RE: Rain

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paddy:
>Furthermore, as to the CO2 changes - if these do really lead to higher
>global temperatures - this is likely to extend the available land for
>agriculture and improve crop yields over vast areas bordering the tundra in
>Canada and Russia. So it just cannot be seen as necessarily a global
>catastrophe.

Actually, this looms as the greatest catastrophe of all. The notion of
transforming the ecosphere in Canada and Russia on the basis of blind
uncontrolled chemical/economic forces is antithetical to socialism and
ecology. In the early years of the Soviet Union, vast sections of the
tundra were protected by a revolutionary edict signed by Lenin who took
himself away from high-level strategy meetings dealing with defense against
the White Army. The death of vast amounts of native flora and fauna is not
something socialists should stand idly by and witness. We must fight to
preserve them for all sorts of reasons, starting with those that can't be
quantified. The Russian Communists in the early 1920s regarded the flora
and fauna of the tundra to be as much a conquest of civilization as the art
in the Hermitage. To stand by and watch otters or moose give way to crows
and corn is almost the same thing as drawing moustaches on Renoirs.
Furthermore, there are economic investments in retaining the existing
environment in a place like Northern Canada. It is a repository of fresh
water, timber and wildlife, including raptors that control pests. At any
rate, it is doubtful that the problem of supplying food can be resolved by
an increase of CO2. You also need water and evidence points to lakes and
rivers drying up under the impact of global warming. Socialists are about
SCIENTIFIC PLANNING, not trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Louis Proyect
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