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A Prefatory Note

To put things in perspective, it is necessary to recall that the scientific community now holds that the Earth is slightly over four and a half billion years old [1]. First appearance of life on this till then dead planet, it is speculated, took about another half a billion years [2]. The process of “evolution” saw the emergence of structurally erect humans with two free hands to grab, hold and manœuvre external objects and a much larger brain to contemplate and guide responses to external stimuli and consequent actions – the acknowledged ancestors of “modern” humans, Homo sapiens, maybe around 250,000 years ago [3]. Understandably, for the first time in the continent of Africa – later dubbed, rather paradoxically, as the Dark Continent. Human civilisation, with settled communities engaging in agricultural activities followed by cattle breeding, is known to be some ten to twelve thousand years old [4], [5], [6]. And the industrial civilisation marked by the advent of commercial use of steam engines is hardly three hundred years [7]. And the Second Industrial Revolution which provided the real push to the pace of industrialisation is typically dated between 1870 and 1914 [8].

The planet Earth itself evolved over the last four and a half billion years – both the large solid and roughly spherical mass and the gaseous envelope surrounding it [9]. The trajectory of this evolution was far from linear. In certain respects, it followed a sinusoidal pattern. Since its inception, the Earth had been visited upon by at least four major Ice Ages [10]. The last Glacial Period ended between 10,000 and 15,000 years back [11]. And human civilisation sprouted and flourished with the end of the last Ice Age. Humans had obviously nothing to do with such climatic fluctuations/cycles. It is postulated that “several factors are important: atmospheric composition (the concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane); changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun known as Milankovitch cycles (and possibly the Sun’s orbit around the galaxy); the motion of tectonic plates resulting in changes in the relative location and amount of continental and oceanic crust on the Earth’s surface, which could affect wind and ocean currents; variations in solar output; the orbital dynamics of the Earth-Moon system; and the impact of relatively large meteorites, and volcanism including eruptions of supervolcanoes.” [12]. Without any human interventions the onset of the next Ice Age may be a couple of thousand to around 50,000 years away [13]. And as per some other informed estimates, the Earth’s ecology supporting life is likely to last for another half a billion years [14].

When one talks of the looming ecological crisis, it essentially voices the concern that instead of thousands, let alone a billion, of years the human specie may become extinct in course of another century or two, along with other life forms, that too on account of reasons of its own making [15].

Humans vis-à-vis Nature

Human specie, like no other ones, in course of its survival and evolution started from its very inception, on an exponential scale, consciously working on the Nature to make “life” longer and more liveable. And that’s arguably the defining marker that sets humans apart from all other species.
But its engagement with Nature assumed a very different dimension with the onset of the industrial civilisation [16]. The journey, which had started as endeavours to better adjust to nature and developing some sort of symbiotic relationship by deepening the knowledge of its working principles through purposeful and more and more informed interactions, gradually evolved into a huge project for outright “mastering” it [17].

Industrial civilisation, for all practical purpose, turned out to be shorthand for capitalism with its insatiable and compulsive appetite for expansion of “economic” activities. Even the enclaves of “actually existing socialism” in the midst of an evolving global capitalist order could not but follow essentially the same model of “expansion” with even greater single-minded determination. [18]

Whereas the precapitalist societies were broadly defined by simple, or near-simple, reproduction of the system and slow evolution to higher phases, capitalism thrives on constant extended reproduction of itself. And that’s its essential condition for survival. [19]

So with the onset of industrial civilisation, started off humanity’s grand victory march over Nature, never mind the brutalisation and all. At least that it was thought to be.

Human Footprints

Industrial production, far more than the earlier forms, calls for exploration, extraction and exploitation of natural resources virtually without any replenishment. It also involves release of toxic wastes produced as inevitable byproducts. And past a point, the use of natural resources – with the concentration of the naturally occurring vital element declining - becomes less and less inefficient i.e. in order to produce a single unit of product more and more natural resources are consumed and more and more toxic byproducts are released. [20]

If we assume that the global economy grows at the (compound) rate of 3% per annum, based on the current trend [21], then the global economy doubles in 25 years and grows 16 times over a century and 256 times over 200 years.

Admittedly the earth’s ecology has a self-regenerating mechanism and capacity, particularly in handling the toxic releases. But this sort of growth/development just goes way beyond. [22]

Ecological Crisis

The ecological crisis has, essentially, three strongly interconnected dimensions: global warming [23], global pollution and global depletion of natural resources including bio-pool and minerals [24].

If the three dimensions of the crisis mentioned above are just parts of the “routine process”, then there is also another possible “accidental” dimension produced by the industrial civilization in the form of threats of use of the WMDs - nuclear weapons in particular. Even a limited nuclear war would cause grave damage to the Earth’s ecology. In fact, any war, by its very nature, causes ecological destruction. And a large-scale nuclear war would be followed by a “nuclear winter” - an ecological havoc. [25]

Ecological Inequity

A related dimension is ecological injustice and inequity, again, having three major forms. Inequity between the global North and South, i.e. the “developed” and “under-developed” nations [26]. Inequity between the rich and poor within a country [27]. And perhaps the grossest inequity obtains between the current generations and the future ones, the current generations plundering the ecology at the obvious cost of the future ones [28]. One section is indulging in grossly disproportionate high consumption and the other section is bearing the grossly disproportionate burden of the price of such over-consumption.

The Recognition of the Crisis and Response

There was for far too long motivated attempts to refuse to acknowledge the crisis, its grave implications and its anthropogenic character [29]. But now both these aspects have gained official recognition in the form of the recent reports by the IPCC. [30]

Back in “1979 the first “World Climate Conference” organized by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) (had) expressed concern that “continued expansion of man’s activities on earth may cause significant extended regional and even global changes of climate”. It called for “global cooperation to explore the possible future course of global climate and to take this new understanding into account in planning for the future development of human society.” The Conference appealed to nations of the world “to foresee and to prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity”. And in "1985 a joint UNEP/WMO/ICSU Conference was convened in Villach (Austria) on the “Assessment of the Role of Carbon Dioxide and of Other Greenhouse Gases in Climate Variations and Associated Impacts”. The conference concluded, that “as a result of the increasing greenhouse gases it is now believed that in the first half of the next century (21^st century) a rise of global mean temperature could occur which is greater than in any man’s history. [And, eventually, at “its 40^th Session in 1988 the WMO Executive Council decided on the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The UNEP Governing Council authorized UNEP’s support for IPCC.” [31] Thus, the IPCC came to be set up in 1988. Starting with the first assessment report in 1990, it has by now published five, including one supplementary to the first, reports, the last, the fourth assessment, report in 2007. On the implications of the IPCC Reports, a very perceptive commentator thus observes: “The report the IPCC issued that year (i.e. 1995) was able to assert that “the balance of evidence suggests” that human activity was increasing the planet’s temperature and that it would be a serious problem. This was perhaps the most significant warning our species, as a whole, has yet been given. The report declared (in the pinched language of international science) that humans had grown so large in numbers and especially in appetite for energy that they were now damaging the most basic of the earth’s systems—the balance between incoming and outgoing solar energy. Although huge amounts of impressive scientific research have continued over the twelve years since then, their findings have essentially been complementary to the 1995 report—a constant strengthening of the simple basic truth that humans were burning too much fossil fuel.” [32] The last, 2007, report has further underscored both the facts of global warming / climatic change and its essential anthropogenic character, beyond the scope of any reasonable doubt. [33]

Yet there is still no unanimity among the global ruling elite.

On the one hand, the US under Bush, by reversing earlier US position under Clinton, took a hard line stand against any substantive remedial measures to ensure any meaningful and deep cut in carbon emission [34]. In fact, the US Vice President Al Gore had been “a main participant in putting the Kyoto Protocol (an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) together in 1997. President Bill Clinton signed the agreement in 1997, but the US Senate refused to ratify it, citing potential damage to the US economy required by compliance. The Senate also balked at the agreement because it excluded certain developing countries, including India and China, from having to comply with new emissions standards.”. Then “George Bush made campaign promises in 2000 to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. However, in 2001, George Bush pulled the US out of the Kyoto accords as one of the first acts of his presidency. Bush dismissed Kyoto Protocol as too costly, describing it as “an unrealistic and ever-tightening straitjacket.” Lately, the White House has even questioned the validity of the science behind global warming, and claims that millions of jobs will be lost if the US joins in this world pact.” [35]

On the other, the more developed amongst the developing countries – China and India in particular – are highly reluctant to go in for any significant cut in their respective carbon emissions on the ground of equity [36]. This, in turn, has been used by the Bush administration to further justify their own obstinate refusal [37].

Even otherwise, Kyoto or Bali (or Poznan) [38] only talks of global warming and consequent climate change without addressing the related issues of global pollution and global depletion of natural resources including bio-pool and minerals.

Effective Remedial Measures

An effective strategy to counter the doomsday prospects would at the minimum call for a clear recognition of the immediacy [39] of the looming crisis, its anthropogenic nature and, most importantly, unsustainability of the present developmental paradigm [40] and consequent profligate life-style of the privileged minority [41]. It cannot also eschew the issue of dire need for equity and justice to ensure climbing up of the huge communities of global underdogs from the abysmal pits of poverties they are in. This is just not a moral imperative. This is also the necessary condition for mobilizing popular pressures on the global scale to challenge the entrenched order fuelling the race to extinction and make it steer away from the precipice. Similarly, a campaign for peace - and nuclear disarmament in particular - has also got to be a necessary adjunct.

The specific solutions are, of course, to be collectively and democratically worked out by the humanity facing the threat of far premature extinction in the very course of the struggle against this grave threat [42].

But the broad contours have already started emerging even in reluctant admissions made in the official documents.

Carbon emission consequent to energy production for consumption has been identified as the principal culprit.

True, it exclusively focuses on “global warming” and attempts to disconnect this from the other interlinked dimensions of the looming ecological crisis viz. global pollution – of soil, water and air, and global depletion of natural resources – e.g. fossil fuel, rain forests, bio-diversities. And, in the process, comes up with arguably false and dangerous solutions like nuclear power or bio-fuels without taking a holistic view [43]. But even then, the problem of carbon emission itself, if pursued consistently and logically, takes us to a position where challenging the current heavy industry based, apart from being private profit driven, development paradigm becomes well-nigh inescapable.

The Struggle Ahead

“Since a social organization, however inadequate, never disappears by itself, since a ruling class, however parasitic, never yields power unless it is compelled to do so by overwhelming pressure, development and progress can only be attained if all the energies and abilities of a people that was politically, socially and economically disfranchised under the old system are thrown into battle against the fortress of ancien regime.” [44]

Even if this profound maxim had been pronounced in a context obviously somewhat different, it nevertheless graphically brings out the essence of the tasks before the ecological movements so as to make any real impact on the ongoing process. It brings out the fact that no amount of sane and informed reasoning by itself would do the magic of making the current set of rulers see reason and mend their ways unless some meat, so to say, is put on such reasoning in the form of formidable mass mobilisation solidly rallied behind such reasoning. And such mobilisation would of course demand both patient reasoning with the masses, to raise the level of awareness, and organising around partial and transitional demands, to begin with. The legitimacy, even if highly inadequate, conferred by the official commissions, declarations etc. in this regard, are to be positively harnessed. Some of the solutions proposed, if in tune with the general direction, even if falling far short of what is necessary, are to be picked up and fought for while stoutly opposing the patently false prescriptions.

But the basic awareness that social good can be served only by a social/global order which is truly “social” has to permeate all these efforts and campaigns and progressively assert itself, as the masses learn through their own experiences and set aside the cobwebs of old prejudices, to emerge as the masthead of the global movements for an ecologically sustainable order, which has got to be just and equitable as well. An order defined by harmony – among humans of all shades and varieties, on the one hand, and humans and the Nature, on the other.