Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 11:43:28 +0200 (MET DST)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: M-G: UNITE! Info #27en: 4/5 Who fights "green" fascism?


UNITE! Info #27en: 4/5 Who fights "green" fascism?
[Posted: 02.02.97]

[Continued from part 3/5]

A CRITICISM OF THE  "SOCIALISME MAINTENANT!" ARTICLE
"LE CAPITALISME ET LA CRISE DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT" (ctd.)

*The AS article's sniping attacks on nuclear energy* (ctd.)

Does the AS in its article draw *such* a conclusion? By no means.
It draws precisely the opposite conclusion, that of the openly
bourgeois extremists and madmen: "Nuclear energy should be
done away with." For some reason or other - perhaps because
on this subject, the facts are so extremely clear? - it doesn't
say so straight-forwardly but "contents itself" with some sniper
fire against that energy source, on scattered points in the article.

In addition to the nonsense already mentioned, about a "pluto-
nium contamination" of the oceans, the article on p. 6 col. 1 also
infers that "the problem" of safe disposal of nuclear wastes
"isn't solved". But it *is*, and has been for long. I can concretely
tell you how this is done in Sweden, Jacques. This in reality is
no big technical problem at all; the waste amounts are so small.

On p. 3 col. 5, it's maintained that after the Chernobyl incident
in the Ukraine in 1986, "radioactive contamination" was
"scattered over half of the Northern hemisphere". I cannot here
even begin to go into the gigantic syndrome of propaganda lies
which has been developed in connection with this murky
incident (which did cost some 40 lives). And the article's authors
cannot be blamed too much for this grossly incorrect statement
of theirs either, since it has been repeated so ubiquitously, by
almost all the bourgeois swindlers there are, and has even been
used to "justify" the destruction, for no other real reason than that
of propaganda support for the anti-nuclear energy campaign, of
considerable amounts of foodstuffs here in Sweden, for instance.

Enough to say that it *is* quite false. *Traceable* amounts of
radioactive materials were scattered to other countries, but
*none* that could do any harm to people. In this connection, I'd
like to mention that in the issue of Fall 1996 of the magazine
"21st Century" (of the LaRouche group) which I recently got,
there's an important article by the radiation expert T.D. Luckey,
"The Evidence for Radiation Hormesis", dealing with the
actually *positive* effects of small doses of radiation - a fact
which the Inquisition very carefully indeed has witheld from the
general public. *A little* "fallout" in fact, if anything, would have
been good for you. Other experts have confirmed this. This is
yet another subject that would merit an entire article - later.

Marxists must *oppose* the bourgeoisie's fanatical combating
of nuclear energy, and can by no means support such reactionary
extremism or be "neutral" on such a question.


*Propaganda for the "global warming" hoax directed against the likewise
efficient and today even more important chemical fuels*

The "most important 'gift' to the environment that has resulted from
several decades of capitalist development", the AS article
maintains, on p. 4 col. 1, is the "increase of carbon dioxide in the
armosphere due to the use of fossil" [in reality, not fossil but
chemical] "fuels". And it goes on to describe the purported "global
warming" that "will result" from this and the purportedly catastrophic
effects of this "warming", in the same vein as that which is long
since known - in fact, infamous - from the openly-reactionary media.

The bourgeoisie in many countries have used this "theory" as a
"motivation" for their massively increasing taxes on oil and natural
gas and for other measures to curtail the use of these likewise
relatively modern energy sources, which of course today account
for a far larger part of the total energy use than does nuclear energy.

But the very fact that they have taken these measures under those
circumstances that this "theory", as even its advocates must admit,
is at least completely unproven - and the mass of evidence points
to its being wrong too - shows that it's really a *pretext*. Quite
other motives in reality lie behind this curtailment, namely that
reactionary interest, already mentioned above, of slowing down the
development of industry. The whole "CO2 propaganda" is a hoax,
another one for which the AS article most heartily beats the drums.

One of several good articles I've read against this hoax is that by
atmospheric scientist Hugh W. Elsaesser: "An Open Letter to the
IPCC - Climate Reality, Not Politics, Should Determine Policy". It
was published in the Summer 1995 issue of "21st Century".

The Marxists at the very least should take a closer look at the
scientific evidence in connection with this "theory" of "global
warming", bearing in mind how very interested the main forces of
the bourgeoisie today are in "finding faults" with *all* comparatively
modern and efficient energy sources, and should by no means
accept the "reasons" given by a number of governments for the
reactionary measures taken by them in recent years against the
use of oil and natural gas, "reasons" which it isn't difficult to see
through as mere pretexts.


*Propaganda for the "ozone depletion" theory - yet another hoax*

"In the whole scientific community there is no doubt", says the "SOCIALISME
MAINTENANT!" article on p. 3 col. 4, "about the
harmful effects to the atmosphere of the release of the man-made
chemicals CFCs and halons". This is another big untruth, and a
very harmful one. The purported "destruction of the ozone layer"
by CFCs was used as the "argument" for the so-called Montreal
Protocol of 1987, which places a very far-reaching ban on their
use. But, as shown for instance by the 1992 book I mentioned
above, "The Holes in the Ozone Scare", there is no such destruc-
tion. On the M-G list, I had a certain debate concerning this last
December with Siddharth Chatterjay, who i.a. pointed at one
piece of information in that book as suspect, and it does need to
be checked on, but the main conclusions of it obviously remain
correct despite this.

CFCs are extremely useful substances for use above all in
refrigerators and are extremely difficult to replace in any but the
most costly and impractical ways. The ban of them hits the
refrigeration industries, above all, of a number of countries, e.g. in
the third world, and thus is a very hard, indeed genocidal, blow to
people in the third world who are dependent on refrigeration for
certain foodstuffs and medicines.

The Marxists must combat the bourgeois "ozone depletion" hoax
and must on no account support it. They i.a. must work for the
soonest possible repeal of the Montreal Protocol.


*The AS article's reactionary propaganda concerning agriculture*

As one "concrete example" - in fact its only - of how the natural
resources are being "wasted" under capitalism, the article takes
agriculture and the question of erosion of the farmlands. It quotes,
on p. 1 col. 4, from Marx' Capital on how "every progress in
capitalist agriculture is a progress not only in the art of exploiting
the labourer but also in the art of plundering the soil". And it main-
tains that today, farmland erosion is a big problem in many
countries, e.g. Canada and the USA.

I must admit that at present, I don't know how serious this problem
actually is or how it can or should be remedied, if it *is* serious.
The planting or keeping of trees or other suitable vegetation, I'd
guess, might be one possible method. But what does the AS in
its article more concretely criticize, respectively suggest? Here,
again, a completely reactionary standpoint comes out.

It complains, on p. 5 col. 5 - p. 6 col. 1, about the use of heavy
machinery "which destroys the soil" - factually, a piece of
nonsense which really implies a complaint against the use of
machinery at all - and which are "dependent on" "expensive"
energy, but since energy needn't be expensive at all, this in
fact is only a thinly camouflaged bit of reactionary propaganda
against the very *use* of energy in agriculture. Finally and in
precisely the same reactionary direction on this point, it
"criticizes" the "sending off" of the "potential labour force" to
rot in the bidonvilles of many cities in the third world. The mass
unemployment and stagnating conditions in those bidonvilles of
coure are some of the results of the imperialist relations of
production; people really do rot there. But the way the "criticism"
by the AS is turned is one of *advocating more primitive
methods* in agriculture, "using fewer machines to provide more
work for people", and this, again, is plain reactionary Luddism.

The article chimes in fully with the arch-reactionary bourgeois
neo-Malthusianism, saying that "the population of the third world
is growing far to quickly" and that its "food needs cannot be met".
These propositions are both false. For one refutation of them, I
shall quote once more from a publication by the - of course
bourgeois - LaRouche group, one by the Stockholm Schiller
Institute of May, 1994, whose title in translation is "Environmental
Fanaticism - The Media Bluff That Went Bust" (p. 36):

"The earth can nourish 50 billion people. This is what is stated by
the organization of the German argaro-industrial enterprises,
Industrieverband Agrar (IVA). Today, 1.4 billion hectares of land
is being used for the production of foodstuffs. According to the
IVA, that area could be increased to 3.6 billion hectares."..."If you
calculate the productive potential in grain equivalents, you'll find
that '50 billion people could be fed on a high level of nourishment',
corresponding to that in today's Europe."

"The IVA does not understand the hysteria among those who are
seing problems with there going to be 11.5 billion people in the
year 2010, since 'those people could be fed by one-fourth of that
potential food production' which even today is possible.
Starvation and misery there is, and there will be, only 'for purely
political reasons', the IVA points out."

This also corresponds to that standpoint on principle on these
questions that can be found in articles from Mao Zedong's China.
It can be added that for the development of agriculture in many
countries, not least artificial irrigation is needed, and for that
again large amounts of cheap energy - combated by the AS.


*A untruth and an upside-down propaganda on deforestation*

On the question of the forests of the earth, the AS article on p. 4
col. 5 maintains that "the pulp and paper industry" is "the biggest
destroyer of the forests" ("premi=E8re dévastatrice de for=EAts"). An
untruth of large dimensions. I quote again (in translation) from the
1994 Stockholm Schiller Institute publication (now its p. 24):

"The environmental-goblins are maintaining that it is the forestry
companies that are the biggest cause of the devastation of
forests. The real cause is the lack of modern energy sources
and the poverty resulting from this." [Being bourgeois, this
source of course says nothing about the imperialist exploitation
as an in fact even more direct cause of poverty in the world.]

"More than 60 per cent of the global lumbering is due to the fact
that firewood is being used for fuel. A study made by the UN
shows that 63 per cent of all trees that are lumbered are used as
fuel. 20-25 per cent of the felling of trees are a result of primitive
burn-beating agriculture. Commercial lumbering is responsible
for approximately 18 per cent, and most forestry companies are
planting new trees on the clearings. Stopping commercial
lumbering thus would hardly affect the devastation of forests."

"The solution is a technologically advanced production of energy,
including nuclear energy, and modern methods of agriculture - the
very opposite of what the environmental-goblins are proposing
(they're advocating the use of firewood)."

Who're more right on this question, the "LaRouche people" or the
AS? Who's informing people of some basic facts here, and who's
confusing the issue, repeating the lies of the worst reactionaries?

It may be added that in socialist China, which followed the road
of Mao Zedong Thought, large numbers of trees were systemati-
cally planted and a strategy of "regaining the deserts" employed.
A Swedish forestry expert whose book I read wrote that he held
official Chinese statistics, on there having been an increase in
forested areas in the country from 5% to 11% of the total area to
be "quite likely correct, even if seemingly fantastic". After capital-
ism was restored in China, in 1976-78, forest devastation there
has, on the contrary, been quite severe, because of the serious
energy crisis caused by the ruling revisionists.


AN END NOTE: WHO FIGHTS "GREEN" FASCISM, WHO
DEFENDS IT? WHAT MUST THE MARXISTS DO?

In order to wind up my criticism of the article in that special
supplement to the July, 1992, issue of "SOCIALISME MAINTE-
NANT!" and also in part as a further reply to your statement,
Jacques, that the bourgeois politician in the USA Lyndon La-
Rouche "is a fascist", I bring here yet another quote from the
1994 publication of that Stockholm institute which belongs to his
group, and then a brief final own comment. That source on p. 18:

"Ozone Hole and Greenhouse Effect:
*The Revolt Against the Doomsday Prophets*"

"The present situation in several ways can be compared to the
one of the 1930s. At that time, mass media and the science
mafia were maintaining that lies such as racial biology and
occultism were scientifically accepted truths. This despite the
fact that not even a majority among the scientists believed in
them. The result of the strictly managed debate of the '30s was
that millions of people were murdered or sterilized in various
racial hygienic 'population programmes'."

"*This didn't take place only in Nazi Germany but all over the
world.* So also in Sweden, where 63,000 people were
sterilized between 1934 and 1969, more than one per cent of
the population. Among the victims were all sorts of people from
criminals to gypsies and handicapped. Also persons who didn't
conform to the socially accepted norms were sterilized, e.g. on
some occasions women who were considered to read too much!"

"But the situation today differs from that of the '30s on two
important points. The first is, that today's lies about "global
environmental catastrophies" and "overpopulation" are much
worse than the one about racial biology, since the various
environmental dictates, if they are carried through, will take a
much grater toll in human lives than did Nazism and racial
biology."

"The other is that there today is an active resistance against the
mass media propaganda which is stronger than was the
resistance during the '30s."

In my opinion, those above lines do make some correct and
important points. I hope that on some reflection, comrades of
the Action Socialiste, Canada, you'll see that they compare
quite favourably with that 1992 article of yours which I've
commented on above and which, IMO, you too should criticize.

It remains a fact that the various bourgeois forces, even if they
on some important points are taking up a standpoint that the
proletariat and the oppressed peoples must welcome, will not
be able - whether they continue to remain willing to do so or not -
to carry out the necessary main battle against the "green"
fascism. This must be done by the masses of people in the
world. And the Marxists absolutely must engage in this struggle
and do what they can to provide some leadership in it.

[End of article; Info continues in part 5/5 with Appendix:
The Heidelberg Appeal]



     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---