "environmental" program and made a chemicals into the atmosphere.

Since the spotlight of media attention is on them, these corporations are trying to appease public opinion without making essential changes in their productive processes.

Public-relations firms are advising the corporations to clean up their image—if not their act. Glad Bags advertisements, for example, now feature smiling Native Americans.

The major polluters routinely donate large contributions to conservative environmental organizations. The two companies responsible for the worst ecological disasters of the 1980s (Union Carbide, which was responsible for the Bhopal, India, chemical leak and Exxon, which is responsible for the Valdez Oil Spill) gave at least $65,000 between them to the Conservation Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund.

Pro-pollution lobbyists At the same time, these giant corporations routinely lobby against proposed environmental restrictions. If they cannot defeat new regulations, they attempt to gut them and weaken their effectiveness.

Officials of LTV Steel Tubular Products Corporation revealed in their company newsletter how big corporations use their power to lobby politicians to achieve their aims. It was reported that the company's government-affairs representative works with legislatures to defeat "costly provisions in the energy or workers' compensation areas, onerous solid waste regulations, and steel can recycling statutes.

The newsletter bragged that "working with a coalition of companies, trade associations, and legislators, the Ohio EPA was urged to take a 'second look' at costly and unreasonable water-quality standards just hours before regulations were to have been finalized.

Similar coalitions were organized in Indiana and Illinois."

When environmentalists in one community threatened LTV's use of a deep-well disposal system (which is dangerous to drinking water supplies), the company's government affairs department blocked their efforts by convincing key legislators of the "unique point of working with the new head of the environmental and economic advantages" of EPA, William Reilly, a former head of the the deep-well system. Conservation Foundation and the World In addition to individual company efforts, Wildlife Fund. industrial corporations have banded together Nevertheless, as columnist Jack Anderson to defend their economic interests. Not sur- has pointed out, Reilly has long been impliprisingly, their campaign against environ- cated in an ethics question regarding immental regulation goes hand in hand with proper lobbying on an environmental issue. their assault on organized labor. Confidence in Reilly plummeted further after Beginning in 1970, lawyers and lobbyists his handling of the Valdez oil spill; for two were hired to battle the expanded powers of weeks, he insisted that Exxon could handle the Occupational Safety and Health the clean-up.

Administration (OSHA), the Environmental No matter who was standing at its head, Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer the EPA failed to stem the tide of pollution. Product Safety Commission, and the Equal During the agency's 20-year existence, enviEmployment Opportunity Commission. ronmentalist and author Barry Commoner esIn 1972, top corporate executives—includ- timates, over-all pollution levels were reing the heads of America's 70 largest com- duced by only 20 percent in this country, and panies—met to escalate this campaign. They those gains are beginning to be eroded. called themselves the Business Roundtable. The EPA bases itself on three false Since then, they have united with other premises: (1) There are safe TL Vs (Threshold business groups—including the U.S. Limit Values) for toxins. (2) Pollution can Chamber of Commerce, the National be "controlled." (3) It must be scientifically Association of Manufacturers, and local trade demonstrated that a substance is dangerous to public health before action can be taken to ban it.

As a result, EPA activity has been mired in meaningless bureaucratic red tape, wasteful and unnecessary "scientific studies," and ineffective control measures.

TLVs were arbitrarily adopted by OSHA in 1968 for over 400 chemicals. They now exist for over 600 substances. However, the chemical industry produces well over 26,000 chemicals, one-quarter of which are believed to be dangerous.

The OSHA standards were decided upon by a non-governmental volunteer group which mates of what were safe levels.

All industry has to do to delay a disputed regulation or ban on a substance is to argue in court that more scientific evidence is needed. Action can be forestalled for years. The EPA has acceded to this ruse time and time again.

Need for a planned economy As the Greenpeace Newsletter has pointed out, pollution must be prevented—not controlled. Once a toxic substance is produced, there is little that can be done (other than recycling) to control contamination. The EPA has refused to consider this approach, since it would begin to infringe on the rights of industry to determine production.

We can no longer afford to allow the anarchy that reigns in the capitalist market to continue to determine the major decisions regarding what or how goods are produced. The very fate of the planet is at stake. If corporations refuse to bring production in line with social needs, then they should be nationalized and run democratically by the workers.

At the same time, it must be recognized that the largest transnational corporations have financial assets greater than those of most countries and that they rise above governmental jurisdictions. These giant conglomerates continue to expand and take over markets around the world with the sole motive of producing ever greater profits.

Their exploitation of the soil, air, and water is beyond the earth's ability to regenerate its resources. Thus, any rational solution to the environmental crisis, given its magnitude, must involve economic and social planning on a global scale.

The system of capitalist production must be abolished and replaced with a socialist system to serve the needs of all people-and to simultaneously preserve and renew the ecosystem.

Forces of social change In "The Closing Circle," Barry Commoner states: "To resolve the environmental crisis, we shall need to forego, at last, the luxury of tolerating poverty, racial discrimination, and war. In our unwitting march toward ecological suicide, we have run out of options. Now that the bill for the environmental debt has been presented, our options have been reduced to two: either the rational, social organization of the use and distribution of the earth's resources, or a new barbarism."

Sweeping social change of this magnitude can only be effected by rational, informed collective action on a massive scale. In the Stalinist countries, the task lies in defending the collective property relations while organizing a complete political revolution. In the advanced capitalist countries, it lies in abolishing the private organization of production and in reorganizing the economy based on social need.

More and more activists in this country are aware that the only meaningful environmental action that can be taken involves taking on the major industrial forces and their repents Hayesio Denis Hayes, who was the coordinator of representatives in the government.

Earth Day 1970 and is chairman of Earth Day 1990, states in an article in the February issue of Rolling Stone: "You're talking about pulling the United States off of oil, coal, and nuclear energy in the course of the next 25 or 30 years."

That would mean, of course, that the fossil-fuel industry—one of the most powerful economic interests in the world—would have to swallow a substantial cut in its income.

What kind of action?

Hayes says: "If you're going to take on that kind of power, you're not going to do it with something that looks like the current American environmental movement."

Hayes describes why he felt the environmental movement was so vulnerable to Reaganism. He said that the movement split between those who decided to work for change within the political system and the existing capitalist parties and those who thought real reform lay in changing their own personal ways of living. "One group put on suits and ties, while the other group moved to Idaho to live in yurts and hand-card wool."

He the "yurt-dwellers" began to (continued on next page)

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"...big corporations are responsible for 70 percent of the 10.3 billion pounds of toxins released in the (continued from previous page) lose power, and the "suits"— mainly lawyers who worked for the mainstream environmental groups-dominated the movement. They lost power because they no longer had a broad mass movement behind them and because they limited themselves to lobbying and working within the Democratic and Republican parties.

What Hayes calls the "yurt-dwellers" are the forces who believe that change will come by convincing enough individuals to change their life-style, purchase environmentally approved products, and either limit consumption or renounce it entirely and "return to nature."

Yet while it makes sense to eat, buy, and live self-protectively these days (primarily for health considerations) individual acts can never achieve the massive reorganization that is needed in the economy to provide a safe environment.

Such proposals usually come from middle-class individuals who forget that the crippling problems that most poor and working-class people face around the globe are due to the lack of cheap and accessible products to achieve even a minimum standard of living.

It is ludicrous to suggest that a single-parent mother in the ghetto should "cut back" her purchasing. Most health foods and safe products cost more than the cheaper and dangerous synthetic products and cannot be afforded by many working families.

The environmental movement has mass support, as every poll has indicated. A Gallup poll taken in Britain in 1982 showed that 50 percent of the population favored protecting the environment over keeping down prices. By 1988, 74 percent were in favor of environmental protection even if it meant higher prices.

However, the movement now has to reach out and tap into that sentiment by projecting mass-action strategies that can mobilize people for the tasks ahead.

The current Earth Day coalition has set up task forces to reach out to the Black community and the labor movement, to involve forces that have so far been only minimally involved in environmental issues. These attempts to broaden the base of the movement are headed in the right direction.

The most promising forces in the movement are the grassroots toxic-waste coalitions that have sprung up all over the coun try in working-class communities, workers United States in 1987."

who are beginning to address health and safety issues on the job, and student organizations on campus. These forces have undertaken the most consistent actions against the polluters and are beginning to engage large numbers in concrete actions.

Job blackmail by the bosses Unfortunately, organizing industrial and factory workers on health, safety, and environmental issues has been made more difficult due to job blackmail by the employers.

Richard Kazis and Richard L. Grossmand outline this problem in their book, "Fear at Work-Job Blackmail, Labor, and the Environment." They point out the power that employers hold over the workers' livelihood enables them to fire and intimidate individual workers who blow the whistle on dangerous practices.

When governmental regulations or union opposition is involved, the bosses invoke the threat of factory closings. Often they have planned to phase out out-moded facilities anyway, and make the decision to close when faced with the introduction of new polin the form of pollution. lution-control devices.

Union campaigns for a healthy and safe working environment picked up steam in the 1960s, and some unions began to collaborate with environmental groups on joint campaigns. Unions such as the United Auto Workers; the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers; and the Steelworkers threw support to environmental legislation.

In 1981, environmentalists and 12 international unions supported a demonstration near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, which was called by the the Greater Harrisburg Labor Committee for Safe Energy and Full Employment. Some 15,000 workers, activists, and community residents attended the largest labor-led anti-nuclear demonstration in history.

Some union leaders, on the other hand, have endorsed the false position put forth by the bosses that environmental protection "destroys jobs." The employers have done all they can to widen the split between the environmental movement and parts of the labor Environmental activists should point out

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did very little scientific research and relied heavily on industry's own records and esti-