PART FOUR: ECOCIDE.

Humans are not doomed to extinction. It is just that everything they do brings ecocide ever closer and that, for one reason or another, it is almost certain they will fail to avoid their own demise.

i) Proving That Oomans are Committing Ecocide; Some Faeces on the Ooman Race.

I: The ‘Earth Rapists have all the Wealth and Power’ Thesis.

The countries which currently dominate the world, possessing the greatest wealth and military power, are responsible for most of the ecological devastation taking place around the world. The link is clear. The over-industrialized countries are rich and powerful because they have been the most ruthless exploiters not merely of their own land and resources but of poor/industrializing countries’ land and resources. Since the industrial revolution, the over-industrialized nations have stolen the natural resources of poor/industrializing countries; exploited tens of millions of people to extract these resources; murdered millions in the process; and, exterminated billions of glorious, magnificent and utterly defenceless Wild animals all over the Planet. They have stolen resources from future generations, including their own children, and their children’s children. They have stolen both from the past and the future.

The same is true on the individual level. The world’s richest and most powerful individuals are the biggest Earth-rapists. They are the richest and most powerful people because they are the biggest Earth rapists. The world’s richest and most powerful people have not become rich and powerful by planting Forests, stopping industrial pollution, and saving Wildlife species from extinction. Even anita roddick in her commercial for american express (itv networks, may 1994) seems to have given up trying to convince people she is trying to save the Earth through the body shop. Even assuming that some wealthy people have not made their wealth through exploiting the Earth, they still live a life of luxury - owning houses in a number of countries, an array of cars, travelling around the world in private jets/helicopters, supersonic aeroplanes, consuming exotic products, etc.. Anita roddick, for example, travels around the world for six months of every year. If the amount of Carbon she dumps into the atmosphere every year was multiplied by the current human population of 6 billion there’d be a pea souper greenhouse effect. Pop superstars, some of whom once campaigned to save the Earth, may not seem to damage the Earth as much amazonian cattle ranchers or car manufacturers but once all the car journeys which fans make to concerts, and the raw materials used by the music industry, are taken into account it would be discovered they are far from environmentally friendly.

Perhaps it might be as well to give a couple of examples of the rich Earth-rapist shitbags who are destroying the Earth, even whilst they’re pretending to save it.

Lewis Preston, President of the World Bank "set off a riot in Bombay on November 22 when he backed out of a meeting with environmentalists protesting at the Bank's support for the controversial $3 billion Narmada dam project, in order to attend a fashion show with his wife."

James Watt, former US interior minister, with responsibility for the country’s environment said, "If the troubles from environmentalists cannot be solved in the jury box or at the ballot box perhaps the cartridge box should be used."

II: The ‘Capitalism is the Best Means for Protecting the Environment’ Thesis.

Although the over-industrialized countries are the world’s biggest Earth-rapists, they still claim that capitalism is the best way of looking after the environment. Soviet communism began fall apart before the last eruption of interest in the environment in the late 1980s, so there was no communist state to make the ludicrous counterclaim that communism is the best means for looking after the environment. The collapse of communism was an ecological gift for the over-industrialized nations. Whilst communist governments were in no state to defend themselves over any issue, the over-industrialized nations were left free to preach the environmental virtues of capitalism. And when details about the environmental disasters in the former soviet bloc countries became news stories in the over-industrialized nations’ media, these virtues seemed to be confirmed.

Most of the soviet bloc environmental disasters were already common knowledge within environmental circles in the over-industrialized nations. The reason these disasters were given so much prominence in the news was because they helped to reinforce capitalists’ green ideology. The over-industrialized nations’ claims to be better at looking after the environment were left unchallenged not only by faltering communist governments but by environmental organizations in the over-industrialized countries. They sought to make political capital out of capitalist propaganda about the environmental disasters in the second world, rather than expose this propaganda by pointing out that capitalism was causing far worse disasters. What makes this failure even more dismaying is that many independent greens backed up this capitalist propaganda, "As destructive as the market economies have been in their treatment of the environment, we now know that the socialist economies have an even worse history."

There are indeed horrendous environmental calamities in many places throughout the soviet bloc from chernobyl to siberia, "The catalogue of environmental and ecological devastation within the USSR has grown:

the poisoned lake Baikal in Siberia;

the shriveled Aral Sea in Soviet central Asia;

saturation of land and groundwater with pesticides in the cottonfields of Kazakhstan;

the uncontrolled chemical industry emissions of Yerevan, Armenia;

the air polluting metal smelting and refining plants of northern Russia; Chernobyl in the Ukraine."

But for every ecological disaster in the soviet bloc there is usually an equivalent disaster in the over-industrialized nations. The lake Baikal is in nowhere near as bad a condition as the great lakes in america. The ‘air polluting metal smelting and refining plants of northern Russia’ are nowhere near as bad as sudbury, "In just 10 years the Sudbury copper and nickel smelter in Ontario, Canada emitted more sulpur dioxide than all the volcanoes (the main natural source) in the history of the earth (sic)." The dams built in the united states aren’t any the less destructive than those in the soviet union. Perhaps, most importantly of all it has to be asked, how is it possible for a country like russia to have a worse environmental record than any capitalist country when it not only has vast stretches of Forest left intact (unlike the vast acreages which have been clear cut in america, canada and europe) but an increasing amount of land being Reforested (whilst those in the over-industrialized nations are being reduced)? In addition, much of the ecological devastation being caused by the over-industrialized countries is taking place in poor/industrializing countries whose Forests are being cleared for lumber, cattle ranching, and cash crops for the benefit of consumers in the over-industrialized world. And, how is it possible for a country like america not to have the worst environmental record when .. "annual production of organic chemicals soared from 1 million tons in 1930, to 7 million in 1950, 63 million in 1970 and 500,000,000 in 1990." How is it possible for the oecd countries not to have a worse record than eastern bloc countries when, "At the current rate, world chemical production is now doubling in volume every 7-8 years. According to the UNEP, more than 7 million chemicals have now been discovered or created by humankind, and several thousand new ones are added each year." In so-called environmentally friendly brutland, which for the first time in its history is surrounded by a sea of poisonous sewage, a register of poisoned land in the country could not be published because of the colossal impact it would have had on land prices throughout the country. And, finally, another major reason why the over-industrialized nations do not seem to cause as much ecological destruction as soviet bloc countries is because they export huge quantities of toxic waste to poor/industrializing countries, "It is estimated that Western companies dumped more than 24 million tons of hazardous waste in West Africa alone during 1988."; "Plans to plug a loophole in EC regulations which allows Britain to dump 80,000 tonnes of toxic waste in the third world each year will be blocked by the environment minister David Maclean at a meeting in Brussels today. Exporting waste to developing countries (sic) is already banned under the Basle Convention but a loophole which allows the shipment of material due to be "recycled" is being increasingly exploited by British business." "According to the OECD, the club of 24 industrialized nations, in 1990 some 40 billion tonnes of waste worth $19 billion were exported for recycling worldwide. The industry employs 350,000 people and generates revenues of $38 billion a year. Most of the profits go to OECD countries." The over-industrialized countries protect their environment simply by dumping their rubbish on the rest of the world. The over-industrialized nations are the world’s biggest polluters. They are far worse than soviet bloc countries or the poor/industrializing countries. As Barry Commoner points out, "The campaign to clean up the environment (in the US) has largely failed."

III: The ‘Capitalism Can Afford the Best Publicity to Make People Believe the Environment is Safe’ Thesis.

One of the reasons it is commonly believed that the over-industrialized nations are less ecologically destructive than the poor/industrializing countries is because capitalism can afford to advertise that it protects the environment. No matter how much it may be devastating the Planet, capitalism has the financial means to create and sustain a green illusion. This illusion is ably propped up by politicians with directorships on the boards of the world’s biggest Earth-rapist multi-national corporations. It is much less ably propped by over-eager factory-pharm oomans who use any piece of evidence to consolidate the propaganda, "West Midlands Police is to ‘go green’ in a major way helping to protect the environment. The force is looking to buy lead-free bullets to protect firearms officers from pollution." Capitalism is able to sustain its green illusion because it goes unchallenged by environmental organizations such as greenpeace, friends of the Earth and the green party.

IV: The ‘It’s not in the Earth-Rapists’ Interests to stop Wrecking the Earth ’ Thesis.

The fact has to be faced that the world’s Earth rapists do not want to protect the Earth. It is in their interests to go on wrecking the Earth. Consumers are not going to give up their profligate consumption for a life of frugality; the world’s richest individuals are not going to give away the bulk of their wealth in order to live a convivial existence; the richest and most powerful countries are not going to give up their military and economic dominance over the rest of the world; and multi-national corporations are not going to dismember themselves and give away their assets to local communities. These changes are simply not going to happen.

It is in the interests of multi-national corporations, the richest countries, the richest individuals, and the world’s hundreds of millions of consumers, to oppose efforts to protect the Planet since this will diminish their wealth and power. Most of them would rather destroy the Earth, the human race and even their own children, than forgo their pleasures and privileges. It is not in the interests of the rich and powerful to save the Earth.

Hannah Arendt, one of the most incisive commentators of nazism and stalinism, pointed out that many people within stalin’s totalitarian state were faced with the prospect that promotion increased their likelihood of being purged. These people were faced with the choice between, on the one hand, staying in a lowly position, on a low wage and surviving and, on the other hand, winning promotion, enjoying the good life for a number of years before meeting an early death. If there was a choice between a short, but rich, life and a long, but poor, life, most choose the former.

This is by no means an uncommon choice even in ‘civilized’, that is, eco-nazis, societies. Virtually everyone is willing to trade off an indulgence in some harmful habit whether gluttony, smoking, alcohol, drugs, speeding in cars, etc., for a shorter life. People who drink too much, who smoke tobacco, take narcotics, or drive too fast, etc., choose to take the risk of a shorter, more pleasurable, life. Consumers in the over-industrialized nations are choosing a rich and short life which destroys the Earth’s life-support system, rather than a long and convivial life which protects the Earth. If consumers have to make a choice between the good life and the Earth they will chose the former. If the Planet goes down with them whilst they are living the good life then this is a matter of indifference to them - although in public they will feign ignorance and horror - just like the good germans who knew nothing about the gas chambers even though the nazis distributed jewish clothing and household items to most sectors of society.

It is quite feasible that a few individuals will, like saul on the road to damascus, find ecological enlightenment, but it is not feasible to expect the world’s million-odd millionaires to undergo a mass green baptism. And, even if by some miracle it was possible to create a sustainable Planet what would the Earth rapists who used to enjoy the power, privileges and luxuries of running the world’s multinational corporations/multinational agencies do with themselves when they were no longer allowed to destroy the Earth? How could they cope with frugality? They would invariably find some way of organizing violence and destruction because this is the way they have been brought up, this is the way they have lived throughout their lives, and they don’t know any other way of life.

V: The ‘There are More People Employed to Destroy the Earth than Protect It’ Thesis.

Humans are hurtling to an ecological disaster because in the over-industrialized world there are vastly more people who are employed to destroy the Earth than there are people employed to protect it. For every one person who is employed to protect the Earth, there are hundreds of thousands who are being paid to destroy it. For example, to indicate the scale of the problem, 3 million of the world’s best scientists and engineers are engaged in military research and development (millions more in multinational car corporations, petro-chemical corporations, factory pharming, etc) whilst there are probably no more than 2 or 3 thousand meteorologists trying to understand the Earth’s geophysiological processes.

Even when greens are given important political positions they are soon sacked.

* Jose lutzenberger sacked by Earth-rapists within the brazilian government;

* Maneka ghandi (indira ghandhi’s daughter) sacked by Earth-rapists within the indian government; and,

* Carlo ripa di meana sacked by Earth-rapists (at the instigation of john major) within the european commission.

There are hundreds of millions of people around the world who are currently working full time, on high wages, with overtime at double rates of pay, on the destruction of the Planet. And the more that people in Earth rapist jobs become aware that their employment depends upon the continued wrecking of the Earth the more difficult it is to abolish these jobs and replace them with less well paid jobs protecting the environment - certainly no respectable trade union/socialist would possibly countenance a reduction in pay and working conditions simply to save the Earth.

VI: The ‘Destruction of Scientific Impartiality’ Thesis.

Even where scientists are employed to help protect the environment their scientific impartiality and objectivity is being destroyed by privatization. To the extent that privatization is being promoted around the world, or has already taken place, then this is a global problem. Privatization forces scientists onto the payroll of multi-national corporations. They might not be directly employed by a multi-national corporation, they may not receive grants from a multi-national corporation and they may not even receive gifts from multi-national corporations but their careers are still dependent upon multi-national corporations. There are enough scientists on multi-national corporations’ payroll to ensure the whole career structure is determined by corporate interests. In the past universities were divorced from business interests, which meant that scientists were able to maintan a considerable degree of independence and impartiality but now most universities have been privatized.

The only conclusions scientists reach these days in their scientific research is praise for the role of multi-national corporations in protecting the environment. They have no other choice but to protect their Earth rapist employers if they are to get a pension. Their scientific findings simply cannot be accepted because of their materialistic bias. The following is but one example in what is now a commonplace situation across the whole range of environmental scientific research, "Five members of the government's scientific panel examining the alleged dangers of sheep dips are receiving money from companies which make the chemicals."

VII: The ‘Nothing that Consumers are doing In Everyday Life is helping to Protect the Earth’ Thesis.

Conversely, when the Earth-rapists have finished wrecking the Earth at work, they go home and become consumers to continue their wrecking spree. There is virtually nothing that consumers in the over-industrialized nations do today that doesn’t contribute to the destruction of the Planet. Every time they go out in their car; every time they switch on a light; every time they boil some water; every time they read a newspaper; every time they wash their clothes; every time they eat a beefburger; every time they drink a coke; every time they go to the loo; etc, etc, etc, they are committing an act of environmental destruction. Consumers live in a blizzard of ecological destruction it is almost impossible for them to see through the tundra to an ecologically sound way of life. They are causing such an enormous level of ecological destruction it would take years to explain in detail just exactly what kind of damage, and how much damage, they are doing to the Earth. They are so busy destroying the Earth they simply wouldn’t have the time to listen to any explanation about the damage they are inflicting on the Earth. Even if they had the time, they are causing so much damage they probably couldn’t bear to listen to a recitation of their ecological crimes.

It was suggested above that capitalism is able to perpetuate the myth that it is protecting the environment because it has vast sums of money to spend on green propaganda. This is far from being the sole reason for the perpetuation of the myth. It is after all in the interests of all workers/consumers within the world’s capitalist system to do their bit to support and reinforce this myth.

VIII: The ‘Poor/Industrializing World wants to become the First World’ Thesis.

As far as the Earth is concerned it is bad enough that multi-national corporations, the over-industrialized nations, the global elite, and consumers, refuse to give up their Earth raping privileges. What exacerbates the likelihood of humans destroying the Planet’s life support system is that poor/industrializing countries want to become over-industrialzed countries whilst the world’s poor want to become rich. There is not the slightest indication that poor/industrializing countries and their peoples are likely to accept the fact that it is an ecological impossibility for the Earth’s entire human population to become as rich as the global elite, and for third world countries to become like america. "the Rio documents make clear that the South has no intention of abandoning the Northern model of living as its implicit utopia."; "An African diplomat says, "Governments have not yet appreciated that the lot of their people is going to get worse if we go down the same road as the rich countries. The dogma is trade, money, growth; we've all bought the captalist package."

The only way to save the Earth is if the over-industrialized countries become more like poor/industrializing countries, rather than vice versa. The only course of action is not to embourgeoisify the entire world but to reduce the wealth of the rich. It is imperative to abolish poverty but this can happen only if the poor do not aim to liberate themselves but to liberate the Earth. There is no prospect of this happening.

IX: The ‘Soviet Bloc Countries Want to Become the First World’ Thesis.

Exactly the same is true in eastern euorpe. East european countries governments want to create capitalist economies and east european people want to become consumers. Paradoxically, one of the main factors which helped to undermine communist rule in soviet bloc countries were protests about environmental destruction. Unfortunately since the collapse of communism, the popularity of environmental issues has evaporated almost as much as has happened in capitalist countries, "Three years ago, environmental issues provided a rallying point for people disaffected with the then communist government. But in last week's elections (in Czechoslavakia) many grassroots' environmentalists threw their support for .. parties in which the environment is way down their political agendas." People would rather continue destroying the environment in the hope of boosting consumerism than protect the Earth.

X: The ‘Only Economic Growth Can Protect the Planet’ Thesis.

Just as the vast majority of humans on Earth want to be consumers, so most humans, whether rich or poor, are united in the belief that only economic growth can generate enough wealth to protect the environment. Paradoxically, this argument is put forward most often not so much by the world’s most destitute peoples who face the stark choice between eating and protecting the Earth, but by multi-national corporations, the world’s wealthiest individuals, and by politicians and consumers in the over-industrialized nations. These people enjoy a level of wealth which has never existed throughout human history, and which has never even been imagined at any time in the past, and yet the shits still argue they don’t have enough money to protect the environment. One wonders just how much money they would need before they would consider protecting the environment. If america can’t protect its environment then no country around the world will ever be able to do so. Despite its wealth, america is an ecological disaster zone.

The hypothesis that only economic growth can protect the environment is a fraud since, as has been pointed out above, the reason the over-industrialized countries have such a high level of economic growth is not because they have protected their environment but because they have been destroying it. In the over-industrialized nation’s the belief that ‘only economic growth can protect the Planet’ is an essential pillar of the capitalist green ideology that ‘only capitalism can save the environment’. It is used as an excuse for yet more economic growth which destroys even more of the Earth. This maxim is becoming increasingly pervasive throughout the industrializing world. There is only one outcome which can be achieved by continual economic growth and that is the destruction of the local, national and global ecology.

If it was possible for economic growth to protect the environment then it would be possible to chop down a Rainforest and then use the profit not merely to make large numbers of people wealthier but to recreate the Forest in all of its incredible Biodiversity so that it could be chopped down again to create even more wealth for even more people. There is no such virtuous cycle. It is quite staggering that seemingly intelligent, rational, sensible humans could argued that the only way to protect the environment is to increase environmental exploitation in order to generate sufficient profits to provide the money to care for the environment. What this indicates is that in the attempt to persuade people to take care of the Earth reason may be irrelevant.

Just how much do countries want to protect the environment? This can be assessed most clearly from their concern about Wildlife and Wildlife habitats. Two european countries each have a colony of wild bears. Unfortunately these bears live in the wrong place for both governments need these areas to promote economic growth. In France they are going to construct a road through bears’ habitat and in spain they are going to indundate the land for the sake of creating a water reservoir, "Spain's last remaining brown bears could disapear altogether if the government decides to give the go-ahead to build a dam in the north of the country."; "Farmers who have been suffering from drought for the past few years fight for a dam project in the Vidrieros valley, part of a mammouth scheme to shunt water to the parched interior. If the government agree, the dam will split up the bears (only 80 individuals in total), rendering the gene pool in the subgroups unviable." If these two countries, which are amongst the wealthiest in the world, cannot protect their last bear habitats then it is blatantly obvious firstly, that no country can protect its environment and, secondly, that capitalism does not protect the environment but is responsible for destroying it.

XI: The ‘Priority Given to National Sovereignty’ Thesis.

All countries around the world are in a frenzy of competition with each other to grab as many resources as possible, at the least possible cost, before they are taken by someone else. This attempt to increase wealth and become wealthier than all other countries around the world can end only in an ecological collapse. The only way to stop this ecological collapse is to stop this competition and share out resources on a rational,and, much more importantly, ecological, basis. Unless countries give up their national sovereignty and give sovereignty to the Earth then humans are doomed.

National sovereignty rationalizes all out economic growth and gives countries the right to dump as much pollution into the atmosphere as they want and to cut down as many Trees/Forests as they want. This can lead only to a geophysiological disaster. Whilst it may be possible for countries to become economically self-sufficient, or to achieve resource self sufficiency, it is impossible to become ecological self sufficient because the Earth’s life support system is a unitary entity. The only way of averting a global warming disaster is for countries to give up national sovereignty and agree to play an equal part in determining the level of atmospheric Carbon and the scale of the Earth’s Forest cover. If all the nations of the world continue to insist on setting their own environmental policies irrespective of what other countries are doing - and some don’t even bother to set their own environmental policies - there is only one outcome.

XII: The ‘Military Security is more Important than Environmental Security’ Thesis.

Despite the fact that the cold war between the super-powers is over and that the biggest threat to most countries around the world is now a global ecological collapse, governments continue to do more to protect their countries from external attack than they do to protect their segment of the Earth’s life-support system, "The US plans to spend $303 billion in 1990 to protect the country from military threats but only $14 billion to protect it from environmental threats, a ratio of 22:1."

XIII: The ‘Earth Does Not Exist’ Thesis.

Humans are doomed because, for one reason or another, most people around the world do not believe the Earth exists. They know nothing about the Earth’s life support system; they are not interested in the Earth’s life support system (even though it ensures their survival); and they do not care about the Earth’s life support system. As far as they are concerned the Earth might as well not exist. If asked most of them would rather do away with it than have the hassle of looking after it. They have enough trouble looking after their own home, going to work, and keeping up with events on coronation street/ramsay street without worrying about the Earth as well. In the factory pharm system, oomans do not have to bother about their living conditions because this is laid on for them. They believe the factory pharm system has been created for their benefit and trust the factory pharm managers to ensure a continuation of this comfortable way of life. The livestock do not suspect that the factory pharm managers have created the system simply to maximize the milking of the livestock and couldn’t care less about the survivability either of its inhabitants or of the factory pharm as long as they are getting richer. As the chief officer of lloyd’s once said, "If people weren’t sheep there wouldn’t be any reason to shear them."

Economists do not believe the Earth exists because environmental factors are not taken into account in economic theories. The world bank and other leading financial institutions around the world do not take the Earth into account when making decisions about which Earth-raping project to invest their ill-gotten loot. To an economist the Earth does not exist because only the market-place has reality. People live in a global market not on a dynamic, living Planet. Quite how people are going to function in the global gatt marketplace without a Planet is something which the overpaid, over-privileged economists in universities, governments and multi-national corporations have not yet explained. Economists are the Earth-rapists’ intellectual prostitutes. At least those on the street provide a real service rather than the illusions created by economists.

Perhaps even more surprising is that the green party does not believe the Earth exists. The decentralists currently controlling the green party believe that because the public has lost interest in environmental issues then the party should concentrate upon social issues in order to be electorally successful, "Rather than talking about pollution we need to address the question of unemployment or crime, and show how these are related to the industrial system - which also causes the pollution." They are much more concerned with increasing the availability of ooman rights so that more and more livestock oomans have the right to destroy the Earth. The green party is supposed to protect the environment but increasingly it is being dominated by people who believe it is an electoral liability. It is truly staggering when even the green party believes the environment is not merely a liability but a lost cause.

XIV: The ‘Exponential Growth in the numbers of Cars, Kids, Cattle, Capital Poses no Threat to the Earth’ Thesis.

Most people have no conception of any danger to the Earth’s life support system caused by the exponential growth in the number of cars, kids, cattle, capital, and carnage - how could they when they don’t know the Earth exists, when the Earth is non-existent beyond the windowless, air-conditioned, factory pharm sheds. They cannot see anything is wrong with infinite growth; they do not suspect there are any ecological limits to the number of cars, kids, cattle, capital, and carnage that can exist on Earth; and they believe that everyone on Earth, all 5.3 billion, soon to be 10 billion, going on for 20 billion, oomans should be allowed to have as many cars as they want, as many sprogs as they want; kill as many Animals as they want; and accumulate as much money as they want (and the more the better). Indeed, anyone who argues there are limitations is regarded as a cruel person who is denying a human being the right to good life. Quite staggeringly, the rio Earth summit, which was supposed to agree on policies to protect the Earth’s life support system, did not discuss population issues, "In 1991 the United Nations prospectuses for the 1992 World Conference on Environment and Development never mentioned the word ‘population’."

The belief in the feasibility of an infinite growth in the number of cars, kids, cattle, and capital, is simply another manifestation of the belief that the Earth does not exist. Unfortunately, the Earth is a finite Planet and is incapable of tolerating exponential growth - and certainly not the simultaneous exponential growth in five human activities.

XV: The ‘We’ll Make the Necessary Sacrifices’ Thesis.

There are some consumers, however, who suspect there is an environmental problem although they have little conception of the current scale of global ecological destruction. They also know that protecting the Earth will mean financial and material sacrifices but the type of sacrifices they have in mind are something like the "you’ve got to tighten your belts" demands made periodically by chancellors of the exchequer after the economy goes through another bout of depression. Unfortunately the scale of the sacrifices needed from consumers in the over-industrialized world to create a sustainable Planet are not of the same order.

Perhaps an anecdote might hint at what is involved. Some years ago a ‘Ban Cars’ poster was plastered on a number of billboards advertising a sleek looking car. Underneath one of these posters was scribbled the retort, ‘You might as well try and ban children’. This could quite easily, however, have been, ‘You might as well try and ban meat’ or ‘You might as well try and ban capitalism’ or ‘You might as well try and ban wars’.

The scale of the damage being inflicted on the Earth’s ife support system is such that in order to create a sustainable Planet it will not be enough for the over-industrialized countries simply to try and slow down, or stabilize, the exponential growth in the number of cars, kids, cattle, capital, and carnage. They will have to severely curtail each over-growth and perhaps even ban one or other activity. So, which one is it going to be? Which one will people give up - their cars? having kids? eating meat? economic growth? curbing military protection?

Those consumers who believe they couldn’t do without any of these activities, or who believe it would be impossible to abolish one or other of these activities, have just proved it is impossible to protect the Earth and save the human race.

XVI: The ‘The Crisis of Crisis Management’ Thesis.

Most governments around the world are neither ideological nor pragmatic. Most tend to operate according to the tenets of crisis management in which action is taken only after a problem has occurred. Many politicians are too busy with crisis management to discuss, let alone implement, policies designed to prevent problems. One of the assumptions of crisis management is that a crisis is never so big or so fast that it cannot be managed. Unfortunately, this is not the case with global warming. If global warming develops a momentum of its own then humans are unlikely to stop, let alone reverse, the momentum.

XVII: The ‘Changes are Too Big to be Made’ Thesis.

The changes that need to be made in order to create a sustainable Planet are so huge that it is not merely highly unlikely, but unfeasible, that they can be achieved. They are beyond the power of the over-industrialized governments, the world’s multi-national corporations, the world’s richest and most powerful individuals, and the hundreds of millions of consumers in the over-industrialized world. Even if they wanted to change in order to protect the Earth, the changes are so huge it would be beyond their capability.

Global warming is an ecological problem caused by social, industrial, economic, political and military factors. There is virtually nothing that humans do that doesn’t have an impact on global warming. Negotiations between the over-industrialized nations, the industrializing nations and the disintegrating nations to reduce atmospheric Carbon emissions and increase the scale of the Earth’s Forest cover will involve decisions not merely about global justice, demilitarization, overpopulation, and the abolition of capitalism but all aspects of human life. Only a ‘big bang’ solution which creates an agreement on all issues would be sufficient to tackle global warming because any issue left off the agenda would continue to boost global warming. If countries adversely affected by the failure to take this factor into consideration felt a sense of injustice they would not abide by the agreement to protect the Earth. Even worse is that so far nobody has outlined the principle by which it would be possible to determine which countries should reduce Carbon emissions (and by how much) and which countries must Reforest their lands (and by how much). The lengthy and minute negotiations over the reduction of nuclear weapons are as nothing in comparison to those needed to avert global warming. The agreement over the uruguay round of gatt took seven years to finalize but it was possible to reach an agreement in such a short time because basically the group of seven nations steamrollered the agreement through against the interests of many industrializing, and disintegrating, countries. This, however, cannot be done with any agreement over global warming. The industrializing, and disintegrating, countries have most of the bargaining power when it comes to an agreement over global warming. The world’s dominant powers are going to have huge psychological and cultural problems coming to terms with the fact that they can’t steamroller the industrializing, and disintegrating, countries into submission over global warming and that most of the sacrifices are going to have to be made by the over-industrialized nations.

XVIII: The ‘Voluntary Action is the Best way of Solving Global Ecological Problems’ Thesis.

There are many greens who believe that since governments will not take action to save the Earth then the best way of combatting global ecological problems is not through green parties or green organizations but through individual action, changing lifestyles, green consumerism, "Rather than waiting for governments and international bodies to decide to initiate sustainable development, we urgently need to develop the skills of living sustainably. There is nothing like people taking action themselves ..."

The basic assumption of voluntarism is that as more and more individuals change their lifestyles, the less need there is for government intervention. Unfortunately voluntarism will not work. For every individual who attempts to live sustainably, millions refuse to do so. They refuse not so much because they are reluctant to make sacrifices but because they are reluctant to make sacrifices whilst others do not - especially when these others ridicule such sacrifices and abhor the non conformist nature of the sacrifice. The majority of livestock oomans will not make sacrifices unless governments force everyone to make the same sacrifices. What is more, there is no point in indivduals sacrificing their interests if all this does is boost the ecological damage caused by those not making sacrifices e.g. what is the point of giving up the car if all this does is give other motorists more space on the motorways to drive at even higher speeds? Even worse is that the majority of consumers are not going to demand that the government impose these sacrifices. The livestock know that no amount of squealing in the stalls is going to get the factory pharm managers to set up a free range state. What is required to solve the Earth’s global ecological problems is not individual sacrifices on the local level - no matter how inspirational this may be because inspiration always flags - but global action in which the sacrifices are based on global justice. People might as well party on until there is a fullscale global agreement on all issues concerning the environment because without this global and comprehensive agreement it will not be possible to protect the Earth. There are no local solutions to environmental problems. All green problems are global in scope and can be solved only within a global context.

Everyone on the Earth has got to sit down and decide whether they want the Earth and its Wildlife to survive or whether they should continue sponging off the Planet’s capital resources until the Earth has been destroyed. If they decide to party rather than create a sustainable Planet, they should invite everyone to attend but have the decency not to take along any kids.

XIX: The ‘Polluter Never Pays’ Thesis.

Although lip-service is often given to the principle of ‘the polluter pays’ and although there are examples where the scale of pollution is so serious that it evokes a huge swell of public opinion which forces companies to clean up, on the whole the polluter never pays. But even if the polluters did pay, the principle would not work.

Firstly, the fines would not be substantial enough to prevent pollution and would be seen just as an extra tax on production.

Secondly, the fines paid by polluters would not be passed to a corps of environmental restorationists who would leap into their land rovers, dash to the scene of a pollution disaster, clean up the mess, and restore harmony with the Earth. The fines collected would be put into the government kitty - and then used to finance the building of a new road or some other Earth rapist project. Governments do not raise money for specific purposes (except, of course, the motorway tolls which will be used to finance the construction of new roads) and thus the fines on polluters would not be used to repair ecological damage.

Thirdly, the fines imposed on polluters are never intended to meet the costs of repairing ecological damage.

Fourthly, if fines were based on the full cost of restoring ecological habitats to their former pristine condition, businesses could not afford the fines. It costs virtually nothing to destroy the Earth but it costs vast sums to repair it. This is the Humpty Dumpty law of pollution. Pollution is the accidental dispersal of a substance and whilst the dispersal itself costs next to nothing the costs of gathering it up again are prohibitive. For example, the cost of cleaning up an oil spill is so substantial it is too expensive to return the environment to state it was in before the disaster - even assuming this is ecologically possible. Governments could never implement a ‘full damage and repair’ system because it would put polluters out of business. There are no industries anywhere around the world which could afford to repair the damage they have inflicted on the Earth. Governments, paid by Earth rapists and run by Earth rapists, cannot afford to put Earth-rapists out of business. Nevertheless, it is still commonly held that only capitalism can afford the resources to protect the environment. What this shows is that capitalism can sustain its green illusion no matter what the scale of global ecological collapse.

XX: The ‘Technologists’ Arrogance’ Thesis.

Over the last couple of centuries but especially since the second world war, new technologies have boosted economic growth and transformed the quality of many people’s lives. Unfortunately, such achievements have enabled technologists to forget the increasing failures of big science:-

* the failure of civil nuclear power;

* the failure of fusion power;

* the failure to find a cure for cancer;

* the failure to find a cure for the common cold;

* the failure to eradicate poverty;

* the failure of massive dam projects;

* the failure of space exploration.

Technologists believe that new technologies can solve the Earth’s ecological problems. This belief suffers from three drawbacks. Firstly, more and more technologies are being invented which boost global ecological destruction. Secondly, the most technologically successful countries are the biggest ecological failures. Thirdly, ecological problems cannot be solved technologically.

The arrogance of technologists prevents them from accepting their ecological impotence. As more and more ecological disasters begin to occur, more and more technologists will try and solve these problems with technology and thereby exacerbate the disasters.

XXI: The ‘It Takes Only One Dickhead’ Thesis.

In many ways survival on Earth depends not so much on most, but all, humans becoming perfect. Imagine the situation where the numbers of a Wildlife species have been decimated to such an extent that only two specimens are left. If they fail to breed the species becomes extinct. The whole nation loves these creatures and is willing to do anything to prevent their survival being jeopardized. However, even if 99.999% of the population love and adore these two creatures all it takes is one dickhead to go along and attack the Animals and that is that.

These last remaining hypothetical specimens could be killed by any number of people for any number of reasons. There may be psychopaths who resent so much attention being devoted to Animals or publicity seekers out to gain publicity by killing them. Collectors would offer a fortune to have these last two specimens since they would be absolutely unique. There may be nature-lovers who stumble across the Animals and accidentally destroy them. Vandals may accidentally find them and kill them without realizing their ecological importance. A former employee of the landlord who owns the property on which the Animals live may resent having lost his/her job and seeks revenge by killing the Creatures. The landowner may resent not being able to develop his/her land. There may even be Animal conservationists/museum curators who believe that since the Animals are doomed anyway they might as well be shot by a good marksperson, professionally stuffed and put in a good display case in a good museum rather than fading into oblivion. A large group of ravers might drive their cars into some remote Wilderness area for a night of wild raving one of whom accidentally squashes/poisons/terrifys/tortures the Animals to death. One way or another, all it takes is one dickhead and another species disappears. The prospects for the survival of any endangered species are grim.

In any large group of oomans there’s always at least one dickhead and one clithead. The greater the population the greater the number of dickheads and clitheads. In a national population of 55,000,000 there are millions. In a global population of 5.3 billion there are countries full of them.

XXII: The ‘Greens are being Left Behind’ Thesis.

The argument is occasionally put forward that there is no reason to be gloomy about the increasing risk of a global ecological collapse because there are green movements and green parties in most countries around the world which, one day, will be called upon to restore the Earth’s life support system. There are reasons to be cautious about such optimism. The following four sections look at some of these reasons.

Although over the last two decades the green movement has made some political progress in a number of countries around the world, it has been unable to do anything to stop the exponential growth in global ecological devastation. It has fallen further and further behind the world community’s rush toward ecocidal oblivion. Examine any environmental criteria and it will be found that ecological conditions are now far, far worse than they were in 1970. Garret Hardin points out that in 1970, when the first Earth day took place, there were 3.6 billion people on Earth. When in 1990 the second took place there were 5.3 billion people - a staggering increase of 1.7 billion or 47%. He concludes, "Despite the existence of a vast literature on ecology and environmental problems, several decades of political activism in support of environmental causes, and considerable government activity to redress environmental wrongs, both domestically and internationally, very litle has changed in humankind’s relationship to its natural milieu."

Reviewing the situation over the last twenty years since the1972 united nations’ conference on the human environment (sic) in stockholm, one commentator believes that, "For every step forward in thinking and government action, the global environment has moved ten steps backwards." Far from being a measure of the enormous stature which green issues have recently attained, the rio Earth summit symbolized the fact that nothing has changed in global green politics over the last 20 years, "UNCED was an outright failure. .. UNCED was an almost perfect remake of the UN Conference on the Human Environment 20 years earlier; an identical prepatory process taking place 20 years later, on similar dates, often in the same places and sometimes with the same persons as 20 years before."

Whilst there may be greens who are prepared to admit that the Earth’s life support system is in a far more precarious position now than it was in 1970, many argue that the second climate conference and the rio Earth summit were a turning point because governments committed themselves to combatting the greenhouse effect. And yet 18 months after this informal, non-binding agreement, the world’s same political leaders pushed through the uruguay round of the gatt agreement which, over the following decades, will not merely boost economic growth, making it impossible for all countries around the world to meet their obligations to reduce Carbon emissions, it will also lead to the abolition of virtually all environmental rules and regulations. Whilst the commitments made at the rio summit were informal and carried no sanctions, gatt is a legal agreement which has sanctions to compel countries to abide by its decisions. Gatt is the single biggest setback for the green movement since the creation of the green movement. Gatt will overturn all of the hard won environmental regulations enacted over the last two decades. Greens face a future in which there will be not more and more environmental regulations to protect the Earth but fewer and fewer regulations. At a time when the destruction of the Earth’s life support system is taking place at an exponential rate, the Earth’s veneer of legal protection is being stripped away. At best it can be said that although the green movement might be going forward, green struggles have been catapulted back two decades, and greens are being left behind at an accelerating rate by the world’s destruction of the Earth. Friends of the Earth are still sitting in their plush offices fighting for glass recycling - a piddling little issue they first campaigned on in 1970.

In the late 1980s a number of greens were given high ranking positions in a number of different governments around the world; lutzenburger in brazil, ghandi in india, ripa di meana in europe. Each one of them has now been sacked.

In great brutland a number of years ago, chris patten was hailed as the new green secretary of state for the environment who would protect the environment. But he, and trippier another green conservative, both lost their seats in the 1992 general election.

In the brutish media, the loss of interest in green issues amongst the public means there is less need for environmental correspondents, "Over the last two years five environmental correspondents have lost their jobs." (Green Magazine November 1993 p.13).

The english green party is not merely losing members and losing electoral support it is being confronted by a society which is becoming more and more ungreen. Every year since 1970 for every person who becomes interested in green issues, a thousand go out and buy a new car (some of them members of the green party) and a couple of hundred decide to have a baby (some of them members of the green party). For the last twenty years, between 1-2 million cars have been sold in this country every year making any progress by the green party utterly irrelevant.

It has already been pointed out that the decentralists who have taken over the english green party are not interested in environmental issues because environmental issues are regarded as an electoral liability. There is a green law of politics. This states that the worse the ecological conditions become, the more insipid green parties’ responses become .. "no political party anywhere in the north seems willing to risk its electoral future by advocating policies that would help restrain consumption or reduce the growth rate." So, if it is not the role of green parties to challenge consumerism or economic growth what is the point of being green; what is the point of having a green party? The real role of green parties is exposed below.

XXIII: The ‘Green Hope Addicts.’ Thesis.

Of course greens are the last people who would admit that there has been no progress in global green issues over the last twenty years; that ecological conditions have got exponentially worse over the last twenty years; that ecological conditions are deteriorating beyond the possibility of recovery; that they are fighting a losing battle against the Earth-rapists; that greens have been increasingly left behind over the last twenty years; and that the prospects of the extinction of the human race are far greater than for human survival.

Greens, however, are adamant they will eventually succeed in creating a sustainable Planet. They are always full of hope - no matter how bad the disintegration of the Earth’s life support system, greens believe they will eventually restore the Earth to its full health and vitality. They believe that once reason prevails it will be possible to create a sustainable Planet. They are so unwilling to face the mounting ecological disasters they almost seem addicted to optimism. There are a number of reasons for this hopeless hope addiction.

Firstly, in a green organization greens are organizationally compelled to praise the accomplishments of that organization no matter how piffling they might be. To question or to doubt the organization, its members, leaders, philosophy or goals is to undermine it, and no organization can allow itself to be undermined - no matter how badly the Earth is falling apart. There is nothing wrong with optimism but organizational optimism is always a danger. It encourages members not to tell the truth about how bad things are getting if only for the simple reason that it would depress party members and thus make it more difficult to perpetuate the organization; it encourages them to denounce those who are not optimistic no matter whether the truth is at stake or not; it encourages them to be reformist since otherwise there is no hope of persuading the Earth-rapists to vote green.

Secondly, some greens have discovered that even natural events conspire to produce optimism and prevents them from telling the truth about the state of the Earth’s life support system. Those greens who decide to become parents suddenly become incapable of evaluating objectively the state of the Planet’s health. They realize they cannot publicize the abundant evidence that the Earth’s life support system is getting closer to collapse because, firstly, people would retort that if this was so then why have they just had a sprog and, secondly, because no sprog wants to listen to its parents telling it that it hasn’t got a future. Sprogs are a gag on green activists who, for the sake of their sprogs, acquire a new perspective in which they argue that the Earth’s life support system is not in any immediate danger of collapse and that it will be easy to save the Planet. The birth of a green sprog does not stimulate green parents into greater political activism to make the world a safer place in which their sprog may grow. This is not merely because they don’t have time after constantly changing nappies but because they can’t afford to do anything which might make their child wonder why they had been born. Some sprog infested greens live in such a world of illusion they still promote the argument that more sprogs are desperately needed to help create the wealth for the next generation of humans - an argument which hardly seems applicable in a world where 96 million sprogs appear every year i.e. nearly twice the population of brutland.

Greens’ optimism is so profuse it is hardly worth the effort providing any examples. Nevertheless:-

* Once upon a time greens pointed out that environmentalists in eastern bloc countries had helped to undermine communism and one day they would become a powerful force in the newly emerging democracies. But, as has been seen, most of these greens have opted to become consumers and are currently voting for conventional consumerist parties.

It might be asked what greens will be doing when the Planet’s ecology collpases. Most of them will certainly be in a meeting to discuss the need for more glass recycling, and how best to present the evidence of the collapse without blaming anyone or causing offensive. Hopes will be expressed that in the long distant future when evolution has started all over again that a new species of humans will reappear with a little more interest in the green party. It will be with great sadness that plans for a jumble sale and green fair will have to be postponed for a few million years.

Roger DiSilvestro provides one of the best alternative perspectives to greens’ inane optimism. Talking about the continual loss of Wilderness areas in the united states, he states, "Yet still it is the fashion among conservation groups to shed favourable light upon environmental accomplishments, to paint as bright a picture as possible, waving the banner of hope as an inspiraton. But hope is an indulgence. We do not need hope to fight an inexorable sea of destruction. We need resolve to stand eternally on that sea-hissing shore, returning to the waves the last living starfish even as the sun sets upon humanity for the final time."

XXIV: The ‘Greens are Earth Rapists’ Thesis.

There is something much more fundamentally amiss with the green movement than that greens are inveterate opimists and that green parties are being run by people who know nothing about ecology and are not in the slightest bit interested in the environment. The real disaster is that not content with the current scale of exponential ecological destruction, greens want to promote their own ecologically destructive policies. The fact has to be faced that many greens are Earth-rapists who have not the slightest justification for their policies other than that it might appeal to a large number of the less strident Earth-rapists.