Climate Change & Environmental Crisis : Book Introduction

Paryavaran Lok Manch has brought this book to develop a holistic view on climate change. This book presents a correct perspective to understand the ongoing climate change and environmental crisis that is based on a class approach. An attempt has been made to identify the cause of the crisis and who is responsible for it.

Mother Earth and Human civilisation are in grave danger due to the cataclysmic effects of climate change.

Our planet, the Earth, is heating up continuously and rapidly. Its glaciers are melting and its sea levels are rising. Scientists believe that if this situation persists, from Bangladesh to Florida, villages, and homes of millions of people will be inundated. A rapidly-changing climate can also bring about the contamination of drinking water, heavy rainfall in some places and droughts in others, destruction of agriculture, extinction of animal species and desertification of forests. These are not but some of the problems that have already begun rearing their ugly head. In order to remedy this situation, it is imperative that action be taken immediately. Unfortunately, instead of taking quick measures, policy-makers around the world are adopting delay in order to serve their petty interests and satiate their hunger for profit. If they continue to tread on such a path, the crisis will worsen, rendering restoration of the environment close to impossible.

The developed capitalist countries are major contributors to climate change. Despite generating the most carbon dioxide emissions, they shy away from adopting concrete solutions to combat climate change. The price of this apathy subsequently is borne out by the poor across the world, with over 10 million children under the age of five succumbing to diseases wrought by environmental pollution, including diarrhea and respiratory diseases, which are the major outcomes of environmental pollution and the inhuman condition of the marginalised sections they are living in. The last two hundred years of industrial development have bought prosperity to a few but pushed millions into the trenches of dire poverty. The poor mainly depend on natural resources such as water, forests, and land for livelihood. Degradation of these resources thus spells doom for them.

Mother Earth does not discriminate among her children on the basis of developed or undeveloped, rich or poor. The rich however remain largely insulated from the effects of climate change. They have access to technology that helps them beat the heat, unlike the poor who often sweat it out in the sun to earn their bread. The helplessness of this population is heightened even more in the face of floods or droughts wrought by changes in climate. Negligence by governments adds to the misery. It is the women whose mobility is restricted by social norms who bear the maximum brunt of such calamities. Unlike their menfolk who travel from one place to another in search of work, they are pushed into a corner in the fight for survival. A grim example of this was seen in the year 2010 when women residing in drought-hit Bundelkhand were forced to enter the flesh trade to ensure food on the plate.

According to the World Health Organisation, climate change has left around 5.5 million people physically impaired in 2000. Of these, eighty-four percent belong to poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern and South Asia. With the arrival of the summer season, malaria and dengue start wreaking havoc in developing countries. Drought, flood, and depletion of groundwater level continue to ruin agriculture and with it the lives of farmers. While the government's anti-farmer policies add to the woes, starvation, and malnutrition are continuously increasing due to low production of food grains. Due to unhygienic habitation and malnutrition, the resistance to diseases is on the decline leaving the poor susceptible to diseases. In the midst of such crises, heartless market powers are only added to the sufferings of the poor people. Consequently, the economic and social structure is being upset.

In the past, natural calamities such as floods, droughts, storms, hail- storms and heat waves have destroyed several civilisations. Around 2300 B.C., the Mesopotamian civilisation, which extended from Turkey to the Gulf of Persia, was destroyed by a dreadful drought. Other civilisations have shared the same fate. In the year 1770, under the barbaric rule of the British, the famine that hit Bengal resulted in the death of ten million people, erasing one-third of the total population. From 1875 to 1900, around twenty-six million people lost their lives across the country due to natural calamities. The crippling economic policies of the British Government including exorbitant taxes, cess taxes on exports and imports, and the cultivation of cash crops like opium, rice, wheat, indigo, and cotton – magnified the intensity of the famine. But the rapid climate change that we see today is much more lethal. The relentless plunder of natural resources, by capitalist civilisation has invited this destruction, and its effect can be felt in all aspects of human life today.

There is a raging debate across the globe over the phenomenon of climate change. Different social sections in society, taking into account the nature, causes, and solution of the crises, have taken divergent stands according to their self-interest. There are some pertinent questions that arise in this debate. Is climate change an inevitable and normal phenomenon or a result of the sordid, uncontrolled plunder of the Earth by human beings? Who is responsible for this crisis and who should pay the price for it? What is the reason for the failure of world summits held on it? What is the view of different classes, communities, and organisations about climate change? What is the cause of negligence and irresponsibility towards these crises? Is this calamity really dangerous or is it an exaggerated truth? We have tried our best to answer these in this book. 

 Two important documents are provided as appendices in this booklet. The first is a speech by Fidel Castro made at the 1992 Earth summit, where he said: “An important biological species — humankind — is at risk of disappearing". In our view, this statement presents the environmental problem in an apt perspective, stressing the need to take serious action. The second document, 'World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth; April 22nd, Cochabamba, Bolivia,' deals with the issue in its totality and proposes a realistic and permanent solution to this problem.

In the course of writing this book, articles by John Bellamy Foster, editor of the Monthly Review, and various other articles published in this prestigious journal have been used as references. We are very thankful to them. Two books by Foster, Vulnerable Planet and Ecology against Capitalism cite many important, facts and put forth precise data, and provide an ideologically exciting set of literature on the climate crisis. 

We invite criticism and suggestions about the booklet from our readers and friends.