Peter Grimes: THE HORSEMEN AND THE KILLING FIELDS #1of3

[forwarded by Mark Jones]

The Final Contradiction of Capitalism

Peter Grimes
Johns Hopkins University
Dept. of Sociology
Telephone: (410)-366-4329
E-mail: p34d3611@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu





Paper presented at the XXI Annual meetings of the Political Economy of the
World-System April 3-6, University of California at Santa Cruz 1997

>>>INTRODUCTION<<<

We live today in a time of unprecedented crisis on a global scale.  This is 
a
point of agreement shared by most scientists examining planetary trends.  
It is
also a point many non-scientists sense intuitively.  They show their fear in
subtle but revealing ways: rising support for religious fundamentalism, 
ethnic
separatism, millenarianism, and a generalized "hunkering down" into enclaves
within which they feel "safe" against a dark and uncertain future.  This 
popular
sentiment is a murky reaction to real threats only occasionally referenced 
by the
sanctioned media--erratic and violent weather; generation-long and global 
rises in
the rates of cancer, inequality, and poverty; urban unemployment; shrinking
government services.  These are global and long-term trends from which 
no-one is
immune.  Yet they are subject to local variations and reversals (such as the
current drop in US crime and unemployment rates), allowing for the transient
illusion that one or another nation, region, class, or ethnicity may be 
safe.  But
these illusions only fuel motivation for the very separatism that can block
effective global solutions.
 The reality felt only dimly on a popular level is well known to the 
scientific
community.  Rates of economic growth fell world-wide between the Seventies 
and the
early Nineties, while the biosphere continues to be shredded ever more 
efficiently
by such growth as remains (NYT:6/17/1997,C-8).  Global warming, 
deforestation,
collapsing fisheries, and Ozone depletion are collectively combining to 
touch
everyday life, while new versions of old diseases are reviving ancient 
plagues.
At the same time, the contraction of high-wage jobs has cut into the tax 
base of
governments across the core, encouraging them to cut social spending at the 
very
time that it is needed the most.
 The crisis is real, urgent, and global.  Popular fear is warranted.  But 
without
correct information, that fear lends itself to manipulation by demagogues
preaching isolation and separation for personal gain, thereby erecting 
barriers of
fear to the very cooperation that is so necessary for common survival.  
Presented
here is an effort to provide needed scientific information about our crisis 
in a
clear, systematic, and accessible way, reaching for a unified analysis that 
links
the elimination of "Nature" with the economic deprivation of everyday life, 
while
showing at the same time why the urge toward political separatism is both so
tempting yet so collectively fatal.
 Since the crises of the biosphere, economy, and political legitimacy are 
mutually
interactive, the unraveling of their causal links is similar to teasing 
apart a
knot in thread--all of the parts are connected, so the place to begin is 
almost
arbitrary.  Here we start at the ground and move up, both conceptually and
ecologically.


>>> EVOLUTION AND HABITAT <<<

 All life processes are driven by energy, and for the vast majority of 
organisms
the source of that energy is solar, captured first by the plants and then
sequentially consumed by herbivores and carnivores.  Under typical 
conditions
plants capture about 2% of the incoming sunlight, while herbivores and 
carnivores
can at best access 10% of the energy stored in the bodies of plants and 
grazing
animals, respectively (Bonner, 1988; Colinvaux, 1978).  In these terms of 
energy
flow, the various means by which human societies have been organized
(e.g.--hunter-gatherer bands, horticultural chiefdoms, agricultural empires,
and the current structures of global capitalism) can be understood as 
ever-more
aggressive efforts to channel solar energy away from competing species and 
toward
exclusively human consumption.  The nested problems of our times can also be
stated in these thermodynamic terms as arising from the collision of our 
expanding
energy consumption with the limits set by primary plant production.1
 The dependence of humans upon plant production has ultimately forced our 
species
to relinquish its original freedom as roaming gatherers, scavengers, and
occasional hunters in favor of securing a predictable future food supply as
farmers, thereby cutting out the "middlemen" of herbivore insects and 
animals. The
passage of the millennia since those initial settlements has allowed plenty 
of
time for the development of agricultural techniques that maximized 
yield/acre,
technologies specifically adapted to local conditions of soil and climate.  
One of
our current problems lies with the mis-application of techniques developed 
for the
temperate regions to the tropics.  But to understand why this is, we must 
first
digress into the question of soil types.

Climate, Plants, and Soils

 The climactic stability of the period since the end of the last ice age has
allowed for the stable reproduction of locally adapted plants, which give 
the
appearance of being, in the words of one ecologist, "Nation-States of Trees"
(Colinvaux, 1978, Chapt. 5).  Huge areas of continents world-wide are 
dominated by
a narrow range of similar tree, bush, and grass varieties.  Below the arctic
tundra are hundreds of miles of conifers and other evergreens, merging as 
one
moves south almost imperceptibly into deciduous hardwoods, themselves 
gradually
giving way to either desert cacti or tropical broadleaf softwoods, 
depending on
the abundance of rain.  Finally, of course, there is the broad band of 
tropical
rainforest around the equator, the object of so much recent world attention.
 Ecological investigation has demonstrated that these broad areas of plant
similarity are the products of evolutionary selection responding to the 
climactic
stability experienced within each of these different "biomes": a stability 
of
temperature, wind, and precipitation acting over the 9 millennia since the 
end of
the last glaciation (Colinvaux, 1978, Chapt. 5).  The key insight that 
explains
these various plant forms is their efforts to maintain the conditions of
temperature, sunlight, and nutrient flow that will optimize photosynthesis 
within
the limits imposed by their local climates.  Below the arctic tree-line the
dominant vegetation are evergreens.  The needle shape of their "leaves" 
minimizes
the heat loss of evaporative cooling while still allowing for a high 
density of
chloroplasts (the site of photosynthesis), which gives them their dark green
color.  Further, this shape's thermal efficiency allows the needles to be
productive of sugar energy even during very cold and/or cloudy periods.
 South of the broad belt of conifers lies a contiguous belt of mixed 
conifers and
deciduous trees.  During the summers of this northern temperate zone, the
broad-leafed deciduous trees are at a distinct advantage, gathering solar 
energy
much faster than their conifer cousins.  But during the winter, the 
conditions are
exactly as in the arctic.  Here the needle strategy excels over the 
broad-leaf,
allowing the conifers to prosper while the broad-leaf plants have given up
altogether, shedding their leaf factories and escaping into hibernation.  
When the
line of arctic weather retreats northward in the spring, the deciduous 
broad-leaf
strategy once again triumphs, and the broad leaves are generated anew.  
Further
south, below the southernmost reach of the arctic winter, the high rate of
evaporative cooling characteristic of the broad-leaf deciduous trees 
becomes an
adaptive advantage, because the summers are warm and humid.  Under these
conditions the conifer strategy no longer pays off, because needles become 
too hot
in the summer and don't compensate adequately during the short and mild 
winters.
 In the deserts, plant life takes on shapes that minimize the surface area 
exposed
to the sun while maximizing the surface area exposed to wind--the exact 
opposite
of the conifers of the north.  Also, they have evolved means of carefully 
guarding
their water against unnecessary loss.  Yet they share with the tundra 
plants of
the far north the quality of extremely slow growth, reflecting the severity 
of the
struggle against their harsh climates, a struggle that allows only the most 
meager
rate of biomass accumulation.
 At last we come to the tropics, where weather is stable year-round, except 
when
punctuated by storms.  As in the desert, the sheer abundance of sunlight 
requires
some mechanism of cooling.  However the copious supply of water allows for 
very
broad-leaved plants to prosper, shedding excess heat by maximizing 
evaporative
cooling.  The absence of winter means both that the broad leaves can be 
retained
permanently and that thick hard bark is unnecessary.  All of the retained 
solar
energy can be thereby released for growth, a condition that generates the
profusion of biomass stereotypical of our images of tropical jungles.
 Most of these plant 'designs' had evolved long before the last ice age.  
But it
has only been since the last ice age that they assumed their current 
geographic
positions.2   During the 9 millennia since, they have changed the 
composition of
the soils beneath them in fundamental ways, ways that continue to channel 
where
and how we can grow food.

>>> AGRICULTURE <<<

Soil, Plants, and Social Structure

 In the broad belt of conifers ringing the arctic, centuries of needle
accumulation have led to acidic soils of limited agricultural value, even 
in areas
having a growing season.  But further south, in the mixed boreal/deciduous
forests, and even more in the purely deciduous biomes, the fallen leaves 
have
lower acidity.  Further, the annual winters retard the decomposition 
process,
allowing for the slow accretion of organic humus at the rate of about one 
inch per
century (Colinvaux, 1978, Chapt 7).  This organic residue is unique to the
temperate zones and has gradually altered soil chemistry so as both to 
infuse it
with nutrients and also to make it chemically more receptive to bonding 
with them.
It is this same combination of soil ingredients unique to the temperate 
zone that
allows for the irresponsible farmer to re-use the same plot of land almost
indefinitely.
 Further south still (skipping over the deserts) in the tropics, the 
majority of
the soil is sterile.  This appears bizarre when one considers the plush and
abundant growth of a rainforest.  The answer lies in the vigorous and 
competitive
growth of life enabled by the constant moist warmth there.  The surface 
life on
top of the soil (fungi, bacteria, insects, and their predators) so quickly 
and
efficiently devours fallen dead wood and animals that their nutrients never 
get
the chance to get absorbed by the ground.  Any molecular morsel remaining 
after
this thorough treatment by decomposers is eagerly snatched by the network of
near-surface roots supplying the forest trees.  The evolutionary efficiency 
of
this matrix of life in the rainforest (ultimately powered by the constant 
stream
of intense solar energy) prevents the percolation of nutrients down into 
the soil,
thereby disabling the chemical processes that sustain the gray-brown soils 
of the
temperate zones.  Instead, tropic and near-tropic soils are red, having 
long ago
been washed clean by millennia of rain of the clay silicates that capture 
and
reproduce the gray-brown humus of the temperate biomes.3
 When our ancient ancestors eventually became compelled by population 
growth to
abandon the hunter-gatherer life for the more predictable and controlled 
foraging
and eventual planting of  what would slowly unfold into horticultural 
production,
they became tethered to particular locations, their ranges constricted by 
the
requirements of crop maintenance.  This "neolithic revolution" can be
reconstructed by the artifacts recovered by archeologists, and allows us to 
locate
and date the earliest settlements.  The earliest evidence dates from around
9->7,000 years BP (7->5,000 BC, or almost immediately after the end of the 
"ice
age"), and the majority of locations lie between 200 and 400 north of the 
equator
(Sanderson, 1995:112-120).
 Abundant evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer bands were well aware of 
the
technology of horticulture long before they chose to use it, presumably 
because
they knew also that it would require much more time and energy than they 
were
willing to invest.  But, eventually, growing population density in the 
temperate
regions required the shift to plant cultivation in order to reduce 
between-group
competition and warfare.4  The same processes also operated in both the 
tropics
and the polar regions, but the much poorer land productivity there 
precluded the
solution adopted in the temperate realms of increasing land productivity:
instead, competing groups were compelled to separate from each other across 
much
greater spaces in order to survive, or else be condemned to constant warfare
(Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1997).
 For the peoples of the north polar regions living atop or just south of 
the vast
ice-sheets capping the arctic, exploitation of plant energy was never a 
serious
option.  Instead, they were compelled by the constraints of their climate 
to live
as carnivores, searching out prey (marine and terrestrial) whose migrations 
north
served as imports of solar energy from the south.  Hence the development of
complex societies based upon dense human settlements was vitiated from the 
start.
 Similar constraints operated in the tropics.  This may at fisrt seem 
strange.
After all, it is the tropics that have always had the strongest and most
consistent input of solar energy leading to the greatest biodiversity, and 
may
well have been the initial environment of the first humans.  Yet most of 
the areas
of initial Neolithic settlement are well north of the tropics.5  Once 
again, the
answer lies in the soil.
 Among indigineous peoples still living in the tropics, rotating 
slash-and-burn
(swidden) horticulture continues to be the technology of choice.  This is 
because
the ashes left from burning temporarily boosts the fertility of the soil, 
allowing
for the growth of edible plants until the soils are again washed clean by 
the
rains.  Once harvested, the cultivated area is deliberately allowed to 
revert to
forest.  Over eons this strategy has worked, because the small size of the 
plots
of land involved is well within the scale that can be eventually 
repopulated by
the limited colonization strategies available to vegetation in the tropics.
However, the ecological constraints placed on the reproduction and spread of
tropical plants places a strict upper limit on the density of human 
population
that can be supported by swidden technology.  This ecological barrier--as 
rigorous
as that operating in the polar regions--here again prevented the emergence 
of the
densities of human settlement required for complex social systems, forever
stalling the development of societies more complex than chiefdoms in the 
tropics.
 These pre-conditions of long-term soil fertility are found only in the 
soils
beneath the temperate forests.  Hence the neolithic breakthrough to 
collectively
managed horticulture on a large scale was both compelled by the population 
density
accumulating in favorable climates while yet also being enabled by the 
combination
of solar energy and soil fertility peculiar to those climates.  This 
technical and
organizational revolution was also the first historical demonstration of an
ability perhaps unique to humanity--the capacity to collectively plan and 
execute
a strategy to deliberately and systematically divert solar energy away from
competing life-forms toward human use.6
 The soils laid down and evolving under the deciduous broad-leaf regions 
north of
the tropics were of the gray sort most fertile for cultivation, which had 
been
gradually stocking up precious topsoil at the rate of one inch per century. 
 These
were the soils that became the ecological foundation for the complex 
"tributary"7
empires of our past--the Mesopotamian civilizations, the Harrapan, Mauryan 
and
Gupta civilizations of India, the Han dynasty of China, the Greco-Roman 
empires.
But although more tolerant of human agricultural exploitation than other 
soil
types, they can still be exhausted by sufficient mis-use.  The current arid
sterility of the middle-east and much of the peninsulas of the 
Mediterranean bears
quiet testimony to the depredations of past abuse: massive deforestation 
(allowing
erosion of topsoil) along with grossly excessive irrigation (salting the 
soil to
toxic levels).  Recent research suggests that the collapse of more than one 
empire
may have been rooted in soil depletion (Runnels, 1995; Chew, 1996).  But 
despite
these excesses the greater fertility of the bulk of the temperate regions
eventually came to support the highest population densities on the planet
throughout the nine millennia since the neolithic revolution.


>>>CAPITALIST TECHNOLOGY AND GLOBAL AGRICULTURE<<<

Machinery and Fossil Fuels

 Capitalist production relations in the agricultural sector did not of 
itself
immediately change the technology of food production refined during the 
centuries
of the tributary mode.8  Europe had, by the 18th Century, long been 
familiar with
the medieval use of the three-field rotation system that restored soil 
fertility
by the growth of nitrogen-fixing plants (often legumes or clover) as one of 
the
three crops; South-East Asia had likewise settled the technical aspects of 
optimum
production for rice paddies; while the Andean peoples of the Incan 
civilization
had devised ingenious methods of prolonging the growing season for potatoes 
by
planting them in raised rows adjacent to troughs of water.  Each of these
approaches to maximizing land productivity had evolved over centuries of
experimentation in their respective regional biomes, and the development (or
imposition via conquest) of capitalism did not change these approaches.
 However, the adaptation of steam power to the development of the first 
tractors
near the turn of the 20th Century was one of the very first applications of 
the
current era of technological revolution to a rural environment.  While 
designed
originally as a replacement for the horse, the early tractors were too 
expensive
for purchase by the typical family farmer.  So instead entrepreneurs would 
buy
them cooperatively while also hiring men to operate and maintain them, and 
send
these teams of men and machines from farm to farm for hire.  The beginning 
of this
new technology was in the United States, both because that was where the 
first
manufacturers of this equipment were located, and because farmers in the 
U.S. were
relatively wealthy as compared to their counterparts elsewhere on the 
planet.9  As
the market for farm machinery expanded, economies of scale, Taylorism,10 and
assembly-line organization allowed the price of farm machinery to drop.
Immediately affected was the use of animals as motive power: between 1865 
and 1915
the number of horses and mules for every hectare of cropland fluctuated 
around .3,
with a high of .35 in the first year and a low of .25 in 1880 (these 
numbers and
below are all derived from figures provided by Mitchell, 1993, and US 
Bureau of
the Census, misc. years).  But after 1915 (5 years after the appearance of 
the
tractor in the records) the number began to drop consistently, passing 
below .2 in
1930, .1 in 1950 and disappearing entirely from the books in 1965 (see 
figure 1).
To this trend out for animals we see the inverse for tractors.  Starting 
with
their appearance in the census records in 1910, the number of 
tractors/hectare
planted in food crops doubled every 5 years until 1935, after which it shot 
up
dramatically, from .01 in 1935 to .08 in 1970.  These numbers provide a 
very clear
demonstration of the displacement of solar (organic) energy by fossil fuel
(machine) power.11 In addition, when we remember to include fertilizers as
themselves drawn from fossil fuels,  their application to cropland has 
closely
followed the use of tractors, again shooting up fastest after 1935 (figure 
1). The
development of machines also began to displace human labor as well.  In 
1830,
agricultural workers comprised 70% of the workforce and in 1870 50%, but as 
early
as 1913 the percentage was cut almost in half (27.5) while by 1950 it had 
shrunk
to 13 and in 1991 was only 1.6 (Maddison, 1995, table 2-5, p39; World Bank, 
1995,
table a-2, p148).  Meanwhile, the share of U.S. agricultural production as a
percentage of its GDP stayed largely the same between 1950 and 1990 (World 
Bank,
1982, 1995).
 The substitution of mechanical energy powered by fossil fuels for the 
traditional
organic labor of animals and people in all areas of production has been the 
most
important trend of our era.  But in agriculture as in all other spheres, the
transition has entailed important costs.  Here, this cost is most obvious 
in the
loss of topsoil that came with the new machinery.
 To understand why agricultural machinery has accelerated topsoil depletion 
we
must first spell out some of the side-effects of machinery itself.  The most
efficient application of large machines is to single-crop fields that are 
large.
Otherwise the farmer sacrifices the economies of scale enabled by machinery 
to
time spent changing the location and types of equipment.  Animal-drawn 
ploughs can
steer around large rocks and trees, so low capital family farms relying on 
solar
energy could function profitably along the east coast up into the 
Appalachian
mountains during the last century.  But heavy equipment works best when
unobstructed by rocks, trees, or bushes, which has led both to the westward
migration of farming within the US out of the mountains and into the plains 
states
and also to deforestation and major loss of species diversity in the plains
states.  Meanwhile, ironically, this same movement west has allowed for a
RE-forestation of the US east coast & eastern mid-west as family farms have 
gone
bankrupt (particularly black-owned farms during the depression), along with 
the
return of birds, deer, coyotes, and bears to these regions (NYT, 6/10/97, 
C-1;
Rudel and Chun, 1996).  Loss of trees and non-crop plants in active farming 
areas
eliminates wind-breaks and greatly accelerates erosion and topsoil run-off, 
while
the machinery itself cuts deeper into the ground than animal-drawn ploughs 
used
to.  (That's one reason why the Mississippi is also called the "Big Muddy", 
as
flooding and erosion flush out the best soil and the chemicals applied to 
it from
the midwest plains.)  Another spin-off problem is that the water run-off 
takes not
just topsoil but also the other chemicals applied to fields.  Just as DDT 
killed
birds, so a growth regulator found in vitamin A and used as a pesticide is
currently thought to be a leading suspect behind a massive problem of gross 
frog
mutation recently identified in Wisconsin (NPR,ATC, 5/9/97).12
 The mechanization of mono-crop agriculture, when combined with the 
application of
some kinds of petro-chemicals to enhance soil fertility, and other kinds to 
dampen
competition from weeds, and still others to decrease predation by insects or
disease, succeeded spectacularly in its original goals.  Yield per acre and 
per
worker both went up steadily throughout the 20th C. , and especially after 
WWII.
These technical changes also achieved the goal of lowering consumer prices. 
 But
there have been other, less well-advertised, effects as well.  The use of 
these
techniques has become increasingly expensive, raising the barriers to entry 
even
as they've reduced the price--and thus the profit/acre--of farming.  An 
important
result has been the consolidation of an increasingly corporate ownership 
along
with the gradual washing out (accelerated during recessions) of family 
farms.
>From a low point of an average of 140 Acres/farm in 1880, the mean size 
>stayed
roughly the same at below 150 until 1935.  Then, mimicking the other 
indicators,
it starts a sharp slope upwards of 25 to 50 acres every five years, 
reaching 461
in 1990 without showing any sign of stopping (figure 2).  Hence yield/acre 
rose
consistently starting in the depression years, but did so at the costs of a 
total
commitment to fossil fuels, artificial fertilizers, and the corporatization,
automation, and centralization of ownership and production.  The absolute 
number
of people on farms peaked also in 1935 at around 31 million, after which 
they
declined in an inverse echo of the other trends, to a mere 10 million in 
1970
(figure 2).  The same is true at an even higher level among the main beef
suppliers:  McMichael (1996:102) reports that 3 corporations headquartered 
in the
United States (Cargill, ConAgra, and Tyson's Foods), in cooperation with the
Japanese firms C. Itoh and Nippon Meat Packers supply a controlling share of
global feedlot supplies and meat products.

A Global Model: The "Green Revolution"

 The detailed focus on the agricultural pattern inside the United States is 
not
intended to be parochial.  To the contrary, I have lingered on this example
precisely because it was to become an intentional global model encouraged 
by US
policy-makers for emulation throughout the world (McMichael, 1996).  As 
early as
the Marshall Plan, the US approach to agricultural production was being 
promoted
by Washington to selected European farmers (NPR, ATC, 6/05/97).  During the
following decades, the US method of high fossil-fuel inputs was also 
extended to
the periphery as the most efficient solution to the demands of the global
agricultural market (McMichael, 1996).  The centerpiece of this campaign 
was the
"Green Revolution" (a presumed prophylactic for the spread of the dreaded 
"red"
revolutions then breaking out across the periphery).  It was an effort at a
technical "fix" (increased food production) to a social problem (class
polarization and generalized malnutrition).
 The "Green Revolution" sought to increase the yields of rice and other 
staple
crops for use in the periphery, along with building their resistance to 
predation
by insects, fungi, and bacteria.  In many ways it succeeded (and continues 
to
evolve).  However, optimal use of these altered varieties led to several
unanticipated consequences.
 For many of the crops 'improved' by breeding (particularly during the 
initial
periods of the 1960's & early '70's), more water and fertilizer were needed 
than
that traditionally applied to optimize performance.  In the case of water,
irrigation pumps were needed often enough that the introduction of these 
new crops
had the effect of raising the economic barriers to entry, along with the 
minimum
land area necessary to profit, thereby expelling poorer peasants to the 
cities
(just as US "family" farms have themselves been expelled) (Perlman, 1977; 
Burbach
and Flynn, 1980).  Alternatively, peasants pushed out of traditional land 
have
colonized the poorer soils along the mountainsides by cutting down 
rainforests.
Increased irrigation also accelerated the rate of top-soil loss and 
salinization,
resulting in a long-term post-war decline of productive land area (Pimentel,
1995).  The requisite fertilizers themselves had to be bought from the US 
or other
core countries (increasing the need for foreign exchange [US dollars] and 
thereby
also the pressure to grow cash crops for export instead of food), 
compounding
rural class polarization.  For peasants without enough money to buy new 
equipment,
the solution nearest to hand has been to have more children to increase 
family
labor-power.  This has been another unanticipated consequence of the "Green
Revolution":  delaying the completion of the demographic transition by 
prolonging
the period of high fertility in the countryside.  By tying peasant income 
directly
to the world market price for their cash crops, lower and uncertain sales 
from the
use of the new crop varieties sustained high rates of fertility (to create 
new
labor input) despite the drop in mortality brought about by new public 
health
measures (Folbre, 1977; Grimes, 1982; Mamdani, 1972).
 Further, the replacement of traditional plant species and their genetic 
diversity
by an imported group dependent on further imports is a questionable 
long-term
strategy.  As the land becomes less fertile with degradation it eventually 
is
abandoned.  Its productive life thereafter can only be extended by growing 
cocaine
or other very high-priced crops, because traditional crops do not even 
repay the
cost of the fertilizer.
 The overall result of machinery, irrigation, and petro-chemicals applied 
on a
global scale has been the corresponding amplification of the same top-soil 
loss
and land degradation that characterizes the United States.  The 
International
Commission of Scientific Unions issued a report (1997) which concludes that,
world-wide, 75 billion metric tons of topsoil are washed away annually by 
the
combination of machinery and irrigation, which corresponds to .5 inch per 
year
(recall that .5 inches represents the work of 50 years of deposition, which 
means
that, should this rate continue, only 20 more years will eliminate all of 
the
topsoil accumulated in the temperate zones since the last ice age 10,000 
BP).  In
his encyclopedic summary of global environmental issues, Caldwell (1996, 
257-8)
affirms that:


 Possibly the most serious natural resource problem now affecting all 
nations is
land degradation...many activities in traditional as well as in modern 
industrial
society contribute to the deterioration of soil quality and the loss of
agricultural land; losses include soil erosion, loss of fertility, 
laterization,
salinization and water-logging, desiccation, conversion to urban uses, and
contamination by toxic wastes...the effects of soil mismanagement are
characteristically slow, incremental, and cumulative, so that 
internationally
significant injury may not be evident until irreversible damage has been 
done.

 Bundled into this transition is also a dangerous dependence on fossil 
fuels for
most inputs to compensate.  But, unlike the temperate soils that dominate 
the
United States, a large part of the soils in the periphery are tropical, 
hence
(once large sections are cleared) they quickly become completely dependent 
upon
external inputs (Colinvaux, 1978, Chapt 7).  Hence any prolonged disruption 
(or
significant price increase) of imported inputs would necessarily result in a
dramatic contraction of output, and the transformation of the formerly 
tropical
soil into a wasteland (it cannot revert to tropical forest because of the 
soil
sterility of tropical soils discussed above (Colinvaux, 1978)).


 Crisis in Fresh Water

 A closely related problem emerging in recent years has been a growing 
shortage of
fresh water (Caldwell, 1996, 258; Maurits la Riviere, 1990: 37-48).  The 
aspect of
the global water cycle of concern here is the rate of flow.  Fresh water on 
land
is renewed by ocean evaporation (and desalinization) followed by rain over 
land,
after which it eventually returns to the sea.  Over geological time, fresh 
water
has accumulated in glacial snow packs and underground aquifers.  (A huge 
example
of the latter is the "Oglala aquifer"--named after the Sioux tribe--which
stretches from the Dakotas south as far as Kansas and Colorado.)  The 
demand for
fresh water for both irrigation (currently 70% of global demand (World Bank,
1997)) and urbanization has come to exceed the flow provided by rain, most
severely in drought-prone areas.  To compensate, deeper wells have tapped
aquifers.  The Oglala aquifer has been tapped to supply Las Vegas, Los 
Angeles,
and farms in southern California to augment the flow of the Colorado river 
(itself
so drained that during some summers it no longer makes it to the ocean).  
In the
Middle East, water access is an important obstacle to peace talks, and 
rationing
is in effect along the Gaza strip.  In the former Soviet Union, the Aral 
Sea has
contracted 50%, and the remainder has dangerous levels of salinity and
petro-toxins (BBC, "Outlook", 5/14/97).  Over the short term, the retreat of
glacial snow packs adds to river flow in more temperate climates, but that 
is at
best a mixed blessing (see below).  We are collectively consuming our water
"capital", which will ultimately require restoration of the balance via a 
massive
contraction of use.  This can only mean sharp contractions of agricultural 
output
and urban size or use (Maurits la Riviere, 1990: 37-48).
 In the first few millennia of human agriculture, it was not understood that
continuous irrigation eventually deposited enough salt on the soil surface 
that
fertility disappeared.  In an analogous fashion, only now is it becoming 
also
clear that continuous irrigation from wells liberates arsenic from its 
bonds to
the soil, creating a gradual build-up of arsenic in the well water.  
Arsenic is a
cumulative toxin for which there is no known cure.  Recently the BBC 
reported that
the British Geological Survey has discovered that the problem has become so
widespread in Bangladesh and parts of India that an estimated 30-60 million 
people
are being poisoned by their well water, a problem sufficiently grave that 
the
World Bank has dispatched a team to investigate (BBC, "The World Today", 
5/8/97;
5/19/97).
 Put simply, current technologies used in global food production have 
achieved
their historic highs of yield/acre only by supplementing natural energy 
inputs
with ever-larger amounts of fossil fuel.  Insofar as there are limits to the
supply of fossil fuels, the enormous subsidy they provide must eventually 
grow
smaller and finally stop altogether.  By itself, that will lower yield/acre 
and
thereby raise prices.  Added to this all is the current uncertainties of 
global
warming (explored at greater length below).  If the warming reaches the 
levels now
officially projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
(IPCC, 1990,
1992; Karl, et. al. , 1997), then the reversion of arid farmland to desert 
(as is
now already underway in the state of Nebraska) will tend to accelerate,
illustrating the removal of marginal land from production.  This will become
another pressure acting to increase food prices.
 In sum, the post-war explosion in global food production has been 
predicated on
the extension to the tropics of a technology developed for application to 
the
temperate zones.  In both regions the technology requires the massive 
subsidy of a
finite ressource--fossil fuels--to boost production.  While this subsidy is
unsustainable over the long term in either region, it is particularly 
unsuitable
to the tropics, whose base-line soil fertility is so very low that 
withdrawal of
fossil fuels would quickly lead to complete agricultural collapse.  To the 
degree
that global food output is relying on a transient and artificial fertility 
of
tropical soils, then to that same degree it is hostage to the availability 
of
cheap fossil fuels.

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