A Radical Green Political Theory

Alan Carter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136290350
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume is the first systematic, comprehensive and cogent environmental political philosophy. It exposes the relationships between the ever-worsening environmental crises, the nature of prevailing economic structures and the role of the modern state and concludes that the combination of these factors is driving humanity towards destruction.
Innovative, provocative and cutting-edge, A Radical Green Political Theory will be of enormous value to all those with an interest in the environment, political theory and moral and political philosophy.

1 The need for a green political theory

We are now entering the most momentous period in the whole of human history – if, that is, environmentalists are right. But do we have a political theory capable of guiding us through such times? Although human beings have frequently acted so as to ensure the extinction of other species, never before have we had to face the very real possibility of our own collective extinction.¹ And yet, according to many environmentalists, that is precisely the situation we must now confront. In their view, we have so damaged the environment upon which we are completely dependent for our own continued survival as a species that we must now face squarely the choice of radically altering how we live on this finite planet or stampeding like lemmings into oblivion.²

But isn’t this all rather too dramatic? Surely the situation can’t be that bad? And even if it is, surely it is better to keep quiet about it, for as Robert C. Paehlke muses: ‘Tales of global doom … are not necessarily a sound means of inducing long-term social change.… If the situation is hopeless, why not enjoy the moment? Why not burn the last few gallons of oil in a barbecue of endangered species?’³ Of course, if the situation were hopeless, then it would be irrational to try to do anything about it. But, it might be argued, it is not the case that there is no hope; rather, our only hope is to acknowledge the full extent of the threat we collectively pose to our own survival so that we can understand the magnitude of the changes we must effect if the situation is not very soon to become hopeless. And, the argument would continue, we will simply not face up to the task ahead if we pretend that things are not as worrying as they actually are.

But even if we cannot establish conclusively that the environmental threat is as portentous as some say, wouldn’t it be prudent in any case to take their concern seriously and alter whatever, plausibly, is driving us towards disaster? Yet, sadly, most modern political theory is quite oblivious of any environmental threat looming before us. Its conception of the ‘end of history’, for example, could thus be argued to be utterly divorced from ecological reality – a reality that, in the opinion of many, threatens the end of history quite literally. Whereas ‘pure’ philosophy has often divorced its concerns from the ‘real world’, political philosophy cannot afford to do so.⁴ Certainly, political philosophers can usefully make abstractions. But they cannot so abstract from empirical considerations that their conclusions exist in a vacuum. The work of political philosophers usually involves enquiries into normative considerations and often implies recommendations regarding which political goals to pursue. But unless we survive as a species, we can have no goals whatsoever to pursue. Hence, it is essential that both empirical political theorists and normative political philosophers acquire an awareness of the magnitude of the challenge that, in the view of environmentalists, we now face.

1.1 The extent of the environmental threat

How serious, then, are the environmental consequences of our present behaviour? We appear to be warming up the planet. If we do so to the extent that the polar ice-caps melt, then sea levels could rise by as much as 5 to 7 metres.⁵ This would mean that many major cities would be flooded, as would highly populated low-lying regions such as the Netherlands and parts of Bangladesh. We have left unmapped toxic dumps, lying in wait like land mines, that may, one day, devastate the lives of the unsuspecting, such as happened at Love Canal in New York State. We are producing radioactive materials and allowing them to seep into the environment. Many of our cities are plagued by photochemical smog.⁶ Acid rain from industry and power stations has been held responsible for killing the fish in Scandinavian lakes, acidifying soil and destroying forests in North America and Europe.⁷ And we are threatening whole ecosystems with the exorbitant use of pesticides,⁸ just as we are endangering them by depleting the ozone layer.⁹

Meanwhile, the world population doubles in size every thirty-five years or so, with each additional person adding to the human impact on the environment and requiring resources whose finite nature is becoming ever more apparent.¹⁰ This growth in population could eventually result in a greatly over-populated planet with insufficient resources to meet even the basic needs of humanity or, because of the individual actions of, literally, billions of humans, it could result in such large-scale damage being inflicted on the ecosystems upon which we all depend that the environment itself becomes harmful to human life. In either case, the end-result would be a catastrophic collapse in the human population and immeasurable global suffering in the process.¹¹ And in the view of many environmentalists, this is just to take the most fleeting peep into the planetary Pandora’s Box.

Of course, some people think that there is no environmental problem of any significance. Some even go so far as to insist that environmental conditions are actually improving. However, John Dryzek has claimed that many of the apparent environmental improvements are, in fact, instances of re-locating the problem elsewhere. In his view, there are numerous examples where seeming environmental solutions have actually turned out to be cases of spatial, media and temporal displacements,¹² sometimes resulting in an exacerbation of the problem.

Consider energy production: Coal-fired power stations have been equipped with higher towers, which makes the nearby environment cleaner. But this results in the sulphur dioxide and the nitrogen oxides produced remaining in the atmosphere longer, thereby increasing the chemical reactions which they undergo, and thus, perhaps, producing even greater quantities of harmful acid rain, which would then precipitate in another location – a case of spatial displacement and actual increase in environmental damage (although it has the appearance of an environmental improvement for those who live near the power station).

As an alternative solution, some power stations have been fitted with ‘scrubbers’ (where the emissions are passed through a lime and water spray) in order to remove most of the sulphur dioxide. This certainly can be a genuine improvement, but it does lead to the production of a sulphurous sludge. If this is not processed but dumped, then the pollution simply changes from an airborne to a liquid-borne or solid-based form – a displacement of the problem from one medium to another. Moreover, the lime has to be mined, and that can lead to environmental problems in another medium.

A third apparent ‘solution’ consists in replacing coal-fired power stations with nuclear energy. But this leads to the creation of highly toxic radioactive products (such as plutonium), which are deadly for thousands of years. A greater environmental danger may thus be created, but it is foisted off onto future generations. The problem is not solved; it is displaced to the future, and exacerbated in the process.

Thus, much of what looks like environmental progress may, in fact, consist in mere surface improvements that are masking grave and long-term environmental deterioration.

1.1.1 Some environmental constraints on global food production

One difficulty that environmentalists frequently encounter in attempting to communicate their concerns is that many of the problems which they fear we face are rather diffuse and general in nature – perhaps too general and remote from immediate experience to elicit the degree of alarm that they feel is warranted. So, in order to appreciate some of the intricately connected elements of the ecological threat which environmentalists claim we face, let us concentrate on one vital area: our ability to feed ourselves.

The issue of global food production must be of concern to us all, and the recognition of its importance is growing. As Lester Brown writes:

Environmentalists and scientists have long maintained that the population and environmental trends of the last few decades could not continue. Some thought environmental mismanagement would show up in the form of an epidemic of pollution-induced illnesses and wholesale rises in death rates. Others thought it might show up in the collapse of local ecosystems. Indeed, these may happen at the local level. But globally, food scarcity may soon become the principal manifestation of continuing population growth and environmental mismanagement. Rising food prices may be the first global economic indicator to signal serious trouble on the environmental front. For those who think the future may be a simple extrapolation of the past, there may be some surprises ahead.¹³

This remark contains a hint of irony, for many environmentalist concerns have been simply dismissed out of hand as ‘neo-Malthusian’ Thomas Malthus argued that, whereas food production grows geometrically, human population grows exponentially.¹⁴ Consequently, if we extrapolate into the future, population growth will eventually outstrip our ability to feed ourselves. As certain innovations in agriculture have led to rapidly increasing output, developments in global food production seem to have proven Malthus wrong. Some have taken this as proof that all claims about environmental limits are mistaken, and that we can, contrary to Malthus, extrapolate from present trends towards future abundance. Thus, many assume, in order to dismiss an environmentalist, it is sufficient to label him or her a ‘neo-Malthusian’. It is imperative, therefore, that we consider the actual limitations which the environment can be argued to place upon continuing agricultural expansion.

1.1.1.1 Soil loss

Clearly, we cannot survive as a species if we destroy the land that we need to grow our food on. Unfortunately, fertile soil takes hundreds, if not thousands, of years to create, while at present we seem to be reducing its fertility at an alarming pace. Consider the loss of organic matter: ‘Soil organic matter has fallen to dangerous levels in about 30% of UK soils, with serious implications for soil stability, water retention and nutrient holding capacity.’¹⁵ Or consider the loss of topsoil due to erosion. Norman Myers claims that

Europe, the continent least affected, is estimated to be losing close to one billion tonnes a year, while Asia, the worst affected, could be losing around 25 billion tonnes. The US loses well over one billion tonnes a year (net of natural replacement) from its grainlands – equivalent to more than 300,000 hectares of crop-growing potential.¹⁶

And according to recent calculations published by the Worldwatch Institute:

Soil lost to wind and water erosion ranges from 5–10 tons per hectare annually in Africa, Europe and Australia to 10–20 tons per hectare in North, Central, and South America and nearly 30 tons per hectare in Asia. Because soil is created at roughly 1 ton per hectare a year, current rates of erosion are depleting the nutrient base of agriculture far faster than it is renewed. More than just unsustainable, this loss of topsoil is tragic: in just a few decades, human activity has squandered a natural patrimony that took thousands of years to accumulate.¹⁷

Over 50 million hectares (about one third) of the United States’ grainlands are ‘undergoing a marked decline in long-term productivity because of soil erosion’.¹⁸ Worse still, ‘Official estimates in the USA give much of the mid-west only fifty years more productivity’.¹⁹

Globally, soil erosion, conversion of agricultural land to other uses, toxification²⁰ and desertification have been identified as leading to the loss of approximately 11 million hectares of arable land per year. In the mid-1980s it was calculated that it would take less that fifteen years for a further 18 per cent of the then remaining arable land to be lost.²¹ Add to this the purported loss of 7 million hectares of grassland each year, and any continued faith in our ability to feed a growing world population by the prevailing agricultural system and with the present distribution of resources would seem to be irrational.

This is not to deny that many of our modern agricultural practices have, in fact, increased food production. However, often that increase is relative to labour as an input. Greater output for a lower input of labour is what more efficient production usually means, for in the developed countries labour is a significant cost. But this does not always mean efficiency in the sense of the greatest output relative to land area. Ecological farming techniques, on the other hand, ‘are highly productive (on a per-acre basis they can outproduce industrial agriculture), but only when human labor is carefully and patiently applied. Thus farming that is both productive and ecologically sound seems very likely to be small-hold, horticultural, essentially peasant-style agriculture finely adapted to local conditions’.²² But the tendency, globally, is for food production to move in exactly the opposite direction: towards large agribusinesses with mechanized monocultural (single-crop) production that reduces the amount of human labour required and, along with it, ecological diversity. Moreover, and most import...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Hymn to the New Age
• 1 The need for a green political theory
• 2 Three political perspectives
• 3 Interrelationism, freedom and power
• 4 The State-Primacy Theory
• 5 Development or underdevelopment
• 6 The state and nature
• 7 Towards a cooperative autonomy
• Appendix A: Green policies and core green values
• Appendix B: Greens and green parties
• Appendix C: Deep ecology or social ecology?
• Bibliography
• Index