Radical Ecology

The Search for a Livable World

Carolyn Merchant

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136190148
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This is a new edition of the classic examination of major philosophical, ethical, scientific and economic roots of environmental problems which examines the ways that radical ecologists can transform science and society in order to sustain life on this planet. It features a new Introduction from the author, a thorough updating of chapters, and two entirely new chapters on recent Global Movements and Globalization and the Environment.

1 The Global Ecological Crisis

DOI: 10.4324/9780203084212-1

The twenty-first century world is experiencing a global ecological crisis, one that is both a product of past ecological and economic patterns and a challenge for the future. From nuclear disasters to Gulf War oil spills; from tropical rainforest destruction to polar ozone holes; from pesticides in food to toxics in water, the earth and all its life are in trouble. Industrial production accentuated by the global reproduction of population has put stress on nature's capacity for the reproduction of life. Pollution, depletion, and poverty are systematically interlinked on a scale not previously experienced on the planet.

The dimensions of a global ecological crisis are painfully visible. The 2002 United Nations’ World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, South Africa, focused worldwide attention on the linkages between poverty and the degradation of the world's atmosphere, waters, and forests. Protecting the environment, it concluded, is critical to combating poverty and promoting human dignity, democracy, and peace. The United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals commit rich and poor countries alike to a global partnership to improve environmental and human health.¹ A new ethic of sustainable partnership between humans and nonhuman nature is needed.

With increasing public awareness of global problems, public concern has mounted. The first Earth Day held on April 22, 1970 and organized by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson and environmentalist Dennis Hayes witnessed a nationwide outpouring of young and old dedicated to the importance of halting environmental degradation and promoting lifestyle changes. Earth Summits held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992; and Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002 accentuated the urgency of global action.

In January 1989, Time magazine's person of the year award went to “The Endangered Earth,” graphically illustrated by sculptor Christo as a suffocating globe wrapped in plastic and bound with twine. In June 1989, a New York Times/CBS poll found that an astonishing 80 percent of all Americans questioned overwhelmingly agreed with the statement: “Protecting the environment is so important that requirements and standards cannot be too high, and continuing environmental improvements must be made regardless of cost.” Over 70 percent of Americans consider themselves to be environmentalists and advocate stronger environmental protections. Phrased as a two-way choice between environmental protection and economic growth, however, the answers depend on the state of the economy. In 2000, a Gallup poll showed that 67 percent of Americans believed that “protection of the environment should be given priority, even at the risk of curbing economic growth.” During the recession of the early 2000s, however, that number began to drop, reaching 49 percent by 2004.²

These concerns and public sentiments regarding the environment and the economy pose serious questions. Can planetary life sustain itself in the face of industrial assaults? How is the current environmental crisis in production manifested? How are the planet's airs, waters, soils, and biota interconnected?

Air

Today the hot air of “greenhouse gases” indicates that the earth's climate is warming dangerously.³ As the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere increases from industrial processes and the burning of fossil fuels, global temperatures are predicted to rise from 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit during the twenty-first century. A one-degree average warming has already been measured over the past several decades. Although there is much debate over the timing of the effect, the symptoms of global warming are clear and include heat waves, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, polar warming, early springs, more intense storms, spreading diseases, and vanishing biota.

Americans became deeply aware of global warming during the intense hot summer weather of 1988. During Congressional hearings held at that time, scientists and policy analysts warned that the greenhouse effect is already here and that it will worsen. According to then Senator Timothy Wirth, “The greenhouse effect is the most significant economic, political, environmental, and human problem facing the 21st century.”⁴ Three countries, the United States (43 percent), China (23 percent), and Russia (12 percent) by 2001 produced over 70 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.⁵ The goal of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and its revision in Brussels in 2001 was to cut global emissions of 1990 greenhouse gas levels by 5 percent by 2012. With ratification by Russia in November 2004, the protocol entered into force in February 2005, committing 30 industrialized countries to meeting the 2012 targets. The United States and Australia remained major holdouts.⁶

With global warming, winters will become stormier, snowpacks lighter, and summers hotter and drier. Arctic sea ice now covers 15 percent less water than it did twenty years ago and the Alaskan tundra is thawing; in the Antarctic a large ice shelf has detached itself from the continent.⁷ Seas are predicted to rise one to three feet during the coming half century and hurricanes will become more powerful as the oceans warm. Waterfront homes will be flooded, midwestern droughts will increase in severity, grain growing regions will move north, trees will move gradually upward on mountain slopes, and wild species will become extinct.⁸ Concurrently, animals and plants will migrate northward and reproduce earlier in the year.⁹ A series of measures to slow global warming has been recommended, such as stopping global deforestation, planting trees, conserving heating fuel, and shifting to alternative energy sources.¹⁰ Lester Brown of Worldwatch Institute, which issues regular reports on environmental deterioration, sees a ray of hope: “The world does seem to be approaching a kind of paradigm shift in environmental consciousness,” he states.¹¹

Ozone depletion is another global disruption caused by industrial production. In 1985 scientists reported a hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic. As a result of worldwide concern, twenty-four countries meeting at Montreal in 1987 agreed to reduce production of the prime culprit, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), by 35 percent by 1999. While significant progress in eliminating CFCs in developed nations has occurred (a 70 percent reduction was achieved by 1999), developing nations are still in the early stages of compliance. CFCs are used as refrigerator and air conditioner coolants, as primary components of Styrofoam^™, and as propellant gases in spray cans (banned in the United States in the 1970s, but still used in other countries). Halons (such as hydrofluorocarbons [HFCs]), used as fire retardants, destroy ten times more ozone than CFCs; production has increased in China, Brazil, and Mexico.¹² Alternatives to CFCs and halons are now being sought, but much work needs to be done by scientists, by Congress in regulating CFCs, and by all of us in changing the habits of our everyday lives.¹³ These disruptions of the atmospheric balance of gases by industrial production are intimately connected to the disruption of global waters.

Water

The waters of the world and their life-giving foods and fluids are in jeopardy. Fresh water supplies for drinking and watering crops are dwindling, especially in arid regions. By 2015, 40 percent of the world's population will live in areas without enough water for basic needs.¹⁴ From high mountain lakes to wild rushing rivers, waters in the United States and other industrialized nations are threatened by acid rain (caused by sulfur and nitrogen oxides released in the burning of fossil fuels). In developing countries such as China, India, Thailand, and Korea, levels are already high and on the increase.¹⁵ Beaches are inundated by solid wastes; globules of oil float on the surface of even the remotest oceans. Coral reefs worldwide are losing reef fish and other species as fishing expands.¹⁶

Ocean fish are declining at an unprecedented rate, the result of more efficient fishing methods. Ninety percent of ocean species, including cod, halibut, tuna, swordfish, and marlin have disappeared from traditional fishing grounds since the 1950s. Today, with improved technologies and vast fishing nets, 80 percent of a target species can be fished out in fifteen years or less.¹⁷ Diving birds and mammals become entrapped in plastic drift nets 6 to 30 miles in length used primarily by Japanese and other East Asian fishers. Seven hundred miles of nets are lost each season in the Pacific Ocean. When the nets escape they go on trapping marine life until they sink under their own weight.¹⁸ Plastic wastes in the oceans bring death to upward of 2 million birds and 100,000 marine mammals a year. Dead and dying birds entangled in non-degradable plastic six-pack rings appear on beaches every day. While some rings degrade in sunlight, most will go on for another 450 years, outliving the generations they are extinguishing. Seabirds, fish, turtles, and whales lunch on small plastic pellets produced as wastes in the plastics industries. Global water pollution needs to be halted and water quality restored.

Soils

Soil erosion and pollution from long-lasting insecticides are harming croplands and ground water quality. In the United States, two billion tons of topsoil are being lost annually through wind and water erosion, threatening one-third of our croplands. If allowed to continue over the next fifty years, United States grain production could sink to about half of what it exported in 1980, affecting millions of people around the world.¹⁹ In India, land has been used to feed people for over forty centuries, with only 5 to 10 percent of the surpluses leaving the local villages. According to conservationist Vandana Shiva, Green Revolution farming techniques have now replaced traditional methods, teaching Indian farmers “to forget about the hunger of the soil and the stomach and to go after their own hunger for profits.” Soil conservation and sustainable agriculture based on the wisdom of traditional peoples need to be combined with many of the positive advances in twentieth-century agriculture.²⁰

Biota

Today, the reproduction of life itself is being aborted. In the words of Time magazine, “the death of birth” poses another immense global threat to all non-human species. Species are disappearing at 100 to 1000 times the “natural” rate owing to habitat loss, invasive species, and over-hunting. Only 1.4 million of the 5 to 10 million species of life in the world have even been named. Increased efforts must be taken to identify them, understand their ecology, and to educate the public in the need for preservation.²¹ International agreements have been reached on halting some of the most visible threats. The United States and Europe have banned imports of ivory from the African elephant although illegal trade continues. Japan has halted imports of some endangered species such as the Hawksbill Turtle used for exotic ornaments and wedding gifts. But changes in policies and practices may not be in time to preserve the lives of known endangered species, much less those not even identified.²²

Forests that absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, linking air, water, and biota in a unity, are disappearing at a rapid rate. Tropical forests, which cover 2.3 million square miles of the earth's surface, are disappearing at the rate of 100 acres a minute or more; and the rate of destruction is increasing. If the destruction continues, it is predicted that little will be left by the year 2040. The United States imports enough timber from tropical rainforests each year to cover the state of West Virginia.²³ In Central and Latin America, rainforests are being cut down to pasture cattle for the fast food industry. In Indonesia, 500,000 acres of rainforest have been converted to eucalyptus plantations to produce toilet paper for North America. Much of the rainforest being slashed in Malaysia is used by Japan to construct throwaway construction forms, boxes for shipping, and disposable chopsticks. In inlets along the coasts of Papua New Guinea, Japanese ships anchor to receive timber, leaving behind slash as waste. Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Khor of the Third World Network admonishes, “There are enough world resources for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed.”²⁴

In the United States, Pacific old-growth redwood and Douglas Fir forests are threatened by logging. Through modernization over the past decade, labor-intensive lumber mills are being replaced by automation, reducing by one-third the number of jobs available. In the process, the Spotted Owl is endangered and loggers and millers face job losses.²⁵ With increasing forest fires from fuel build-up in the Western states, conservative lawmakers are promoting “healthy forest” initiatives that allow logging of old growth and large trees under the guise of thinning forest fuels.²⁶ Trying to resolve complex problems such as these will require enormous sensitivity, as well as lifestyle changes on the part of Northern Hemisphere citizens.

Threats to the reproduction of nonhuman life are directly linked to human reproduction and human health. “For nearly a quarter century,” writes epidemiologist Devra Davis, “it has been clear that air pollution in the United States kills between 60,000 and 120,000 people each year and sickens millions more.” Toxic chemicals range from factory emissions, smog, and radon in the air, to pesticides in the soil, to trichloroethylene in drinking water. Banning chemicals may take decades of studies and congressional hearings before action is taken.²⁷ According to environmentalist Barry Commoner, humans and other living things are being invaded by an immense number of toxic chemicals unknown to biological evolution. “An organic compound,” he argues, “that does not occur in nature [is] one that has been rejected in the course of evolution as incompatible with living systems.” Because of their toxicity, “they have a very high probability of interfering with living processes.” Over the past thirty years, the production of organic chemicals from petroleum has increased from about 75 billion pounds per year to over 350 billion. In 1986 concerns such as these led California citizens to pass Proposition 65, an antitoxics initiative with a 63 percent vote.²⁸ Citizen actions, such as those being undertaken by national toxics organizations, along with scientific research, are a vital part of the current effort to reduce toxics in the environment.

The global ecological crisis involves all levels of soci...