Saving the Earth

It opens with a survey of general and particular crises and disasters, showing how these are not 'natural', but intimately linked to the capitalist mode of production and the unequal relations between rich and poor. Thus, the recent floods in Venezuela killed not 30,000 capitalists but 30,000 poor people - and their cause may have been the global warming that the vast majority of climate scientists believe is happening. A large part of this warming is being caused by vehicle emissions from richer countries, set to continue rising sharply, but its effects will be felt by low-lying islands in the southern oceans. It is not simply a north-south conflict, as some Greens believe: in the US, some 30,000 people die each year from illnesses related to car pollution. Meanwhile, in the present and former Stalinist lands, environmental safety continues to be ignored: China contains five of the world's 10 most polluted cities. And attempts by capitalism to 'green' itself fall far short of its own immediate goals.

There follow short articles on a selection of issues: the future of nuclear technology, GM foods and asbestos. The first is a continuation of a debate that has been running for some time but remains relevant: the second is a contribution to a debate that has just started; the third reveals that, despite stringent laws now in place (at least in the West), the death toll from asbestos is set to rise for another 20 years.

Next comes a section on how working people have resisted environmental destruction, with the work of Chico Mendes and the rubber tappers' union in Brazil and the struggle of the Ogoni people of Nigeria against Shell. Later, the alliance of trades unionists and environmentalists that fought the Battle of Seattle around the conference of the World Trade Organisation is described.

The political response to the environment is examined, with New Labour's record receiving close scrutiny. The Labour Party has historically been hostile to environmentalism but things began to change through the 1980s. The Socialist Environment and Resources Association (SERA) gained influence at the highest levels, with Chris Smith and Robin Cook heading a growing band of MP and MEP supporters. However, Smith's appointment as Shadow Spokesperson on the Environment was not carried over into government and prominent promises have not been fulfiled, particularly on transport.

The breakthrough of the Green Party in European, Scottish and London elections requires a closer look at their politics, though Workers' Liberty were debating with the Green Party long before this. The German Greens are examined and found to have been easily sucked into conventional party politics, and socialists who joined them have not prospered. Meanwhile, in Britain, the Greens have tended to ignore the labour movement that had the power and the interest in defending the environment. The more recent development of the Reclaim the Streets movement has some promising features, in that it sees the problem as capitalism.

An important article in the pamphlet looks at the role of science and technology under capitalism. There is a stark contrast between the ways that capitalism seeks to profit from the knowledge of our fundamental genetic basis and the priorities that a socialist-led science would have. However, the author perhaps goes too far in confusing the work of scientists with the interpretation put upon it by others. The existence of a barter system exchanging food for work among capuchin monkeys is surely not evidence for capitalism among the primates, whatever some journalist says, and research into primate behaviour is not equivalent to the use of IQ testing to reinforce oppression. The message comes across that socialists cannot reject science, as some environmentalists do, but must redirect it.

Finally, the pamphlet shows that the environmental crisis that has its roots in the inequalities fostered and exacerbated by capitalism needs a socialist solution.

'We Only Want The Earth' is £1.50 plus 35p postage from AWL, P O Box 823, London SE15 4NA.