The defining breakthrough by capitalism was harnessing fossil fuel energy, which makes up 75% of world energy (90% in the advanced capitalist countries - ACCs). The British empire was built on the industrial revolution, powered by coal. The 20th century has seen the rise of US domination based on oil. In 1900 a few thousand barrels of oil were used per day, by 1997 it was 72 million. Not for nothing have wars been fought over 'black gold'. The fossil fuel-based economy enormously increased human productivity. The global economy has expanded 17-fold, from $2.3 trillion in 1900 to $39 trillion in 1998.

It has also raised the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to dangerous levels. There were 280 parts per million (p/m) at the beginning of the industrial era and 363 p/m in 1998. There will be twice the pre-industrial level by 2050, leading to global temperature increases of between one and 3.5 degrees centigrade by 2100.

Higher temperatures mean there is more energy driving the Earth's climatic system. Surface warming increases evaporation and the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. There will be a shift in the intensity of rainfall leading to more destructive storms and floods, an increased probability of heat waves, more extreme climates and melting ice-caps. Higher temperatures also cause water to expand - the main factor raising sea levels. Global sea levels could rise by anything from five to 95cm. Two-thirds of the world's largest cities are coastal.

During the first seven months of 1998, weather-related natural disasters caused $72 billion of economic losses world-wide, compared with the previous annual record of $60 billion in 1996. Extreme weather events have left three million people dead in the last five years. The devastation caused by so-called 'natural' disasters is greatly exacerbated by social problems, such as increasing poverty and growing shanty towns - 96% of all deaths from 'natural' disasters occur in the developing countries. Heat waves caused the deaths of 100 Texans and an estimated 3,000 Indians. Forty of the 50 fastest growing cities are located in earthquake zones.

    Feeding the world

THIS HAS BEEN a revolutionary century for world agriculture. Technical advances have trebled the productivity of the world's cropland. World grain harvest has risen from under 400 million tons in 1900 to nearly 1.9 billion in 1998, chemical fertilisers accounting for 40% of grain production.

In 1950 the average world grain yield per hectare was 1.06 tons and in 1998 it was 2.73 tons. It is now levelling-off. World grain consumption averaged 247 kilos per person in 1950, 342 kilos in 1984, falling by 7% to 319 kilos since. The world grain harvested area rose from 587 million hectares in 1950 to 732 million in 1981 but has fallen 6% to 690 million now.

With future population increases there will be further pressure on land use and less acreage for crops. The greatest problems will be faced by countries like Pakistan, Nigeria and Indonesia, which will each have more than 300 million people by 2050. In Pakistan, the grain area per person will fall to 0.03 hectare. This means that on average seven people will have just one-fifth of a hectare (half an acre) to produce their entire food supply.

China and India (the first and second most populous nations) depend on irrigation for 70% and 50% of their grain harvest, respectively. The water table under much of China's Northern Plain, which accounts for 40% of China's grain harvest, is falling by 1.5 metres per year. Freshwater aquifers in India are falling by 1-3 metres per year. That could cut India's harvest by 25%. Another problem is salinisation, where mineral salts get left behind when the water evaporates after excessive irrigation. This affects a quarter of all irrigated land and blights an additional two million hectares of agricultural land each year.

After the UN's International Decade of Drinking Water - the 1980s - one-in-three people in the developing world do not have access to clean water. Eighty percent of all diseases in these countries come from contaminated water, and 15 million children under five die each year from diseases caused by drinking unclean water.

Water is and will continue to be a source of conflict. In urban areas of the occupied territories, Jewish Israelis consume seven times as much water per capita as Palestinian Arabs. Israel controls the water supply. There is intense rivalry between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt over the Nile and between India and Bangladesh over the Ganges. Fragile communities such as Hopi and Navajo Native Americans in Arizona expect their wells will run dry by 2011 due to the Peabody Western Coal Company's use of water to transport coal as slurry.

    A GM future?

'BIO-ANGST' IS NOW sweeping across Europe after a series of food safety scandals: BSE in Britain, the Dutch pig plague, Belgian dioxin contamination of chicken and Coca-Cola poisoning scares. The Walloonian agriculture minister describes the Belgian dioxin crisis as the country's worst economic crisis since the war. More than 1,200 farms have closed.

The trashing of genetically modified (GM) crop trials by direct action in Britain has highlighted the dangers inherent in GM technology. The trials are a farce, with no guarantee even that the seeds being used can be replicated on an industrial scale. The short duration of the trials means that they cannot possibly provide adequate information on long-term environmental impacts.

New Labour's pro-GM missionary zeal is always portrayed as an altruistic attempt to feed the world. Embarrassingly for them, it was revealed that New Labour's pension fund invests heavily in two leading GM companies, Astra-Zeneca and Novartis, so the party of government in Britain has a vested interest in seeing GM crops succeed. These companies' share values have plummeted. Europe's largest bank, Deutsche Bank, published two reports, GMOs Are Dead and Ag Biotech: Thanks But No Thanks, advising investors to sell-up. Retail outlets are withdrawing GM foods and farmers in the US are concerned that they will not be able to sell their produce.

Ronald Reagan, when US president, perfectly summed up his administration's priorities in his own inimitable style when he spoke in defence of logging company interests: 'If you've seen one of those giant redwood trees, you've seen them all'. Agri-business, mineral extraction and capitalist production methods are responsible for the ruination of the world's environment. Of 242,000 plant species surveyed by the World Conservation Union in 1997, 14% (33,000) were threatened with extinction, mainly through habitat destruction. The same applies to 11% of the world's known 9,600 birds and 4,400 mammals. Of the 24,000 fish species, one-third are threatened with extinction.

    An 'over-crowded' planet?

THE STRAINS ON the world's resources have brought government population control programmes back on the agenda - in developing countries. The six billionth person was born a couple of months ago - supposedly in Sarajevo according to the UN. There were one billion people in 1825, 1.6 billion at the start of the century and two billion people in 1930. In 1900, there were only 16 cities with over one million inhabitants. There are now more than 326 such cities, 14 with over ten million people.

The call for population control is divisive, often masking racist and other reactionary views. It does not address the questions of world inequality and poverty. Even today, 2,740 calories per person per day are produced on a world-wide basis. As humans need 2,000 calories a day, there is already more than enough food to feed everyone. The population growth rate is actually down - from five per couple in 1950 to 2.7. But large families in the past mean there are many women of childbearing age so the number of babies born is still very high - 78 million a year.

In the developing world a large family is a survival strategy. UNICEF estimates that there are 250 million working children in the world. A survey of children employed stitching footballs in Sialkot, Pakistan, showed that they provided nearly a quarter of their families' annual earnings. Surveys in Ghana, India, Indonesia and Senegal in 1992-93 revealed that three-quarters of working children toiled in family businesses. Children often look after relatives where there are no social services.

As human technique improves, more people can be fed and cared for. What is needed is the requisite economic organisation. Socialists have long argued that the world has been brought to the brink of catastrophe by the profit system. From being a progressive historical stage for humanity - at colossal human cost - capitalism is today absolutely redundant.

This is a rich world. The world's 225 richest people have a combined wealth of over $1 trillion, roughly equal to the annual income of the poorest half of humanity. The top fifth of the world has 85% of the world's GDP. General Motors' revenue in 1997 was $178 billion - more than the combined national economies of Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru. The richest one-fifth of the world's population consumes 58% of global energy supplies, the poorest fifth less than 4%. The US, with 5% of the world population, uses nearly 25% of global energy supplies.

The UN's FAO reports up to 841 million people are suffering from chronic hunger and malnutrition, including 26 million in Eastern Europe and eight million in the ACCs. Forty percent of children in the developing world have stunted growth and one-in-three are underweight. Nineteen thousand children die every day from malnutrition and related diseases. 1.6 billion people are illiterate and two billion do not have access to electricity.

    The limits of Kyoto

WHAT IN THE WORLD can be done? Apart from increased air traffic pollution flying 'world leaders' from Rio to Kyoto to Seattle, all they have provided is more hot air. The IMF bail-out plan for the Indonesian economy in 1998, for example, encouraged the expansion of palm oil plantations. These are one of the main culprits in the devastating forest fires which rage there every year now.

Governments agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997. OECD countries were supposed to reduce emissions over the following 12 years to between 20-40% below what they would be if present trends went unchecked. Others, like Russia, had to maintain their emissions at 1990 levels.

The post-Soviet economic collapse, however, means Russia produces 40% fewer greenhouse gases than in 1990. Kyoto gave it the right to bank or sell its surplus carbon allowance to other countries with higher pollution targets. Al Gore cheered the 'magic of markets' as an instrument for tackling climate change. Recent figures show that OECD countries as a whole increased emissions 4% from 1990-96, with the rise in 1996 greater than the first five years of the decade combined.

'Greenwash' is the latest business buzzword. BP executive officer, Sir John Brown, is trying to convince us that there is no conflict between the oil industry and the environment. His vision includes a planned reduction in fossil fuel emissions and a place for social responsibility and justice.

Peter Matthiessen, writer and conservationist, attacks this position. But the conclusions he draws are limited: "Our consumer culture no longer takes long-term responsibility for its activities... We are no longer citizens but mere consumers. We have no effect on national politics in the US... the two main parties are identical. The Green party that we had was hollow. For now all we can do is work at a local level and try to clean up politics... There we can do something, there we can turn things around, and that prospect to me is exciting because we haven't done anything else". (The Guardian, 30 October)

Class-based societies, like capitalism, have been and always will be run in the interests of the dominant class - the ruling class. That's not new. Matthiesen's opinions reflect the deep-seated, and growing, rejection of establishment party politics. These parties are all pro-big business. The working and middle classes have been disenfranchised. But it has also meant that there is a lack of a viable alternative being put forward. Instead of the struggle for international socialism, there has been a turning-in to local, immediate and smaller-scale problems.

Yes, although the question is: How?

    Time for a change

THERE HAS BEEN a recent upsurge in protest. Much has been made of the form it has taken: internet-organised, decentralised demonstrations. This is also part of the rejection of the establishment, and is linked to the draconian rules put in place by the Tories (and jealously guarded by New Labour) to restrict the right of assembly. It is also coloured by the existence of spineless, pro-business labour movement leaders who do all they can to clamp down on working-class militancy.

Most of the environmental campaigns are very clear on what they are against, and play an important role through their investigative work and direct action campaigning. However, many are not sure what can replace the present capitalist anarchy. But, although there is not necessarily a clear alternative being put forward, sections of the movement have moved away from purely single-issue campaigning. The whole capitalist system is seen as the cause. That is a clear indication that the protest movement is beginning to generalise its aims, starting to make the link between specific struggles and the need to change the whole system.

The world faces a stark choice - and a race against time. Capitalism will destroy the world if we let it. To avoid that there has to be change - socialist change. Thilo Bode, executive director of Greenpeace International, courts big business: "We always say: 'We understand you. Making a profit is not a bad thing'... 'There will be winners and losers', says Mr Bode, citing the example of coal miners who are losing their subsidies in the quest for cleaner energy. It is hard to inspire people about environmental issues if they are anxious about their jobs, he says". (Financial Times, 13 April)

If the alternative for miners is coal or dole, they will rightly fight for their jobs. And, if we stay within the confines of the capitalist system, that is the only choice available. But if society was run on the basis of a plan of what society needed, workers could be re-employed in socially useful work. Nuclear power station workers could decommission plants, weapons manufacturers could make hi-tech medical equipment, and so on.