How do we ensure global survival? by Peter Allen

How do we ensure humanIn the last two or three years a near consensus has developed around the view that something dramatic needs to be done to ensure the survival of the planet. The few remaining “climate change deniers” in the scientific community increasingly have the near pariah status of “holocaust deniers”.

However although there is an agreement that “something needs to be done” there is far less agreement about what and how. In particular there is a recognition that our consumer society and individual prosperity is based on resource intensive production and an assumption of never ending growth.

How can living standards be (at least) maintained in the relatively rich economies and societies whilst reducing, minimising or ideally eliminating the risk of environmental destruction? At least as importantly, how can the world’s poor (most of the world’s population) be given the chance to enjoy the benefits of advanced industrial society if the planet’s eco systems are so fragile?

These questions raise issues for socialists as well as for supporters of the free market. Socialist orthodoxy, starting with Marx, holds that socialism cannot be built in conditions of poverty, and that rational economic growth(democratically controlled perhaps and planned rather than left to the free market, but growth nevertheless) is necessary to provide abundance for all. If the finite resources of our planet mean that notions of never ending, resource intensive growth need to be questioned, and yet most people remain poor, then What is To Be Done ?

We might have come to the view that we can’t have socialism without saving the planet .Our task is to persuade others that we probably can’t save the planet without socialism. By socialism we probably mean a society based on co-operation rather than competition, production for need rather than profit and a system of government based on genuine participation and democracy.

We need to engage others in a debate about the best way of distributing what we have, distinguishing between what we really need and what we have been persuaded that we might want and deciding things for ourselves, individually when appropriate and collectively when necessary. Such a debate needs to involve discussion not just about the way we produce electricity or solve our food and transportation needs but about the way we live our lives and how we can ensure an equitable sustainable future for our planet.