The struggle for environmental and ecological security.

In its world-wide rush for profit and power, imperialism has ravaged the resources and environment of the earth for more than a century. Widespread pollution of the air, soil, rivers, lakes and seas is but one of the consequences. Global warming and its 'greenhouse effect' threaten a greater incidence of climatic instability, crop failure and flooding. Destruction of the rainforests is driving plant and animal species to extinction. Ozone depletion, acid rain, deforestation and desertification present the world's peoples with new and additional dangers.

The transnationals, aided by imperialist governments and some international agencies, have exported ecologically dangerous processes to the developing countries where safety laws and their enforcement are inadequate. This adds to the total pollution of the environment and must be stopped. Pressure on the environment is exacerbated by the continued growth in world population. World resources are finite and the planet clearly cannot sustain an infinite number of people. While moves to contain population growth must be welcomed, it is essential that population policies are seen as just one element in a programme of sustainable development. Family planning policies should be combined with far-reaching programmes of education and - above all - poverty alleviation. In poor countries, poverty leads to a desire for large families both as a form of insurance in old age and as a source of labour for subsistence agriculture. This desire persists even in the early stages of development and, combined with improvements in medical services, leads for a period to accelerated population growth. But experience also shows that once development has become established and poverty decreases, family size tends to diminish.

Population growth is not sufficient to explain the degradation of the environment. A major factor is capitalism's drive for profits, its unplanned exploitation of the earth's resources and the consumerist psychology which it engenders. The average inhabitant in Britain or the USA consumes 25 times the resources of someone in India or China.

New bio-technologies which use as their raw material species of plants and animals found in the Third World - particularly the rainforests - should not be in the hands of the TNCs, which have a record of ruthless exploitation and destruction of other natural resources.

An environmentally safe system of energy production does not yet exist. Greater emphasis will have to be placed on energy conservation and on the development of renewable sources, with less reliance on fossil fuels. Cheap public transport would cut down the use of cars and the production of carbon dioxide from petrol combustion. The burning of coal will remain a major source of energy for the foreseeable future - but in Britain this should be British rather than imported coal. Fluidised-bed combustion and adequate scrubbing of waste gases must be introduced to cut down the emissions which produce acid rain. Because of the environmental hazards from nuclear power based on fission, particularly from the disposal of nuclear waste and the problems of decommissioning, existing nuclear power plants should be phased out.

We must move towards an overall system of production in which waste products are either eliminated or reduced to an absolute minimum. The atmosphere, the oceans and the land can no longer be treated as a dustbin. Waste must either be recycled or used as a starting point for other processes. Where this is not possible in a particular process of production, that process may have to be abandoned or replaced by an alternative one. At all times, the effects of human activity on the environment will have to be carefully monitored, and research carried out to deal with problems as they arise. This applies to agriculture as much as to industry.

The change to a closed system of waste-free production is incompatible with the existence of an unplanned capitalist economy dominated by the monopolies. Their drive for maximum and short-term profit takes precedence over the long-term consequences for the environment.

The drive for private capitalist profit is an in-built obstacle to greater environmental protection. It regards 'green' policies as a drain on potential profits and dividends. It leads to the wasteful levels of consumption of raw materials seen today in the highly industrialised world. It follows that measures to protect the environment must feature prominently in any programme for advance to socialism. But even under socialism, as experience in the former socialist countries indicates, environmental protection will require constant vigilance, public awareness, democratic involvement, openness and accountability.