The catastrophic fires that swept California recently are consistent with what scientists have predicted for years. Experts say they may be a prelude to many more such events -- as vegetation grows heavier than usual and then ignites during prolonged drought periods as the earth heats up. Forest fires rage on the East coast and in Minnesota. Floods are devastating the Mississippi and Missouri river basins. More than 1,200 tornadoes have wreaked destruction across the country this year. What in the world is going on? To put it simply, we have hurt Mother Nature and she is fighting back.
The toll on California's poor is incalculable. With echoes of Katrina, the Border Patrol was called to the evacuation centers, where they deported two families accused of stealing items that were necessities given to evacuees. The Border Patrol remains there. Immigrants afraid to go to evacuation centers sought cover along the treacherous and potentially deadly walls of brush-covered canyons. Seven burned bodies have been found, undoubtedly immigrant workers.
On the other hand, the rich will fare well. Wealthy homeowners will rebuild in the chaparral-covered mountains and canyons with the government paying costs not covered by insurance. They rebuild in full knowledge that public resources will meet their private needs. They expect these services while the working class communities, also caught in the inferno, are complaining that fire fighters neglected them in favor of Malibu.
The earth will survive what's coming, but how will humanity?
We have to understand the root of the problem to solve it. The environmental crisis is interconnected with the growth of industry and society. Armed with the billions of dollars from war profiteering after WWII, the American ruling class tightened its hold over government and created a country totally dependent on the corporations. First came the expansion of the roads into a super highway system. This made the building of suburbia possible, which along with the destruction of the public transportation systems, made the auto industry the heart of the country's economy. As giant trucks replaced the railroads, the emergence of supermarkets destroyed the corner stores and made the automobile a necessity for the poor as well as the rich.
By the mid-1950s, the internal combustion engine and uncontrolled industrial pollution began to have a visible effect on the environment. Since the end of WWII, scientists warned of the dangers of the destruction of the environment. It wasn't that nobody listened. They believed they couldn't do anything about it. As the transnational corporation and globalization consolidated, environmental destruction became an integral part of the capitalist mode of production.
The leaders of government and industry were not able to reverse the process they set in motion. They said "we can't afford to put the environment ahead of profits." That is true -- they can't. If they do, the whole capitalist house of cards will come apart. The maturing global market economy has made it nearly impossible to force the giant international corporations to protect the environment. The rules are that if you take measures to protect the environment at the expense of profit, you will be taken over by corporations who have no such concerns. So the corporate profits shot up. Today they are the highest ever recorded. This explosion of profit was paced by the destruction of the ecology, by an increase in tornadoes, wildfires and floods.
The conclusion is inescapable. Innumerable species have disappeared from the earth as conditions changed. There is no guarantee that we as a species will remain if intolerable conditions are not halted. We cannot allow the earth to remain a plaything for profit in the hands of private individuals. The environment has become a strategic front of struggle against corporate power and the private ownership of things indispensable to society. This time it is the earth itself. There is no way to quantify our demands. We have to reclaim the earth and build a humane economic system worthy of the people who inhabit it.
