xvii) Conclusions.

I: Greens support Technology.

The country's leading green organizations believe that the most important priority for combatting global warming is not Reforestation nor a halt to deforestation but a reduction in Carbon emissions. This priority entails a reliance upon pollution reduction devices, energy conservation, and alternative energy i.e. technological, rather than ecological, solutions - despite the fact

* that pollution reduction measures have been an almost complete failure over the last three decades;

* that some technologies exacerbate, rather than reduce, pollution;

* that energy conservation measures are futile because financial savings from reduced energy consumption are spent on other energy consuming commodities; and,

* that even if energy conservation measures did what they are supposed to do and reduced energy consumption they still wouldn't be sufficient to combat global warming.

II: Greens support Technology and Solar Power.

More profoundly, the technological approach to reducing Carbon emissions will gradually lead to the introduction of a solar economy. Whilst most greens welcome this development, the ecological viability of solar energy has not been demonstrated. On the contrary, there are reasons for suspecting it would be even more ecologically destructive than a fossil-fuelled economy and that it would decimate more and more of the Planet's life support system. Whilst alternative energy could reduce Carbon emissions it would cause just as much ecological damage as fossil fuels. It is absurd that for decades the green movement has demanded environmental impact statements for conventional forms of energy and yet has not calculated the geophysiological impact of its own favoured forms of energy.

Greens have continually reiterated that humans live on a finite Planet with finite resources and that energy/resources must be conserved if humans are to survive in perpetuity on Earth. This is deemed such a fundamental characteristic of green politics that one commentator has argued, "Green politics is founded upon a fundamental commitment to the principle of scarcity as an insurmountable fact of life and the consequent limits to growth imposed by a finite system." [1] And yet this still doesn't stop a number of supergreens from proclaiming the benefits of unlimited solar energy,

* "The Worldwatch Institute paints a compelling picture of a solar-run planet and says the system could be in place just 40 years from now. The sun's potential for supplying us with cheap and benign energy in the next few decades is unlimited." [2] ;

* Friends of the Earth advocate "Energy Without End" [3] ;

* Jonathon porritt argues, "Sustainable development is possible. Production of timber from forests can be sustained indefinitely, cycle after cycle. The production of food through organic agriculture can be sustained indefinitely. Unlimited energy supplies can be sustained indefinitely from renewable sources such as sun, wind, wave, and tidal power." [4]

It is estimated that, "Energy flows to Earth from the sun at a nearly constant rate of 173 billion megawatts, or nearly 26,000 times the present rate of global energy demand." [5] This should provide an idea of how much heat could be captured if solar power became more and more efficient. Is it possible to imagine what the world would be like if it had 26,000 times more power at its disposal than it does at the moment. The terrestrialization of more and more of the sun's energy can lead only to a hotter and hotter Planet.

The ecological damage caused by solar energy would be severe but, even worse, is that a solar economy condones, and in some cases, reinforces all the most ecologically destructive elements of a fossil fuelled economy i.e. the global inequalities between the rich and the poor countries; the Animal exploitation industry; continued population growth; continued economic growth; as well as the car, and car related, industries. A solar economy is simply a fossil fuelled economy without fossil fuels.

III: Greens support Technology, Solar and Nuclear, Power.

In addition, although greens regard solar energy as an ecologically sound alternative to nuclear power, these two forms of energy are highly compatible with each other since both could be used to generate a new fuel - hydrogen. It is all very well for greens to support solar power whilst opposing nuclear power but the compatibility of these two forms of energy makes such opposition much less viable. Solar energy is an open invitation to nuclear power.

The priority given to the reduction in Carbon emissions to combat global warming is a way of avoiding global Reforestation (most of which will have to take place in the over-industrialized nations); it is a way of avoiding the necessity for challenging the global inequalities between rich and poor nations; it is a way of ignoring the need to dismantle the Animal exploitation industry - which causes more ecological destruction than any other human activity; it is a way of evading action to reduce population growth, economic growth, and the growth in the car, and car related, industries; and, finally, it is a way of avoiding the creation of Wood economies which are the sole basis of a sustainable Planet. Only the creation of Wood economies necessitates the abolition of the inequalities between rich and poor, the Animal exploitation industry, and curbs on the growth in the numbers of cars, kids and capital. It is time that greens, and green organizations, got back to acting as if they are ecologists instead of pretending to be technologists and economists.

At the rio Earth summit the over-industrialized countries insisted that the best way of combatting global warming was through Reforestation (primarily in poor countries) whilst the disintegrating/industrializing countries insisted that the main priority should be the reduction in Carbon emissions (primarily those released by the over-industrialized nations). Green organizations claim that the priority they give to the reduction in Carbon emissions is vital because it is tantamount to taking the side of the disintegrating/industrializing countries against the over-industrialized nations in the on-going disputes over responsibilities for countering global warming. If they give priority to Reforestation it would appear they are taking the side of the over-industrialized nations against the disintegrating/industrializing countries. This rationale of greens' priorities for combatting global warming is just an evasion of the real issue - the Reforestation of the over-industrialized nations. The reason that green organizations concentrate upon a reduction in Carbon emissions is not because they wish to support disintegrating/industrializing countries but because they are too gutless to demand the wholesale Reforestation of the over-industrialized nations. In fact, by not giving priority to Reforestation, green organizations are selling out disintegrating/industrializing countries whose strongest negotiating card at global warming conferences is that, historically, they have done the most to help stabilize the Earth's climate because they have absorbed more Carbon than they have dumped into the atmosphere. By not putting pressure on the over-industrialized governments to carry out Reforestation schemes in their own countries, greens are also giving disintegrating/industrializing governments the excuse they need to go on chopping down their own Forests - after all if the over-industrialized nations have cut down their Forests and are not interested in carrying out massive Reforestation projects then why should disintegrating/industrializing countries protect their Forests. In other words, greens are not merely failing to support Reforestation in their own countries they are condoning the continued destruction of Forests in disintegrating/industrializing countries.

The high-income, car-owning, jet-setting, greens would reply that this criticism isn't valid. They point out that if all countries around the world had to plant enough Forests to offset their current Carbon emissions then this would have no effect on the world's biggest Earth rapist, America, "Densely populated countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, could not grow enough trees to absorb all their present CO₂ emissions, even if every existing hectare was set aside for the purpose. Yet the countries with the worst records of CO₂ pollution, such as the United States, Canada and parts of eastern Europe, do have the land. The United States, despite being responsible for more than one-fifth of the world's CO₂ emissions, could absorb every last tonne if one-third of its land were forested for carbon sequestration." [6] This would, as greenpeace have argued, "let America off the hook". Still, a priority which would have a crippling effect on both germany and the netherlands (not forgetting brutland) wouldn't be all that bad.

The proposal to offset current emissions is clearly absurd since it would mean that brazil, which is currently the fourth worst polluter due to the burning of its Rainforests, would have to Reforest its territory almost as extensively as america! Such a proposal is grossly unjust since it does not take into account that over the last 200 years brazil has been a massive net Carbon importer whilst America has been a colossal, net Carbon exporter. It is time that america, and the other over-industrialized nations, paid off their historical Carbon debts and stopped sponging off the ecological resources of poor/industrializing countries. The demand being made in this work, however, is not that countries should offset their "present CO₂ emissions" but that they should offset their historical Carbon emissions.

IV: The Big Green Con.

Superficially, support for the priority of reducing Carbon emissions may seem just a sensible means of combatting the greenhouse effect. But, the country's leading green organizations are using this priority to perpetrate a gigantic fraud on the rest of the green movement which:-

* refuses to measure the scale of global deforestation and the general destruction of the Planet's Photosynthetic capacity such as Coral Reefs, Phytoplankton, Mangrove Forests and Savannah Grasslands;

* distracts attention from the need for global Reforestation especially in the over-industrialized nations;

* allows green organizations to promote policies which increase ecological devastation under the pretext that they will reduce Carbon emissions - see the green & ron bailey party's so-called ecologically sound transport policies in 'roads to the future';

* hastens the creation of an ecologically uncosted, solar powered economy which would cause extensive damage to the Planet's life support system - see julian edmonds and the green party energy action group's 'empowering energy';

* hastens the creation of a solar powered which would encourage a rejuvenation of the nuclear power industry; and, finally,

* deceives greens (and the public) into believing that the creation of a sustainable Planet can be achieved without the need for massive structural changes such as the abolition of global injustice, capitalism, and the Animal exploitation industries.

The decision to give priority to reducing Carbon emissions rather than Reforestation is thus a critical turning point for the green movement because it enables greenpeace, and other green organizations, to surreptiously push through policies aimed at creating a solar economy. They have not discussed this with their supporters or the wider green movement; they have simply decreed it. The consequences of this dictatorial decision for the green movement will be colossal.

Whilst green groups downplay the need for Reforestation, whether because they believe that atmospheric emissions are a bigger contributor to global warming or a more immediate danger to the Earth's life support system; or because they fear that the need for more Forests will be used as an excuse to create monocultural Tree plantations; or because they fear the over-industrialized nations will try to off-set their Carbon emissions by cajoling disintegrating/industrializing countries into planting more Forests; or because there are fears that new Forests might exacerbate global warming, etc., the net effect is the same - as deforestation increases, greens' demand for Reforestation decreases, and the Planet becomes more and more uninhabitable. Greens have not merely reacted against the difficulties entailed by Reforestation but have over-reacted by denying Reforestation virtually any validity. The belief that Reforestation can be ignored is utterly absurd and not a little horrifying. The fact is that, at the very least, the Earth is one continent short of the Forests it needs to maintain climatic stability. Green organizations in the over-industrialized nations are petrified of confronting this problem because most of them know that these Forests are going to have to be planted in the over-industrialized nations and they don't want to lose their over-paid jobs by confronting their governments over this issue. And yet the longer the issue is ignored, the bigger the problem becomes, until, eventually, it becomes insoluble.

In many ways the green movement has yoked itself to a green version of the monetarist, supply side madness promoted by successive tory governments since 1979. Whilst greens make endless noises about reducing atmospheric pollution the world's remaining Forests are quietly being ripped to shreds. Greens are not merely ignorant about ecological issues they are becoming increasingly dangerous because the dust they kick up over atmospheric pollution camoflauges global ecological devastation and blinds themselves to the damage they would inflict on the Earth if they ever got into power and tried to create a solar economy.

What is unquestionably true is that deforestation will have to stop at one point: not because green oomano-exterminists suddenly realize their mistake and hurriedly start to promote massive Reforestation schemes but because there won't be any Forests left and humans' life support system on Earth will be close to collapse.

V: No Concept of Sustainability.

Greens' lack of interest in Reforestation means they have no vision of a sustainable Planet and thus no definition of sustainability. A number of definitions have been proposed but none are satisfactory because they are unrelated to the Earth's geophysiological realities and scientifically unquantifiable. [7] As a consequence, there are commentators who argue there is no definition of sustainable transport, "That definition is very elusive. In fact, there has not been a single, universal definition of what 'sustainable' really is - other than simpy use that cannot exceed replenishment." [8] Another commentator has suggested that a definition of sustainabliltiy may be practically impossible, "One reason sustainability has not been defined is the sense that to define it in anything that approaches operational terms is just too complex - that the best we can do is head in the right direction with the hope that we may eventually get to a place we want to be." [9]

A sustainable Planet is one in which there is sufficient Forest cover to stabilize the Earth's climate, guarantee the survival of Wildlife, and provide humans with all the resources they need for a convivial existence. What this means in practice is that each country around the world would divide its land into three categories; climate Forests (which could be varied to ensure climatic stability - more Forest cover when the Earth is warming up and less when the Earth is cooling down); ooman-free Wilderness areas (certainly not less than one-third of the land); and regional Forests from which humans would draw most of their food, clothing, energy, raw materials, and commodities. Sustainability consists of maintaining climatic stability, preserving ooman-free Wilderness zones, and conserving regional Wood economies.