We’ve been through three heat waves in two months. Now we’re facing a surge in wildfires and record drought. These extreme weather events feed off one another in a deadly cycle that is fatal to nature, flora and fauna.
Following the health crisis, there’s now an agricultural crisis and what is already being called “the water war”. All French departments have had to restrict water consumption locally and more than 50 departments say they have a crisis on their hands.
We’re already made to feel guilty about using air-conditioning and airplane travel. And now, we’re going to be lectured about our water consumption, how many times we flush the toilet, how many showers we take and how we should water our garden!
Pointing the finger at what we do individually is typical. It’s a way of side-stepping accountability for those who are really responsible, the political and economic leaders. The worst thing is that, while we’re being told off, politicians and capitalists continue their policy that is destroying the environment.
The government passed an “agricultural emergency” law demanded by the FNSEA (the trade union of France’s largest farmers). The law, in addition to allowing the reintroduction of banned pesticides – particularly in beet fields – provided for doubling the water storage capacity in mega-basins by 2035. So the largest farming conglomerates will privatize water that is becoming increasingly rare and that municipalities are obliged to ration.
Artificial reservoirs only provide a solution for the minority of farmers who irrigate and can connect to them. They make the overall drought conditions worse for all the others because they use the water that should be flowing into rivers, meadows and aquifers.
Instead of favoring farmers that consume the least amount of water and of preparing the future, the government, the right and the far right are giving support to the minority of large corn and wheat producers and exporters! Yet again, the long-term interests of the vast majority are sacrificed so that the business of a few can continue.
Negotiations are also under way in the European Union, in this case under pressure from industrialists, who want their goals in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to be relaxed. At a time when the multinationals that pollute the most should be forced to invest in energy transition, governments are backtracking – yet again in the name of competitiveness!
Common people are being told to tighten their belt by those in power who keep ordering more weapons of war, tanks and fighter jets that use up materials and energy. Data centers that consume enormous amounts of electricity and water are being built everywhere, while cooling down existing nuclear reactors is becoming harder.
The capitalist economy is uncontrollable. It was never planned to meet the needs of most of the population nor to look after the planet. And there’s no way it can do that, because competitiveness, trade wars and the accumulation of profits always come before basic necessities.
What is produced and how it’s produced is decided by what creates profit and depends on market fluctuation and competition. Today, because the state prioritizes its choices and pays out billions, it’s more profitable to build fighter jets and helicopters than it is to build Canadairs (fire-fighting planes).
Halting climate change requires a rational organization of the economy, energy production, transport and communication systems. This means planning on an international scale to stop over-production in some sectors and shortages in others. This necessitates collective control by the workers of the means of production, i.e. removing private ownership of the major means of production.
Anyone looking for a policy that could save the planet and humanity has to turn to revolutionary communist ideas, the only ideas that offer a society that can introduce awareness, reason and humanity in social and economic interactions.
Nathalie Arthaud