When will we start listening to Murray Bookchin? Facing up to global warming as a reality, not an abstraction

author : Marco Rosaire Rossi topic : global warming

by Marco Rosaire Rossi

By now, global climate change has become a household concern, but many scientists are saying that for some ecosystems we may be past the point of repair.

We should have listened to famed social ecologist Murray Bookchin, one of the earliest harbingers of the dangers of global warming. As early as 1964, before an environmental movement even existed, Bookchin wrote:

"It can be argued on very sound theoretical grounds that this growing blanket of carbon dioxide, by intercepting heat radiated from the earth, will lead to rising atmospheric temperatures, a more violent circulation of air, more destructive storm patterns, and eventually a melting of the polar ice caps (possibly in two or three centuries), rising sea levels, and the inundation of vast land."

The only part of this statement that Bookchin got wrong was the time frame. It has only taken a matter of decades -- not centuries -- for humans to produce the devastation that he warned against. If we are not careful we could lose more than a few habits -- we could lose the entire planet.

Recently in the United States -- the country that contributes the most to the global warming crisis -- there have been a few signs of hope that the warning is finally being heard. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ipcc) concluded that major global climate change is "very likely" caused by human activity. On April 2, the US Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant and that the Clean Air Act does give the Evnvironmental Protection Agency (epa) the authority to regulate it. Representative Ed Markey, chair of the congressional committee on global warming, has publicly stated that he believes a "cap and trade" bill to curb carbon emission could be passed by the end of 2008. And on April 14, environmental writer/activist Bill McKibben's "Step It Up!" campaign helped create the largest day of action against global warming in history.

These are all victories for the environmental movement, but they are small ones that have just squeezed by. The ipcc almost botched on the international consensus, and considered saying that major global climate change is only "likely" being caused by humans. The April 2 Supreme Court decision was made by a 5 -- 4 ruling -- much too close to see the decision inspire the epa to get to work. The "cap and trade" plans are another "free market" plan for dealing with carbon emissions, and for that reason are not very effective at seriously weaning the world off of oil. And despite the success of "Step It Up!" many American's still remain extremely ignorant of the causes of global warming. A Pew poll shows that even though 83% of American acknowledged global warming as a serious problem, only 55% believe the government needs to take immediate action, and only 47% believe that humans are the main cause of it. Furthermore, there is still a part of the global warming debate that isn't seeing much discussion, and that's how global climate change is affecting the poorest in the world.

The United States accounts for 5% of the world's population, but is responsible for 25% of the world's greenhouse emissions. This contrasts dramatically with Africa, which accounts for 3% of the world's greenhouse emissions, but droughts and disruption in water access caused by global warming could put as many as 840 million Africans (7% of the world's population) at risk. The situation gets even bleaker with agriculture. Two million people are facing starvation in African. Africans farmers only grow one ton of cereal grains for every hectare -- roughly 1/3 compared to other developing countries. That number is only expected to get worse as weather patterns become more unpredictable.

Again, the prophecy of Murray Bookchin is important for understanding today's problems. In 1964, in his groundbreaking theoretical work Ecology and Revolutionary Thought, Bookchin wrote, "The imbalances man has produced in the natural world are caused by the imbalances he has produced in the social world." The problems of economic inequalities and erratic windstorms are connected. We cannot deal with one, without dealing with the other.

It is time to not only seriously start dealing with global warming but also all the issues that are connected with it: poverty, development, corporate malfeasance and propaganda, imperialism, and of course, the lack of democracy. If not, then some of Bookchin's darkest words may be our tragic fate: "Looming before us is the image of a completely destructured and simplified natural world as well as a completely destructured and simplified urban world -- a natural and social world so divested of its variety that we, like all other complex life-forms, will be unable to exist as viable beings."