The Oil Drum

315 comments on DrumBeat: February 2, 2008

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mcgowanmc on February 2, 2008 - 10:49am

"Ecology and Capitalist Costs of Production: No Exit"
by Immanuel Wallerstein

"There are two different kinds of operations in preserving the environment. The first is the cleaning up of the negative effects of a production exercise (for example, combating chemical toxins that are a by-product of production, or removing non-biodegradable waste). The second is investment in the renewal of the natural resources that have been used (for example, replanting trees). Once again, the ecology movements have put forward a long series of specific proposals that would address these issues. In general, these proposals meet with considerable resistance on the part of the enterprises that would be affected by such proposals, on the grounds that these measures are far too costly, and would therefore lead to the curtailment of production.

The truth is that the enterprises are essentially right. These measures are indeed too costly, by and large, if we define the issue in terms of maintaining the present average worldwide rate of profit. They are too costly by far. Given the deruralization of the world and its already serious effect upon the accumulation of capital, the implementation of significant ecological measures, seriously carried out, could well serve as the coup de grƒce to the viability of the capitalist world-economy. Therefore, whatever the public relations stance of individual enterprises on these questions, we can expect unremitting foot-dragging on the part of capitalists in general. We are in fact faced with three alternatives. One, governments can insist that all enterprises internalize all costs, and we would be faced with an immediate acute profits squeeze. Or, two, governments can pay the bill for ecological measures (clean-up and restoration plus prevention), and use taxes to pay for this. But if one increases taxes, one either increases the taxes on the enterprises, which would lead to the same profits squeeze, or one raises taxes on everyone else, which would probably lead to an acute tax revolt. Or, three, we can do virtually nothing, which will lead to the various ecological catastrophes of which the ecology movements warn. So far, the third alternative has been carrying the day. In any case, this is why I say that there is "no exit," meaning by that that there is no exit within the framework of the existing historical system...."

http://www.binghamton.edu/fbc/iwecol.htm

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NeverLNG on February 2, 2008 - 12:05pm

It's really hard to argue with this. Last night I went to a presentation by a young, intense group (Cascadia Rising Tide) about global warming and carbon credit trading. They put on a superb program, and a brave face, but in the end, they were merely left with "hope" that people would wake up to the massive theft and environmental degradation that the various carbon-credit and cap-and-trade schemes produce-- and somehow get their elected representatives to stop it. The situation is even more dire than I had realized, and I'm afraid that in recent years I have always expected the worst.

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karlof1 on February 2, 2008 - 1:26pm

Yeah, I agree, but use the term "inertia" because such exists on Nature's side too. I see two large wheels--Mill Stones--one representing BAU, the other Nature; only one is several orders of magnitude larger than the other, which makes it clear that when the wheels meet the smaller will be easily crushed by the larger. The larger wheel is Nature's Natural Systems. As noted, previous human BAU wheels--Mayan, Mesopotamian, Sarasvati (Vedic), Roman--have met the Natural Wheel and we can see the results.

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nh3 on February 2, 2008 - 7:01pm

good analogy. and the Way in which the larger wheel operates is called Dao. LaoZi had all this as well as the solution figured out way before the so called "Christian era."

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joemichaels on February 4, 2008 - 1:30am

I think any grown up over the age of 25 knows that we will choose option #3"...do virtually nothing..."

Any doomsdayer worth his oats has by now read Jared Diamonds' "Collapse". The grim conclusion that Diamond reached in his thoroughly entertaining treatise was that societies that are focused on their lifestyle and political competition will forego longterm goals for the sake of status and power.

Even his Anthropology students had to ask the inevitable question:

"What did the Easter Islander think who cut down the last tree on Easter Island?"

Currently, due to the monster of "globalization", we earthlings are accelerating our collapse and this time the collapse will not be regional but global in nature. Like the ancient Easter Islanders we are isolated on a small planet in a relatively obscure solar system , with no close neighbors. Nationalities are in fierce competition with one another for hegeomony, status and resources. Root causes: overpopulation and enviromental destruction.

One huge irony is that the consuming nations assume that there will be a winner at the end of this "competition". If we could grasp the lesson of the long extinct Norse civilization in Greenland 800 years ago:

"..the winners were the ones who had the priveledge of being the last ones to starve to death..."

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Aniya on February 4, 2008 - 10:13pm

Hi joemichaels and Leanan,

Every so often, I'd like to interject the article below into the discussion, when we draw on the history of "Easter Island" as an example.

"Easter Island" or Rapa Nui can still teach us a lot - it's just that its important to take an fresh, objective look at the evidence, as well. There are new lessons to be learned.

Really worth a read (IMVHO).

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/53200?full...

Rethinking the Fall of Easter Island by Terry Hunt. In the American Scientist.

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joemichaels on February 5, 2008 - 11:34am

Aniya - Thank-you for the aritcle in American Scientist. Although I think that the demise of the Easter Islanders may have been more complex than perhaps Diamond may have concluded, the questions that remain unanswered is if the easter Islanders were increasing at a prolific 3% annually and the maximum population that Easter Island reached was 3,000 and not 15,000 what were the factors that kept their numbers to the more sustainable level of 3,000 prior to the arrival of Europeans? War, genocide, starvation? If the Easter Islanders percieved that the rats were a danger to their survival it would have taken a relatively short time to bring the rat populations into control. After all we have to assume that the Islanders were intelligent enough to understand their delicate ecosystems better than late-coming archaeologists. Who destroyed the massive monolithic monuments? The natives or the European invaders? Why?

The thing that makes the Easter Islanders collapse even more appropriate as an example of our future collapse is the invasion of humans followed much later by the introduction of the European invaders. The impacts of Globalization and corporate slavery of less developed nations, World Bank Policies, deforestation, invasive species, mono-agriculture, Peak Oil, Global Warming...these are no doubt all complex factors that will all have to be considered when future scientists grapple with the reasons for the collapse of human society on planet Earth.

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Pitt the Elder on February 5, 2008 - 1:41pm

If the Easter Islanders percieved that the rats were a danger to their survival it would have taken a relatively short time to bring the rat populations into control.

How?

You have 3,000 people and millions of rats on 160sq km of substantially-forested island, and your most sophisticated technology is an outrigger canoe. How, exactly, do you plan to reduce the rat population and prevent them from breeding to re-fill the niche?

I think you're making assumptions here that are not at all warranted. Even now, with modern technology, Australia has largely failed to control its rabbit population; there's no indication that the inhabitants of Rapa Nui would have had the ability to control the rat population of their island.

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joemichaels on February 6, 2008 - 10:52am

Hey Pitt - thanks for the question. You state that there were millions of rats. What do you base that assertion on other than exponential growth rates. This a a relatively small island. What were the limitations to rat populations other than human predators? Food. When rat populations overwhelms the food supply rats have a very basic form of population control: Cannibalism.

Also I suggest you re-read James Clavells' "King Rat". The basics of the story is how a large group of Allied prisoners of war on a small pacific island learned to survive using rats and cockroaches as a vital source of protien. They caged, captured and harvested the rats using very simple technologies.

The rabbits of Australia had the ready expanse of a continent to spread and seek refuge. The rats of easter Island had nowhere to go. Rat eradication is energy intensive yet a low technology endeavor. It would have required an intensive local program (remember on Easter Island everthing was local)that would have have easily curtailed rat populations to tolerable levels.

Perhaps the rats, as in the Clavell's novel, were used by the Easter islanders as a vital source of protein?

Now about that "Outrigger canoe" comment...? Please!