Profit versus the environment –
A radical alternative
People
before Profit Pamphlet
Contents
Introduction
1. Ireland
2. Why profit
is so deadly
3. Climate
change – the ultimate challenge
4. The radical
alternative – People Before Profit environmental policy
5. Conclusion
Introduction
Humanity’s impact on the Earth is now so profound that a
new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – needs to be declared, according to an
official expert group who presented the recommendation to the International
Geological Congress in Cape Town on Monday.
The new epoch should begin about 1950, the experts said, and
was likely to be defined by the radioactive elements dispersed across the
planet by nuclear bomb tests, although an array of other signals, including
plastic pollution, soot from power stations, concrete, and even the bones left
by the global proliferation of the domestic chicken were now under
consideration.
The Guardian,
29.08.2016
As can be seen from the
items listed above - radioactive elements, plastic pollution, soot from power
stations, concrete, chicken bones – the impact of humanity on the Earth in the
epoch of the Anthropocene is hardly beneficial and the situation here in Ireland
But this negative
impact is not due to ‘human nature’ or even the behaviour of humans as a whole.
The root of the problem can be summed up in three words ‘pursuit of profit’.
The fact is we live in a
society – and a world – in which the pursuit of profit is systematically
damaging and threatening the environment in which we all live and on which we
all depend.
This is true at a local level
in virtually every community, it is true nationally across the country as a
whole, and it is true globally.
This pamphlet will begin by
giving a number of examples from different parts of Ireland of the destruction of our
environment in the interests of profit. It will explain just why profit, and an
economic system based on the profit motive, is so destructive of nature. It
will look at how, in the shape of climate change, this threatens the whole
future of humanity.
It sets out People Before
Profit’s policies for resisting every attack on our environment and our vision
of a radical alternative which is required to make a sustainable future
possible.
1. Ireland
From one end of this island to
another our natural environment is being threatened by the ruthless pursuit of
profit.
In the North, just outside Derry City Europe . A majority of the waste has been shredded to hide
its source and buried in sand and gravel pits excavated by the Campsie Sand and
Gravel company.
And it’s a real threat to the people and wildlife of Derry . The Carmoney treatment plant, just a couple of
hundred metres downstream from the superdump, extracts 60% of Derry ’s
drinking water from the River Faughan. Additionally, the western edge of this
superdump abuts the River Faughan Special Area of Conservation where there are
important populations of Atlantic salmon and river otter.
So why was this done? The
answer is all too obvious – for profit. The polluters evaded paying up to £100 million in landfill
tax. And why has it not been cleaned up? The cost, of course. Stormont’s new Environment Minister
Michelle McIlveen of the DUP says a full clean-up could cost as much as £140
million.
Is this in some way an isolated
case? Not at all. Ireland ,
north and south, has a ‘waste disposal problem’.
Thorntons, one of Ireland ’s
largest waste management firms, have a recycling plant in the major working
class residential area of Ballyfermot in Dublin South Central. For more than
twelve years this plant has been emitting a noxious sickly sweet smell over
much of Ballyfermot, especially the Cherry Orchard area, the local Le Fanu Park
and the Kylemore area. In hot weather it is especially unpleasant.
For twelve years local
residents, spearheaded by People Before Profit Cllr (now TD) Bríd Smith, have
been complaining and campaigning against this pollution of their community with
public meetings, protests and blockades. The solution, they say, is simple: the
source of the bad smell is the brown bins refuse so recycle the brown bins in a
non-residential area.
As it happens the terms of Thorntons ’ license sets a
limit of 24,000 tonnes on the amount of brown bin waste it is allowed on site.
On a number of occasions it has been found in breach of that limit but the
€3000 fine imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the maximum allowed,
is peanuts compared to their profits – it barely amounts to a slap on the
wrist.
Similar problems exist with the
Ballyogan Dump in South Dublin, with the Poolbeg Incinerator in Sandymount and
with a dump and proposed incinerator in Cork .
In reverse order:
The Haulbowline Dump on an island in Cork Harbour
Yet
despite this there have been repeated attempts by the multinational corporation
Indaver to site a toxic incinerator less than 2km away at Ringaskiddy, also in Cork Harbour
The Poolbeg
Incinerator in Sandymount is another case in point. Once again we have a) a
multinational, US
However, Poolbeg adds a twist of its own.
The contract signed with Covanta guarantees them a certain quantity of waste
(so they are sure to make a profit), but the estimates were made during the
Celtic Tiger and since the crash waste generation fell back. As result it will be
necessary to import waste in order to meet the obligation to Covanta. In other
words a deal has been struck which requires Ireland
The Ballyogan
Dump in South Dublin is a toxic waste
facility situated immediately beside a low income residential council estate.
With illegal dumping going on under cover of darkness it was an obvious blight
on the environment and a clear threat to residents’ health. And again there was
a local campaign that was ignored by the authorities.
Nicola Curry, one of the local activists in
Ballyogan, did her thesis on ‘Living with Waste’ for her Masters in Sociology
at UCD. One of her findings was that there was a major class factor involved in
the location of the dump. It would not have been allowed in more affluent areas
with more social and political ‘pull’. Her research suggested that as a rule
‘the presence of affluence is marked by the absence of effluents’.
However, waste management is only one of
many fronts on which our environment is threatened by the pursuit of profit.
Another important case was the rape of the environment and the robbery of our
natural resources committed in Rossport
in Mayo.
Having been gifted the Corrib Oil and Gas
Field by corrupt Fianna Fail Minister, Ray Burke, Royal Dutch Shell proposed to
build an oil pipeline across an area of outstanding natural beauty. It was
astonishing – the Corrib Field was estimated to be worth €420 billion and the
royalties Shell were required to pay to the Irish state were zero (!!).
The whole outrageous venture was fiercely
and heroically resisted by local people (with much national support) . This
resistance included numerous pockets, protests and demonstrations, at sea and
on land, and many activists served substantial terms in jail. Sadly the forces
of one the world’s richest and most powerful multinationals, shamefully
assisted by the Irish government and, with considerable brutality, by the
guardai, eventually prevailed in Mayo.
In Dublin Bay Dun Laoghaire and spearheaded by Richard Boyd Barrett,
since an attempt was made in 2001 to build high rise appartments in the harbour
centre. So when in 2010 Tony O’Reilly’s Providence Ltd made a proposal to site
an oil rig, for exploratory purposes, in the middle of Dublin Harbour Providence
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd
Barrett also played a leading role in the campaign to prevent the privatisation of Ireland
Another threat to the environment and to
health came with the UK
company InfraStrata drilling for oil in Woodburn
Forest in Antrim just north of Belfast
After
a sustained campaign by local people InfaStrata abandoned their drilling saying
no oil was found. However, this episode has important implications. While the
drilling in Woodburn was not itself fracking it demonstrated how completely
inadequate are current planning regulations for preventing fracking in Ireland
and the urgent need for legislation. The AAA-People Before Profit group in the
Dail are planning to introduce a bill banning fracking as soon as possible.
Finally
there is the question of flooding.
Three times in the last nine years Ireland has experienced what
planners regard as a once in twenty year flood event. Clearly this is a consequence
of climate change which means the threat will get worse as global warming
continues to escalate. But the problem is compounded by the consistent failure
of the Government and authorities to respond adequately. Cork is an example.
In recent years, areas of Cork
Ironically large areas of the northside of
the city had no water supply for days because of damage to the waterworks on Lee Rd.
But in 2016 there were no visible signs of
any measures to prevent the same occurrences happening again while planning
permission was granted for a 400 bedroom student apartment on a site that was
badly flooded in 2009.
In April 2016 it was revealed that two key
OPW committees tasked with overseeing a national strategy on flooding had
simply not been meeting. The Irish Times reported ‘Minister for State for the OPW Simon Harris…acknowledged
the national flood risk assessment and management programme CFRAM group failed
to meet in the four years to November 2014 and that a second group, tasked with
overseeing flood-risk management, had not met in the six years before July
2015.’
What explains this astonishing irresponsibility? No money
in it is the answer. Independent
Alliance TD Sean Canney admitted that in the past flooding “wasn’t treated as
being an issue” .Compare this with the instant reponse, manic activity and
immense sums of money made available, when the banks were in trouble.
If we take all these examples of threats
to our environment, and many more could be provided, a clear pattern emerges:
profit, especially corporate profit is the driver and the political
establishment is its collaborator while ordinary people pay the price.
But ordinary people are also the key to
resistance, to the defence of our environment against those who would destroy
it or put it at risk. One other thing: in all the cases given People Before
Profit activists have stood with the local people in their resistance.
2.Why Profit is so Deadly
‘There’s nothing wrong with
profit in itself’
‘The problem isn’t profit as
such, it’s excessive profits. Really the problem is human greed’
‘Sure without profit, there
would be no jobs’.
These sentiments, and ideas
like them, are heard so often that they sound like common sense – self-evident
truths that you would have to be a fool to disagree with. Actually they are
part of a way of thinking that was developed over centuries by the rich (the
bosses, the capitalists, the bourgeoisie – whatever you want to call them) and
then spread throughout society in order to justify their system and make it
seem legitimate and unchangeable. This is a way of thinking, and a way of
organising production, which we are going to have to challenge and break from
because it is leading us into ecological catastrophe. Capitalism i.e. an
economic system based on production for profit, is like a lumberjack perched a
hundred foot up a Redwood who is sawing off the branch he is sitting on with a
power saw because there is a market demand for timber.
The idea that it is not profit
itself but just greed for excessive profit that is the problem misunderstands
the very nature of the profit motive and how it operates. Imagine you are the
CEO of a capitalist corporation – it doesn’t matter whether it is Apple or
Microsoft, Volkswagen or Toyota ,
Wallmart or Tesco. What makes you want
and need to make as much profit as
possible is not just personal greed -
your personal desire for yet another mansion or car or aeroplane – but the fact
that your company is in competition with rival companies: Apple with Microsoft,
Volkswagen with Toyota (and Hyundai and Fords and Mercedes and so on). And the
measure of this competition is profit.
The higher the profits your
company makes the more it can pay its shareholders; the higher the dividends to
shareholders the more those shareholders will invest; the higher the level of
investment the more, and better machinery you can install and this in turn will
enable you to produce cheaper and better products than your rivals and so make
even more profits. But if your competitor makes more profit than you they will
be able to undercut or out produce you, capture your share of the market and
ultimately drive you out of business.
Consequently your company and
your rival company or companies, and there are always rivals however big you
get, are locked into this never ending competitive struggle over who can make
the most profits. It’s never enough just to make a profit, you always have to
be trying to make as much profit as possible The system is like a Formula One
Grand Prix with Renault, Mercedes, Ferrari and the rest careering madly round the
track all jockeying for pole position – with this difference: there is no
finishing line - every now and then one team is knocked out (goes bankrupt or
is taken over) and sometimes another one joins but the race just goes on and
on.
And everybody involved is
locked into this logic of competition for profits. It’s not just the giant
corporations, its also medium and even small businesses and, crucially, it is
also nation states. USA Ltd is competing with China Ltd is competing with Japan
Ltd and Ireland limited is trying to compete with UK Ltd and Germany Ltd and so
on, all on the basis of profitability. Is it going to be more profitable to
invest in Ireland than in Mexico or Taiwan ? Is China going to out race the US , Brazil
and Germany ?
In what was probably the most
insightful study of profit and profit making ever written, namely his great
book Capital, Karl Marx summed this
up as follows ‘Accumulate,
accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets! Accumulation for accumulation’s
sake, production for production’s sake’.(c1 p.558). Regarding capital itself
Marx observes, ‘Capital
eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to
abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per
cent will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent certain will produce
eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent will make it ready to
trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it
will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being
hanged.’ (C1 p.712)
This dynamic is disastrous for the environment and for our
relationship to the environment. Again and again and again the obsession with
profit, and remember capitalist competition forces every business , on pain of
going out of business, to be obsessed with profit, leads businesses and states
to sacrifice the natural environment.
From the standpoint of the business, environmental damage is
generally regarded what is known as an ‘externality’; an economists’ term for
an external side effect which doesn’t affect the cost of the product or the
businesses’ profit. For example if you are a car manufacturer the damage done
to the environment by dumped scrapped cars is not something that effects your
profits or that you are held responsible for. The same would be true of food
companies and the consequences of the discarded plastic cartons they put food
in. As a result the profit system generates immense quantities of
environmentally devastating waste. Of course attempts are made by councils and
governments to recycle this rubbish but in reality – but for profit – it wasn’t
necessary to produce most of it in the first place.
Another factor is that environmental damage is frequently
long term. It is only after years or decades that you realise that the coral
reefs are being destroyed or the rain forest depleted or the climate being
changed. But production for profit forces companies to think and operate short
term. In the long run it might make economic sense, even in capitalist terms,
to preserve the rain forest or prevent erosion of the soil but market
competition means that companies won’t be around for the long term unless they
maximise their profits now – they
will be driven out of business by their rivals. So the environment is
sacrificed.
The same pressure produces the phenomenon of ‘greenwashing’
i.e. producing PR material pretending to be ‘green’ while doing the opposite.
Check out the website of any giant corporation whose core activity is very
obviously damaging to the environment e.g. any major car manufacturer or oil
company. What you will find on every one of them is mission statements about
how eco-friendly, sustainable and environmentally conscious they are.
Thus the website of one of the most notorious polluters on
the planet, and especially in Ireland
One of the biggest challenges to creating a low-carbon future
is the need to transform the global energy system. On June 30, 2016, Shell
brought together leading thinkers and doers at its Powering Progress Together
forum in London
While Ford Motor Company says
We’re
committed to doing our share to prevent or reduce environmental, economic and
social harm due to climate change. To meet our climate stabilization goals, we
are following an ambitious plan to make our products emit less carbon dioxide.
http://corporate.ford.com/microsites/sustainability-report-2015-16/products-greener.html
In 2013 Volkswagen proclaimed
‘Resource conservation and
sustainability in the production sector are pivotal for achieving our Group
goals for 2018. We are aiming not only to adopt eco-friendly practices but also
to strike a balance between the three main factors: economy, ecology and
society. http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/publications/2014/05/Group_Sustainability_Report_2013.bin.html/binarystorageitem/file/Volkswagen_
In September 2015 it was revealed that Volkswagen had been
intentionally and systematically cheating environmental tests on carbon dioxide
emissions of millions of its cars (about 11 million in all). The cars were
fitted with a special device that lowered emissions when the cars were being
tested but allowed the level of emissions to rise dramatically in ordinary
driving.
The point is that all these companies, and thousands of
others, know full well that there are major threats to the environment and that
they are contributing to those threats on a massive scale even to the extent of
putting all our futures at risk. But they don’t stop; they are driven on by the
relentless need to pursue profit. Instead they try to cover their tracks with
mission statements and meaningless declarations and PR greenwashing.
And the same thing is done, on an even greater scale and for
the same reason, by governments. Essentially the global environmental summits
and agreements - Kyoto, Copenhagen, Rio,
Paris etc. – have been vast
exercises in ‘greenwashing’, massive
charades to cover up for the fact that in reality nothing serious was being
done. This brings us to the most important environmental issue of all, which is
also the fundamental issue facing the whole of humanity in our era – climate
change. Nothing illustrates so clearly the fatal consequences for the world of
a national and global economic system driven by profit.
3. Climate
Change – the Ultimate Challenge
The moment we start to address the question of climate change
we confront an apparent paradox. On the one hand everybody, or almost
everybody, knows it is happening, on the other no one takes it very seriously
or at least no one is doing anything serious about it. Let’s briefly unpack the
elements of this statement.
Everybody knows about it. The existence of humanly caused global
warming or climate change was discovered gradually but it was a pretty well
established fact by the late 1970s.
Major attempts were made to cast doubt on this by climate sceptics with
vested interests e.g. the Global Climate Coalition founded and funded by
ExxonMobil [1]
but to no avail. [The Grand Climate Coalition was wound up in 2001].
The scientific consensus on the matter is now close to
absolute. The single most authoritative body, namely the IPCC
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ) says the consensus among
scientists stands at over 95%. There is an easily accessible list of 200
reputable and prestigious scientific associations that hold the position that climate change has been
caused by human action, ranging from the Academy of Sciences of Chile to the
National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA), the Palestinian Academy
of Science and Technology, the Science Council of Japan and the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. https://www.opr.ca.gov/s_listoforganizations.php
More
or less every important ‘world leader’ now acknowledges the reality of climate
change. ‘President Obama
remains committed to making the United
States
She goes on ‘The climate
change deniers, defeatists and obstructionists should know that their cynical
efforts will fail. Climate change threatens every corner of our country, every sector of
our economy and the health and future of every child. We are already seeing its
impacts and we know the poorest and most vulnerable people in the United States
The Chinese Government agrees as does
the Russian and the Pope, speaking on the White House Lawn in September 2015
said, “Climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future
generation,”
In 2004 there appeared the following
skilful summary of the evidence for climate change.
The 10 warmest years on
record have all been since 1990. Over the last century average global
temperatures have risen by 0.6 degrees Celsius: the most drastic temperature
rise for over 1,000 years in the northern hemisphere.
· Extreme events are becoming more frequent. Glaciers are
melting. Sea ice and snow cover is declining. Animals and plants are responding
to an earlier spring. Sea levels are rising and are forecast to rise another
88cm by 2100 threatening 100m people globally who currently live below this
level.
· The number of people affected by floods worldwide has
already risen from 7 million in the 1960s to 150 million today.
· In Europe alone, the
severe floods in 2002 had an estimated
cost of $16bn.
· This summer we have seen violent weather extremes in
parts of the UK
These environmental
changes and severe weather events are already affecting the world insurance
industry. Swiss Re, the world's second largest insurer, has estimated that the
economic costs of global warming could double to $150bn each year in the next
10 years, hitting insurers with $30-40bn in claims.
By the middle of this
century, temperatures could have risen enough to trigger irreversible melting
of the Greenland ice-cap - eventually
increasing sea levels by around seven metres.
There is good evidence
that last year's European heat wave was influenced by global warming. It
resulted in 26,000 premature deaths and cost $13.5bn.
It is calculated that such
a summer is a one in about 800 year event. On the latest modelling climate
change means that as soon as the 2040s at least one year in two is likely to be
even warmer than 2003.
This summary was provided by none
other than Tony Blair. From this evidence he concluded:
What is now plain is that the emission of greenhouse
gases, associated with industrialisation and strong economic growth from a
world population that has increased sixfold in 200 years, is causing global
warming at a rate that began as significant, has become alarming and is simply
unsustainable in the long-term. And by long-term I do not mean centuries ahead.
I mean within the lifetime of my children certainly; and possibly within my
own. And by unsustainable, I do not mean a phenomenon causing problems of
adjustment. I mean a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible
in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence
This was in 2004 and you would
have thought it was clear enough and yet 12 years later, during which the
situation has manifestly been getting worse, neither Tony Blair, nor Obama nor
Cameron nor any of the other ‘world leaders’ have made a serious attempt to
stop global warming. Yes they have made statements, yes they have held ‘important’
conferences such as those at Kyoto , Copenhagen , Rio and Paris ,
but none of these has taken the action necessary to avert the coming
catastrophe.
Of these Climate Summits the most
recent COP 21 in Paris
in December 2015 was, in terms of its verbal commitments, by far the most
successful. Nevertheless it fell far short of what is needed to secure
humanity’s future. The Paris
agreement spoke of ‘pursuing
efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees,’ which was clearly a
non-binding and inadequate commitment. And
when it came to limiting greenhouse gas emissions to a level where they are
balanced out by the capacity of trees, soil and oceans to act as sinks to
absorb them this was set for some unspecified time between 2050 and 2100 – far
too late.
Two
analogies spring to mind. The first is with the captain of an ocean liner with
2000 passengers on board who receives a warning that his ship is headed into an
iceberg field but, fearful of the cost of delay or major detour, continues to
sail full steam ahead only trying to
change course as the ship is actually about to hit an iceberg. We know how that
ended.
The
second is with a train driver heading for a canyon, the bridge over which has
been destroyed. On receiving this news he starts to slow down and tells
everyone on board that the breaks are on and all is well, ignoring the palpable
fact although the train is slowing it is at a rate not fast enough to stop it
plunging into the canyon.
Both
these analogies capture some features of the way our world leaders and
governments, including of course the Irish government, are behaving. Why are
they pursuing this disastrous course?
Is it
perhaps that they have failed to understand the consequences; that they do not
understand that climate change will mean – at the very least – more and more
extreme weather events, more storms , floods, fires, droughts, famines claiming
first millions, then tens and hundreds of millions of lives; more rising sea
levels destroying low lying islands and coastal cities (Manhattan, Shanghai?);
more and more areas of the earth becoming uninhabitable; more and more climate
refugees on a scale that makes the flight from Syria look like a trickle. That
they are unaware of these consequences is not credible. They are well
established and well known. If the likes of Obama, Merkel, Putin, Cameron, May
and co have not really faced or ‘grasped’
these facts it is because they don’t want to
Is
it, maybe, they don’t know what to do? Again this is not credible. What needs
to be done is straightforward and well known (it has been known for a long
time). Basically it can be summarised in four bullet points:
- Switch rapidly on a global scale from greenhouse gas producing
fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) to renewable sources of energy – wind,
solar and tidal power. This can be done: the world is full of wind, sun
and seas.
- Switch rapidly on a global scale from dependence on the private car
to public transport in the form of buses, trams and trains. Seriously
reduce air travel.
- Carry out on a global scale a huge programme of house insulation
and construction of eco-friendly houses and buildings.
- Launch a massive process of tree planting. Start reforesting the
planet instead of deforesting it.
Maybe
it is because it would cost a lot of jobs. This is nonsense. Carrying out any
or all of the simple programme listed above would create millions of jobs.
Please note that the plea of “jobs!” is the hypocritical cry of every
conservative wanting to resist change.
If there was Auschwitz operating in the
West of Ireland and it was proposed to close it down they would say ‘this will
destroy local jobs”. Suggest in Britain
Is it
then that they just don’t care what happens to the future of humanity? Actually the real problem is that whether
they care about their fellow human beings or not, there is something else they
care about more – and that is profit.
As far as our rulers or ‘leaders’ are concerned it’s
not just a question of personal greed, though most of them are pretty greedy,
it is that they are part of the ruling class under capitalism and are locked
into capitalism which, as we have seen, is driven by the pursuit of profit.
This is true of virtually all of them – Obama, Clinton, Trump, Merkel, Putin,
Hollande, Xi Jinping, May, Kenny and so on – and this prevents them,
individually or collectively, doing what obviously needs to be done about
climate change. It prevents them taking even the first step which is to
seriously reduce carbon emissions by switching to renewables. Why? This table provides a large part of the answer:
World’s largest companies by revenue
|
Rank
|
Name
|
Industry
|
Revenue (USD
billions)
|
As of:
|
Revenue growth
|
|
1
|
$482
|
January 2016
|
 0.7% |
||
|
2
|
$455
|
2014
|
1.7% |
||
|
3
|
$428
|
2014
|
1.1% |
||
|
4
|
$338
|
2014
|
 6.2% |
||
|
5
|
|
$333
|
2014
|
8.9% |
|
|
6
|
$305
|
2014
|
9.2% |
||
|
7
|
Oil and gas
|
$273
|
2015
|
7.2% |
|
|
8
|
Oil and gas
|
$268
|
2015
|
7.2% |
|
|
9
|
$270
|
2014
|
13.7% |
||
|
10
|
Oil and gas
|
$252
|
2014
|
8% |
|
|
11
|
$245
|
2014
|
2.8% |
||
|
12
|
$234
|
2015
|
28% |
||
|
13
|
Automotive
|
$227
|
March 31, 2015
|
6.0% |
|
|
14
|
Oil and gas
|
$223
|
2015
|
37.9% |
|
|
15
|
Commodities
|
$221
|
2014
|
5.3% |
|
|
16
|
Oil and gas
|
$212
|
2014
|
11.5% |
|
|
17
|
Conglomerate
|
$211
|
2015
|
8.3% |
|
|
18
|
$179
|
March 31, 2015
|
30.1% |
||
|
19
|
Transport
|
$163
|
2014
|
4.7% |
|
|
20
|
Oil and gas
|
$161
|
2014
|
6.4% |
|
|
21
|
Conglomerate
|
$157
|
March 31, 2015
|
6.9% |
|
|
22
|
Automotive
|
$157
|
2014
|
10.1% |
|
|
23
|
Automotive
|
$152
|
2015
|
1.7% |
|
|
24
|
Conglomerate
|
$149
|
2014
|
1.7% |
|
|
25
|
Financial services
|
$148
|
2014
|
7.8% |
|
|
26
|
$148
|
2014
|
10.4% |
||
|
27
|
Automotive
|
$144
|
2014
|
2.0% |
|
|
28
|
Oil and gas
|
$144
|
2014
|
1.6% |
|
|
29
|
Oil and gas
|
$144
|
2014
|
1.9% |
|
|
30
|
Automotive
|
$142
|
2014
|
20.0% |
The first thing this table shows is the
immense role played in global capitalism by oil, gas and automotive companies,
i.e. companies with a direct and total vested interest in fossil fuels. Six out
of the top ten, eleven out of the top twenty and seventeen out of the top
thirty are in this category. No other industry or group of industries, not
pharmaceuticals or computers or armaments comes anywhere near equalling
this. The total profits made by,
revenues turned over by and capital invested in these firms is
astronomical. Morover these bare figures
understate the role of carbon emitting fossil fuels in the economy because so
many other industries e.g. every airline, every engineering factory, every
steel plant, every lorry firm, every shipping line etc is dependent on oil, gas
or coal as a source of power.
World capitalism, driven by competition for
profit, is addicted to fossil fuels far more strongly than any junkie to heroin
or smoker to nicotine.
There are two other very relevant features
of the system that can be seen from this table. One is that it is evidently not
stable. It can be seen from the right hand column that while the revenues of
many of the companies are rising the revenues of others, including some of the
very biggest, are falling. In some
cases, such as BP, they are falling dramatically. This shows that no company or
business is safe or can afford to rest on its laurels - a few years ago Exxon Mobile was number
one, now it is eighth, a few decades ago General Motors was number one, now its
number 23 and not even the biggest car company. The competition – the struggle
to grow and make more profits - is relentless and so there is no way that Exxon
or Shell or BP or Volkswagen or Toyota or any of the others are going to ‘take
a hit for the team’ i.e. the human race, by stopping or seriously reducing oil
or car production.
The second is that the balance of forces
internationally has changed. Twenty years ago the top of this list and the list
overall would have been overwhelmingly dominated by US corporations. Now the US is still the largest player but China has three in the top five and Volkswagen
and Toyota Chinese State
One of Britain ’s
leading climate sceptics, former Tory Chancellor Nigel Lawson, has explained
this capitalist ‘logic’. Speaking to the British House of Lords’ Economic Committee Lord
Lawson admitted the scientific validity
of the greenhouse effect but argued, it would be
“crazy” for the UK to try to
stop burning the fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide, claiming countries
like China
This is why for all their fine talk they have
actually done next to nothing. Those who say surely, faced with looming
disaster, they will see reason and change course in time should recall the run
up to the First World War. Then the clash of interests between the major
imperial powers (they were also capitalist powers driven by fundamentally the
same imperatives as their counterparts today) created an international conflict
that, unless they stepped back from the brink, was clearly going end in a
catastrophic global war. They didn’t step back and it did – 16 million people
died.
Rather than relying on the establishment,
here or in other countries, it is going to require ordinary people across the
world to take matters into their own hands if humanity is to have a decent
future and central to that mobilisation of people power will have to be a challenge
to the rule of profit and to subordination to the so-called laws of the market.
Market solutions?
It has been said that some people find it easier to imagine
the end of the world than the end of capitalism. This certainly applies to
those who govern Ireland .
Even when they are forced by incontrovertible facts and
unavoidable evidence to accept that they face a serious crisis, as with climate
change, their commitment to neoliberalism and the capitalist market is such
that they insist on looking to the market for solutions.
This is what they have done with the ever growing housing
crisis to which they have insisted on responding by means of ‘incentives’ for
landlords and developers rather than imposing rent controls or building council
houses. The result has been a total and escalating disaster.
And this is what the system and those who support it try to
do in response to the environmental crisis in general and climate change in
particular. For example there is carbon trading and carbon offsetting as means
of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon trading is used by countries to appear to meet their
obligations under the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. Under carbon trading a country
that has higher carbon emissions can purchase the right to release more carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere from countries that have lower carbon emissions.
But this just changes appearances; it doesn’t address at all the real problem,
which is the global level of emissions. It won’t be possible to say we in Ireland , or anywhere else, demand exemption from
the effects of climate change on the grounds that we traded our emissions with Ethiopia .
Carbon offsetting allows businesses or individuals to
compensate for their emissions by investing to carbon reducing projects
elsewhere e.g planting trees which absorb carbon dioxide. But, while planting
trees is obviously a good thing, the idea that this and other schemes will stop
climate change without drastically reducing carbon emissions is fantasy and is
daily being proven to be a fantasy. It is another form of greenwashing designed
to give the appearance of doing something without confronting the central
issue.
The fact that wind turbine manufacturing and operation is
treated as a business for profit also undermines it because it means that giant
noisy wind turbines are located close to people’s homes without proper
consultation and so become immensely unpopular.
Similarly we have market for licenses for access to the electricity
market, which then become an object of speculation. This has the effect of
small scale producers like community wind farms being unable to gain access to
the national electricity grid.
We have now had twenty years or so of attempted ‘market
solutions’ and it is abundantly clear that a) they are not working and b) time
is fast running out. The fundamental fact with all these ‘market solutions’ is
that they are an evasion of what really needs to be done, namely challenge the
priorities of profit and cut drastically the production of greenhouse gases by
shifting massively to renewables as part of establishing a new relationship
between human beings and nature based on democratic planning and production for
need which will offer Ireland and the world a sustainable future.
.
SECTION ON GREEN PARTY IN TEXT BOX
The Green Party
-sailing under a false flag.
Whenever an environmental issue arises
there is a tendency in much of the media to
assume that the Green Party and its
leader, Eamon Ryan, is the first point of call
for an opinion.
The
Green Party, understandably given its name, is seen as having the franchise on
green issues. Its record in government as junior partner in coalition with
Fianna Fáil shows this to be a misconception.
·
The Greens had marched and
supported the campaign against the Rossport pipeline in Mayo and had attended
solidarity marches for the jailed Rossport five. In 2007 their conference
committed to opposing the pipeline. In government, Eamon Ryan, now minister for
natural resources did nothing to oppose Shell’s pipeline. And during his tenure the company, media and
police increased their campaign against protesters and the local community.
Ryan was minister during this crucial period, and far from condemning the
policing or company tactics only said that the gas would now “give the state greater energy security”
·
Before entering Government, the
Greens had campaigned for the rerouting of the M3 motorway that was set to cut
through the ancient historic area around the Hill of Tara. Once in Government,
the Environment Minister claimed his hands were tied and the project went
ahead.
·
The Green Party sanctioned and
supported massive cuts to public transport across bus and rail state companies
in 2009. Between Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann this meant over 300 buses scrapped
and hundreds of redundancies.
These
failures and betrayals on specifically environmental issues were accompanied by
the abandonment of progressive policies on every other issue such as supporting
reactionary austerity budgets which cut services to the poor, maintaining the
racist Direct Provision system and accepting the US
military use of Shannon , including for
rendition (torture) flights.
The basic reason for these sell outs is that,
despite ‘radical’ talk about ‘fresh thinking’ and ‘new economic paradigms’, the
Green Party fundamentally accepts and supports capitalism. Consequently when it
gets into power it finds itself forced to accept the priorities of capitalism
i.e. the pursuit of profit and that is incompatible with defending the
environment or doing anything serious about climate change. It was the same
story with the Green Party in Germany
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
4.The Radical Alternative: People Before Profit Environment
Policy.
People Before Profit is committed to
defending our natural environment and fighting for a sustainable future both here
in Ireland
People Before
Profit’s Environmental Policy
Our environment, the natural world around us and our towns
and cities face an unprecedented crisis. The planet is now in the midst of the
sixth great extinction event in its history with thousands of species facing
wipe-out while the earth’s climate is facing the real prospect of catastrophic
change caused by Capitalism and the burning of fossil fuels. Other earth
systems essential for life are at or approaching unsustainable depletion. The
ability of the planet to continue to provide a habitable home for future
generations of humanity and the animal kingdom is now in question.
The People Before Profit Alliance environmental policy seeks
to address the root causes of all these different forms of environmental
destruction and despoliation. We reject the thesis that the environmental
crisis is caused by any innate human instinct, overpopulation or simple
consumerism. The crisis comes from the economic system of capitalism and its
drive toward profit and competition. It is a system that eulogises the profit
motive and relegates both human, environmental and other species rights and
existence below the need for profit and economic growth.
Looking to capitalism
and markets to provide solutions for any environmental crisis will not work
because it is the operation of free market capitalism that is the root cause of
each of these crises. In every issue examined from climate change to
biodiversity and conservation, attempts at binding international treaties based
on commodifying nature or incentivising markets have and will continue to fail
to protect our environment. Only a radical challenge to the priorities of
capitalism can save our natural world and preserve the earth’s biodiversity for
future generations.
While the environmental crisis threatens all of humanity, we
believe that the world’s poorest and ordinary working class people will suffer
the greatest from the chaos that capitalism is creating in our climate and
environment. We reject the idea that there is a conflict between safeguarding
the environment and the earth’s species and the right to a decent living for
ordinary people. The conflict lies between the priorities of capitalism and
markets on one hand and our environment, biodiversity and most of humanity.
We believe that a new, radical environmental and social
movement is needed that identifies the root causes of the current mass
extinction of species and threats to humanity and the natural world. We stand
with those communities and groups that are campaigning against all forms of
environmental destruction or trying to protect and conserve endangered species
and habitats. But we want to unite these struggles, in our countryside and
cities to take on the real cause of this crisis.
Climate Change
“If humanity wishes to
preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which
life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change
suggests that CO2 will need to be reduced from [current levels] to at most 350
ppm” James Hansen
Levels of CO2 in the
earth’s atmosphere are currently at over 400ppm, well beyond the levels that
most Environmental Policy scientists believe can be accommodated if we are to
avoid the risk of dangerous climate change. We are already witnessing extreme
weather events, droughts, record storms, heat waves and altered rainfall
patterns with tragic consequences for millions. Such change is already a
feature of life, affecting huge numbers of the world’s populations and
especially the poorest and most marginalised.
People Before Profit will support practical and immediate steps
to dramatically cut our CO2 emissions, and will not rely on market mechanisms
to deliver this. These include;
A Public Transport
Revolution; We will oversee massive state investment in the public
transport systems. We would abolish the National Transport Agency as it is a
neoliberal agency whose chief concern is competition and facilitating private
for-profit transport companies. The remit of a new state agency will be to
provide cheap and efficient public transport that can facilitate the dramatic
reduction in the use of private cars from the roads and ensure ease of movement
in our towns and cities. This will mean a significant increase in the bus fleet
numbers of existing state companies in both Dublin and Bus Eireann and the expansion of
the rail network. We will involve transport users and local communities in
planning new routes with the goal of a dramatic reduction in Co2 emissions from
private car usage. We will reverse the dramatic increases in the cost of public
transport over recent years and stop any attempts to privatise this essential
service.
Building Sustainable
Homes And Towns ; We will introduce and enforce new building codes that
insure all new buildings and homes are up to the latest standards in energy
efficiency and insulating (eg; Passive Home standards). We will empower a new
state agency to work with local authorities to oversee the retro-fitting of
older buildings and homes to reach the same standards and with a remit to
dramatically cut the use of energy for home heating. (The present home
improvement grants are a wholly inadequate response and will never oversee the
retro-fitting of homes on the scale or to the standard needed).
Opposition To Fossil
Fuel Corporations; We will support the building of a European-wide movement
that aims to challenge the power and control of energy resources by
multinational corporations in the fossil fuel industries. We will campaign to
ensure that new proven reserves of gas, oil and coal that corporations intend
to exploit remain in the ground and that all available resources are utilised
to switch to non-carbon and sustainable forms of energy production.
Our Natural Resources;
We will nationalise all of the state’s gas and oil fields and use all of the
state’s natural resources to switch the economy to a carbon neutral basis as
soon as practically possible. We will support the taxing of corporate profits
to fund the switch to renewable forms of energy generation and invest in wave,
solar and wind power generation.
Renewable Energy; We will insure that the switch to renewable
energy, (wind, wave, solar, thermal and biomass) is democratically controlled
and aimed at ensuring a sustainable and carbon neutral economy. At present the
small advances in total amount of energy produced by wind or solar energy is at
the dictate of the market and the profit margins of companies involved. This is
why many communities are opposed to the imposition of massive wind farms in
their locality. We are in favour of wind energy and will support and fund a
massive expansion in this sector. But the imposition of wind farms is not how
we should be harnessing this power; they are primarily concerned with the
profits of large firms and not with the sustainability of renewable energy.
Instead we will seek to diffuse the expansion of all renewables to every town
and city and ensure communities have ownership and control of all projects. We
will ensure that wind and solar energy are harnessed at local levels and at
scales that will make profound differences to energy generation, not to the
profits of existing companies.
Biofuels/Biomass:
We will oppose the way in which biofuels are currently being harvested. This is
often disguised as an environmentally friendly measure to combat global climate
change. It is not. These measures will have a negligible impact on carbon emissions
but are having profound effects on the poorest communities in the developing
world. Recent policies have seen an effective land grab by multinational
corporations and others in many parts of the world that have destroyed the
livelihoods of peasants. The result is that biofuel monocultures are replacing
food production and are increasing the food insecurity and malnutrition of the
world’s poorest. We will support sustainable use of indigenous biomass where
possible and in conjunction with a radical policy for our forests and
woodlands. We will ensure that increases in the use of biofuels will not impact
on food production here or in the developing world.
Nuclear Power: We
will oppose any measures that seek to promote nuclear energy as a solution to
climate change. Some environmentalists have become so demoralised by the
failure of capitalism to counter climate change that they have reluctantly
accepted nuclear energy as a solution. We reject these arguments. Nuclear
energy remains linked to the production of nuclear weapons, its growth would
not be carbon neutral and the risks it poses remain unacceptable with no
solution to the long term problem of the removal and storage of nuclear waste.
The proposed growth of this industry to reduce carbon emissions would have to
be on a massive scale and with huge costs both financial and environmental.
Such resources should be used to build and invest in other renewable energies.
Fracking And Shale
Gas. We will oppose any attempt to introduce fracking into Ireland
and pledge full support to communities that are opposing such projects. Shale
gas will do nothing to reduce carbon emissions, and its use in other countries
has simply taken investment away from renewables and shored up the fossil fuel
industry and its infrastructure.
Protecting Our Environment and The Natural World.
People Before Profit will campaign both in the streets and
in the Dail for a radical approach that places people and nature before the
needs of multi-national corporations and profiteers.
Protecting Our Environment: We will ensure that there is a properly
financed and strong Environmental Protection Agency with a clear remit to
protect the natural environment and people’s rights to clean water, air and a
safe built environment for both this and future generations. We will ensure
that this agency is independent of commercial interests and that it is
democratically accountable.
Access To The
Environment: We will establish a clear legal right of responsible access to
the physical heritage of the country; its mountains, countryside, lakes, rivers
and seashore, with the right to roam in remote and highland areas.
Extending Our Forests:
We will seek the extension and protection of Ireland ’s forests, both as a
measure to combat climate change and to increase biodiversity. Ireland
has the third lowest level of forestry coverage in the EU with only 12 percent
of its landmass compared to an EU average of 40 percent. We will campaign
for the land assets, commercial forests
and amenity woodlands of Coillte to be retained in public ownership. We will
seek a radical re-organisation of Coillte and the empowering of both workers
and communities in managing and extending the forest cover and the potential to
increase its sustainable harvesting and the biodiversity contained therein.
With a democratically accountable forest management structure, we will ensure
the enlarging and linking up of existing native woodlands to encourage
biodiversity and connectivity within areas like Special Areas of Conservation,
Special Protection Areas and Natural Heritage Areas where appropriate.
A Publicly Owned And Control Waste Management Policy: We will seek
the re-municipalisation of the waste collection and recycling industries. The
privatisation of this essential industry has been a disaster for any hope of a
coherent and safe waste management policy for the country. Unbridled
competition between firms has produced a race to the bottom in standards in
both the working conditions of those employed in the industry and of the
management of society’s waste. The volume of dangerous and toxic waste is
increasing and is an inevitable by-product of a system where production is
geared only for profit with no thought to its consequences. We will plan for a
rational waste management strategy that seeks to reduce the volume of waste
that industry produces and make companies that produce it responsible for its
safe disposal and recycling.
GM Foods
We reject the idea that GM foods/crops are necessary to feed
growing populations here or in the developing world. There is a huge push to
force acceptance of GM foods onto consumers. Objections are dismissed as
unscientific and irrational. But the reasons advanced for GM foods are false.
GM foods will not solve world hunger or vitamin deficiency of the world’s
poorest people. Social and economic inequality are the root causes of these
problems, not a lack of food production. There is at present an abundance of
food globally, but the poorest have no access to it.
Control of the food
industry by global corporations and profit-driven production ensures that the
adoption of any new technology will simply see the continuation of these
injustices. GM crops are being imposed on populations and are forcing more
peasants to switch to cash crop production instead of food for local
consumption. This is also part of the cause of the world-wide exodus from
farming by the poorest as larger commercialised farms drive the world’s
peasants off the land.
The drive towards GM crops is about allowing corporations to
have patentable commodities that will enhance their control of all aspects of
food production and consumption from “the seed to the plate.” Such crops will
not stop world hunger nor deal with dietary deficiencies caused by poverty.
They will ultimately strengthen the system that is actually responsible for
these problems. Behind the rhetoric of feeding the world’s poor lies a
corporate agenda that will do nothing to deal with the underlying social
inequalities and injustices that ensure such hunger exists. We will campaign to
ensure all such research is publicly controlled and funded and that the rights
of corporations to patent seeds or crops that may be vital for a sustainable
agriculture is ended.
5. Conclusion
The policies outlined in the last chapter
are both radical and necessary. They are radical because the damage being done to
the environment at every level from the local to the global is now so serious
that nothing short of radical policies will secure the future of humanity and
millions of other species.
Three further comments need to be made.
First, that there is no possibility of implementing even a fraction of these
alternative policies without the mobilisation of ordinary people at grassroots
level, without people power on the streets and in our communities.
People Before Profit is committed to
supporting all movements by ordinary people in defence of their environment
against the damage repeatedly inflicted on it by profit hungry corporations or
complicit government and politicians.
Second, while defending our environment is
a hugely important issue in its own right it is not a ‘separate’ issue which
can be viewed or tackled in isolation from a multitude of other issues in our
society.
One example of this is the question of
water charges. Advocates of water charges, who included the Green Party, claimed
the policy was necessary on grounds of conservation and ecology. But in reality
this was a clear case of ‘greenwashing’ i.e. presenting an environmental cover
for an unfair tax designed to make ordinary people pay for the economic crisis
and the bank bail out while preparing the way for privatisation. Nevertheless,
fighting the water charges – in Ireland
as in Bolivia
Another example is housing. The housing
crisis in Ireland
What these examples and many others show
is the need for coordinated environmentally aware democratic planning but that
stands in opposition to the market driven neoliberal orthodoxy that has
dominated Irish politics at every level in recent decades.
This brings us to the third point: that
these necessary radical policies as a whole cannot be achieved without a
fundamental change in the economic priorities of society. A transformation from
an economic system based on profit to one based on human need has become a
environmental and human necessity. This in turn requires a radical political
alternative which cannot be provided by Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Labour or the
Greens or by any political party or movement which accepts capitalism
***************************************************************
·
[1] Along
with Amoco, BP, Daimler Chrysler, Dow
Chemical Co., Enron, Fords, General Motors,
Texaco, Shell Oil, the US Chamber of Commerce and many others.
