Capitalism kills the planet

[Holden Caulfield]

Can any of you provide me with solid satistics about the effects of capitalism on our lovely plantet.
I'm thinking stuff about energy, agriculture, climate change, etc

thank you in advance you kind kind people :)

[butterfly]

Can you be more specific?

[Holden Caulfield]

Can you be more specific?

erm, im not sure what i want to focus on yet, all i know is i want to study the environment and why eco-socialism is the answer (in 1500 words, so not many)

so any good stats on how capitalism fucks the planet would be good.

[JimmyJazz]

Well, everything that harms the planet could in theory be curbed by economic planning. "In theory" is the rub though. And at what cost.

I'm not sure how you could calculate the harm that capitalism causes (to the environment or to anything else) without having a socialist alternative to compare it against, other than to say that pretty much everything that fucks the environment is the result of for-profit private business as usual.

Anyway here's a list of books (http://www.amazon.com/Socialism-and-ecology/lm/R3F3D3XUPOYFLJ/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full), if you're interested enough to read a whole book.

[butterfly]

This (http://climateandcapitalism.com/)may help as a starting point. I would suggest you focus on how capitalism is managing, or rather failing to manage, the crisis of climate change, rather then how capitalism has exacerbated/triggered environmental issues as the latter is difficult to solidify without comparison as JimmyJazz pointed out.
Good luck:) I'd love to be studding this ATM.

[Klepto]

Any type of government will kill the planet unless it is either too primitive to have a significant impact or has environmentalism as a core focus. Capitalism may have more impact than most as it tends to overproduce, thereby consuming more resources and generating more waste. By all means promote eco-socialism, but don't single out capitalism as if it was specifically designed to destroy planets.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Holden, you might want to have a look at this: What is Social Ecology? (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/socecol.html)

[autotrophic]

You should watch the BBC documentary Planet Earth. It's a good documentary about animals and nature, but at the end there's a section with some popular scientists and environmentalists that talk about the devastating effects of capitalism. There's a bit in there about how amphibian populations in South America are literally collapsing, and how that can have huge effects on humans and the rest of the environment. They also talk about rising sea levels, global warming, poaching, rainforest destruction and lot of other things.

It's probably on-line somewhere if you look around

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Keep in mind however that environmental damage is not limited to capitalism. Massive deforestation, extinctions due to overhunting, failures of the Fertile Crescent, and anthropogenic forest fires among other things all occurred long before the rise of capitalism and advanced technology.

Considering that, it seems massively unlikely that any advanced technological civilisation, let alone capitalism, will have "zero environmental impact".

[mikelepore]

I think the main problem with capitalism and the environment is that private companies that have to fund themselves have an incentive not to convert to improved methods. For example, a damaged Exxon tanker caused a large oil spill near Alaska in 1989. Double hull tankers already existed to prevent such spills, but the company didn't use them. Why not? Because each company that gets to decide whether it's a good idea to use any new method is the same company that, if they decide to convert over to it, would have to pay for it. How could people be materially rewarded for making the wrong decisions, and then be expected to make the right decisions? Socialism would make it possible for industrial managers to focus on health, safety and the environment, without the pressure of local payment of the bill every time an improvement is adopted. This is also why every concept of socialism as having separate "worker-owned companies" is nonsense. The main advantages of socialism come about when each industry no longer has to fund itself out of sales revenue -- only then can people have the detachment needed to make humanistic choices.

[bellyscratch]

I still need to give you them books... I'll message you to sort them out

[bretty]

Capitalism contributes a lot to the degeneration of the environment based on the market mechanisms. Speculation in land often is short sighted, such as the case where I live on the Oak ridge Moraine, a fragile ecosystem that is supposedly protected however the reality is that they keep building on it and offering municipal governments, who have to perform Class Environment Assessments for these projects, compensation through parks construction etc. which improves the tax revenue the municipal authorities receive. This market based approach to land speculation often has irreversible effects on land. This is just my experience in my own area on how capitalism and markets disfunctionally operate regarding environmental concerns and 'smart growth'.

For a global concept of political ecology and the hegemonic capitalist market check out the conflict in the Niger Delta. Not only has it generated conflict over resources but there is a complete lack of corporate responsibility and equitable shares, which leads to activities of oil bunkering. All of this ends up causing massive environmental damages. (If you'd like an article on this, I can gladly attach a PDF).

Further another issue in capitalism is the process of externalization. Externalization is the process of subjecting society and third parties to environmental and social costs and the corporation not being responsible for them. A case of this would be something like the auto industry, wherein cars produce Co2 however auto industries may not have to pay anything to counter this effect to society(i.e. health issues, environmental degradation, etc.).

[bretty]

Keep in mind however that environmental damage is not limited to capitalism. Massive deforestation, extinctions due to overhunting, failures of the Fertile Crescent, and anthropogenic forest fires among other things all occurred long before the rise of capitalism and advanced technology.

Considering that, it seems massively unlikely that any advanced technological civilisation, let alone capitalism, will have "zero environmental impact".

This is true, I think the difference between pre-capitalist and capitalist development is that the consolidation of capital and intensification of extractive industries for industrialization has contributed in a huge way.