The essays, analyses and opinions presented as Community Voices express the perspectives of their authors on topics of interest and importance to the community, and are not intended to reflect perspectives on behalf of the Salish Current.
Commentary: No matter which way the election went, Mother Earth was always going to lose
Neither side cares about the natural world. Neither side understands ecological overshoot, or, indeed, the basics of ecology. There are surely some nonpartisan civil servants deep in the government who do truly understand ecology and who prioritize the natural world, but they rarely make much of an impact on administration policies, no matter which party is running the country. This is obvious by the relentless decline of the country’s natural environment since before the founding of the United States.
All candidates who get beyond primaries believe in growth at all costs. They must. Why? Because we all live under an ecocidal economic paradigm of infinite growth on a finite planet. The obligation to pay interest on debt means the economy must grow to avoid collapse. We humans are the only species who must pay money to live on Earth (via rent and taxes at a bare minimum), and so economic growth is usually at the top of the list of voters’ concerns. If a candidate were to be openly anti-growth, they would be soundly defeated; it’s likely they’d never get through a primary.
Ecological overshoot means that humans consume natural resources at a rate faster than the Earth can replenish them, essentially exceeding the planet’s capacity to regenerate, leading to an environmental deficit. Anyone who understands the basics of ecology understands that humans are far into overshoot.
Just a few numbers make this clear: 80% of the world’s ancient forests have been destroyed. Here in the U.S., 90% of the virgin, old-growth forests that once covered much of the lower 48 states have been destroyed. The world’s wildlife has declined by 73% just since 1970. In North America, the decline is 39% since 1970, in part because so much wildlife was exterminated before 1970 with plain old exploitation (think beavers, buffalo and passenger pigeons), the logging of old-growth forests, plowing of prairies, paving over of wetlands and damming of rivers. There’s far less left here to destroy than, say, in South America where the bulk of that 73% decline is now happening. Using that same benchmark of 1970, plastic pollution in the U.S. has increased by 14 times, growing from 2.9 million tons to 42 million tons annually.
The policies of both sides in this election prioritize economic growth, and it is this growth that fuels deforestation, wildlife decline, and plastic pollution among many other destructive outcomes. Whether it’s mining oil — currently the U.S. extracts more oil than at any time in history — or mining metals, minerals, sand and rock — also in record territory — the policies of both sides clearly prioritize extraction. Extraction and fossil fuels are, of course, what makes the economy function and grow, and both sides understand this. One side might make noises about caring about climate change, which is just one of many symptoms of ecological overshoot, but these are simply noises and not much else when their policies prioritize more and more land destruction for more and more development. Land destruction is one of the two legs of climate change, despite being completely ignored by those who focus entirely on the other leg, carbon emissions.
In other words, the policies of both sides exacerbate overshoot, at the expense of the natural world. Whether it’s deforestation, or land destruction for mining and industrial agriculture and development, or species loss, or pollution, or any other metric you’d like to use, things are getting worse; far worse. And don’t forget, like our politicians seem to have done, that humans are animals too, and like all animals, we rely on flourishing ecosystems to survive.
Degrowth is the only solution, but it is anathema to those who believe in the pervasive ideology of economic growth, the ideology that drives all political parties that have any shot at being successful in elections.
Our capability to rip metals and minerals from the Earth is temporarily hiding the impacts of overshoot for many — most, in this country — but have no doubt, these impacts will eventually come for us too, no matter who is running the country. It’s only a matter of time.
— By Elisabeth Robson
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