Ecology and Class 1 £2.00/€3.00/$4.00 Ecology and Class - where there’s brass, there’s muck 2 Ecology and Class 3 Introduction—Ecological crisis 4 Part One: The Ecological Crisis We Face Water 8 People 10 Biotechnology and the future of mankind 15 Technology 17 Carmaggedon 22 Whose land is it anyway? 25 The role of progress 28 Part Two: Responses to Eco-catastrophe Survivalism Rio and the New World Order 29 The environmental movement 30 Primitivism Change yourself, change the world 31 The anti-roads movement 33 Legislate or die? 34 Development: a class response 35 Part Three: A Truly Green Revolution Published by the Anarchist Federation, c/o 84b WhitechapelHigh St, London E1 7QX info@afed.org.uk Contents Ecology and Class 3 ECOLOGY AND CLASS Introduction - Ecological Crisis Many people are aware of the worldwide problem of environmental pollution and destruction. Rainforests such as Amazonia are being decimated, large areas of land turned into desert. Droughts, floods and earthquakes affect millions; large-scale pollution is causing dangerous climatic change. Ecology (the science of living things and how they interact with each other), is therefore vital, literally a matter of life and death. In Africa and Asia, deforestation and desertification reinforce the effects of grossly unfair land ownership, producing starvation and malnutrition for millions of people. In Europe and North America, cancers from the environmental degradation caused by mass industrial society affect tens of thousands; the death and injury toll from cars is huge and the resulting air pollution causes a wors- ening asthma problem. Drinking water is becoming more polluted due to pesticides from farming, pollution from industry and, in Britain, water suppliers may soon be compelled to add the harmful chemical fluoride to water because of its supposed benefits to children’s teeth. Food is generally laden with chemicals (additives, pesticides, pollution, irradiation (to prolong shelf life), and is increasingly genetically modified. Ecological analysis needs to be part of a wider class analysis. For too many environmentalists however, green issues and politics are “neither left nor right” or “beyond politics”. This is dangerous nonsense. It leads to flirtations (or worse) with paganism, east- ern religions and mysticism. It encourages people-hating ideologies. Let’s not forget the nationalism and racism of leading Ameri- can Earth First! activists in the 1980s or links to neo-fascist ideas (David Icke, for instance, or the Third Stream groups in Britain and elsewhere). On the other side, class analysis cannot ignore ecology, for instance by treating all technology as neutral. If it does, it will be incapable of creating a future society that is free and equal (anarchist communism); such a society must be in har- mony with the rest of nature. This pamphlet is the result of the Anarchist Federation’s commitment to developing a coherent ecological analysis and practice as a vital part of our politics. It does not claim to be the last word, merely the start of the process. Ecology is an important strand in anarchist communism through people who were both theorists and activists, such as Kropotkin, Mumford, and, in the present day, Murray Bookchin’s description of ecologies of freedom. 4 Ecology and Class Water is essential for all life on Earth. But one-third of the world’s population do not have access to a supply of safe drinking water (a situation that is worsening). A third of all deaths in the world are the results of water-borne dis- eases. Water is a limited but endlessly renewed resource; its pollution, mismanagement and overuse by corpora- tions, governments and people (turned into ‘consumers’ in a world that is not of their making) threaten to turn a global crisis into a long-term planetary disaster. The Vice-President of the World Bank, Ismail Seregeldin, stated in 1995 that “the wars of the next century will be over water… by the year 2025, the amount of water avail- able to each person in the Middle East and North Africa will have dropped by 80% in a single lifetime”. Disputes and Wars 40% of the world’s population depend on water from a neighbouring country. Over 200 large rivers are shared by two or more countries. In modern times the existence of vast cities, irrigated agriculture and the demand for hydro-electric power have led countries to claim or steal water resources once used by others. The cutting up of river systems by state boundaries has aggravated the problems of responding to floods. The political and engineering structures that bring eco- nomic power and political control to national and international elites also threaten lives and livelihoods. One reason for Tur- key’s refusal to grant autonomy to the Kurds is the importance of water resources in eastern Turkey. Attempts to divert the sources of the River Jordan in South Lebanon and the Golan Heights provoked the Israeli-Arab War of 1967. Following this, Israel began to appropriate water supplies to support new settlements and supply towns and industry in Israel proper: Israel annually pumps 600 million cubic metres of water (over 30% of its supply) from aquifers that lie wholly or partly under the West Bank. 115 million cubic metres are allocated to the 1.4m West Bank Palestinians and 30m to 130,000 Jewish settlers; the rest (455 million cubic metres) goes to Israel. West Bank Palestinians have been barred from digging new wells or renovating old ones since 1967. Egypt offered Israel 400m cubic metres of fresh water a year to settle its conflict and assist the Palestinians; but there is still no agreement over water for the West Bank. There is a continuous threat of water wars in South Asia between India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. Large-scale deforestation upstream results in increasingly widespread flood disasters below. Punjab water was an important contributory factor to the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war. Hindu nationalism has been fuelled by the unfair distribu- tion of India’s water to the Sikh Punjab and led to the storming of the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984. Modern wars depend on the destruction of the civilian popula- tion’s means of life and livelihood. In 1991 in Iraq, for exam- ple, the deliberate destruction of power supplies by bombing and war created a huge health problem. Over 90% of sewage treatment plants were disabled with huge amounts of un- treated domestic and industrial sewage being pumped into rivers, creating an increase in water-borne diseases. Agricul- tural production was slashed by the breakdown of the electri- cally powered irrigation network. Before the Gulf War Iraq produced 30% of its food. Prior to the US-UK assault on Iraq in 2003, the figure was 10-15%. What Was Ours Is Now Theirs The huge increase in the urban population of 19th Century Britain was accompanied by dysentery, typhoid and cholera. The poor were blamed for cholera outbreaks, the result of their ‘ignorance’, lack of hygiene and general moral depravity. The prevailing orthodoxy was that laissez-faire capitalism and the management of water property for profit would provide solu- tions. It didn’t, and both municipal and state solutions – public ownership and management of water resources – were needed to solve the problem. Eventually it was recognised that easy access to a clean water supply was a basic human need, via the Public Health Acts. But with the re-emergence of neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideas about the role of the state and the importance of market solutions to social prob- lems, all this is changing. Britain is water rich, with adequate rainfall and only occasional water shortages. Until recently, water was generally seen as a common good and water planners saw any form of supply restriction, even a hosepipe ban, as an admission of failure. Regional water authorities pooled access to water resources and made long term plans for a London ring main, recharging aquifers from winter river water. People and organisations co- operated to manage water resources relatively effectively and to save water when it was needed, such as during the drought of 1975/76. However, water was privatised by the Tories in 1989, despite defeat in The House of Lords and the threat of prosecution by the EU on water quality standards, attacks by environmental groups over standards and questions about the fate of water authorities’ huge land holdings. As a result, the average household experienced an increase in water costs of 67% between 1989 and 1995. Company profits rose by an average of 20% to 1993 and are still high. The highest charg- ing area of Britain, South West Water, took 4.9% of income from a household of 2 adults and 2 children, 7.6% from a lone parent and child and 9.1% from single pensioners in 1994. The profits of the water supply companies are being subsi- PART ONE: The Ecological Crisis We Face Water Ecology and Class 5 dised by the poorest people in Britain, those least able to pay. Thousands of households now regularly have their water sup- ply cut off. In the Sandwell Health Authority area (in the West Midlands), over 1,400 households were cut off in 1991/2 and cases of hepatitis and dysentery rose tenfold. In 1994 2m households fell into water arrears, with 12,500 disconnected. Half of the water companies in England and Wales have selec- tively introduced or are testing pre-payment meters. The in- creased use of metering, most often in poorer households, has either increased water bills or resulted in forced cuts in water use by those who need it most. Non-payers are automatically cut off and the supply is not restored until the debt is paid. 10,000 meters have been installed in Birmingham since 1992; there have been over 2,000 disconnections. The water compa- nies have responded to increasing criticism of their disconnec- tion policies by devoting a tiny proportion of their profits to charitable trusts that help the poorest customers. This is pure PR and gives the corporations tax advantages. In the 1980s and in 1994-96, community campaigns defeated attempts to introduce water taxes in Dublin; see Issue 3 of ‘Red and Black Revolution’ for an excellent analysis. Encouraged by a surge of prosperity in the 1960s, the Spanish have ignored the fact that they live in a semi-arid country prone to periodic, lengthy droughts. Golf courses have been built for tourists, swimming pools for themselves and there are many lawns and gardens requiring daily watering. Farmers have diversified from their traditional drought resistant produce such as figs and olives into water-hungry crops like rice and straw- berries. The result is that Spain is now the world’s 4th highest per capita consumer of water after the US, Canada and Rus- sia. Now it has to build huge dams and pay the cost to divert rivers to over-developed areas, amid growing environmental and community opposition. Other factors (which apply else- where) are laws giving producers the right to squander re- sources so long as there is a consumer demand to be satisfied; and the role of the centralised State (largely controlled by busi- ness influences), with its control of revenue, command of re- sources, expertise and power to enforce policy on citizens, in arbitrating the management of resources. Water – A New Colonialism Abroad, British water companies are hunting for contracts for water supply and sewage disposal. A Thames Water spokes- person said, “We are being too soft, and that is why our discon- nection levels will rise” (Guardian, 1992). The company was then part of a consortium re-organising the water supply of East Berlin. Both the Suffolk and Essex water companies are owned by the French Lyonnaise des Eaux ,which along with the larger Compagnie Generale des Eaux, are the world’s larg- est water distributors. In 1994 Thames announced that it was teaming up with CGE to bid to maintain and expand the water and sewage system of Lima. Here the poor can’t have mains water, they must buy it by the drum. But the rich bribe the driv- ers of the tankers servicing the slums to divert the water to them so they can wash their cars. In 1993 Anglian Water was part of a consortium led by Lyonnaise to modernise and run the water and sewage operations of Buenos Aires. The chief ex- ecutive of Thames Water explained its involvement in Latin America: “The aim remains to expand non-utility businesses to provide an earnings stream free of regulatory control”. Latin America has a long tradition of ‘client-populist’ politics resulting in the affluent areas of cities having a heavily subsidised and regularly maintained water supply. In most cities the poor do not have access to piped potable water, making them easy victims of the private water sellers; in Guayaquil for example, 400 tankers service 600,000 people (35% of the total urban population). Water customers who can afford large volumes get it at a heavily subsidised price from the public water utili- ties. Profiteers then sell it on to people living in the slums and shanties at 400 times what they paid. The cities have plenty of water but appalling hygiene and sanitation problems: average production and supply capacity would allow each inhabitant 220 litres a day; current consumption is an average of 307 li- tres in affluent areas but less than 25 litres for the poorest. Contemporary water imperialism is the result of the require- ments of international water agencies that insist on interna- tional tender. Bilateral loans are usually subject to buying equipment and using engineering services from the lending country. These arrangements privilege infrastructure invest- ment over institutional or organisational improvements and maintenance projects. Where Water Does Not Flow All over the world irrigation (especially for cash crops) has reached the point of diminishing returns, where mineral salts increase the salinity of water and decrease output: in 1990 30– 40% of the world’s irrigated cropland was estimated to be wa- terlogged or suffering from excessive salinisation. 63% of water used in 1991 was for irrigation, a figure projected to de- cline to 55% by 2000. It is now generally recognised that irriga- tion projects are most likely to succeed when fallow periods are observed and when managed by local communities. The reli- ance on large-scale irrigation has spread from luxury export crops in dry climates to the production of ordinary crops for supermarkets that account for most of British retail trade. Big farmers are encouraged by the National Rivers Authority (NRA) and the Ministry of Agriculture to build their own reservoirs and are licensed to take water from rivers, despite the impacts on other users. Because it is fixed and stable, land can be divided by hedges or walls and turned into private property, personal wealth and inheritance. But water should be a communal asset, because it will not stay still. For thousands of years legal and informal systems have accepted and insisted that there can be no own- ership of running water. There is a long history of human so- cieties that have developed elaborate systems to ensure fair access for all to water: the water communities on the Genil, Segura and Ebro rivers are examples of solidarity and social co-operation created by the Spanish on the foundations laid by the Phoenicians, the Roman Empire and the Moors. The mod- ern technology of pipes, pumps and motive power makes such schemes easier. For irrigation, local control of water is all- important and can be achieved in many ways. In a centuries old system in Bali, all farmers taking water from the same stream or river are members of a sebak organisation, meeting every 35 days, with its own systems of law. It plans planting days, distributes water equitably and fines cheats. In the small- scale irrigation systems of eastern Spain under the Moors, wa- ter belonged to the community and was sold with the land. Continual disputes about its use in times of scarcity were regu- lated by a communal organisation, the huerta in places such as Aragon. Here water belongs to farmers and growers through whose land it passes, each water user belongs to a comunidad de regantes (association) that elects a sindico, the combination of sindicos from each zone constitutes the Water Tribunal. These meet to judge rations during scarcity; no lawyers or state laws are involved, fines are sometimes imposed and always paid. Mega Schemes Huge hydraulic schemes are made possible by advanced mod- ern civil engineering techniques. They require vast interna- tional contracts that are only possible at the level of central governments, international free floating capital and supra- national government organisations. The financiers borrow 6 Ecology and Class money and lend it at commercial rates, so they favour large- scale engineering projects that promise increasing production for export markets at the expense of local subsistence econo- mies, with disastrous social and environmental effects. Cash crops destroy settled communities and cause pollution of soil and water. For instance, Ethiopia’s Third Five-Year Plan brought 60% of cultivated land in the fertile Awash Valley un- der cotton, evicting Afar pastoralists onto fragile uplands which accelerated deforestation and contributed to the country’s ecological crisis and famine. There’s a vicious circle at work. Development needs money. Loans can only be repaid through cash crops that earn foreign currency. These need lots more water than subsistence farming. Large hydraulic schemes to provide this water are development. Development needs money. And so it goes. Large-scale projects everywhere are the consequence and justification for authoritarian government: one of America’s great dam-building organisations is the US Army Corps of Engineering. Stalin’s secret police supervised the construction of dams and canals. Soldiers such as Nasser of Egypt and Gadafi of Libya and military regimes in South America have been prominent in promoting such projects. Nasser built the Anwar High dam in 1971. The long-term consequences have been to stop the annual flow of silt onto delta land, requiring a growing use of expensive chemical fertilisers, and increased vulnerability to erosion from the Mediterranean. Formerly the annual flooding washed away the build-up of natural salts; now they increase the salt content of irrigated land. The build- up of silt behind the dam is reducing its electricity generating capacity; the lake is also responsible for the dramatic increase in water-borne diseases. Nationalism leads to hydraulic pro- jects without thought to what happens downstream in other countries. The 1992 floods of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Barak system killed 10,000 people. 500m people live in the region, nearly 10% of the world’s population, and they are constantly at risk from water exploitation and mismanagement. Techno- logical imperialism has replaced the empire building of the past: large-scale hydro projects are exported to countries de- spite many inter-related problems – deforestation, intensive land use and disputes and so on. Large-scale water engineer- ing projects foment international disputes and have become economic bargaining counters, for example the Pergau dam in Malaysia. The British Government agreed to spend £234m on it in 1989 in exchange for a £1.3bn arms deal. In 1994 the High Court ruled that the aid decision was unlawful but these kinds of corrupt deals continue. In Sri Lanka the disruption caused by the Mahawelli dams and plantation projects resulted in the forcible eviction of 1 million people and helped maintain the insurgency of the Tamil Tigers that resulted in thousands of deaths as they fought govern- ment forces from the late 1980s onwards. In 1993 the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq were threatened by Saddam Hussein’s plans to drain the area – the most heavily populated part of the region. Many of the 100,000 inhabitants fled after being warned that any opposition risked death. Selincourt estimated that 3 million people would lose their homes, livelihoods, land and cultural identity by giant dam projects in the 1990s. The Kedung Ombo dam (Indonesia) displaced 25,000; the Akasombo dam (Ghana) 80,000; Caborra Bassa (South Af- rica) 25,000. Three dams in Laos alone will have displaced 142,000 people. The proposed Xiao Langdi dam in China would displace 140,000; the Three Gorges project 1.1 million people. Only war inflicts a similar level of human and environ- mental destruction, yet large dam projects have a chronic re- cord in delivering water and power, or eliminating flooding in downstream valleys. Safe Water In the modern world it is possible for people to have access to cars, radio and television, but not (apparently) to a safe water supply – for example, Bangalore is the home of India’s com- puter software industry but still has appalling sanitation and water supply. There are 4 categories of water-related dis- eases: water-borne such as typhoid and cholera; water- washed, where lack of washing affects skin or eyes (for exam- ple scabies or trachoma); water-based, via parasitic worms; and water-related insect vectors e.g. malaria and yellow fever. There is a powerful economic argument for minimal public provision to counter these diseases. Public standpipes would provide free/cheap water to the poor; this would increase eco- nomic efficiency by reducing the time spent in collecting water (and the consequent ill health and injury) and health losses caused by polluted water. But rational planning and use often cuts across profit making, hence capitalism’s hatred of public provision. As a result, the position of the urban poor has worsened: a UN survey of 58 ‘developing’ countries in 1986 found that in 26 a lower proportion of the population had ac- cess to clean water in 1980 than in 1970. The World Health Organisation estimated in 1985 that 25% of the Third World’s urban population lacked access to safe water, 100 million more than in 1975; the figures are likely to be a gross under- estimate. Dirty Water Britain pumps over 300 million gallons of sewage into the sea every day and water companies spend millions of pounds on purifying water, 32% of which is then used to flush toilets. Water suppliers are unwilling to pay for pipes to separate high quality water used for washing and cooking from less treated water for other uses, meaning that costs remain high and re- cycling and re-use remain low. Inland cities, due to the threat of epidemic disease, developed elaborate systems of sewage processing and sought to link every household with the sew- Ecology and Class 7 age system. Coastal and estuary towns frequently discharge untreated sewage into coastal water as the cheapest solution, assuming that the sea is big enough to absorb and dilute the faeces, industrial wastes and nuclear industry effluent. Since 1990, the activist group Surfers Against Sewage have been demonstrating to oppose and publicise this environmental van- dalism. In 1995 an NRA report found that spending £300 per family for a new lower flush toilet could cut demand by 13%. A 1970 government report found that in some areas processed sewage sludge would be too contaminated by toxic metals to be used as agricultural fertiliser. British governments under- take to conform to EU water standards, but in practice do their level best to avoid them. For instance, in the 1990s standards on the acceptable quality of beaches were circumvented by the Tory Government’s (re-) definition of beaches as places where 500 bathers were in the water at any one time; this definition excluded all Welsh beaches as well as Blackpool. The EU standard for discharges into rivers contained an exception for ‘high natural dispersion areas’ where the sea would quickly carry waste away. This led the 1994 Environment Secretary, John Gummer, to declare that more than 30 miles (48km) of the River Humber was open sea so that it could continue to receive raw sewage from Hull. The ruling saved the privatised Yorkshire Water Company £100m. He made a similar ruling for Bristol on the River Severn, although the High Court ruled in 1996 that both decisions were unlawful. Global Warming & Climate Change Since the 1970s there has been a steady increase in global temperatures as a result of the build-up of heat-trapping pollutant gases in the atmosphere. As evidence of the effects of global warming begins to accumulate, it is absolutely certain that the world is facing a dangerous acceleration of climate change and extremes of weather. These changes will be considerably worse than hotter summers and wetter winters for some and vice versa for others. Whole continents are going to be affected by severe and extended periods of changed climate. Its not just the Saharan region that is experiencing prolonged drought and disastrous fires. Even tropical and tem- perate regions are suffering, countries like Australia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Cyprus and East Africa. In one year forest fires consumed more than one million hectares of Sumatra and Kalimantan. Agriculture in many different regions of the world will become virtually impossible as desertification spreads in hot areas and rainfall drowns fields and paddocks in the world’s monsoon belt. Storms and ocean swelling will inundate low- lying regions, drowning fishing ports and the hinterlands they feed. Global warming will expand ocean water and raise sea levels two feet by the year 2010: low-lying regions such as the delta portions of Bangladesh, Egypt and Southern China and low-lying islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans may be flooded or even submerged. This may all seem very academic and the problem of distant peoples. But climate change doesn’t just affect far-off coun- tries we will never visit. Torrential rain and melting in 1998 combined to cause landslides and severe flooding in California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon. Flash floods forced the evacuation of 125,000 people, and destroyed or badly damaged 24,000 houses and several hundred square kilometres of farmland. Economic losses were estimated at $2billion. Dermatologists in Australia and the United States are witnessing an explosion in cases of the deadly skin cancer, melanoma. Rising sea levels will drown tourist beaches, coastal wetlands, cultural and heritage sites, fishing centres and other areas and require massive investment in coastal defences, new sewage systems and relocation costs – whole new towns – houses, schools, hospitals, factories - will have to be built as people are forced inland at massive cost. Who is to pay for all this, if not the working peoples of the world? These changes will have major consequences for food production and create many more refugees, with the poorest being most affected, as ever. Changes to the oceans will also drive fish from traditional grounds, making it dangerous or impossible to catch them without using factory vessels and the latest sonar technology. Think of the literally billions of people who live and work in the river and deltas of the great rivers of the world: the Amazon, Ganges, Indus, Mekon, Mississippi, Niger, Nile, Po, and Yang- tze. These are hugely productive agricultural reasons and are all at risk from rising sea levels and climate change. Sustainable agriculture will become more difficult, leading to land being taken by Big Food and peasant farmers being forced into fetid slums beaten down by extremes of heat and rain where cholera, typhus and diphtheria are endemic. Across the world tropical insects are invading temperate zones where people and cattle have no immunity or the means to combat them while at the same time, up to 40% of all plant and animal species alive today are facing extinction. Crops are dying from water shortages and drought causes thousands of cattle to die of starvation or the heat. The coral reefs of the world are dying, unable to adapt to warming seas and the human diseases that enter the seas in sewage and thrive in warmer water. Don’t think these are problems only affecting the Majority World, far away. In 2002 30% of the USA was officially declared drought-affected. The response of Big Money – government and business – is not to tax petrol, reduce carbon emissions or change patterns of consumption to conserve water but build more dams to line the pockets of the corporations responsible for the mess in the first place. We are often told that climate change is produced by old- fashioned polluting technologies and that – if sufficient money is given to big business and the universities – they will produce the technological solutions that will save the planet. Yet, as this pamphlet shows elsewhere, the nature, speed and scope of technological change is not dictated by human need (or even humanity’s actual survival on this planet) but by the corpora- tions’ ability to make profit from their development, introduction and control. They dictate when products and technologies enter the market, not us. It is the corporations that increasingly dictate what, how and how much we consume by their control of technology and product development. Patterns of consump- tion, the waste and excess created by capitalism, dictate our methods of production. And it is the total mass of production – which is bound to go on increasing as western patterns of con- sumption are spread to the developing world by globalisation – that is the problem. What is also being spread – unfortunately – are the grotesquely unfair and destructive inequalities that capitalism creates and fosters. These are not just inequalities of wealth, status or power, though these are scandalous enough in a world that pretends to human equality and rights (and how hollow these must ring as dust sweeps across the farm of your ancestors or floods drown crop, cattle and kin). They are also inequalities in the one of the fundamentals that defines humanity: the kind and quality of our lives and the ways in which we die. For it is the poor, the marginalized and the weak, who already die in their tens of millions every year who will bear the brunt of global warming and climate change. If the price of flour goes up a few cents a kilo as a result of bad weather or failed crops bread in America will be a little bit more expensive. But if you live on $1 a day in Ethiopia or Brazil then a drought in the maize fields can be a matter of life and death. If the vaccines and antibiotics that helped control endemic disease no longer work and you can’t afford the new drugs from the West, how do you choose who will get them? If the upland peoples have been driven from their land by drought and come armed to your village, will you fight or flee? And where will you go the slums 8 Ecology and Class are already full? When the privatised water company turns off the neighbourhood’s water supply to preserve it for the rich who can afford to pay, how will you wash (to avoid disease), find clean water (to cook with) or flush that already stinking toilet where infection is breeding? The inevitable result of global warming is not an ‘English Riviera’ that the media and some scientists like to popularise, it is war, civil war, inter- communal violence, mass poverty, starvation and disease, man-made catastrophe and millions of blighted lives. Even though the consumption-obsessed western economies are the engine of global warming, its effects are largely not felt there. We are content to let international aid agencies provide stick- ing plaster solutions to the environmental disasters that busi- ness has created. Capitalism is blighting the planet; only the free society of the future, made here today, will restore it to health. Conclusion If the price mechanism continues to determine the allocation of water, the poor will die of thirst. If it decides which crops are irrigated for market, they will starve. If it determines the availability of water for personal hygiene, vast numbers of children will die before the age of five from illnesses such as diarrhoea. But there are numerous examples from around the world that show that people can co-operate to share water resources sensibly and fairly but only where there is common ownership and control of water. This section is based on Colin Ward’s ‘Reflected in Water: A Crisis of Social Responsibility’ (Cassell , 1997) Scientific fact proclaims the existence of an ecology of which we are a part. No system of ethics or morality, ex- cept the diseased mythologies of fascism, can justify hu- man existence in the present if humanity fails to exist in the future. Capitalism will either destroy humanity by destroying its ecological niche or it will destroy humanity by changing it. From these three statements comes an inescapable conclusion: that the class war is also a war of ecological survival. Are We The Problem? Of course working class cultures created or maintained by capitalism are part of the problem. Consumer culture encour- ages environmental destruction, whether by recreational hunt- ers, forest resort developers, trail-bikers or off-road drivers. We consume our environment in the same way and for the same reasons we consume everything else capitalism has appropriated and turned into products to be remade, repack- aged and sold. The home improvement craze has led to dis- used quarries in national parks being reopened or expanded to feed our hunger for stone and gravel. Forests are planted and felled to feed our craving for newsprint, furniture and packaging. We grub up hedges, spray pesticides or let useful land lie fallow because someone pays us to do it. How we live is not natural and not necessary but an entirely artificial thing, created by capitalism to suit its needs, not ours. But this situa- tion is not normal, not permanent and can be challenged. Capitalism is not a solution it is a predicament. Its point of no return has already been reached; it will die or be radically changed in the life of many people alive today. How many of us will die in the process is the question. The Myth of Overpopulation Human population has skyrocketed in the last few centuries – in the nineteenth century, the world population more than dou- bled. But population growth is a result of a decline in the death rate, rather than a boom in the birth rate. Humans have always produced a lot of children; it is a useful survival tech- nique. But we are also getting better at keeping ourselves alive. At the same time, while some areas maintain histori- cally high rates of birth, other areas – notably the ‘developed’ countries of the West – have declining birth rates. So what’s the truth about ‘over-population’? Malthus Are there too many people for the earth to support? Thomas Malthus (a 19th Century clergyman), was the originator and populist of “overpopulation” theories. He maintained that food supplies could only increase arithmetically while human popu- lation increases exponentially. War, disease and starvation for the poor are the inevitable result: “Man cannot live in the midst of plenty. All cannot share alike the bounties of nature”. These disasters were also the ‘natural’ solution to the prob- lem. He opposed contraception or feeding people who would otherwise starve, as this would only lead them to procreate more, worsening the general misery. Overpopulation ideology emerged with the beginning of indus- trialisation. People were driven from their lands and dispos- sessed of the commons (a traditional source of food in hard times) by wealthy landowners and crowded into factories and slum housing. Disease, brutality and immorality were caused by overcrowding which was itself the product of there being too many people – or so it was thought. Malthus’ theories began to be used selectively by political and business leaders as the Industrial Revolution progressed. A surplus of workers kept wages down, which was good for business, and good business made good politics. But society was also a “war of all against all” (Hobbes). In order to survive and conquer, states required a lot of people (soldiers, workers) but only the ‘right’ ones. Social Darwinism, combined with eugenics (the genetic control and ‘improvement’ of breeds), was used to justify colonial conquest and legitimised reactionary immigra- tion policies at the turn of the 20th Century. Ultimately it pro- vided the necessary ideology for the extermination of ‘inferior’ people by the Nazis in their death camps: the disabled, men- tally or physically ‘deficient’, psychiatric inmates, Jews, Gyp- sies, homosexuals etc. People Ecology and Class 9 Overpopulation theories are currently used by the Development Bank to justify the industrial development of sensitive wilder- ness areas such as Western Brazil. Media images of crowded refugee camps suggest an Africa teeming with people that the land cannot support and conveniently ignore the wars and eco- nomic oppression that have driven them there. Since the Cold War, US strategy to control political developments and re- sources has involved population control to prevent nationalist revolt in Africa and Asia. The American corporate and military state collaborates with local elites through the establishment of state-dominated institutions for population control. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is the biggest single funder of population control activities in the majority world. The anti-abortion stance of the Reagan and Bush ad- ministrations was a sop to the Right and only for domestic con- sumption. The focus of the present population control estab- lishment is authoritarian and technocratic. Sterilisation, inter- uterine devices, the Pill, and other risky forms of fertility control are preferred to traditional methods and barrier techniques. This ideology is based on three tenets: 1. Rapid population growth is the main cause of the South’s development problems, particularly hunger, environmental destruction and political instability. 2. People must be persuaded/forced to have fewer children (in Indonesia the Army has forced IUDs on villagers at gunpoint), without fundamentally improving their impover- ished conditions. 3. With the right combination of finance, personnel, technology and Western management techniques, birth control can be delivered from the top down, without basic health care systems. Hunger Has Natural Causes, Right? Despite the fact that the world produces l.5 times as much food as is needed to feed the human population, starvation and fam- ine are endemic to modern capitalism. 900 million people die from starvation each year, but there is no global shortage of land to grow food. The UN estimates that there is enough land to feed a world population of 14 billion people. But what is it being used for? As in the ‘developed’ North, large landowners control the vast majority of land. In 83 countries, 3% of farmers control 79% of farmland, much of it left unused in order to maintain profits. Big Food made over $7bn profit from the South in 1990, and probably far more through transfer pay- ments. It uses its economic power to force down the prices of rice, coffee, sugar, cocoa and cotton. Average prices in 1989 were 20% down on those of 1980. This led to an increase in foreign debt for Southern countries, with consequent increased economic hardship for the poor majority (higher taxes, inflation, etc.). Brazil has an area of farmland the size of India left uncul- tivated while 20 million rural poor are landless; the richest 1% owns 15 times as much land as the poorest 56% of Brazilian farmers. In Guatemala, 2% of landowners own 66% of the land. In the Philippines agribusiness producing sugar, cotton and pineapples for export has pushed 12 million peasants into the lowland forests. Drought in Africa is part of a millennia-long cycle that human societies adapted to. It is cash crop exploitation, the market economy and taxation that produce starvation, not drought. During the 1970s, when famines first began to be reported regularly, ships that brought relief supplies to the port of Dakar left carrying peanuts, cotton, vegetables, and meat. In Bangla- desh, often cited as the model for the Malthusian argument, 90% of the land is worked by sharecroppers and labourers. Many starved after the 1974 floods, while hoarders held on to four million tons of rice. In the mid-80’s severe famines oc- curred in the Sahel countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Chad yet during the same period record harvests of cotton were exported to the industrial centres of the world. Cash crops go to feed the global supermarket, yielding higher profits for international capital and accelerating global industri- alisation. Mexican soil and labour supplies almost 70% of the US market for much winter and early spring vegetables. The result is that agriculture for local consumption is squeezed out and the prices of staple foods rise. Up to 50% of total meat production in Central America is exported, mainly to North America. The “Green Revolution” of the 1970s and 1980s, that the ruling class said would feed the hungry, has in fact only supplied the global supermarket. The same will certainly be true of the ‘wonder crops’ of the GM revolution. The corporate claims that GM and industrial food production in general will ‘feed the world’ are straightforward lies. The maize/soya/ animal product system they are pushing so heavily is not a rational way to produce food - an acre of cereal is estimated to produce 5 times as much protein as one devoted to meat pro- duction, an acre of legumes (beans, peas, lentils) 10 times as much and an acre of leafy vegetables 15 times as much. Where Does Poverty Come From? The imposition of free market economics on colonial territories in the 19th Century massively increased death tolls from drought and monsoon: as many as 18m died in India and China alone in two years in the 1870s. Famine in China sparked the Boxer Uprising. ‘Modernization’ caused village stocks of grain to be centralized in the Indian Empire and then exported to England whenever there were bad harvests. When famine struck, the colonial administration raised prices beyond the reach of the peasants who starved, fled the land or turned to banditry and even cannibalism. Money sent by European governments for relief often ended up funding increases in lo- cal military establishments and ‘bush wars’ against colonial rivals or were pocketed by the colonial merchant and ruling classes – the very crime that Saddam’s Iraq was accused of throughout the 1990s. Despite a decades-long effort to ‘civilize’ and ‘develop’ India, there was no increase in the per capita income of people between 1757 and 1947. Wealth flowed in both directions but did not pass out of the hands of the ruling classes into that of ordinary Indians. In Africa and Asia the rural population live on the poorest land. They are forced to grow cash crops for export, although their primary need is to feed themselves: 15 million children die every year from malnutrition. In Brazil the IMF (International Monetary Fund) typically insisted that the huge $120 billion debt was paid by reducing imports and maximising exports. This has inevitably led to the worsening rape of Amazonia through increasing the output of primary products such as minerals, meat, coffee, cocoa and hardwoods. Living on the worst land 10 Ecology and Class and burdened by debt, is it any wonder people over-cultivate, deforest and overuse the land, becoming more prone to ‘natural’ disasters such as floods and droughts. This land is also the most dangerous: the poor live in shanty towns of flood-prone river basins or foreshores, or in huts of heavy mud brick, on steep hills, that are washed away when the rains come. Maybe Its Just A Lack Of Resources? One justification for population control is the pressure on re- sources shown by deforestation, desertification, water pollu- tion etc. We need fewer people to stop environmental de- struction, yes? But fewer people do not necessarily consume fewer resources. The industrialised North with about 20% of world population (1.2bn people) consumes over 80% of its resources, 70% of energy, 75% of metals, 85% of wood, 60% of food. These figures obscure vast disparities of wealth within both the South and the North. The worlds largest com- panies control 70% of world trade, 80% of foreign investment, and 30% of global GDP. Militarism is the most environmen- tally destructive modern institution. Its cumulative effects far outweigh the effects of population pressure. In the last 50 years there have been over 125 wars fought in the South (many of them proxy wars for the superpowers), leaving 22 million dead. Over 60% of global arms sales go to Africa and Asia; this military spending kills and damages many more through the waste of resources. The American Pentagon pro- duces more toxic waste than the five largest multi-national chemical companies combined: a ton of toxic chemicals a minute. A B52 bomber consumes over 13,000 litres of fuel an hour; an armoured division (348 tanks) over 2 million litres of fuel a day. War also damages the environment through desta- bilising traditional communities, creating refugees who flee and settle on fragile soils that cannot support them. In Africa, between 1955 and 1985, there were over 200 attempted coups creating over 8 million peasant refugees who fled their villages to escape terror in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, the Sudan and Uganda. The development of the technology of Genetic Modification (GM) stretches back decades but most people have started to become aware of its implications only during the 90s. First Monsanto introduced rBST, a GM growth hormone designed to increase milk yields in the US. After some controversy the EU decided to ban its import into Europe, a decision that is likely to be overturned by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) soon. Then in 1996 shipments of soya beans genetically modified to be resistant to Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup started to arrive in this country, prompting public disquiet. The sacking of Dr Puzstai from the Rowett Institute for claiming that consuming GM potatoes harmed rats provoked quite a food scare frenzy in the capitalist media. But the “Frankenstein Foods” paranoia also tended to obscure the environmental and social disasters that will follow if the corporations carry out their plans to introduce GM on a large scale. To quote Vandana Shiva “It seems that the Western powers are still driven by the colonising impulse to discover, conquer, own, and possess everything, every society, every culture. The colonies have now been extended to the interior spaces, the ‘genetic codes’ of life forms from microbes and plants to animals, including humans.” Let Them Eat Oil GM is only the latest stage in the industrialisation of food pro- duction under the control of the petro-chemical- pharmaceutical multinationals that have come to dominate the global economy (Big Food, Big Pharm and Big Oil). They are more powerful than many nation states: in 1995, of the 100 most powerful ‘economies’ in the world 48 were global corpo- rations. Along with international financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank and WTO, they constitute the economic side of the New World Order. The process of industrialising food production, which they have been imposing on us over the last few decades, consists of destroying subsistence and organic farming and replacing it with a system based on: *Massive inputs of petro-chemicals in the form of fuel for ma- chinery, artificial fertilisers and biocides (herbicides and pesti- cides). *Production for a global market rather than for direct consump- tion (subsistence) or local markets. *More dependence on animal products and the intensification of animal exploitation (factory farming). *The concentration of land ownership into fewer hands. *Dependence on multinational corporations for seed. Major chemical, pharmaceutical and oil multinationals have taken over more than 120 seed companies since the 1960s. The top 5 seed producers now control 75% of the world market. Hybrid, so-called ‘High Yielding Varieties’, have yields 20-40% lower in the second generation if replanted and are hence economically sterile. Biotechnology and the future of humanity Ecology and Class 11 *The replacement of mixed cropping systems suitable to local conditions by monoculture. The results of this process (once known as the ‘Green Revolu- tion’) have been landlessness, poverty & starvation for millions as well as massive degradation of the natural world through chemical pollution and loss of biodiversity. Down On The Farm The foot and mouth ‘epidemic’ in Britain was a massive abuse of animals and the land, caused by the pursuit of profit. In- fected swill from schools, probably arising from the cheap im- ported meat schools use (cost-cutting before children’s health), was fed to pigs. Infected and disease-free animals were taken to large agri-business holding stations. The weak or unwanted were sold in local markets, spreading infection. The rest were transported hundreds of miles to fattening sta- tions and mixed with other animals even though it is well known that livestock transported long distances are very sus- ceptible to disease. Some were exported to Europe (after being infected), others sold after fattening to the abattoirs and then into the food chain. This industrial agriculture is forced upon farmers by a capitalism that must offer ever-cheaper goods to survive and the greed of the supermarkets for profit and market share. What is truly amazing is that foot and mouth disease cannot infect humans and does no more harm to animals than minor sores and milk that can’t be used. It wears off after a few weeks. In the 19th Century and abroad farmers simply let the disease burn itself out after killing very few animals. Why is it different in these islands? Because the supermarkets will not buy infected meat and farmers will not pay to feed a cow that even temporarily produces no milk. Foot and mouth was not a natural disaster, it was an eco- nomic disease, killing profits but of no harm to animals or hu- mans. One million healthy, disease-free sheep were killed to protect the profits of the supermarkets and large agri- businesses, the ultimate indictment of capitalist profit motive and methods of organization. Globalisation and free trade are forcing intensive farming methods on farmers with disastrous consequences. In 1999 200,000 farmers in Europe gave up the unequal struggle and big business moved in. 10 compa- nies worldwide control 60% of the international food chain. Four of them control the world supply of corn, wheat, tea, rice and timber. Massive subsidies, paid for by taxes on wages and non-agricultural businesses, swell the profits of the big- gest farms and agricultural businesses, usually owned by large multi-national corporations – in the US, a total of $22bn. While western capitalism demands subsidy worth $362bn per year, the farmers of the rest of the world share just $18bn – if they can’t compete, they are accused of inefficiency by west- ern ‘experts’ and legislated out of existence or driven to the wall by ‘free and fair’ competition. Farmers are made more dependent on the multinationals by the fact that seed varieties (along with all forms of life) can now be patented and by being patented turned into private property. If farmers buy Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soya beans they have to sign a contract committing themselves to use only Monsanto chemicals, not to save any seed for re- planting (one of the basics of sustainable agriculture) and be prepared to allow representatives of the company on to their farms for up to 3 years after the purchase to check this. In order to enforce these ‘Technology Use Agreements’ in the US, Monsanto have employed the Pinkerton private detective agency (famous for their violent strike breaking activities on behalf of US capital), they have named and shamed ‘guilty’ farmers in local radio station adverts and even opened a tele- phone hotline for people to dob in offenders. The fact that 475 farmers in the US and Canada broke their Technology Use Agreements and were sued by Monsanto is probably one of the reasons it developed ‘terminator’ technology, a technique where genes are inserted into a plant which render its seed non-viable; from the corporations point of view a great im- provement - from ‘economic sterility’ to biological sterility. Monsanto is suing one farmer from Canada for growing seed without a license, when what actually happened was that his oilseed rape crop had been contaminated by pollen from GM crops on nearby farms. Of course the real aim of terminator technology is the untold sums of money to be made from stop- ping ‘Third World’ farmers from saving and sharing their seeds and making them dependent on high tech seed from the multi- nationals. Nothing in the preceding paragraph should be taken to mean that we see large capitalist farmers in the US and Canada as being somehow victims of the corporations. Like large scale industrial farmers everywhere they are part of the corporate food production system of which GM is the latest stage: they exploit wage labour (although labour on farms is drastically reduced by the industrialisation process large scale industrial farming exploits wage labour massively in the chemical indus- try, machine production, transportation etc) and happily pro- duce for the global market and act as a market for every new agro-chemical or GM seed produced. But already complaints of crop damage due to herbicide drift are starting to increase as the sprays farmers growing Roundup Ready GM use drifts onto the crops of farmers growing ordinary plants. Biocide or Genocide? The high cost of chemical and mechanical inputs and expen- sive new seed varieties favours large farmers over small; they are bankrupted, lose their land and end up either in the huge and squalid shanty towns and slums that surround so many majority world cities or as agricultural labourers on big farms or plantations. Here they may be one of the over 40,000 ‘Third World’ farm workers killed each year as a result of con- tact with agro-chemicals. A 1994 UN report estimated 1,000,000 people a year are made ill as a result of over- expo- sure to agro-chemicals. The increasing use of animal prod- ucts as well as leading to the misery, waste and pollution of factory farming is also responsible for the erosion of biodiver- sity and peoples livelihoods in the majority world. For exam- ple almost all of Central America’s lowland and lower montane rainforest has been cleared or severely degraded mainly in order to raise cattle for export. The crops most grown under ‘Green Revolution’ and GM regimes of industrial food produc- tion are maize and soya, not for human consumption but for animal feed. Small scale organic farming systems based 12 Ecology and Class around plants and supporting the producers directly are being destroyed in favour of chemical soaked monocultures to feed the farm animals necessary to feed the animal product heavy global food economy. Because ‘pests’ and ‘weeds’ can rapidly become immune to herbicides and biocides chemicals don’t even do what they say they do; pesticide use in the US increased by 500% be- tween 1950-1986 yet estimated crop loss due to pests was 20%, exactly the same as in 1950. The damage done by the production and use of biocides and artificial fertilisers is almost unimaginable. Pesticide pollution of the natural world (air, wa- ter & soil) is one of the major reasons for the staggering loss of biodiversity (estimated at a loss of 30,000 species a year) we are witnessing as the world is slowly turned into a huge agro-chemical-industrial facility. Pesticide and artificial fertil- iser pollution, along with other petro-chemical forms of pollu- tion and increased exposure to radiation, are responsible for massive rates of cancer and birth abnormalities. Then there are the ‘accidents’ which show the system’s inhumanity even more clearly: such as the 1984 explosion at Union Carbide’s insecticide factory in Bhopal, India which left 3,000 dead and 20,000 permanently disabled. Or the less well-publicised events in Iraq in 1971-1972 when large quantities of wheat seed that had been treated with anti-fungus compounds con- taining mercury were ‘accidentally’ baked into bread. 6,000 neurologically deranged people were admitted to hospital and at least 452 died. Corporate propagandists would have us believe that these are unfortunate side effects of a beneficial technology we desperately need to ‘feed the world. Yet, as anyone who takes the trouble to find out the facts must be aware, the world produces more food than is necessary to feed the human population and the reasons people go hungry are landlessness, poverty, and social dislocation caused by capitalist oppression and war. The End Of Diversity GM technology is also set to plunge countless thousands of people into poverty by using GM plants or tissue cultures to produce certain products which have up until now only been available from agricultural sources in the majority world. For example, lauric acid is widely used in soap and cosmetics and has always been derived from coconuts. Now oilseed rape has been genetically modified to produce it and Proctor & Gamble, one of the largest buyers of lauric acid, have opted for the GM source. This is bound to have a negative effect on the 21 million people employed in the coconut trade in the Philippines and the 10 million people in Kerala, India, who are dependent on coconuts for their livelihood. Millions of small- scale cocoa farmers in West Africa are now under threat from the development of GM cocoa butter substitutes. In Madagas- car some 70,000 vanilla farmers face ruin because vanilla can now be produced from GM tissue cultures. Great isn’t it? 70,000 farming families will be bankrupted and thrown off the land and instead we’ll have half a dozen factories full of some horrible biotech gloop employing a couple of hundred people. And what will happen to those 70,000 families? Well, the cor- porations could buy up the land and employ 10% of them growing GM cotton or tobacco or some such crap and the rest can go rot in some shantytown. This is what the corporations call ‘feeding the world’. Poisoning the earth and its inhabitants brings in big money for the multinationals, large landowners and the whole of the in- dustrial food production system. Traditional forms of organic, small-scale farming using a wide variety of local crops and wild plants (so-called’ weeds’) have been relatively successful at supporting many communities in relative self-sufficiency for centuries. In total contrast to industrial capitalisms chemical soaked monocultures, Mexico’s Huastec indians have highly developed forms of forest management in which they cultivate over 300 different plants in a mixture of gardens,’ fields’ and forest plots. The industrial food production system is destroy- ing the huge variety of crops that have been bred by genera- tions of peasant farmers to suit local conditions and needs. A few decades ago Indian farmers were growing some 50,000 different varieties of rice. Today the majority grow just a few dozen. In Indonesia 1,500 varieties have been lost in the last 15 years. Although a plot growing rice using modern so-called ‘High Yielding Varieties’ with massive inputs of artificial fertilis- ers and biocides produces more rice for the market than a plot being cultivated by traditional organic methods, the latter will be of more use to a family since many other species of plant and animal can be collected from it. In West Bengal up to 124 ‘weed’ species can be collected from traditional rice fields that are of use to farmers. The sort of knowledge contained in these traditional forms of land use will be of great use to us in creating a sustainable future on this planet; it is the sort of knowledge the corporations are destroying to trap us all in their nightmare world of wage labour, state and market. From ‘Green Revolution’ to ‘Gene revolution’ The latest stage in this process is the use of GM organisms in the production of food (although, of course, food production is only one aspect of the GM world the corporations are prepar- ing for us). Despite the claims of the corporations that this technology is ‘green’ and desperately needed to ‘feed the world’, it will in fact continue and accelerate the degradation of the natural world and the immiseration of the human species characteristic of previous phases in the industrialisation of food production. The claim that the introduction of GM crops will lessen the use of agro-chemicals is a simple lie. Of the 27.8 million hectares of GM crops planted world wide in 1998, 71% had been modi- fied to be resistant to particular herbicides. This represents a major intensification of chemical agriculture since usually crops can’t be sprayed with broad-spectrum herbicides (such as Roundup) for obvious reasons. Monsanto have applied for and received permits for a threefold increase in chemical resi- dues on GM soya beans in the US and Europe from 6 parts per million (ppm) to 20ppm. Two biotech companies, Astra Zeneca and Novartis, have actually patented techniques to Ecology and Class 13 genetically modify crop plants so that they are physically de- pendent on the application of certain chemicals; so much for claims that GM will lessen the use of agro-chemicals. Companies involved in this field are also planning major in- vestment in new facilities to increase the production of bio- cides. Monsanto have announced plans to invest $500 million in new production plants for Roundup in Brazil. This is on top of $380 million on expanding production in the rest of the world. AgrEvo have increased production facilities for their herbicide glufosinate in the US and Germany and expect to see sales increase by $560 million in the next 5-7 years with the introduction of glufosinate-resistant GM crops. Like Roundup, glufosinate is hailed as being ‘environment friendly’ but is in fact highly toxic to mammals (particularly affecting the nervous system) and, even in very low concentrations, to ma- rine and aquatic invertebrates. This last is particularly worrying since glufosinate is water-soluble and readily leached from soil to groundwater. As for Monsanto’s ‘environment friendly’ bio- cide Roundup, it can kill fish in concentrations as low as 10ppm, stunts and kills earthworms, is toxic to many beneficial mycorrhizal fungi which help plants take up nutrients and is the third most common cause of pesticide-related illness among agricultural workers in California; symptoms include eye and skin irritation, cardiac depression and vomiting. Crops have also been genetically modified to produce their own pesticide, most notably by inserting genes from a natu- rally occurring bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). This pro- duces a toxin that kills some insects and their larvae by de- stroying their digestive tracts. The substances produced by the GM crops are toxic and persist in the soil longer, killing a wider range of insects and soil organisms. It is also inevitable that some of the target organisms will develop immunity and farmers will return to chemical sprays or whatever the next technical fix the corporations come up with happens to be. It is also likely that either through cross-pollination or through the action of bacteria and/or viruses the Bt gene will end up in other plants with unpredictable effects on food production and ecosystems. This shows that the corporate justification of GM technology, that it is only an extension of traditional breeding methods, is utterly false. Human beings can alter the charac- teristics of plants and animals by crossing closely related indi- viduals. We cannot cross a bacteria with a plant, a fish with a strawberry or a human with a pig, yet GM potentially makes possible any juxtaposition of genes from anywhere in the web of life. Animals Are Commodities Too Under slavery human individuals are owned, are property. Under capitalism workers aren’t owned but they have to sell their labour/time/creativity because capitalists own everything (land, the means of production, transport and communication etc) that would enable people to live outside of wage labour and the market place. Now, instead of individuals owning non-human animals as part of their subsistence, corporations are claiming the right to ‘own’ whole species of animals. This process of patenting life can be traced back to the 1980 US Supreme Court ruling, which stated that a GM bacterium (modified to digest oil) could be patented. Not just that one bacterium of course but the whole, created species. In 1985 the US Patent and Trademark Office ruled that GM plants, seeds and plant tissues could be patented. Now the corpora- tions can demand royalties and licence payments every time farmers use those plants or seeds. Monsanto holds a patent on (i.e. owns and rents out) all GM cotton and soya. Patents have been granted on biological characteristics of plants as well. For example, a patent has been issued to Sungene for a variety of sunflower that has a high oleic acid content. But the patent covers the characteristic as well as the genes that code for it, so any plant breeder who achieves the same result by traditional methods could be sued. In 1987 animals joined the biotech market place when a Har- vard biologist patented ‘oncomouse’, a GM organism (mouse) predisposed to develop cancer for use in medical ‘research’. By 1997 40 GM ‘species’ of animal had been patented, includ- ing turkey, nematodes, mice and rabbits. Hundreds of other patents are pending on pigs, cows, fish, sheep and monkeys among others. In 1976 a leukaemia patient named John Moore had his cancerous spleen removed under surgery at the University of California. Without his knowledge or consent some of the cells from his spleen were cultured and found to produce a protein which could be used in the manufacture of anti-cancer drugs. The estimated value of this cell-line to the pharmaceutical industry is $3 billion. In 1984 the California Supreme Court ruled that he was not entitled to any of these profits. A US company called Biocyte holds a patent on (owns) all umbilical cord cells. Systemix Inc has a patent on (owns) all human bone marrow stem cells, these being the progenitors of all cells in the blood. The worldwide market for cell lines and tissue cultures was estimated to be worth $426.7 million to the corporations in 1996. Not only cells but also fragments of DNA can be patented (owned) in this way. Incyte, for exam- ple, has applied for patents on 1.2 million fragments of human DNA. The logic of this is that ‘genes for’ particular diseases such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes, various cancers etc could become the property of pharmaceutical companies who could then make huge profits on tests for such genes and gene- based therapies. There is no space here to get into a lengthy criticism of the reductionist idea that individual genes simply map onto well-defined physical traits underlying the whole theory and practice of GM. It’s enough to say that research into patenting (owning), for example, a supposed’ breast can- cer gene’ is of little benefit to humanity if it is true, as some scientists have estimated, that 90% of breast cancers are un- related to genetics but are triggered by environmental pollu- tion, diet and lifestyle factors. So what’s new? Capitalism, indeed class-society in general, always seizes the living and turns it into profit and power, declares ownership where previ- ously there was only life: from the enclosure of the commons to the seizing of millions of human beings from Africa to be slaves to the current looting of tropical biodiversity for use in the biotech labs. Cornucopia? But to return to the issue of the production of agricultural goods using GM technology, although we know that poverty is not caused either by an actual scarcity of physical necessities or any inability to produce them, what about the claim of the corporations that GM will increase yields and hence be of benefit to us human inhabitants of Planet Earth, if only by re- ducing prices? Is even that to be believed? Well, there are plenty of indications that claims of huge increases in yield are somewhat exaggerated. In 1997 30,000 acres of Monsanto’s GM Roundup Ready cotton failed in Mississippi. Growers faced $100,000 in losses each. In 1996 Monsanto’s ‘New Leaf’ GM potatoes (containing the Bt gene) were planted in Georgia in the ex-Soviet Union. Yield loss was up to 67% of the entire crop. Many farmers were forced into debt. Also in 1996 2 million acres of Monsanto’s GM cotton were planted in the southern US. This contained the Bt gene that is supposed to make it immune to the bollworm, a major pest of cotton. However nearly 50% of the acreage planted suffered a severe infestation: just a few teething troubles before the corporations save us all from hunger and environmental degradation? Or 14 Ecology and Class could it be clear evidence that talk of ‘feeding the world’ with GM technology is pure lies and only increased sales and prof- its matter? While this system, by its irrationality, plunges many into poverty it elevates others to great wealth, power and privilege and these elites will do all in their power to main- tain and extend it regardless of the cost to humans, other spe- cies or life in general. It is for this reason that when we come to consider our response to GM technology, the latest stage in the industrialisation of food production, we must aim to build an autonomous, collective, revolutionary response rather than being dragged onto the terrain of reformism. Stealing The World In Great Britain in the century leading up to the ‘Industrial Revolution, (1650-1750) the ‘peasantry’ (small farmers practis- ing subsistence agriculture and handicrafts, producing signifi- cant amounts of their own wants) was more or less destroyed and replaced by a small number of large landowners who rented out farms to tenants who employed wage labour and produced for the market. This is one of the origins of industrial capitalism. The use of biotechnology as an instrument of domination and exploitation has its historical roots in the West’s great plunder of the rest of the world in the period of colonialism. The colonialists regarded all in their path – land, plants, animals and humans – as their property: commodities and tools for the accumulation of wealth and power. Plant species, such as tea and cotton, were sought out, transported around the world and grown as vast monocultures on planta- tions. The native communities were decimated – cleared from the land, slaughtered or traded as slaves to work the planta- tions. All this forced the colonised world into a position of de- pendence and caused ecological imbalances in which numer- ous plant and animal species were lost forever. Genetics Biotechnology is the manipulation of living matter by humans to satisfy their needs for food and medicine. It is an ancient practice including crop rotation, crossbreeding and the use of yeasts in brewing and baking, for example. However, biotech- nology under technically advanced capitalism has become a method of creating and exploiting under-developed countries, causing immeasurable and irreversible damage to the ecology of the planet and making vast profits for multi-national compa- nies. In the current period of neo-colonialism, where domina- tion is maintained indirectly with the connivance of West- friendly local elites and the threat of sanctions, biotechnology is used as a means of perfecting and extending the domina- tion of western capitalism. Biotechnology enables the global corporations that control the cash-crop monocultures of the majority world to scientifically manipulate species. Big Food is genetically engineering ‘super breeds’ to be grown in vast monocultures, further endangering the diversity of ancient natural varieties and species. Only a few centuries ago 5000 plants were used as food; today agriculture uses 150. But these monocultures, working against the basic ecological prin- ciple of diversity, are prone to pests and diseases. Farmers then have to treat these crops with chemical pesticides and herbicides. A Common Treasury? An essential facet of industrial capitalism from its very begin- nings up to the present day is the destruction of subsistence in order to force people into the world of wage labour and the market. Its origin is to be found in an intensification and mar- ketisation of agriculture. In order for industrial capitalism to develop and come to dominate the whole of society subsis- tence had to be broken. Access to land and the ability to di- rectly satisfy needs and desires from the natural environment had to be denied to the majority not just in order to force peo- ple to engage in wage labour but also to create an outlet for manufactured and traded goods. Biotechnology under capital- ism goes further and takes life into its own hands, using the logic of profitability as its guide. It makes life equivalent to property, threatening the stability, diversity and spontaneity of the ecology of our planet that has evolved over millions of years. It erodes the rich variety of species available to us, and our freedom to decide how we interact with them. It forces millions into dependence, poverty, and starvation through the use of their land for cash crops for export, land that they could use to feed themselves. We anarchist communists see through the green veneer capitalism is busy giving itself. We see that capitalism is the enemy of our environment, our autonomy, our freedom. We work for its downfall. You poor take courage You rich take care This land was made a common treasury For everyone to share The World Turned Upside Down, Leon Rosselson Ecology and Class 15 It is important to examine technology (the machines and tools used by society, and the relations between them implied by their use). Existing technology is rarely neu- tral - it has been developed under and by capitalism for profit (exploitation) and social-economic control. Tech- nology alone – science, research, innovation, invention - is therefore not just a question of who owns or controls it but how it is used: a nuclear power station controlled by the workers and community would still be unhealthy and oppressive. Is Technology Neutral? This is a vital question for revolutionaries. If technology is neutral, then a successful revolution will solve our current problems - the oppressiveness of workplaces, the danger, pollution and social dislocation of traffic, and the environ- mental destruction of industry and agriculture can be ended by using technology in different ways. But technology is a social institution, that can either enhance or limit human life, expand- ing or damaging human abilities and health (and the natural environment). The social relations of production (boss vs. worker) are reflected in the machines and tools we use, tech- nics that interact with and reinforce social patterns, such as mass car use, and class society. Similarly, the hierarchical regimentation of workers, although appearing to be a ‘neutral’ necessity arising out of production techniques, is a reflection of the social division of labour. The ruling class is constantly modifying technology, developing new machines, tools and techniques in response to working class struggles. Contain- erisation (enabling goods to be equally transferable between ship, rail, and roads) was developed in response to the power and organisation of dockworkers. Technologies that are po- tentially more liberating are suppressed. For instance, succes- sive British governments have put massive funds into nuclear power and tiny amounts into the research and development of renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, tidal and geothermal energy. To compound this strategy of sabotage, this paltry funding has been deliberately chopped about, so that research into each energy source never progresses too far, or until the large corporations are ready to buy up the pat- ents. This means they will continue to dominate the energy and transportation industries of the future. Large-scale indus- try necessitates large-scale centralised energy production from fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas), and nuclear power, with the consequent waste, acid rain, radiation and global warming. We need to develop a technology that extends human capa- bilities, can be controlled by the community, and is also friendly to the environment, as part of the struggle for a free anarchist communist society. Such a genuine alternative technology can only be developed on a significant scale in a new society. Workers and the community will have to weigh up the pros and cons of different technologies. People will have to decide - through new post-revolutionary organisations such as worker-neighbourhood assemblies etc. - which tech- nologies to use, which to adapt or limit, and which to discard. From Science, The Machine Technological innovation has been used to increase efficiency and maximise profits, yes, but also to maintain and optimise the control of bosses over workers (both in and outside the workplace). Where profit and control come into conflict, con- trol is usually prioritised, as a loss of control puts profit - and ultimately the boss class itself - at risk. Today’s technological society dates from the Industrial Revolution and the new sci- ences of the 17th Century. The old idea of the world as animis- tic (alive) and organic was discarded. A new abstract science and a model for ruling class order replaced it: the Machine. Order was the predictable behaviour of each part within a ra- tionally determined system of laws. Power came from active human intervention. Order and power came together to make up control: rational control over nature, society and self. Machines were rarely the reason for setting up the new facto- ries, which were a managerial, not a technical necessity. Those invented in the early years of the Industrial Revolution to replace hand labour did accelerate the development of fac- tories: Arkwright’s Water Frame (1768), Crompton’s Mule (1774), Cartwright’s Power Loom (1784), Watt’s Steam Engine (1785). But most manufacturers did not adopt the ‘most po- tent’ self-acting tools and machines until they were forced to do so: strikes in Midlands factories led the owners to commis- sion a firm of machinists to construct a self-acting mule at a cost of £13,000, to avoid conceding higher wages. Machinists christened the dreaded new machine patented in 1830 “The Iron Man”. The factory-based organisation of the weaving industry did not develop simply because it was more efficient. Many of the new machines were expensive, and were only developed and introduced after the weavers had been con- centrated into the factories, following great resistance. Much worker resistance took the form of machine breaking. The wrecking of coalmines during widespread rioting in North- umberland in 1740 and frame breaking in the East Midlands hosiery trade are examples. Other workers, particularly the Luddites, opposed both the new machines and the new social relations of production they created. Machines threatened employment and the relative freedom, dignity and kinship of the craft worker. There was also widespread support from other classes, such as farmers, who were threatened by the new agricultural machinery. Between 1811 and 1813 the gov- ernment was forced to deploy over 12,000 troops to tackle the Luddites: a larger force than Wellington’s army in Spain. The Lancashire machine wreckers of 1778 and 1780 spared spin- ning jennies of 24 spindles or less (suitable for domestic pro- duction), and destroyed larger ones that could be used in fac- Technology 16 Ecology and Class tories. Machine breakers won many local conflicts: in Norfolk they succeeded in keeping up wages for a number of years. Wrecking destroyed John Kay’s house in 1753, Hargreave’s spinning jennies in 1768, Arkwright’s mills in 1776. During the widespread spinning strikes of 1818, shuttles were locked in chapels and workshops in Manchester, Barnsley, Bolton and other towns. The Luddites were eventually defeated by the gathering political momentum of industrial capitalism, sup- ported by strong military force and technological advance, which changed the composition of the labour force. For in- stance, the length of spinning mules was increased to reduce the number of workers required, displacing adult spinners and increasing the number of assistants, especially children; these changes were made despite being very costly. “A new gen- eration had (now) grown up which was inured to the discipline and precision of the mill”. Technology Today The neutrality of science and technology is a myth. Science is used to legitimate power, technology to justify social control. The myth is wheeled out when technology comes under fire e.g. for causing industrial pollution or traffic congestion. In- adequate policies or under-developed technology are blamed rather than the technology itself. The solution is a “technical fix” - more of the same. The ideology of industrialisation is that modernisation, technological development and social de- velopment are the same. It is used to justify the pursuit of economic growth, with the emphasis on wealth generation rather than its distribution. This ideology is used to suppress the potential for individual- social emancipation offered by particular machines such as wind power technology (i.e. small scale, for local use, and community controlled), and to legitimise their use in ways that are socially and environmentally exploitative (large scale wind farms under state/private control supplying the National Grid). Technological innovation is used politically, but presented in neutral technical/scientific terms such as “increased effi- ciency”. A modern example might be the introduction of as- sembly line production techniques into the construction indus- try; or a ‘technical solution’ to social needs such as the devel- opment of a new transport system; or as the economic ‘rationalisation’ of out of date technologies, for instance the introduction of new print technology by Rupert Murdoch at Wapping which led to the printers’ strike of 1986/7. ‘Work improvement’ schemes such as job enrichment allow workers a say in minor decisions to divert them from key areas such as pay and productivity. Innovation is used as a threat to black- mail sections of the workforce into particular tasks: employers often threaten female machine workers that if their demands for equal pay with men are met, they will be replaced by ma- chines. Science has prostituted itself to its paymaster, big business, and is a dangerous partner in change. In the 1880’s Frederick Winslow Taylor invented ‘scientific management’ (now known as Taylorism). He believed all productive processes could be broken down into hundreds of individual tasks and each made more efficient through rigorous management and the use of controlling technology. A prime example is the assembly line and it is no coincidence that the great ‘success’ of Henry Ford was based on the application of Taylor’s principles to mass automobile production. What is surprising is that during the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks enthusiastically took up Taylorism. Lenin described it as “a combination of the refined brutality of bourgeois exploitation and a number of the great- est scientific achievements in the field of analysing the me- chanical motions of work; we must systematically try it out and adapt it to our own ends.” A belief in the neutrality of technol- ogy, and that it could be controlled by the scientific and mana- gerial elites of the ‘workers’ state, was one of the factors lead- ing to the corruption and eventual destruction of the Russian Revolution. But Taylor’s research has since been shown to be wholly unscientific. His timed study tasks were made on an atypical worker chosen for his large size, great strength, and general stupidity. Taylorism has largely been superseded by ideas about ‘job enrichment’ at work; unfortunately, such ideas are equally unscientific. The objectivity of the scientific method is used to mask the problems created by advanced technology and to legitimise the policies of the ruling class. The Roskill Commission was set up in 1969 to look at the siting of a third London airport. The masses of ‘expert evidence’ showed that it was less so- cially damaging to fly loud aircraft over working class rather than middle class areas because of the different effects on property values. Technological programmes are presented as outside the area of political debate, so only technical objec- tions are allowed. Official enquiries into the location of motor- ways and nuclear power stations can discuss where they will cause the least environmental and social disturbance but not whether they are needed in the first place or whose interests they serve. Similarly, the trend is to present politics as a purely technical or managerial activity, with policies assigned measurable ‘performance targets’ but which ignore other so- cial consequences. Appropriate Technology: In Whose Hands? In the 1960s and ‘70s criticism of the dominant technological forms led to the limited development of ‘alternative’, and later ‘appropriate’, technology. Its characteristics are minimal use of non-renewable resources, minimal environmental interfer- ence, support for regional/local self-reliance and elimination of the alienation and exploitation of labour. Examples included energy production from “soft”, renewable resources such as solar, wave, and wind power. However, a genuine appropriate technology can only be developed on a significant scale after a revolution. Vested interests (and the marginal status of most appropriate technology supporters) will not allow it be- fore. This is illustrated by the British state’s deliberate sabo- tage of pioneering soft energy technologies over the last two decades, particularly wave power. It is only recently that the large energy corporations and suppliers have begun to build wind farms and buy up solar technologies. Suddenly govern- ment subsidies are on the increase. We wonder why? Ecology and Class 17 Capitalism wants motor traffic for profit for the road lobby and for the rapid movement of goods and people (as either workers or consumers). Mobility madness also derives from the need of business people to commute within and between the zones of power in each city. Cars are important status and identity symbols. They also promise individuals the freedom to go where they want, when they want. This is a bourgeois freedom that is only achieved (if at all) at the expense of others, as part of the ‘war of all against all’. Other drivers are obstacles and restrictions to the individuals inalienable right of movement continually contested. In practice of course, the net result is more congestion and delays, increased pedestrian danger (particularly for the vulnerable, such as women and children), and further noise and air pollution. This ‘freedom’ is also empty because the effect of the accompanying tarmac, concrete and pollution is to make everywhere like everywhere else. The inalienable right to free (motor) movement is enforced and guaranteed by the State (through traffic laws and road construction) that others (us) must obey. Roads-led development is not confined to the industrialised world. In order to meet the demands of international capital, many governments are pumping borrowed money into infra- structure schemes. Most are centred on roads. Amazonia (which has the most extensive national water transport net- work in the world) is being rapidly covered by roads, as is the Congo Basin. The Pan-American Highway is an engineering triumph we are told, but who talks of the environmental de- struction from ‘ribbon development’ along its thousands of miles? Eventually the Earth will have become one continent., with motorists able to drive from Buenos Aires to Cape Town via New York and Moscow. For the South this will mean more colonisation, the displacement of people and disruption of local economies, the rape of the environment and the dubious benefits of consumerism. All over the world, goods are being moved ever faster over ever-greater distances. As transport costs decrease, competing firms seek to sell identical products in each other’s territory. Manufacturers go farther to find the cheapest supplier of components. Workers commute ever further to work. The result is less an improvement in the quan- tity of commodities available and more an increase in travel and traffic. People will have to travel further to work or to shop, visit relatives or holiday in less spoilt resorts. Origins of Traffic System Nikolai Kondratiev, a Marxist writing in the 1920s, posited the Kondratiev cycle, which argued that industrial economies ex- pand and contract in waves of about 50 years. Andrew Tyle- cote suggested that each boom period featured a “new tech- nological style” associated with a form of transportation. The end of the 18th century in Britain saw the development of the canal system, the boom of 1844-70 the emerging rail network and so on. After World War Two, Fordism - the transnational, oil-based economy of cars and motorways, super-tankers and aeroplanes - came into its own. These theories suggest that an economy expands until it reaches the limits of its distribu- tion system. Slumps tend to be caused by glut: the inability to shift (rather than produce) goods. Economic growth and sta- bility, then, can be safeguarded by investing in new transport systems that reach ever-larger markets. Whatever the validity of this theory, the ruling class is often ruthless in its elimination of old transport systems in order to introduce new ones. No sooner had the British canal system been developed, at great expense, than it was judged obsolete. The new rail compa- nies, flush with investors’ money, bought up canals and closed them down. Within a few decades the canal system was mori- bund and Britain was covered in railways. Motorisation – The American Way In 1925, the General Motors Corporation set about systemati- cally destroying non-motor transport systems in America. They bought up the largest manufacturer of urban and inter- urban buses in the US. In 1926 they set up the Motor Transit Corporation (which became Greyhound), which agreed to pur- chase all its equipment from GM. General Motors then bought up all possible competitors, destroying the commuter services of Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut. In cities, the only way that a new market for the buses could be created was for GM to finance the conversion of electrical tramway systems to motorbuses. Tramways were bought, converted to buses, then sold to local companies that were compelled to buy General Motors equipment. This continued until 1935, when the American Transit Association exposed GMs chican- ery. Company executives and employees then “independently” set up another holding company with other car and oil companies, National City Lines, in 1936. Once more local companies were forced to agree to buy only new vehi- cles that used GM/Standard Oil products and Firestone tyres. In 1936 GM also set up a company with Standard Oil and Fire- stone Tyres that bought up US train companies and closed them down. By 1956 over 100 electric surface rail systems in 45 cities had been acquired and closed down. Before the motorisation of California by GM, Los Angeles was a beautiful city of lush palm trees, fragrant orange groves and ocean air. Carmaggedon the politics of the car 18 Ecology and Class Now it is a wasteland. Trees are dying in a petro-chemical smog. Orange groves, polluted by lead from petrol fumes, were paved over for 300 miles of freeways. The air is a cesspit into which four million cars daily pump 13,000 tons of pollut- ants. Fifty years after the American road lobby started work, the US transport system is a nightmare. Pedestrians and cy- clists have been bullied off the streets, railways have almost vanished, and half the area of most cities consists of roads and parking lots. The road lobby bankrolls many politicians to vote against clean air and fuel efficiency, making American cars the most wasteful in the western world. Motorisation In The UK In Britain, the road lobby is represented by the British Road Federation, founded in the 1930s to “combat the sinister and distorted propaganda of the railways to enslave British Indus- try”. It is a coalition of car makers such as Ford, motor organi- sations such as the AA and RAC, road builders, oil companies, lorry operators (e.g. the Freight Transport Association) and big business. They all believe economic growth and profit depends on having an efficient road network, a belief shared by govern- ment through the Department of Transport. It was a Labour government that started the demolition of the railway system. Some 46% of the track was torn up and much of the rest run down. The Tory Government of the 1990s continued the work. The road lobby was in the vanguard of rail privatisation, an asset-stripping bonanza to dwarf that of the buses. The strat- egy of the road lobby is to continually up their demands. If the road is a single lane, dual it. If dual lane already, give it three lanes or four. If somewhere doesn’t have a by-pass, give it one. If there is one to the south, give it one to the north. If it has an orbital road build another, and so on. Additionally, no road can be built without grabbing huge acreages of land alongside for “infrastructure”: hypermarkets, industrial estates, commuter housing and so on. This in turn creates loads more traffic, requiring the road built a few years ago to be expanded; and so the cycle of ‘development’ goes on. The Consequences of Motorisation In the past, cities and towns were built to the scale of the walk- ing person, and pedestrians, vehicle users, horse, cart, car- riage, cycle, bus, car, lorry all had the same physical access to buildings. This equality has disappeared with the increasing speed (and volume) of motor traffic. Along main arterial roads barriers are put up to speed traffic flow; they also prevent pe- destrians from crossing and motorists from parking so car us- ers and bus passengers can no longer use local shops. The next stage is that a hypermarket opens elsewhere killing off small shops and forcing pedestrians and bus users to shop there or go to the more expensive shop on their estate (with its monopoly of local trade). Cities become compartmentalised, area by area. At the core is a hostile city centre defended by an urban motorway, its inhabitants gone. It is surrounded by a series of neighbourhoods hemmed in by fast-moving traffic on long arterial roads carrying commuters and freight back and forth. People can only enter or leave the city at controlled points. The city is fragmented, with no inter-connectivity be- tween communities or people. Further out a series of scattered encampments – the outer suburbs - cluster the ring road. Cities devoid of life, with traffic endlessly circulating around ring roads. The poor from different areas never meet, leading to- tally separate existences. Thousands of people live in their own niche within neighbourhoods, isolated and atomised in their own homes. The Struggle For Space Forms of transport occupy space and the faster they are the more space they need. A car travelling 40 kilometres per hour (kph) requires more than 3 times as much space as one travel- ling at 10kph; a single person driving a car at 10kph needs 6 times as much space as a cyclist travelling at the same speed. Germany’s cars (including driving and parking) commandeer 3700 square kilometres of space, 60% more than that occupied by housing. Each German car is responsible for 200 square kilometres of tarmac and concrete. The radius of activity of the well-off has expanded immeasurably over the last 30 years; that of the poor has changed very little. The emphasis on speed and “time saving” leads to transport and planning poli- cies where basic facilities such as shops, schools, leisure and work are spaced widely apart. Most people feel that they have less time despite faster means of transport. Car ownership cannot be universal, even if we forget the large-scale (anti-) social effects of cars. There is insufficient space for the roads and parking that such a level of car ownership would mean. There are already extensive problems with cars, despite 35% of the population not even having a car for reasons of age, disability, poverty, or choice. Health Exhaust fumes (carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen diox- ide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons) are a major contributor to global warming and acid rain, and cause much ill health and environmental damage. The average car pollutes more than two billion cubic metres of air in its life. In Britain emissions from car exhausts have increased by 73% since 1981; a 1993 government study found 19 million people in Britain were ex- posed to pollution exceeding EU guidelines. In 1965 there were 8 million cars in Britain; by 2025 36 million are predicted. Children and the elderly are particularly at risk from exhaust pollution, which causes asthma and bronchitis. Greenpeace International calculates 7.5 million elderly people are at risk and 9 million children. Asthma is one of the few treatable chronic diseases increasing in Western countries. Children are more vulnerable because they exercise more and so breathe in more air; 1.6m people die of air pollution each year, many chil- dren. The number of young children admitted to hospital with severe asthma attacks has increased 13 times since 1960. It is the greatest single cause of hospital admissions after heart disease and stroke.