Some General Reflections

At last, in 2025 Italy is due to reach its defence spending target of 2% of GDP. Thus prime minister Meloni gleefully announced on 7 May. “Because without defence there is no security and without security there is no freedom." Apparently security and freedom are in symbiosis with bombs. So, if we want more security and freedom, we must arm ourselves to the teeth. Still, these are arguments for high-up people, not us poor devils, who are unable to understand such high-minded matters and who are not much inclined to turn to the use of war.

So, when the powers-that-be think it’s a good idea to strip us of even a penknife to preserve security and freedom inside the various state borders, they are only talking about their own security, or rather, that of the ruling class — did you not realise that? Permission to take up arms is only granted for defence of the homeland, i.e. exclusively for the slaughter of other proletarians engaged in defending the interests of capital across the entire globe. This is the devastating scenario that capitalism offers us today, just as in the past. It is the devastation of a crumbling society where, when it comes to profits, there is no crime it shrinks from. The hundreds of thousands of victims of the war in Ukraine; the tens of thousands in Gaza, especially children and women; not to mention the tens of thousands more around the world, particularly in Africa: these are victims sacrificed for criminal capitalism.

Capitalism and crime: two sides of the same coin. The metal may change, but not the substance. It is the goal of the civilised criminals, both legal and illegal, so to speak. Of course, there are always bards singing the praises of this high society. Amongst them we now have the bard of bards: Pope Leo XIV who has already won the praise of half the world. His title alone is a guarantee of that. In fact, many think his predecessor, Leo XIII, author of the famous encyclical Rerum novarum,⁽¹⁾ deserves to stand alongside Marx. For the first time in history, the Catholic Church thought it fit to offer a few divine words in favour of the working class: that is, always assuming it demonstrates submission and obedience to the established power and is always faithful to the precepts of the Church.

But who was Leo XIII really? He was certainly not the saint everyone talks about. And that famous encyclical of his was closer to the bosses than to the workers. From the very beginning, he makes things clear: "The socialist solution is unacceptable to the workers." And again, a little further on, in case it weren't clear: "...it only harms the workers themselves, and is also unjust for many reasons, since it interferes with the rights of legitimate owners, alters the competences of state offices, and disrupts the entire social order." (Rerum novarum) Is this the encyclical of the proletariat and the poor? In reality, it is undoubtedly the encyclical of the capitalists and their class interests.

It is impossible to ignore his complicity in and his de facto support for one of the major criminals of colonialism: Leopold II of Belgium, the first and greatest proponent of genocide in the Congo Free State. That's exactly what it was called: ‘Free!’ With an armed guard protecting the very same freedom that Meloni talks about. The philanthropic king felt so free that, amidst disease, torture, and executions, he exterminated 10 million Africans. All enslaved, forced to work extracting rubber, the "rubber gold" of the era, to the delight of the philanthropic king's coffers. By means of the African slaves in his service he was also beginning to deal a serious blow to the environment. A very short passage from The Heart of Darkness gives us an idea of the inhumane conditions of these men and women:

I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking.⁽²⁾

Ever since the wheels of history began to turn in the same direction, the intelligentsia have been ready to sound the trumpet for the ‘chosen’ class: the bourgeoisie and, for a fee, play the melody that rises like the Sirens’ songs of the Odyssey, bewitching and deceptive. Not a word, in fact, about the darkness of the past that envelops the wickedness of the Church. The devastation of the world puts capitalism and all its offshoots in the dock, and the Catholic Church certainly ranks first among them. Every now and then it issues an encyclical to ease its public conscience. In fact, by ‘devastation’, we mean not only the natural environment, but also the social environment of relationships between human beings. Here we have an environment dominated by the sacred values of economic relationships. The only ones that have the right to exist. Production relationships based on naked self-interest of which, above all, rises profit: to which all bow in deferential adoration.

The encyclical Laudato si' is entirely dedicated to ecology, to "sister and mother" earth. It follows the footsteps of St. Francis, the man who engaged in dialogue with brother sun and sister moon, not disdaining a few little chats even with daisies. Needless to say, instead of pretending to reproach the rich and lamenting over the responsibilities of the human race (who could that be, eh?), they place the salvation of the planet in the hands of God and Jesus. "Enlighten those who possess power and money that they may avoid the sin of indifference, that they may love the common good, advance the weak, and care for this world in which we live" (Laudato si'). Well, they have obviously not been enlightened enough.

Environment and Wars

Let's leave mystical and narcotic musings to religions, and move on to an examination of the environment from a Marxist perspective. This is something that escapes most people, including many radicals who claim to be anti-capitalist but who ultimately gravitate towards, and then wallow in, bourgeois bullshit. We don't care whether they do it in good faith or not; what matters is that, in the end, they always side with the ruling classes. But so be it. Before we begin, let’s give a brief introduction to better understand what is driving this climate change.

The problems started with the first industrial revolution, over two hundred years ago. They began burning coal, then moved on to oil and gas, but continued to use coal, as they still do today on a massive scale. The ongoing revolution in the means of production, the increasingly ruthless competition, first predominantly between capitalists in a single country, then between capitalist countries, sparked a global war to increase competitiveness. Thus the civilisation of capitalist society has been established, with the bourgeoisie conducting the orchestra. This frenzy of constant GDP growth, in obeisance to the enrichment of the ruling class, spells the beginning of the end toward which we are all hurtling unless the global proletariat intervenes to stop the parasitic bourgeois class.

This infernal machine requires the fossil fuels already mentioned to power it. However, when these fossils burn, they emit carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon dioxide is a harmless gas; in fact, we "drink" it in sparkling water, we breathe it, and it is essential for plant growth which absorbs CO2 and releases oxygen, which, needless to say, is essential for living things. The problem arises, however, when we "extract" carbon dioxide from underground where it has been sitting for hundreds of millions of years. When coal, oil, etc., are burned, CO2 is released into the air and also dissolves in the oceans. We pay the consequences in terms of rising temperatures because CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That is, it blocks part of the sun's heat which would otherwise be dispersed into space. In practice, it works like a greenhouse for growing plants. In fact, if you want to take a sauna in the summer, go to a greenhouse and you'll understand what the greenhouse effect means—obviously in micro terms. So much for the general outline. We will return to it later, by including other phenomenon such as what is happening in the oceans.

Wars and militarism are often overlooked in discussions about the environment and climate change. In the various COPs (the acronym for Conference of the Parties, the name given to the annual meetings of the countries that have ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), this is a taboo subject. Talk about whatever you want, but when it comes to defence, weapons, militarism and wars — which, as we'll see, are among the main culprits — silence is the order of the day.

When we think of climate change it is generally in terms of oil, fuels, industrial pollution, cars and the entire transportation sector, factory farming, and so on. But wars and defence spending have a huge impact on the climate crisis:

The climate and ecological crises are rooted in the high levels of greenhouse gases produced globally. Military activities are among the factors that have the greatest impact on the environment, both in times of peace and war. In combatting climate change, one of the COP objectives was to reduce military spending.⁽³⁾

This is because a war economy is also heavily reliant on fossil fuels (mainly coal, oil, and LNG), both directly (planes, tanks, ships, all vehicles and all armaments production factories; both in construction and use, etc.) and indirectly (everything related to the use of the most sophisticated technology, the Internet, AI, etc.). Calling everything related to the construction of instruments of death an ‘economy’ is like calling the bombings in Gaza, Ukraine, and the 50 or so other wars around the world a hymn to life. But such is the twisted normality of wayward capitalist society. A society which arms itself for peace. One where the rich exist for the well-being of the poor, but where the opposite idea is usually silenced because it is actually true.

If we take a look, even superficially with the limited data available since the armaments and war sector is often top-secret, we get an idea of the heavy environmental pollution of these toys and their use for dispute resolution in the cruel and inhuman world of imperialist competition.

An F-15, (according to Google’s AI overview), consumes approximately 16,200 litres of kerosene in an hour of flight. An aeroplane like the F-15 produces 285 grams of CO2 per passenger for every kilometre travelled, while a car produces only 42 grams per passenger per kilometre.

If we do the maths, we see that, for 200 cars with an average of two passengers per car (so 400), we have a consumption of 16,800 grams of CO2; in the F-15, this consumption rises to 114,000. The AI overview doesn't tell us this. It simply says that they are "much higher." Perhaps it is biased and playing dumb? Nevertheless, the comparison uses data from 2004 which remains valid.

The combustion of 1 litre of gasoline produces 2.35 kg of carbon dioxide (CO2), that of 1 litre of diesel produces 2.66 kg of CO2; the average, which we will use for our calculations, will therefore be 2.5 kg of CO2 for each litre of fuel. ...
An Abrams M1 tank weighs 65 tons and travels 1 km on about 4.5 litres of fuel, so 450 litres per 100 km... Other tanks consume an average of 200-300 litres per 100 km. A fighter plane like the F-15E Strike Eagle or F-16 Falcon consumes about 16,200 litres/hour.⁽⁴⁾

Then there are bombers, helicopters, etc., whose fuel consumption is always at an “excellent level.” These are consumption levels that don't change whether in war or peace.

Data processed by the Italian Meteorological Society, led by Luca Mercalli who is keen to emphasise that “it is an apolitical and non-partisan organisation”, gives us a comprehensive picture of the environmental pollution in the "Desert Storm" war, launched by the US/UK and their usual lackeys, against Iraq's invasion of Kuwait:

...There were 42 F17s and they flew for 6,900 hours in 38 days, an average of about 4 hours per day. A total of 2,400 other aircraft were employed in the operation. There were 1,848 Abrams tanks, and over 50,000 support vehicles.
An F15 fighter flies at over 2,000 km/h and consumes between 16,000 and 20,000 litres of kerosene per hour. An impressive 675 million litres were refuelled in flight (enough to fill up approximately 17 million standard cars), so much so that one F-15 pilot commented: “There was more gas in the sky over Saudi Arabia than in the ground below.” (Source: White Paper - Air Force Performance in Desert Storm, Department of the Air Force, April 1991) “Obviously, this is only the fuel delivered in flight by the tankers, and does not take into account all the fuel delivered directly to the ground.” (ibid.)

We will mention, for obvious reasons, only the most interesting things: "Essentially, every day of war, enough fuel is consumed to fill up 1,125,000 cars" — and a little further on – "if the war lasted 30 days: consumption (of fuel, ed.) = 1.35 billion litres, emissions = 3.38 million tons of CO2 (equivalent to an Italian city of 344,000 inhabitants for a year)." The war lasted about 40 days. And to conclude, "Since Italy, in order to comply with the Kyoto agreements, would have to reduce its emissions by approximately 80 million tons of CO2 per year, equal to approximately 220,000 tons per day, the daily emissions deriving from the Iraqi conflict are equivalent to at least half of this mass." (ibid.)

Note that all the figures are conservative because they do not take into account every movement of every vehicle involved in the preparation of the usual carnage; and they also do not take into full account all the destruction and reconstruction. Therefore, even if we assume that Italy adheres to the Kyoto Protocol,⁽⁵⁾ these agreements would really need to be revised with every war that happens in order to offset their effects with much greater emission reductions. So, better not to even mention current wars, especially in Ukraine, which has been going on for more than three years, or in Palestine, which is marking a further resurgence. And in fact, all the conflicts that are ravaging the entire world are contributing to global warming.

The Vietnam War

How can we forget the Vietnam War, which, excluding earlier skirmishes, lasted 11 years? Well, given that the previous account referred to just over 40 days, it's not difficult to get an idea of the damage caused by US imperialism in Vietnam. The US, a model of democracy for the world, despite Trump, was the first to use napalm (an incendiary gel), phosphorus bombs, and cluster bombs. Furthermore, there were certainly no problems with the use of the so-called "Agent Orange", a devastating dioxin-based herbicide, whose environmental effects on people, vegetation and animals are still ongoing today. How can we forget the footage of that poor naked little girl running away with despair on her face, with the incendiary bombs chasing and stalking her like a monstrous tongue of flame? Even today, people are dying from the effects of that war, blown up by unexploded cluster bombs. In 1995, the Encyclopedia Britannica recalls,

Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died.⁽⁶⁾

How can we forget the My Lai massacre of 16 March 1968, when the murderous soldiers of Charlie Company massacred children, old people, and women — all harmless civilians. The death toll, as always in these cases, is unknown, but the figures speak of around 500 deaths. The barbarity and brutality of these true crimes are unparalleled. The villagers were rounded up and mowed down with machine guns, just as wheat might be cut down; young girls were raped and bayoneted; a pregnant woman's belly was slashed open with a machete, and her foetus was thrown into the undergrowth. Finally, before leaving their playground, they threw bombs on the corpses to show the whole world, in their own way, what respect for human life means, especially if they were old people, women, and children...

The tender hearts of the best of American capitalism, like Newsweek magazine, with its heart dripping with napalm and hundreds of tons of bombs, called this devastation an "American tragedy"! For the Vietnamese, it was a cheerful picnic, a happy déjeuner sur l'herbe between one corpse and another. The war criminals, after all, were not really war criminals. US representative democracy was their guiding light.

Bourgeois democracy must triumph even at the cost of millions of dead, even at the cost of transforming the environment in which we live into a putrid sewer. The US's war crimes and crimes against humanity are recognised with decorations and Nobel Prizes. Indeed, by their devastating effects on the environment.

Ukraine

Natural and semi-natural vegetation covers 29% of the country, boasting around 220 different landscape types, from forests to steppes, from marshes to salt marshes. It has endemic and residual species. It occupies less than 6% of the European area, yet it holds 35% of its diversity.⁽⁷⁾

Since the beginning of the war, in February 2022, this situation has completely changed:

at least 1.24 million hectares of nature reserves have been affected by the war. 3 million hectares of forest have been damaged, and another 450,000 hectares are currently occupied territory or combat zones… There have been countless fires in oil depots, gas stations, landfills, and damage to heating, water supply, and sewage systems. (ibid)

Unfortunately, there is also incalculable damage in the Black Sea, which certainly didn't need any more damage after decades of pollution during the USSR era. The "comrades" were not above reducing this sea to a gigantic dump of toxic waste of all kinds. Furthermore, Crimea has always been, and still is, the site of a naval base, first for Catherine the Great, then the Soviet Union, and now for Putin’s Russia. All these vessels produce large quantities of CO2 and therefore greenhouse gases; augmented by the sinking of several warships and commercial vessels, such as the Moldavian oil tanker Millennial Spirit, which sank with its entire cargo, carrying 500 tons of diesel fuel — a disaster for fish and the already severely compromised marine ecosystem.

The dramatic tally of CO2 emissions during the three years of war, which adds to the even more dramatic tally of hundreds of thousands of victims, including dead and wounded, is compiled annually by the "Initiative on GHG Accounting of War",⁽⁸⁾ with contributions from international authors and Ukrainian oversight. It attempts to take into account the growth in emissions caused by military operations:

… in Ukraine, we have now exceeded 200 million tons of CO2 equivalent, climate-altering emissions that, to give an idea, are close in value to what all of Spain releases in a year... or 120 million cars in a year.

Unfortunately, even before the war, the populations of Ukraine and Romania in particular were victims of another territorial and environmental devastation, which went almost unnoticed. On 30 January 2000, in the Romanian mining town of Baia Mare, there was an accident second only to the Chernobyl disaster in terms of severity. Here they were not at war, but the working conditions were not very different. The gold in the mine is sparse, and to make it more competitive, massive quantities of cyanide were used, so:

...when a mountain of water poured, from a containment lake where the mine waste ended up, onto the rich river system of the area, water "rich" in cyanide—used by the Australian multinational Esmeralda Exploration to extract gold—poisoned an immense territory. The most disastrous environmental catastrophe since Chernobyl ever to occur in Europe.⁽⁹⁾

The release of cyanide, combined with other metals such as zinc and copper, into various rivers and streams, most recently the Danube, polluted half of Europe, and last but not least, the Danube carried all these poisons into the Black Sea. It was a path of destruction that would make Attila the Hun envious: cows, birds, thousands of tons of fish from the rivers and the Black Sea, dead in the blink of an eye. Forget about "grass no longer grows" after Attila’s horde had passed —that was child's play in comparison. Forget about Attila "the scourge of God." The real scourge, with its trail of death, is capital and its insatiable thirst for profit.

Palestine – Gaza Strip

If you want to see the true face of the bourgeoisie, look at what's happening in Gaza and you'll have the answer. It's truly disgusting to hear various TV pundits, the worst of the worst of the disinformation outlets, but also the best — that is the best of the bourgeoisie, the most charitable and the most "humane" — dissecting the word ‘genocide’. All the interpretations of a word that changes depending on the interests at stake, and which doesn't change the substance of the ongoing carnage one iota. A carnage that with surgical precision smashes children and women to pieces, and where the munitions can't reach, hunger and thirst complete the work of destruction and annihilation. Now, call all this what you will. It was the Polish-Jewish jurist and lawyer Raphael Lemkin (who lost almost his entire family in the Holocaust), a faithful employee in the service of the bourgeoisie (especially the American and Israeli ones), who first used the word ‘genocide’. Irony of history: the state of Israel learned the lesson so well that it is today among the worst perpetrators of genocide, or executioners, you decide.

When we talk about the environment, we cannot ignore the living conditions of the human race; and when we say ‘human race’, we are talking about the exploited and subordinated masses, that is, the proletariat. Because, subjecting an entire civilian population to constant bombing to the point of razing an entire territory, simply to occasionally catch some vile Hamas terrorist or their worthy comrades, is, to paraphrase Torquato Tasso⁽¹⁰⁾ in Jerusalem Delivered (what a coincidence):

The work of men who were born from the furious waves of the sea, and from the cold Caucasus, and who were suckled at the teats of the ferocious Hyrcanian tiger. These cursed and merciless men, who command Israel, have not given even the slightest sign of being human. Have they perhaps shed a single tear or breathed a single sigh for the pain of millions of Gazans?

Moreover, Israel certainly can claim a record in ecocide. That is, having transformed Gaza not only into an open-air prison but also into a pile of rubble and poison where agriculture, fishing, livestock farming, etc. are a memory. What does open-air prison, as used by tons of reformists and leftists of every shade mean? If only there were air! As of 8 November 2024, Israel had "donated" 85,000 tons in bombs; planes, drones, armoured vehicles, tanks that roam from morning to night: all CO2.

The sky, a black pall like a roof, the thousands of faces and mangled bodies in the hearts of the survivors. Just a macabre prison subjected to daily bombing.

Furthermore, many thousands of these bombs fail to explode. Thus, the prison has been reduced to rubble and a minefield. It would be interesting to take a walk with the world's elite, which acquiesces in seeing the Palestinians blown to pieces. To avoid any misunderstanding, this also applies to the war in Ukraine and all other wars. Wars unleashed by the bourgeoisie to defend its dirty interests which have only one name: profit. The proletariat does not, and cannot, defend its own bourgeoisie; it must therefore stand against global capitalism, which in turn is aligned with the various national flags against the proletariat of the world.

We conclude our brief journey to Palestine with a quote from Mohammed el Bakri, who works for the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, a Palestinian NGO:

Before October 7th, in our work with farmers, fishermen, women, and marginalised families, we were trying to increase people's resilience and protect their right to manage their own natural resources. We had reached a point where we had to import almost no white meat into Gaza and only 50% of red meat. After October 7th, all our efforts were shattered: 90% of agricultural land was destroyed, and with it the agri-food infrastructure.⁽¹¹⁾

We don't think any further comments are necessary, except that, on top of all this, the population is being deliberately starved by preventing access to humanitarian and food aid. Here, they don't care about CO2, even if its "production" is booming. For those lucky enough to see it, the sky is becoming increasingly darker.

There is no doubt, then, that armaments, both in times of war and peace, are among the major causes of the greenhouse effect and global warming. Yet, despite everything, military spending is growing year after year:

Estimates released at the end of April by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) show a new record for global military spending in 2024: $2,718 billion, 2.5% of global gross domestic product (GDP). This represents a 9.4% increase compared to the previous year, the largest increase recorded since the end of the Cold War.⁽¹²⁾

It's not clear how these calculations are made because last year's SIPRI report stated that:

...in 2023, global military spending reached $2,443 billion, a historic record, with a 6.8% increase over the previous year.⁽¹³⁾

If we do the maths, we see that the increase is actually 11.257%. The $2,718 billion corresponds to the 2024 GDP of Spain and the Netherlands combined. Beyond all else, it's a crazy expense that only madmen can continue to increase, insulting hundreds of millions of human beings who live in hardship and the victims who die of hunger. All this helps us understand the enormous mockery of the annual meeting of the so-called COP on climate change which has never addressed any of the major factors of environmental and atmospheric pollution. Even in the most optimistic scenario — i.e. if the world's capitalist predators did reach meaningful agreements to reduce the use of fossil fuels and therefore carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases — spending on armaments and wars would force them to start all over again. This is simply because, as we have seen so far, military spending, armaments, and wars, in addition to robbing the underprivileged classes of resources, in addition to fattening the pigs that create death and despair, desolate the environment and undermine any effort to reduce CO2 emissions.

Moreover, we must always hope that some Dr. Strangelove — and many of them are looming on the horizon — doesn't get his fingers twitching and imitate Mr. Truman, giving us another Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Let's keep in mind that today an atomic bomb can be up to 24 times more powerful than Hiroshima. The direct death toll (those who died in the first three to four months after the bombs were dropped) was over 200,000.

Oceans, Seas, Rivers and Lakes: The Greenhouse Effect on the Oceans

Carbon dioxide dissolves in water, forming carbonic acid (H2CO3), which lowers the pH and acidifies the water, thus threatening life in the oceans. This is all a consequence of global warming, which not only endangers marine life and the marine environment, but also endangers life on land. It's important to understand that the oceans function as thermo-regulators of the global climate; they absorb and release heat. And here begins the familiar story of global warming due to anthropogenic emissions, that is, all human activities: from industry to agriculture, from traffic (the automotive industry) to air conditioning, from heating to Internet use (servers, etc.), from deforestation to war. But here also begins capitalism’s familiar story: a story which subordinates every human activity to its own interests, and its interests are profit.

A cotton-spinning machine is a machine for spinning cotton. Only under certain conditions does it become capital. Torn away from these conditions, it is as little capital as gold is itself money, or sugar is the price of sugar.⁽¹⁴⁾

Capitalism does not produce goods to satisfy needs but only commodities — and it does so under certain conditions, namely, that the commodity is measured by its money price: gold. If you ask an environmentalist, an ecologist, all the way up to the pseudo-radicals of the left, who they think is to blame for these disasters, the majority will answer, albeit with varying nuances, that it is “ours”. Capitalist production relations, despite some severe reprimands, usually emerge absolved so that they can be put on the right path. Thus, the CO2 emissions dictated by the very survival of capitalist accumulation, are a necessary path for the ruling class, unless and until green, ecological, biodynamic production, etc., become attractive in their turn. All this, whilst leaving unchanged the capitalist relations of production that are at the root of these disasters and which will continue for a long time to come. Half of the world's oxygen is generated in the oceans. Greenhouse gas emissions, as already seen, are leading to a rise in temperature that:

...is accumulating in the Earth's climate system. Most of the heat, about 89%, is stored in the oceans; about 6% is global warming; 4% is warming the cryosphere (with the consequent melting of glaciers, including those on mountains. Editor's note) and about 1% the atmosphere. Ocean warming has important consequences, such as increased stratification in the ocean, altered ocean currents, rising sea levels, reduced carbon solubility in ocean water, impacts on marine ecosystems, and many impacts on Earth's cryosphere.⁽¹⁵⁾

In short, to keep things simple: the surface layer illuminated by the sun is well oxygenated, oxygen is distributed, but as you go deeper, the oxygen concentration decreases. This is due to stratification, and therefore to the lack of mixing of waters, currents, and so on, and all of this is always due to CO2 emissions.

In the period 2011/20, the average increase was 0.88°C compared to the period 1850/1900. In April 2023, the average sea surface temperature reached a record high of 21.1°C, and projections indicate that this trend will continue.⁽¹⁶⁾

Coral reefs demonstrate unequivocally the extent of the disaster that human activity has created under capitalist production relations, with a single denominator: profit. The splendid colours of the Great Barrier Reef are due to a unicellular algae (which scientists call "zooxanthellae") which lives in symbiosis with corals. In addition to producing these colours, thanks to the process of photosynthesis, it represents an important source of energy for the algae. With rising sea temperatures and pollution, corals react by expelling this symbiotic algae, resulting in "coral bleaching," which can lead to their death, and in turn the loss of habitat for many marine species. It also has negative effects on the marine ecosystem, biodiversity, and the economy, as coral reefs are also important for coastal protection and fishing. Of course, when we talk about the economy, we must never forget that we're talking about a capitalist economy, with all that this entails.

As if that weren't enough, let's briefly mention another devastating source of stress for the seas and oceans that is looming on the near horizon: deep-sea mining. Deep-sea mining of polymetallic nodules are now of great economic interest, as they contain a variety of precious metals, such as copper, nickel, cobalt, and manganese, which are important for the production of batteries and other industrial products. The ravenous voracity of capital mercilessly attacks wherever it sees the opportunity to fill its wallet, even at the expense of disrupting marine ecosystems, biodiversity, etc.

Rivers and lakes have long since become veritable roads and highways, "conveyor belts" for all the worst that exists in the environment. They are receptacles for plastic dumping that, over time, actually become micro- and nanoplastics. On April 7, a special edition of the journal Science and Pollution Research published the results of fourteen studies, which reported that nine major European rivers are experiencing worrying levels of micro- and nanoplastic pollution, posing risks to biodiversity and human health.⁽¹⁷⁾ Furthermore, these microplastics absorb toxic substances (pesticides and heavy metals) like sponges, becoming carriers of poisons and bacteria. Twenty-five percent of these plastics come from industry and agriculture. Unfortunately, this is expected to grow: it will triple between now and 2060. Of course, detergents, pharmaceuticals, hygiene products, etc. are also included. Needless to say, the vast majority of these veritable poisons end up "enriching" the sea.

Water

Water is a fundamental resource, yet it can also be a source of disastrous floods and poisons. Oxfam's latest report on the consequences of the climate crisis on water in Africa (and obviously beyond) is dramatic. We, of course, consult it for the data it provides; the solutions it proposes — all based on the goodwill of men and women fighting against inequality like Don Quixote tilting at windmills — are another matter entirely. Here too, the aim is to fight against the capitalist ruling classes with good deeds, similar to the missionaries who supported the murderous plunder of colonial states, yet bestowed holy blessings on the savage natives.

A dramatic report:

In Eastern and Southern Africa, climate chaos is leaving over 116 million people literally without water, exponentially increasing levels of food insecurity. The intensification of increasingly extreme weather events—such as droughts, cyclones, and flash floods—is causing the depletion or contamination of underground aquifers.⁽¹⁸⁾

All these phenomena are caused by climate change, global warming, and anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, the main culprits for which are in the most advanced countries, or, to put it as it should be put: the main culprit is the capitalist system, which produces, beyond the various product sectors, a single "commodity": profit.

The situation in these countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Somalia, South Sudan, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) is increasingly dramatic. Suffice it to say that in the last 5 years, the number of people affected by acute malnutrition has risen by 80%, from almost 31 million in 2019 to over 55 million in 2024. This represents two out of ten inhabitants. An emergency caused by a climate crisis that is now beyond our control. We cannot forget that, between 2000 and 2022, flash floods globally have become 20 times more frequent and the duration of droughts has increased by 29%. (ibid.)

To learn more, we refer you to the report itself. This sad, deadly and heartbreaking litany keeps on repeating itself: “Flood in South Kivu: more than 400 victims, 5,500 missing”; (Il Manifesto, 10 May 2023); “DR Congo, more than one hundred dead in the floods in South Kivu”; (africarivista.it, 12 May 2025). Alas: it never rains but it pours.

If we move to the industrial or economically more developed countries, the so-called ‘West’, water consumption can be measured with a certain precision, through what they call the "water footprint," that is, direct and indirect water consumption. Italy, for example, ranks 7th in Europe with 6,300 litres per capita per day. It is mainly indirect use that increases consumption. This is gauged by measuring the volume of water consumed in the production of a product and the amount needed to dilute pollutants, throughout all stages of the production and distribution chain, up to the final consumer. Again, we don't want to overstate the issue, so one very clear example will suffice to better understand the matter: producing one kilogram of beef requires approximately 15,000 litres of water.

Another issue that isn't often discussed is PFAS (poly- and perfluoroalkyl compounds — a group of man-made chemicals containing carbon-fluorine bonds). They are highly persistent in nature, harmful to the body, and carcinogenic and better known as eternal pollutants:

Eternal pollutants are present in 79% of drinking water samples analysed by Greenpeace Italy across the country as part of the independent investigation "Water without poisons on PFAS." These are synthetic chemical compounds that do not exist in nature, because they are produced exclusively by human activities. Many PFAS act as endocrine disruptors and can cause damage to the thyroid, liver, immune system, and fertility. But those classified as carcinogenic have also been found in drinking water.⁽¹⁹⁾

In short, there's definitely something not to be happy about. But there's not only the damage of poisoning here, there's also the insult that we're being made to pay through the nose for water.

In conclusion, let’s briefly mention a series of topics that are just as important as those already considered but which are generally more flagged up by the media and thus more well-known to the public. From time to time we explore these issues in our press, for there is no productive sector that escapes the rapacious hands of capitalism. ... Deforestation, for example, is constantly and continuously increasing:

In 2024, the destruction of the tropical rainforest reached the highest level in at least twenty years due to fires fuelled by climate change and a worsening situation in Brazil. 6.7 million hectares of tropical forest have been destroyed, an area almost the size of Panama. This is the highest figure since the Global Forest Watch surveys began in 2002, developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in collaboration with the University of Maryland.⁽²⁰⁾

As already mentioned, destroying forests and trees further exacerbates global warming because they no longer contribute to "eating" carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and the release of oxygen.

Intensive livestock farming is the predominant method in Europe, as in the world, for producing the meat, dairy products, and eggs that reach our tables every day: it is unanimously recognised as one of the most polluting industrial sectors in the world and in 2024 was reckoned to be responsible for approximately 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions. The Po Valley has one of the highest concentrations of intensive livestock farming in Europe, which leads to air and water pollution, not to mention ammonia emissions:

ISPRA data clearly tells us that ammonia produced by the intensive livestock farming system in Italy is the second leading cause (16.6%) of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5). smaller and more dangerous.⁽²¹⁾

The animals live almost one on top of the other. We read about chickens that are forced into very small spaces: the size of an A4 sheet of paper, that is, to be clear, 29.7 x 21.0 cm! And from here the transition to disease outbreaks is, so to speak, less than a small step away: avian influenza, swine flu, swine fever, and Q fever, which under certain conditions can also be transmitted to humans.

Then there are the Big Tech companies, which, with their artificial intelligence data centres, and the digital economy as a whole, are responsible for approximately 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. They are voracious consumers of energy, especially fossil fuels, but are also preparing for massive use of fourth-generation nuclear power.

This list also includes rare earths and the no-holds-barred battle to challenge China for its monopoly, even if it means mining the moon. Of course, it goes without saying that rare earths also pollute the environment:

...Extracting them (the metals) requires highly complex processes, which use harmful and highly dangerous substances for the environment, such as nitric acid...⁽²²⁾

But that's not all:

An investigation by On Global Witness shows the devastating impacts of the toxic mining industry in the semi-autonomous region of Kachin, bordering China. Yet another 'sacrifice zone' where an entire ecosystem of a fragile country is paying the price for the energy transition of industrialized economies.⁽²³⁾

Then there is the entire automotive industry, with all its heavy burden of greenhouse gases; and with all the burden of a large part of the capitalist class that strongly opposes the slow decline of electric vehicles. This is a topic we have already addressed and will return to. In the meantime, we should point out a new record has been set.

In January 2025, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a record level of 426.03 parts per million. This represents an increase of 3.8 parts in a single year, a leap not seen since the 1950s when monitoring began. For the climate future, it's a tragedy.⁽²⁴⁾

And, as we know, the usual capitalist swine thrive on tragedy. In the last two years, 722 of the world's largest companies have made almost $1 trillion in extra profits. 25% of which are fossil fuels, or $250 billion. And let’s not overlook the fact that the 10% richest part of the world's population is capable of producing half of the total CO2 emissions, while a large portion of those less well-off, nearly 50% of the world's population, produces just 10% of that total.

We cannot stress enough that responsibility for the disaster of nature and the environment falls on capitalism with its greed for profit. We also remind ourselves not to be taken in by fake communists and fake friends of the proletariat, who continually preach unity of purpose between the working class and the capitalists. As if poverty and wealth could be reconciled; labour power and capital, two antithetical terms.

Let’s conclude with Marx:

Thus capital creates the bourgeois society, and the universal appropriation of nature as well as of the social bond itself by the members of society. Hence the great civilizing influence of capital; its production of a stage of society in comparison to which all earlier ones appear as mere local developments of humanity and as nature-idolatry. For the first time, nature becomes purely an object for humankind, purely a matter of utility; ceases to be recognized as a power for itself; and the theoretical discovery of its autonomous laws appears merely as a ruse so as to subjugate it under human needs, whether as an object of consumption or as a means of production. In accord with this tendency, capital drives beyond national barriers and prejudices as much as beyond nature worship, as well as all traditional, confined, complacent, encrusted satisfactions of present needs, and reproductions of old ways of life. It is destructive towards all of this, and constantly revolutionizes it, tearing down all the barriers which hem in the development of the forces of production, the expansion of needs, the all-sided development of production, and the exploitation and exchange of natural and mental forces.⁽²⁵⁾

Capital and nature are also natural opponents. It is up to the proletariat, armed with its revolutionary party, to send the bourgeoisie and all its hangers-on, its squalid servants, into their overheated hell, before it is too late.

T.
Battaglia Comunista

Notes:

CWO translation from Prometeo 32, slightly abridged and with additional footnotes.

(1) Rerum novarum (Of New Things) was an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. It condemned socialism and the worst excesses of laissez faire capitalism for its treatment of workers. This factor gained him an unwarranted reputation as being in favour of the working class. It would become a cornerstone of the party of Christian Democracy that formed Italian post-war governments until the 1990s when the whole corrupt edifice came crashing down amidst a series of scandals.

(2) Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

(3) Il manifesto, 13/06/2024

(4) peacelink.it

(5) It was the first international agreement to include commitments by industrialised countries to reduce emissions of certain greenhouse gases, responsible for global warming. It was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December 11, 1997, and entered into force on February 16, 2005. The gases in question are: carbon dioxide (CO2); methane (CH4); nitrous oxide (N2O); hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs); perfluorocarbons (PFCs); and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).

(6) britannica.com

(7) Il manifesto, 25/02/2023

(8) planetarysecurityinitiative.org

(9) loc cit.

(10) Tasso was a sixteenth century poet, famed for this poem about the Crusades entitled Jerusalem Delivered. The “Hyrcanian forest” runs from Azerbaijan into Iran and is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hyrcania is the Greek rendering of the Old Persian “Verkana” which means “wolf land”.

(11) Il manifesto, 21/03/2007

(12) altreconomia.it

(13) Il manifesto, 13/06/2024

(14) Karl Marx, Wage Labour and Capital

(15) marine.copernicus.eu

(16) Il manifesto, 13/06/2024

(17) Il Fatto Quotidiano, 13/04/2025

(18) oxfamitalia.org

(19) ilfattoquotidiano.it

(20) Internazionale, 21/05/2025

(21) ilfattoquotidiano.it

(22) Paolo Gila, Le mappe del tesoro. Geopolitica delle materie prime

(23) altreconomia.it

(24) Il manifesto, 30/04/2025

(25) Karl Marx, Grundrisse