the people vs. the environment

[Red Scare]

I am curious about what revolutionary leftists think about the people and the environment. If you could only make one of them better, which would it be? Would you rather live in a world where the people are freed of the bonds of capitalism or a world where we are still trapped under capitalism but the environment is free? I myself would have to go with the freeing of the people.

[apathy maybe]

It isn't possible to have a "free environment" in a world where capitalism is the dominant economic force in the world.

Which is why all true environmentalists (or at least the ones that have thought about it) are also socialists.

Personally, I think that anarchism is the way to protect the environment best.

[Not entirely illiterate]

I agree, the annihilation of society is the only way for the environment to bloom into its fullest form. Although the physical environment is only a tiny fraction of its full reality, it works much like a funnel; constricting only a small fraction blocks access to the wholeness as well.

While it is of course possible for mankind to achieve a state of non-physical mind in a hierarchical society, it is very much easier to do so in the beautiful garden that is the world if left unspoiled.

Socialism is too materialistic for my taste, and the common concept of revolution is also alien to my, since I believe the true revolution is introvert and highly individual, but I could support it since it works to create an atmosphere that is suitable even for non-physicality. In truth, no society is without debt, so I'd rather sacrifice it than sacrifice the environment to serve material, useless needs to feed impermanent dead-weight that is our bodies.

[Tatarin]

The environment would be much more better off in a socialist (and eventually a communist society), simply because the greed for profit isn't there.

Firstly, I think people will use resources in a way that they are needed. In short, why cut down more trees than the population of X community use? Today, much material is thrown away because we don't use everything that is produced. People are starving in many countries, while others have competition over who can eat most hot dogs.

Secondly, take the example of oil. One of the biggest industries within oil (I think) is the car industry - fuel, which also contributes the environmental pollution. Despite this, we already have other ways of using cars - i.e. bio fuel, energy cells, sun power and so on. Maybe not fully developed, nor maybe not the best in the world, but why not concentrate on those? Simple - they don't generate the amount of money you would normally get out of oil.

I think, in a socialist society, since things are not based on wealth but rather the wellfare of people, changing to the better would take less time and become more efficent. How long have they've been talking about all these new fuels and products now? Seven, ten years? How much has actually been done?

Eight years left for the Kyoto protocol, and eight years to eradicate poverty. I can guarantee that by 2015, the situation will have grown much worse.