Engels on Unintended Consequences

Classical political economy, the social science of the bourgeoisie, in the main examines only social effects of human actions in the fields of production and exchange that are actually intended. This fully corresponds to the social organisation of which it is the theoretical expression. As individual capitalists are engaged in production and exchange for the sake of the immediate profit, only the nearest, most immediate results must first be taken into account. As long as the individual manufacturer or merchant sells a manufactured or purchased commodity with the usual coveted profit, he is satisfied and does not concern himself with what afterwards becomes of the commodity and its purchasers. The same thing applies to the natural effects of the same actions. What cared the Spanish planters in Cuba, who burned down forests on the slopes of the mountains and obtained from the ashes sufficient fertiliser for one generation of very highly profitable coffee trees – what cared they that the heavy tropical rainfall afterwards washed away the unprotected upper stratum of the soil, leaving behind only bare rock! In relation to nature, as to society, the present mode of production is predominantly concerned only about the immediate, the most tangible result; and then surprise is expressed that the more remote effects of actions directed to this end turn out to be quite different....

Dialectics of Nature, "The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man"

Engels on Mastery of Nature

The animal merely uses its environment, and brings about changes in it simply by its presence; man by his changes makes it serve his ends, masters it. This is the final, essential distinction between man and other animals, and once again it is labour that brings about this distinction.

Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing along with the forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. When the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests on the southern slopes, so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry in their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of water for the greater part of the year, and making it possible for them to pour still more furious torrents on the plains during the rainy seasons. Those who spread the potato in Europe were not aware that with these farinaceous tubers they were at the same time spreading scrofula. Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.

Dialectics of Nature, "The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man"

Engels on Darwin and Revolution

The whole Darwinian theory of the struggle for existence is simply the transference from society to organic nature of Hobbes’ theory of bellum omnium contra omnes and of the bourgeois economic theory of competition, as well as the Malthusian theory of population. When once this feat has been accomplished (the unconditional justification for which, especially as regards the Malthusian theory, is still very questionable), it is very easy to transfer these theories back again from natural history to the history of society, and altogether too naive to maintain that thereby these assertions have been proved as eternal natural laws of society.

Let us accept for a moment the phrase “struggle for existence,” for argument’s sake. The most that the animal can achieve is to collect; man produces, he prepares the means of life, in the widest sense of the words, which without him nature would not have produced. This makes impossible any unqualified transference of the laws of life in animal societies to human society. Production soon brings it about that the so-called struggle for existence no longer turns on pure means of existence, but on means of enjoyment and development. Here – where the means of development are socially produced – the categories taken from the animal kingdom are already totally inapplicable. Finally, under the capitalist mode of production, production reaches such a high level that society can no longer consume the means of life, enjoyment and development that have been produced, because for the great mass of producers access to these means is artificially and forcibly barred; and therefore every ten years a crisis restores the equilibrium by destroying not only the means of life, enjoyment and development that have been produced, but also a great part of the productive forces themselves. Hence the so-called struggle for existence assumes the form: to protect the products and productive forces produced by bourgeois capitalist society against the destructive, ravaging effect of this capitalist social order, by taking control of social production and distribution out of the hands of the ruling capitalist class, which has become incapable of this function, and transferring it to the producing masses – and that is the socialist revolution.

Dialectics of Nature, "Notes"

Engels on Conscious Organization

In the most advanced industrial countries we have subdued the forces of nature and pressed them into the service of mankind; we have thereby infinitely multiplied production, so that a child now produces more than a hundred adults previously did. And what is the result? Increasing overwork and increasing misery of the masses, and every ten years a great collapse. Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind, and especially on his countrymen, when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom. Only conscious organisation of social production, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind above the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect, in the same way that production in general has done this for men in their aspect as species. Historical evolution makes such an organisation daily more indispensable, but also with every day more possible. From it will date a new epoch of history, in which mankind itself, and with mankind all branches of its activity, and especially natural science, will experience an advance that will put everything preceding it in the deepest shade.

Dialectics of Nature, "Introduction"

Henry Thoreau on Capitalism and the Environment

I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched.

What sort of a country is that where huckleberry fields are private property? When I pass such fields on the highway, my heart sinks within me.... I cannot think of it ever after but as the place where fair and palatable berries are converted into money, where the huckleberry is desecrated.

[When] we exclude mankind from gathering berries in our field, we exclude them from gathering health and happiness and inspiration and a hundred other far finer and nobler fruits than berries which are found there, but which we have no notion of gathering and shall not gather ourselves nor ever carry to market, for there is no market for them, but let them rot on the bushes. We thus strike only one more blow at a simple and wholesome relation to nature.

Among the Indians the earth and its productions generally were common and free to all the tribe, like the air and water, but among us who have supplanted the Indians, the public retain only a small yard or common in the middle of the village, with perhaps a graveyard beside it.

Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, either in one body or several—where a stick should never be cut for fuel—nor for the navy, nor to make wagons, but stand and decay for higher uses—a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation.

(Walden 26-27; Wild Fruits 57-58, 235, 238)

Cap-and-Trade Goes to Congress

Seven separate CO2 emissions bills were floated in Congress in 2007. All claim that they would achieve comparable targets to those called for by the scientific community: roughly a 20% reduction in emissions from current levels by 2020 and a 70% reduction by 2050. The "Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act" introduced by Bernard Sanders and Barbara Boxer set a target of 80% by 2050. It has now died, making way for "America's Climate Security Act," sponsored by Joe Lieberman and John Warner, who claim it will produce a 63% reduction during the same time frame. The five other bills set targets that fall within the range set by these two.

Deemed most likely to win bipartisan support, the Lieberman-Warner bill jumped to the head of the pack as soon as it was introduced in October. On December 5, the Environment and Public Works Committee sent the bill to the full Senate, the first time a comprehensive emissions reduction bill has made it out of committee.

Mainstream environmental organization have been engaged in an intense battle over Lieberman-Warner. Business friendly groups like Environmental Defense, the Sierra Club, and Earthjustice support it as a deal that can get done. Meanwhile more radical groups like Friends of the Earth and 1Sky argue that it is too weak. They also recognize that Bush is likely to veto any bill that passes, so they favor waiting till 2009 when a greener president may lead the charge for real change.

What's most remarkable about this debate is its narrowness. All seven bills rely on cap-and-trade permitting schemes to achieve their projected reductions. And no one asks whether this method will actually achieve anything approaching the emissions reductions claimed by the bills.

Existing cap-and-trade schemes have shown notoriously mixed results. The first emissions market was created by the Clean Air Act of 1990 to control the acid-rain causing pollutant, sulfur dioxide. It has managed to achieve significant overall reductions since it was implemented, mainly because it is simple, governing only emissions of a single chemical from a single industry, coal-fired electricity plants. Acid rain is less severe, but it continues to be a problem. And rather than serve as a foundation for improvement, the plan has become a ceiling, since companies can claim double jeopardy when further reductions are proposed.

Some skeptics prefer the term "cap-and-giveaway" because of the way emissions markets are rigged to favor already dominant companies. When a new emissions market is implemented, permits are usually handed out free to historical polluters (so-called "existing users of the atmosphere"). Ironically, start-up companies then have to buy their way into the market, meaning there's a built-in barrier to the deployment of newer, cleaner technologies. Inevitably, the cost of emissions permits will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher energy prices, and older companies will reap the biggest profits.

Finally, politically powerful companies have proven to be very good at manipulating the design of emissions markets. In Europe's recently introduced CO2 market, for example, corporate lobbyists won an overall emissions cap that was much higher than needed. When the market began to function, prices crashed from $30 to 1$ a ton, allowing big polluters to buy up permits on the cheap. At the same time, they used the new program as an excuse to hike consumer prices by 25%, raking in huge profits.

Supporters praise market-based plans for giving companies flexibility to determine how to achieve sector-wide goals. What that really means is that they give polluters carte blanche to do what they already do best: buy their way out of compliance, then pass the cost on to the rest of us.

Wal-Mart Goes Green?

The largest company in the world, with $350 billion in 2006 revenue, Wal-Mart has become the new darling of Capitalist Environmentalism. According to Wal-Mart's website, planetary stewardship is now a central corporate value:

"The scope and scale of our business presents great potential to effect positive change. We see opportunities to influence our own operations, while also leading change in the business world at large. Focusing on the environment is key to our mission to improve the quality of life for people around the world. Environmental leadership is critical to our future ability to grow and thrive as a company."

On the advice of consulting firm McKinsey & Co., Wal-Mart has launched an environmental campaign centered on three long-term goals that were announced by CEO Lee Scott in October 2005:

• 100% renewable energy
• Zero waste
• Sustainable products

Shorter term goals include increasing fleet fuel efficiency by 25 percent over three years, reducing CO2 emissions by 20 percent in seven years, reducing energy use at existing stores by 30 percent, and cutting solid waste from U.S. stores by 25 percent in three years. The company is also launching a pilot project designed to encourage reduced-carbon manufacturing by suppliers of seven core products: DVDs, toothpaste, soap, milk, beer, vacuum cleaners, and soda.

One high-publicity effort centers on pushing low-energy lightbulbs. As reported in the New York Times, Wal-Mart aims to sell 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs a year by 2008. If they succeed, total annual U.S. sales of the bulbs "would increase by 50 percent, saving Americans $3 billion in electricity costs and avoiding the need to build additional power plants for the equivalent of 450,000 new homes."

But as activists at Wal-Mart Watch have detailed, these new initiatives will do little to reduce the Arkansas behemoth's environmental footprint : "The company recently announced its goal to cut over two million metric tons of CO2 emissions within six years, yet if Wal-Mart continues to add stores at its current growth rate, its new stores alone will use significantly more energy than any of its energy saving measures will save." New stores eat up huge parcels of undeveloped land and are built with scant attention to local environmental impacts. They also increase regional traffic and vehicular emissions by drawing in customers from a wide circumference.

More globally, Wal-Mart's profitability relies on shipping commodities from cheap third-world suppliers to retail locations across the U.S and around the world. The energy savings captured at showcase stores are a drop in the bucket compared to the environmental costs of all that trans-oceanic freight.

The Jevons Paradox

In The Coal Question (1865), British economist W. Stanley Jevons observed that increased energy efficiency may result in increased energy use. Also know as the "rebound effect," the Jevons Paradox helps explain why higher U.S. fuel economy standards have not reduced oil consumption. Increased fuel efficiency reduced the marginal cost of driving. In combination with population growth, this allowed for sharp increases in the number of cars on the road and the number of miles each car traveled per year.

W. Stanley Jevons. The Coal Question; An Inquiry concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coalmines. 2nd edition, revised. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1866).

San Diego Multiple Species Conservation Plan

With 4200 square miles of inland deserts, high mountains, and coastal mesas, San Diego is the most biologically diverse county in the US. And with 3,000,000 residents, it has the sixth largest population. Breakneck development has destroyed nearly 90 percent of wildlife habitat between the coast and the mountains. As a result, San Diego has nearly 200 plant and animal species that are at risk of extinction.

In 1997, after five years of negotiations between developers, environmentalists, and public officials, San Diego established the country's first Multiple Species Conservation Plan. The plan called for preservation of 172,000 interconnected acres of chaparral and coastal sage scrub in Southwestern San Diego County, about 6% of the county's total area. The resulting preserve would be managed to protect 85 threatened plant and animal species. In exchange, hundreds of thousands of acres of contested land would be freed up for development.

The plan was praised as a win-win solution to a long and bitter fight between developers and environmentalists. It became a model for hundreds of similar efforts across the US. But the results have been mixed at best.

Supporters say the plan is a realistic compromise that protects more habitat than would have been possible otherwise. Critics argue that it amounts to little more than a giveaway to big developers. They point out that politics and money, not science, determined which areas would be slated for preservation and which for development. And they argue that the plan is riddled with loopholes for developers, while it bars the county from conserving new acreage or imposing new rules for 50 years.

Since the plan was adopted, the city and county have bought some 30,000 acres of formerly private land and have started monitoring threatened species. Meanwhile, hundreds of new developments have broken ground. And thousands of acres of high-dollar acreage near the coast, where some of the rarest species live, have been bladed for million-dollar tract homes. Instead of stopping development in its tracks and protecting the county's last remaining stands of high-quality habitat, the plan gave developers the go ahead to bulldoze all but a tattered shred.

Water for Profit

California's Central Valley touts itself as the breadbasket of the nation. And while it does produce about $13 billion worth of food every year, that outcome is a secondary effect of an elaborate mechanism for turning privately owned land and water into profits.

In 2005, California’s Central Valley Project, which manages distribution of water from the several rivers flowing west out of the Northern Sierras, renewed its contracts with the rural water districts it serves. The contracts bind the state to deliver cheap, subsidized water to Central Valley farmers for the next 50 years. Rather than account for drought, retirement of exhausted farm acreage, environmental set asides, and urbanization, the contracts give the farmers the same amount of water they were granted in the first round of contracts, signed more than 40 years ago.

Water is measured in acre feet, the amount of water it takes to cover an acre of land in one foot of water. The average urban household uses only about half an acre-foot per year. So about 80 percent of California’s plentiful supply of water currently goes to agriculture. As the state’s cities grow, they have no choice but to buy water from rural users. While Central Valley farmers will pay less than $60 per acre foot under the new contracts, urban water agencies already pay as much as $500 per acre foot. The Metropolitan Water District, which serves the nearly 24 million people who live in the SoCal triangle, has even begun buying options contracts on hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of agricultural water. In order to hedge against shortages during drought years, MWD pays $20 per acre-foot for the right to call in water from Northern California farms. If the spring is dry and they exercise their options, they'll pay another $80-100 per acre-foot to take delivery. If the don't exercise the options, the money goes down the tubes.

Central Valley water districts are dominated by a small number of big growers who have gotten fabulously rich by gaming the system. The Westlands Water District, near Fresno, is one of the most notorious. Using bought political influence, they have secured exclusive contract rights to 260 billion gallons of water per year at pennies on the dollar. That much water is worth half a billion dollars at current prices. Over 50 years, with prices rising due to inflation and population growth, Westlands’ water could be worth $40 billion. Westlands is just one of 251 irrigation districts in the valley.

Would Cutting Emissions Wreck the Economy?

McKinsey & Company, a business consultancy group has published a report called "Reducing US Greenhouse Emissions: How Much at What Cost?" Reuters summarizes the report's central finding: "The United States could reduce projected 2030 emissions of greenhouse gases by between one-third to one-half at manageable costs to the economy. Its mid-range case found that cutting 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from the United States by 2030 would cost an average about US$50 billion annually, or a total of US$1.1 trillion. That would represent 1.5 percent of the US$77 trillion in real investment the US economy is expected to make over the period."

US Plan for Global Warming: Free Trade

At the Bali climate change talks, China, India, and nations of the global south are calling for suspension of intellectual property rights in green techologies. The US and the EU have proposed an alternative: free trade. US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in a statement, "By eliminating tariff and nontariff barriers to environmental goods and services, particularly clean energy technologies, we can lower their costs and increase global access to and use of these important products." That way the countries most responsible for causing the problem will also get to dominate the world market for clean power.

Coal Combustion Wastes

About half of U.S. electricity comes from coal-fired power plants that are the major source of atmospheric carbon dioxide. We rarely hear about their other major byproduct: coal combustion wastes (CCWs). U.S. plants produce enough ash every year to fill a coal train over 10,000 miles long. CCWs are dumped into old mines, bermed into open lagoons, or just piled on the ground at more than 600 sites around the country. These massive ash dumps contain lead, cadmium, arsenic, selenium, mercury, and other dangerous materials that leach into groundwater causing a range of human health problems, from lead poisoning to sharply increased cancer rates. The EPA does not classify CCWs as hazardous and does not regulate their disposal (such as requiring impermeable liners for ash lagoons). As airborne emissions from coal plants are reduced, CCWs increase. As Jeff Stant of Earthjustice told the High Country News, "the words 'clean coal technology" are an oxymoron. There's no such thing as that. Matter doesn't disappear."