Race and Ecology

8/12/2019 Race and Ecology

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According to St. Matthew, God maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rainon the just and on the unjust. It might not be fair to argue with someone who has been dead for!!! "ears, but its getting #rett" difficult to take ideas like this seriousl". God seems to be #la"ingan ever shrinking role in the weather and when the storms come, the just and the unjust are notevacuated e$uall".

%he costs of what we are doing to the #lanet are not being #aid e$uall". &r more #recisel", some#eo#le are wrecking the #lanet, #um#ing it full of to'ins, levelling forests, destro"ing its waters andmaking obscene amounts of mone" ( and the rest of us are having to #a" the #rice for their greedwith our lives, our bodies, our health.

)nvironmental destruction is likel" to dis#lace between *! to !! million #eo#le b" !*!. Aconsiderable number of these will be due to the effects of climate change on #oor countries. +isingsea levels around angladesh is likel" to dis#lace u#wards of ! million -it has alread" dis#lacedhalf a million. All /,!! islands of the Maldives are likel" to sink beneath the ocean ( dis#lacing itsentire #o#ulation, currentl" over 0!!,!!! #eo#le. 1e should be clear2 we are talking about thedestruction of an entire nation. %his is nothing short of genocide b" climate change. %his is a crime

that we alread" know will ha##en, and not just to the Maldives ( rising sea levels will beaccom#anied b" increased drought and desertification inland. 3et, not onl" have no measures beentaken internationall" to sto# runawa" climate change, the refugees that it is creating do not evenhave legal #rotection under international law. A terrif"ing #ros#ect, #articularl" as anti4immigrantand refugee racism continues to gain strength in )uro#e, Australia, and 5orth America.

ut we do not need to look to the future to see the effects of climate change. 6ast "ear, the strongestt"#hoon ever to hit land in recorded histor" devastated the 7hili##ines. More than 8!!! #eo#le werekilled. 6iterall" millions were dis#lace, homes were destro"ed, livelihoods lost. %he "ear beforethat, a su#er4t"#hoon killed /,*!! #eo#le in the southern 7hili##ines, a "ear before that anothert"#hoon killed roughl" the same number of #eo#le.

%he entire ( and let me em#hasise ( continuing histor" of colonialism and im#erialism has meantthat the countries least res#onsible for global warming are also the countries who will be leastca#able of dealing with its affects.

ut even without global warming, im#erialism has alwa"s had an ecological as#ect. %he s#read ofca#italism has also been the s#read of a #articular kind of human ecolog" ( a #articular wa" ofrelating to each other and the earth. 1e can think of this s#read as a kind of 9biological e'#ansion of)uro#e92 and much like )uro#e itself, this e'#ansion has been uneven. :ontrar" to the well wornboosterism around globalisation bringing ever"one u# to the same socio4economic level ( global

ca#italism has alwa"s been, and alwa"s will be clum#"2 divided and subdivided into core and#eri#her".

1hen ca#italism first began to s#read, it treated the #eri#her" as a source of raw materials2 oflumber, #roduce, rubber, fertili;er, and slave labour. %he second world war changed thatrelationshi#. Although the" continued to be de#endent u#on the #eri#her" for sources of oil, thedevelo#ed #owers grew more and more able to #rovide their own food, and re#laced much of theirim#orts with s"nthetics #roduced locall". In the #lace of colonisation, the #eri#her" was organisedalong informal em#ires that functioned as s#heres of influence and buffers between the great#owers. ut the" were generall" left out of the booming develo#ment that followed 1orld 1ar II (what some theorists have called ostracising im#erialism has meant the effective e'clusion of the

third world from global trade and investment. It has condemned them to debt #eonage and

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underdevelo#ment. A state which the reign of austerit" and neoliberalism has not hel#ed in the least.

:ountries like :hina and India have #ursued a strateg" of industrialisation, with some success, b"turning out some of the most to'ic goods to #roduce under unimaginabl" horrific conditions. Somefactories in :hina have had to install nets outside their windows to #revent suicide. In that sensethe" are imitating the #rocess of industrialisation taken b" the 1est, although at a greater #ace and

scale. ut the" are doing this in combination with conditions im#osed b" an alread" develo#edca#italism largel" controlled b" the west.

%he bulk of global #roduction continues to be in the core, their immediate #eri#her", and :hina.%he rest of the world has become a dum#ing ground for the develo#ed world9s industrial waste.According to an article in times of India2 shi##ing munici#al waste to India is about four timeschea#er than rec"cling it locall". According to one re#ort in the )7A? standards on lead #ollution, which make domestic rec"clingmore difficult and e'#ensive in the


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units which obstruct its develo#ment. )ach new colonial e'#ansion is accom#anied, as a matter ofcourse, b" a relentless battle of ca#ital against the social and economic ties of the natives...

5eedless to sa", this battle has not ended ( I will sa" though, that in the battle against the #i#elinesand fracking ca#ital ma" be about to suffer a #owerful defeat. A good measure of the balance offorces on this is that the Har#er government has not been able to successfull" vilif" first nations

#eo#le in the national consciousness.

&n a more #essimistic note, even when land has relativel" little to offer, ca#italism can find wa"s toshaft "ou. In an almost e'act mirror image of the treatment of the global #eri#her", the


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ecologicall" to'ic s"stem. @or the ruling class, the #roblem of what to do with all that filth is not ascientific $uestion, it is a #olitical one. %he distribution of waste, as with the distribution of wealthis determined b" the balance of #ower that holds between o##ressor and o##ressed. 1hen theo##ressed get organised the" can shift the balance of #ower ( the :errell memo was leaked andbecame a flash#oint or just such organising. In the end, the incinerator was not built.

um#ing on the #eo#le of the #eri#heries2 whether it be the the third world, 5ative Americanreserves, or black ghettoes are short term s#atial fi'es for a #roblem that ca#italism isfundamentall" unable to resolve. ut the sheer scale of the #ollution has meant that these s#atialfi'es are less and less able to defra" the ecological reckoning which the ca#italists have wanted to#ut off.

%his is #articularl" the case with climate change. It is true of climate change, of course that the #oor#eo#le of the underdevelo#ed #eri#her" are going to be hardest hit, and I have alread" mentionedthe Maldives, angladesh, and the 7hili##ines. ut underdevelo#ed #eri#heries also e'ist within thefirst world. 1hen Hurricane =atrina hit 5ew &rleans, it didn9t matter all that much that 5ew&rleans is in 5orth America. 1hat mattered was that the #eo#le of 5ew &rleans were mostl" #oor,

and mostl" black.

Gobal warming is the result of centuries of the ruling class treating the atmos#here like a communaldum# for green house gasses. %he 1est has not been shielded from the effects of #um#ing thatmuch waste into the skies, but as with ever"thing else, it will be the #oorest and most o##ressedcommunities that suffer the most.

%he globalisation of ecological disaster has also meant that struggles that had #reviousl" beenfighting at relativel" small local scales are more and more creating connections, linking u# growingnetworks of resistance within communities, regions, countries, and in fact the globe.

M" own view is that the struggle against the #i#elines is one of the most im#ortant fights in :anada( if not the world. %he shear scale of the #i#eline #rojects have forced alliances between firstnations #eo#les that are virtuall" un#recedented. %he" e'tend along ever" major #i#eline route andeven link u# Indigenous communities across the whole of 5orth America. %his is alread" aformidable force. And if the issue were merel" one of s#ills, this might be the e'tent of the forcesarra"ed against the #i#elines. ut because the construction of the #i#elines are intimatel" linkedwith global warming, the su##ort for the struggle being lead b" first nations #eo#le comes from allover the world.

@or e'am#le, the 1et9suwet9en blockade received volunteers a##lications from all over the globe.

ut #erha#s the best and most im#ortant e'am#le of the kind of broad and organised su##ort forthis fight is the Save the @raser eclaration which has been signed b" more than /0! @irst 5ationsas well


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%he ruling class don9t alwa"s get their wa". %he" can be defeated. ut onl" if we struggle, onl" ifwe warrior u#.

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Race and Ecology