Do You Know?

John Darvill

1996

Published in:

The Northwest Technocrat, 3rd quarter 1996, No. 344

... This is an era of great technological development, a time when a high standard of education is almost a necessity if one is to have any hope of succeeding or even understanding the many complexities of life in a modern technological society. Yet, we find that the cost of obtaining a higher education is becoming prohibitive. The better colleges now carry a price tag of $1,000.00 a week. (Divide the annual cost of a school like BRANDIES by the number of weeks (28) in the college year and you get $1,000.00 a week which is more than the weekly income of about 70% of the nation's households -- according to NEWSWEEK magazine.) In the ten-year period from 1984 to 1994, the total cost of going to college has nearly doubled, a 95% increase for private 4 year colleges and 81.7% for public 4 year colleges. In the same period of time the median income has increased 46.6% and the consumer price index 42.6%. At the same time that tuition costs are rising, the number of days spent in school have declined. In 1939-40, schools were in session 195 days a year; in 1993- 94 only 157 days a year were spent in classes. The cost of attending college in that same time frame has gone from $3,207 to $15,978 in inflation adjusted dollars. A well educated citizenry is essential for success today, but our social system is certainly making this accomplishment difficult to obtain.

... A popular song title of the 1940s ``Someone to watch over me'' is now taking on a new meaning. Even George Orwell, in his book 1984, could not visualize the impact that modern technological advances would have on the ability of people or groups to place others under surveillance. Seat sensors to enable your employer to check if you are occupying your chair, video cameras, drug tests, e-mail monitoring, badges to track worker's movements, and soon to appear, genetic testing, to scrutinize the genetically programmed traits of potential or current employees. Not going to happen? In these days of a declining workforce, the employer or whomever, will set the standards, and compliance will be the order of the time.

... In the last issue of this magazine, global warming was discussed. The U.N. announced early in May that 1995 was the hottest year ever recorded; the Antarctic ozone hole lasted longer than ever before. In the North Atlantic around the Azores, sea surface temperatures were more than one degree above normal.

... Air pollution hampers the development of lung tissue in children. A joint U.S.-Canadian study looking at almost 17,000 children across North America, in the early 1990s found close to 10% of children were showing reduced lung capacity by the end of the study, which took place over a three year period. The most dramatic increase was in young children up to age five.

... More than two years after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect making available billions of dollars for toxic clean-up along the border with Mexico, not one environmental project has been launched. In Juarez, up to ten people live in single-room shacks made of cardboard and wood. These abodes are situated beside blackened canals oozing with the wastes of teeming slums and industrial parks. Foreign-owned factories continue to multiply along the environmentally besieged frontier, although the trade pact was supposed to push industry into the Mexican interior. In Juarez, six open canals absorb the raw sewage of this city of 1.2 million and its more than 350 industrial operations. More than 200,000 litres of untreated waste are dumped into the Rio Grande every day. The river is so contaminated with human waste that experts said skin contact threatens cholera, hepatitis and dysentery. Hepatitis rates on the border are two to five times the U.S. national average. The number of workers employed by foreign-owned factories has increased more than 25% since the introduction of NAFTA just over two years ago -- from 546,000 in 1993 to 689,000 by September 1995. In the first 11 months of 1995, 400 new factories opened up along the border. If NAFTA were to be evaluated by the state of the water, air and public health in the U.S.-Mexico border area, then it would appear to be an abject failure. How absurd! Human health being ignored for a profitable bottom line.

... According to the sixth biennial report 1994-95 of the World Resources Institute, trends are still accelerating in the wrong direction. Twenty ``megacities'' have unhealthy air and violate World Health Organization guidelines for at least one pollutant. Mexico City is the worst with serious levels of sulphur dioxide suspended particulate matter, carbon monoxide and ozone, plus heavy levels of lead and nitrogen oxides. Tropical deforestation averaged 0.8% a year in the 1980s, which means that an area three times the size of France was converted to other uses. Toxic emissions are enormous in all countries with significant industrialized sectors, with the U.S. the largest polluter. Industrialized countries also account for the largest emissions of ``greenhouse'' gases. The U.S. and former Soviet Union, together, contribute 32.8%; and European Community nations contribute 12.4%

... World fisheries have declined steadily since 1989. An equally disturbing trend is that many overfished species such as cod, haddock and west Atlantic bluefish tuna are being replaced by less valuable species.

... More and more surveys are showing that people in general are becoming increasingly dissatisfied and want a change. A recent survey found that 61% of Americans said it is not enough to change the faces in Washington; we have to change the system. Now, we are getting somewhere -- or are we? If by change those people mean a new political party or a different approach by business, then their conclusion is meaningless and will accomplish nothing. The fault lies with a system that was borne in antiquity, is scarcity-based on person- hours of labour, and is dependent on selling one's time in exchange for debt tokens or money. It is a system that exchanges its goods and services on a basis of commodity valuation and uses any form of debt tokens or money. It cannot function in a society with an installed capacity of 35 billion horsepower (U.S.); and that is the energy equivalent of 350 billion people working at a rate of 1/10th horsepower. Not only is this an impossible situation when concerning the creation or supplying of jobs; it is also wreaking havoc on the environment -- as we continue to produce material exclusively for profit without any consideration for the impact it is having on this planet on which we must survive. Time is fast running out; this planet cannot for much longer absorb the punishment we are inflicting on it. The land, the water, the atmosphere, all are being subjected to immense pressure. We, as a species, are threatened. Over-population, a declining resource base, lack of potable water, mounting pollution, soil erosion, are just some of the problems threatening our existence. A recent survey of population growth and food supply, as pointed out on the cover, ended with the comment ``Humanity's greatest challenge may soon be just making it to the next harvest.'' We must change the system -- but tinkering is not change; a real basic fundamental change is mandatory. An old, outmoded system of exchange, based on commodity valuation, must be replaced by one based on energy accounting, using technology to serve our needs and enhance our lives, rather than as a means of obtaining short term monetary advantage. That has resulted in all of the problems we now see confronting us. We must have a complete break with the concepts of scarcity, with the installation of a social system more in keeping with the technological age in which we live -- nothing less will suffice.