Racing Toward Finiteness

Clyde Wilson

1997

Published in:

The ``technocracy'' mailing list in seven parts, but since Lois did the work to get this online, I am calling this Social Trends Newsletter, No. 151, Aug 1997

While the sky is not about to fall, and the world is not coming to an end, what the nations of the world have done over the years to this one and only Earth could bring catastrophic consequences. The rate of the exploitation and the wasteful consumption of the world's natural resources and the damage done to the land and the ecoenvironmental habitat has put humankind's survival in the balance. Unless this insatiable consumption of the Earth's already depleted resource base and aimless growth and development are checked and drastically reduced to the essential requirements and limitations as to the carrying capacity of a geographical region, the eventual demise of modern civilization will become a reality.

While all nations throughout the world are guilty of the wasteful and careless use of their natural resources, the United States stands out among nations as one of the most prolific in the devastation and extravagant use of its natural resources. For a continental area that was once endowed with one of the greatest array of natural resources, the United States has shown a wanton disregard for the preservation of the country's natural resource heritage during most of its history.

Although not on the scale of the destruction that took place during the great westward movement, there was a considerable amount of damage done to the natural resources during the early history of the country. The development with its haphazard waste took place with scarcely any consideration of the consequences. Forests cleared for farmland were merely piled up and burned. The soils were overcropped, pasture lands overgrazed, fish and game wasted. Hunters killed moose and deer for just a small souvenir and to demonstrate their prowess. The loss of the natural resources was shameful.

It took a long time before appreciation of conservation and wiser use of natural resources caught on during the early history of the country. It was not until some of the larger cities, such as Boston and Philadelphia, began to experience a shortage of easily available timber that the importance in the use of the forest reserves was realized. But these early pioneers and guardians of America's natural resources probably had no conception of the magnitude of the pillage and plunder of the resources that was to come as the country expanded and the mass of people trekked across the vast land and wide open spaces beyond the Appalachians.

THE BIG LAND GIVEAWAY AND THE MANIFEST DESTINY CONQUEST

After the adoption of the Constitution, the states ceded to the federal government nearly all of the claims to the land beyond their borders. Thus the first of the public domain of the United States consisted of most of the land between the original states and the Mississippi River, except Kentucky, Vermont and part of Tennessee. Other vast territories were acquired by the Louisiana Purchase, conquest from Mexico, the Oregon Compromise, and the purchase of Alaska. And smaller areas were purchased from Spain, Texas and Mexico. As for the original Americans, the Indians, the ``Winning of the West'' turned out to be the most pitiful and disgraceful episode in the history of the United States. The Indians considered themselves as part of the land and all life around them; the concept of owning property and the land was alien to their way of life and culture.

As long as profits were to be made, how the land was to be used was of no concern to the land grabbers and speculators. Even some of the founding fathers of the country recognized the financial potential in the disposal of large blocks of undeveloped lands. Putting his surveyor experience to good use, George Washington bought and sold unoccupied land in New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky with very good results, leaving an estimate of more than $5,000,000. Many government officials at the time, and later, likewise took advantage of the opportunity for gain and profit.

Alexander Hamilton, and a number of financiers, considered the buying and selling of public lands as a lucrative venture as well as a good source to raise federal revenues. And from their sale a much-needed source of revenue to pay the salaries of government officials and the interest on the debts accrued by the government.

By the time the first homestead law was passed in 1862, most of the accessible land had already been disposed of by sale or grant. The chief method for the disposal and apportioning of public domain reveals that 35 percent of the alienated land was sold; about 27 percent was disposed under the homestead laws; about 22 percent was granted to the states for the purpose of providing aid to education and for other purposes; and 9 percent was given to aid railroad development, most of which went directly to the railroad corporations and the railroad barons. The railroads not only received the land but the mineral rights that went with it. In return, the railroads were to transport government freight at a reduced rate. From the homestead laws, slightly more than a billion acres of the country's public domain became private and state property.

Even before and during the time of homesteading, and the dividing of the land by the government, exploitation and greed prevailed without any regard to conservation and the future needs of the country. This was the rule. One of the most favored and endowed 2,000,000,000 square miles of the entire Earth was there for the taking, spread out before the pioneers crossed the Appalachian Mountains. The shortcomings in land utilization and the distribution of the land created a lack of understanding of the best use of the land. Land management did not exist.

Homesteading was done by dummies so that stockmen could monopolize large tracts of grazing land and control available water supplies. Timber land was homesteaded merely for the purpose to sell it to some lumber company. Many homesteaders obtained more land than they were entitled to, sometimes under assumed names, or where the claims to the deed were turned over to another person for a fee. It was common for a homesteader to sell his land to an adjoining settler because it could not support a family. In a semiarid region, several hundred acres were required, on the average, to support the needs of a family. Most of the land granted by the federal government to the states was promptly sold, often to members of the legislature or their friends, many of whom resold the land at large profits. The funds received from the sale of state lands were used to reduce the tax burdens of the state and pay the salaries of the legislators.

After the Civil War, the great westward movement was facilitated by the development of the railroads, and encouraged by the homestead laws when hundreds of thousands of people moved into the prairie and the Eastern Great Plains. The railroad tycoons and other vested interests with their underhanded methods and schemes did everything they could to put a favorable spin on making the people think that homesteading was the answer to their dreams. Bringing immigrants from mostly Europe and giving them citizenship was part of the overall program to settle the Midwestern and western part of the United States. As the towns and cities were built, and the farmers needed the railroads to ship their crops to other areas in the country and to market, it would become a bonanza for the railroad speculators and other special interests.

The grants to aid the building of railroads during the Great Western movement totaled about 132,000,000 acres, about 38,000,000 acres given to the railroads, mostly in those states bordering the Mississippi River. As the railroads were being built across the country, other states granted some 94,000,000 acres to the railroad industry. No private business was treated more generously than the railroad corporations; the railroad magnates had everything going their way, and great fortunes were being made.

The sale of public land yielded only small sums, only $60 million during the first half century of the nation's history, and approximately $160 million during the second half century, and a total in 1938 of about only $250 million. Most of the land sold by the federal government brought only a small fraction of what it was worth. The choicest timber lands brought no more than $2.50 an acre, and the average was only 60 cents an acre. Likewise the grants in aid of internal improvements and development yielded results that were disappointing in many ways. For example, the 350,000 acres granted to Wisconsin in aid of the state university brought less than $600 thousand.

The failure of sales and grants to bring hoped-for results gave credence to the idea that the public domain would be more valuable toward making more homes affordable for the growing population. And the taxes paid by the property owners would provide a main financial source to the local and state governments. Congressmen and other officials figured that it was desirable to dispose of the land so cheaply or in a way that would encourage rapid settlement, growth and development. The strong and rugged individualism by the generations of pioneer and frontier life, added to the emphasis put on real estate, strengthened the concept that private enterprise was better than public ownership. There was little concern about how the public land was to be used or how to conserve it for posterity.

VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS

While there were any number of early pioneers and leaders in the conservation movement, none was any more concerned about the gutting of the continent and the wanton destruction of the country's natural resources than Charles R. Van Hise (1851-1918) and his associates. Hise came up with the idea of the necessity of a plan or program that would provide greater care and responsibility in the utilization of the country's natural resources. Hise also proposed that the country and the government implement or put in place a program for the purpose of determining the rate of the destruction of the land and other natural resources that have resulted from the haphazard occupation and development that was taking place in the country.

To make a survey and an inventory of the natural resources of the country and the rate they were being used would, quite obviously, require the expertise in specialized fields--such as in geology, geography, forestry, hydrology, engineering and scientists that could make an accurate estimate to this most important and urgent undertaking. The purpose of the survey and the inventory of the country's resources was to provide the necessary information for the implementation of a program to prevent any further destruction of the nation's resources and to put in place a comprehensive and sustainable natural resource program. Had Hise's idea been executed, it would have provided a long-term utilitarian policy for the nation instead of the present short-term arbitrary expediencies and palliatives that negate any binding restrictions or limitations on the use of the country's fast dwindling natural resources.

While Hise's far-sighted ideas received some acceptance and minor conservation measures were taken, the magnitude and the momentum to settle and conquer the vast land area from the Atlantic to the Pacific became an unstoppable obsession as the government and the special vested interests encouraged and supported the conquest of the west. Nothing of consequence was done to prevent the denuding of the land and protecting the environmental and natural habitat.

Little effort was made to use and leave the Midwestern prairie in its original condition. In the plains and foothills there were wild scrambles to graze every blade of grass, not even leaving enough for winter grazing or for seeding. The grasslands (big bluestein reached 10-19 feet high) were destroyed or damaged by burning, over-grazing, mowing too close or too late in the season, plowing and cultivating, irrigating or flooding, and lowering the water table by artificial drainage and overuse. It was as if the grass and the soil were free just for the taking. ``Get it while the getting is good.'' The nurturing of the soil and the plants, the importance to maintain a balance in nature was not understood or the main concern of the settlers at the time.

The grasslands supplied an excellent source of food for the animals and provided most of the essentials for the families of the settlers, but most of the original grasslands were destroyed because of the lack of understanding of the interrelationship of the ecoenvironmental systems and habitat. Because the prairie dogs, kangaroo rats, and the jackrabbits constituted a problem and were considered as competitors with the settlers' livestock, and could create serious injuries to the cattle, horses and the riders when in the fields, they set out to eradicate them. At the same time, faced with what they considered a menace to their livelihood, the settlers waged an all out warfare to exterminate the coyotes, badgers, hawks, owls, snakes and other predatory animals which had held the prairie dogs and the other rodents in check. As a result, the prairie dogs became more abundant and began to overrun other areas previously unoccupied. It got to the point that the cost of getting rid of the prairie dogs and the antelope jackrabbits cost more than the cattlemen were getting from the sale of their cattle. It wasn't all that long before overgrazing the grasslands brought about permanent damage and increasing wasteland to many regions of the country.

By 1850, the nation's manifest destiny had been accomplished with the expansion of the country's boundaries from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Cartographers, seeking to fill in the gaps of geographic knowledge, were able in their survey to replace the innocuous term ``unexplored'' given to the West with the phrase, ``the Great American Desert.''

It was not until John Wesley Powell, Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (1881-1894), and author of the classic report, Lands of the Arid Region, published in 1879, defined the limits of the arid regions of the West and presented for the first time a meaningful and coherent program for its proper utilization. Powell estimated that much of the land in the country fell into the arid and semi-arid category, and that most of these areas received only meager periods of normal rainfall. And that drawing upon the limited underground water table in these areas would result in years of drought and permanent damage to the land and environment and eventual impoverishment. That in time these arid and semi-arid lands would become more acute and complex and should not be plowed or used for grazing. But, as usual, Powell's recommendations fell on deaf ears and were ignored.

The livestock industry and other vested interests, who had acquired rights to most of the public land in the semi-arid and arid regions, and had considerable clout in the political circles of governments, were too much of a formidable force to be denied in their quest to use these barren lands. How the land and the natural resources of the country are to be used, and for what purpose, has never been given any serious consideration by those interests that are concerned only with immediate gain and maximizing profits, even if it means their and civilization's eventual demise.

CONSERVATION PROPOSAL SCUTTLED AGAIN

In spite of some of his inconsistencies concerning conservation, it was not until Theodore Roosevelt entered upon his presidency that the nation became more aroused to the importance of the conservation of America's natural resources, the needless waste and the need for responsibility in the use of the country's resources. It was Roosevelt who inaugurated a White House Conference, and the appointment of a National Conservation Commission to make a study and survey of what could be done to prevent unrestrained destruction and needless waste that was taking place to, and in the use of, the country's natural resources.

The National Conservation Commission was given the authority to make an inventory of the country's existing available natural resources. It was also directed to make a report as to the amount of the natural resources that had already been used or exhausted; and to make a report of the rate in the consumption of the nation's natural resources, and the probable period of time it would take for the country's resources to last and still meet the requirements of the social, infrastructural, and industrial mechanism.

From the National Conservation Commission and the concern of scientists and citizens came a breakthrough in establishing those agencies and departments in government to regulate, to protect and preserve the natural resources of the country. Through the U.S. Department of Interior some 234 million acres of land were withdrawn from private entry. Large areas of public land were held in reserve until their use could be determined by a thorough study. These lands included where coal was known to be beneath the surface; where natural gas and oil were likely to be present; where phosphate rock was expected to exist; where important reserves of potash deposits were present; and where minerals were likely to be present. At least some progress was being accomplished to preserve the natural resources of the country, but it should be noted that 270 years had passed since the landing of the Pilgrims before the first national forest was established.

It should be brought out that the already mentioned Charles Richard Hise, who became President of the University of Wisconsin and was a long-term member of the U.S. Geological Survey, was appointed to serve on the National Conservation Commission. During his lustrous career Hise prepared and presented a series of lectures concerning the importance of the conservation of natural resources before the students and faculty of the University of Wisconsin. For 25 years his volume, The Conservation of Natural Resources in the United States served as one of the most instructive and instrumental books on the subject that was responsible for developing a greater appreciation and awareness of the importance of preserving, protecting and the wise use of the natural resources of the country.

As for the proposal of conducting a survey and inventory of the damage and destruction that had been done to the resource base of the country during the westward settlement and development, and the adoption of a compatible and sustainable program to prevent further devastation to the natural resources and habitat of the country, nothing of a real and long-term consequence came of it.

As a matter of fact, rather than approving and allowing the National Conservation Commission to continue with its study, the Congress of the United States would not provide the funds for the NCC to undertake and carry out its intended purpose or mission. To scuttle the work and the recommendations of the Commission, the Congress even prohibited the agencies and departments of the federal government from providing their services or helping the National Conservation Commission in any research and studies concerning its recommendations. As before, once again the pressure applied and the financial inducements by the special interests of the business establishment prevailed in the democratic political arena and under the present entrenched economic system.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND THE IMPACT ON THE RESOURCE BASE

As late as 1880, two-thirds of the population in the United States lived on the farm, and agriculture was the predominant livelihood of most Americans. (Farmers make up only 2 percent of the nation's population today.) Minerals, except gold and silver, did not create much interest until after 1850. But from the industrial revolution came greater diversity in agriculture, mining for minerals and energy resources, methods of processing, manufacturing of goods and services, transportation, etc. From the development of industry, the growth of the cities, and the increasing population came the demand and need for greater quantities of natural resources to meet the requirements of the social, industrial and infrastructural complex.

Meeting the growth and development that has taken place before and during the industrial and agricultural revolution in the United States and other parts of the world has put a tremendous impact on the natural resource reserves of this finite Earth. Even with warnings, research and studies over the years that pinpoint the devastation and wasteful consumption of the world's resources, the exploitation and ravaging of the earth's remaining resources continue unabated.

Being the largest of nations in the consumption of natural resources, and since becoming a nation, the United States continues to exploit and use its remaining dwindling natural resources as if there are no limits to its and the world's resources. Although the United States has been endowed with a greater diversity of land and soils than any other nation, it continues to exploit them and use methods and practices that are detrimental to the practical importance in soil fertility and long-term sustainability. The country and the American people have yet to come to grips with the understanding that the soil of a nation is its most valuable material heritage, and our existence depends on how we treat and take care of it.

While modern technology, new scientific innovations and techniques, along with an increasing use of fertilizers and chemicals, have increased the yields in agricultural production, it has also increased the cost, financial and energy wise, in the growing of crops and in the operation of farming where it may not be feasible in the future. While there has been an increase in the production and the yields per acre in the farming of the land in the United States, and these yields of food and other items have provided most of the needs and requirements of most, if not all, of the American people, there are any number of factors that are negating the feasibility and any long-term sustainability from these innovations.

For instance, as Albert Allen Bartlett has said, ``The basis for our technology is largely petroleum.'' In his research and observation, he concluded that ``modern agriculture is using land (for the purpose) to convert petroleum to food.'' As an example, it takes 140 gallons of fuel to produce an acre of corn. Some time ago Rosalind Creasy reported that the United States uses 20 BTU's of fuel energy to produce 1 BTU of food energy. While the use (or misuse) of technology, fertilizers, pesticides, petroleum and other chemicals have increased the yields per acre of growing crops many fold, they also have created an unfavorable impact on a depleting resource base: the soil, the environment and water resources. While the ever increasing use of petroleum and chemicals has created a bonanza for those industries, it is a trend that has ominous long-term ramifications for the present market oriented economy and the resource base of the United States and the rest of the world.

By not adopting a comprehensive natural resource program or plan, the United States, operating under the present economic system with its inherent characteristic of exploitation and based on growth, expansion and investment to maximize profits, has shown a disregard for its most important asset, which is responsible for its very existence.

IS THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD FACING A FOOD SCARCITY?

At one time the farms of the United States produced a surplus of food and various raw materials. And in some categories of producing crops, surpluses are still common. And even crops and cattle have been deliberately destroyed or made unfit for consumption for the purpose of maintaining an artificial scarcity and bringing higher prices. Without a balance between production and distribution, concern with prices and profits, the farm and food industries have over the years gone through crisis after crisis. All kinds of financial and political incentives, palliatives, and expediencies have been tried to bring some kind of order into the production and distribution of farm products but without any stable or viable solutions or success. Diverted merely to the price and market oriented structure of the present economic system of profitability, and not protecting and preserving the most productive land of the country, the United States is faced with its most serious problems in history.

There was a time when American agriculture was hailed as having the most productive capacity in the world. But it now has reached its limits and is losing its most productive prime land. The biggest thief is growth and expansion from urban sprawl and its ever increasing population. Today there are highways, shopping centers, houses, buildings of all kinds and airports on land that once produced an abundance of grain and timber, forage, vegetables and fruits. There are now motels and reservoirs, industrial parks on land where farmers once grazed their cattle and harvested cotton and other raw materials.

America has already lost over half of its top soil. And according to the American Farmland Trust, it continues to lose 2 million acres of its farmland to development every year. In addition, the United States loses 3 billion tons of prime and irreplaceable top soil through wind and water erosion. Alternating between years of drought and floods, and with the incessant soil erosion, America's agriculture and farms are faced with an uncertain future that will affect this country and the world. In a matter of less than two decades the United States has doubled the loss of the world's best agricultural land to development and urban sprawl.

Over the years there have been any number of warnings given by specialists in the field of land management, conservation and environmental affairs, and various research organizations about the rapid disappearance of land, the natural resources and habitat in the United States and throughout the world. But even with these warnings from soil conservationists and scientists, economists, sociologists, land-use planners, forest and range conservationists, fish and wildlife specialists, and concerned citizens, nothing has stopped the onslaught of wanton squandering of an irreplaceable resource that has already caused tragedy on a national and global scale.

The pamphlet, Where Have The Farm Lands Gone?, published by the National Agricultural Lands Study in 1979, portrays a dismal picture even then of what was happening to the land area in the United States. It brings out the fact that in the war between the plow and the bulldozer, one million acres of America's prime farm land was being urbanized every year. In addition to prime land loss, the nation was losing two million acres of lesser quality land to nonagricultural conversion each year. The study reports that this would mean the total annual loss of three million acres would be the equivalent of 320 acres, or a half section of farm land every hour. In spite of the programs and plans that have been initiated, which include Federal, state and local governments, landowners and public interest groups for the purpose of preventing the loss and retention of cropland, this massive degradation of the soil continues at a much greater rate than ever before. By and large, America's private property rights have been constrained very little by the government of the United States.

In the same pamphlet, Where Have The Farm Lands Gone?, a reference is made to a series of front-page articles titled, ``Vanishing Acres'' that appeared July 8 through 13, 1979 in the Des Moines Register by Washington Correspondent George Anthan. His findings and conclusions concerning the farm land in the United States and its impact are as follows:

``Every time a baby is born in the United States, agriculture loses one and one-third acres of cropland. The connection isn't direct - it's a mathematical comparison of population and land-loss trends - but dramatizes a problem: Our population is growing, our available farm land is shrinking, and our per acre crop yields are leveling off.
``All food produced in the United States will be consumed here.
``Consumer food prices will be pushed sharply upward. This will be a 'real' price increase, not just an 'inflation' increase.
``Food exports no longer will be available to help offset massive trade deficits, such as payments for foreign oil. This almost certainly would have a major negative effect on the national economy.
``The hungry people of other nations will be on their own for food supplies.''

The above were some of Anthan's projections and predictions for the year 2000 if farm losses and the population of the United States and the world continue to increase.

EARTH'S ILLS WORSEN

For many years Worldwatch Institute has been at the forefront carrying on research and publishing many books and papers on the future of agriculture, the environment, natural resources and population trends. It has pointed out the continued loss of cropland and the voracious consumption and waste of the natural resource base, and the growing demographic problems that confront the world.

A recent release by the Associated Press of Worldwatch Institute's annual report, State of the World, paints another bleak global landscape. Unfortunately, few governments are doing anything to reverse the decline. In the same release by AP, Earth Summit Secretary-General Maurice Strong issued a report that ``far too few countries, companies, institutions, communities and citizens have made the choices and changes needed to advance the goals of sustainable development.'' More than 100 nations are worse off today than 15 years ago, with 1.3-billion people earning less than $1 a day.

The AP release also mentions that Eileen Claussen, Assistant Secretary of State overseeing environmental affairs, said Worldwatch's assessment of progress is ``generally correct.'' She noted Congress failed to ratify a biodiversity treaty and slashed funding for the summit's major initiatives. Those in the Administration and Congress are well aware of the fact that they must get most of their funds for any election campaign from those companies and corporations that don't want any environmental and other restrictions or regulations on their operations. The latter's concern is only with the bottom line and the present, regardless of what happens to the environment and the resource base of this finite Earth.

The importance of preserving and protecting what is left of this country's farm land cannot be ignored or taken for granted. ``The wheat fields of Kansas and the corn fields of Iowa may look boundless but they are not. As a nation we must come to full realization that prime farm land is no longer a surplus resource, if indeed, it ever was.'' Stated by Robert Gray, who was the Executive Director of the National Agricultural Lands Study (1980-81). Once prime land is lost, there is no way that a consumer can go to the supermarket and buy one square foot of it.

THE MAGNITUDE OF DEFORESTATION CONTINUES

At one time forest and trees covered 26 percent of the land, but just 12 percent of the earth's surface consists of intact forest ecosystems now. The original forests of the United States covered about 43 percent of the land area of the country. By 1900, 50 percent of the forest of the United States were cut down and harvested to make room for expansion and development. By 1980, approximately 24 percent of the eastern forest had been cleared for farms.

Nearly 400 years ago, the virgin land of America was blanketed with 850 million acres of primeval forest. Excluding those protected parts of the national parks and wilderness areas, the last remnants of the untouched woods of the country amount to about only one-million scattered acres. About 2.8 billion trees are cut down each year, and the United States is one of the most prolific in the world when it comes to logging and wasting its already depleted forests, even more than twice as much as Brazil.

The forests are disappearing at a much faster rate than ever before in the history of the world. Between 1971 and 1986, forests shrank by at least 125 million hectares. In 1991, the world economy consumed 3.4 billion cubic meters of wood, 2.5 times as much wood as was used in 1950 - one third more per person. When agricultural and nonagricultural needs and consumption are taken into account, it is estimated that human population growth may be responsible for as much as 80 percent of the loss of forest cover worldwide. Half of the world depends on fuelwood for heating and cooking. And since 1990, 100 million Third World residents have lacked sufficient firewood to meet their daily energy requirements. The other half of the world's wood is cut as timber, milled and processed into boards, plywood, veneer, chipboard, paper, paperboard and other products, mostly in industrial countries.

According to the latest figures available from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Japan is one of the largest consumers of hardwood and processed lumber. Although the country's 120 million people represent only 2.7 percent of the world's population, Japan consumes a third of the wood exported worldwide and 70 percent of that exported by other Asian nations, according to the FAO. About 45 percent of that imported wood comes from Southeast Asia, 34 percent from the United States, and 14 percent from the former Soviet Union. John Holliman, a spokesperson for the Japanese office of the conservation organization, Friends of Earth, states that only 5 percent of Japan's timber comes from sustainable sources. The rest is being ``mined'' and will take decades, even centuries to recover.

Holliman reports that at least 741 million acres of Southeast Asia's forests have already been destroyed, and 74 to 173 million more acres will be doomed by the turn of the century. Many of the trees are bulldozed, cut down and abandoned just so the loggers can reach the most valuable or more profitable trees. In the process, large logging and lumber corporations destroy up to 60 percent of the rest of the forest. As a result, this method of operation damages the ability of the rain forest to produce oxygen. It destroys the wildlife habitat and triggers a chain reaction, causing greater soil erosion, landslides, silt buildup and flooding as the soil flows to the sea where it suffocates coral reefs, a source of marine and ocean life. What is happening to the rain forests of Southeast Asia is occurring to the rain forests throughout the world.

America's record during its history as to deforestation is no better than what has happened to the forests in many parts of the world. The magnitude with which the United States haphazardly cut down and destroyed the forests and the trees of the country is one of the most flagrant travesties in its history. Although it was assumed during the great westward movement that the land and the natural resources were bountiful and without limitations, the indiscriminate cutting down of the forests and removing the trees for farming and development went on without giving much consideration to future consequences. As a result, most of the original North American old growth forests were virtually leveled. Huge loads of these magnificent trees were cut and hauled from logging camps and sent to the sawmills to be used in the expansion and building of the country. During the expansion of railroads in many parts of the country, railroad ties were made of walnut, considered along with cherry wood as one of the rarest and most valuable of all North American hardwoods.

In an article by William Souder, special reporter to The Washington Post, he reports that the logging companies just about denuded the trees across Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. The lumber and logging companies cut down the trees on the shorelands, on the ridges and the highlands. After the trees became scarce in those areas, the logging companies moved inland until the forests were no longer feasible. Once plentiful, the oaks, richly figured maples, hemlocks, basswoods, yellow birches and rare elms were harvested and hauled to the lumber mills. Some of these old growth trees were seedlings when Columbus landed in the Americas.

At the turn of the century (1890s), and in the heyday of the lumber mills and the logging camps, Ashland, Wisconsin was among the busiest ports on the Great Lakes at the peak of the lumber business. It had 15 sawmills at the height of logging in the region. In the winter of 1892-93, there were 10,000 men logging trees in the area. Scott Mitchen, who is retrieving those hardwood and other trees that sunk in Lake Superior during the logging and sawmill operation in the upper Midwest States, has concluded from his observation and experience in his treasure hunt that ``they surely thought they'd never run out of trees.'' Under the most favorable conditions, it takes 80 to 100 years to grow a hardwood tree.

Given the circumstances, Mitchen's operation of recycling these rare hardwood trees is considered environmentally friendly. There is no current supply of wood of this quality. The trees are gone forever.

Those rare hardwood trees that are recovered in this undertaking are going to be sold at a very high price to the elite of the Japanese and America's entrenched rich, and maybe to the new robber barons of the twentieth and soon to be the twenty-first century. It could indicate that Thorstein Veblen's characteristic behavior of the leisure class with their conspicuous consumption and ostentatious lifestyle is still with us and very much alive. It's as if the natural resources of this continental area have no limits and must, by all means, accommodate the extravagant and wasteful tastes of the rich and super-rich regardless of the consequences. (The richest 20 percent of the world now earn 85 percent of the income or money, compared with 70 percent three decades ago.)

As for preserving and preventing the wholesale and haphazard methods of cutting down those forests that are still standing, the plundering of the forests of the United States and the world goes on as before. Most of the forests in the United States and throughout the world are in danger. As a representative case in point, over half of the prime timber of the Tongass National Forest, which is strung across 500 miles of southeast Alaska, has already been felled. The clash between the environmentalists and the lumber industry over these ancient forests has now reached a feverish pitch. The environmentalists and concerned Americans have for a long time opposed many of the U.S. Forest Service's policies of selling the national forest trees at a ridiculous low price to those contractors and companies in the lumber business, using their financial resources to provide roads and other concessions to the large lumber companies. Adding insult to injury, the Congress of the United States gives millions of dollars in subsidies to the timber and lumber corporations.

The Ketchikan Pulp Company, which logs and depends on the Tongass National Forest, America's largest remaining forest, signed in 1954 a 50-year contract to harvest the trees in the Tongass for a fraction of their market value. Because of its lengthy pollution record for being the largest discharger of toxic waste, the Environmental Protection Agency gave Ketchikan Pulp a slight tap on the wrist, levied them with fines and civil penalties amounting to about $6 million. Louisiana-Pacific Corporation, the $2.8 billion international conglomerate that owns Ketchikan Pulp, is now willing to spend $200 million on antipollution equipment and technology to clean up its act providing Congress will give L-PC a 15-year extension on its 50-year contract and increase the allowable timber harvest in the Tongass and restore other concessions. (Probably over a period of time subsidies given by Congress at the taxpayers' expense will pay for this proposition at no cost to Louisiana-Pacific Corporation.) Like most companies, except when downsizing, Ketchikan and L-PC have used the leverage that without extending its contract, it will mean the elimination of Alaska's 17th largest private employer, throw out of work 1,000 workers and turn Ketchikan, a town of 15,000, into a ghost town. It would take a huge chunk out of Ketchikan's timber, fishing and tourism economy. Surely there are many important things the American people could be doing that would be beneficial to the nation and all of the American people, and still maintain the forest's biological and environmental diversity. Must maintaining and perpetuating the destructive and wasteful practices of this economic system take precedence over everything else?

What has become one of the most disturbing factors in the protection and preservation of America's natural heritage has been the role taken by the U.S. Government and its various departments and administrative offices. This political form of government has been too prone and lenient to those vested and special interests whose main concern is maximizing profitability regardless of what happens to the country's natural resources in the process. Being on a collision course with the forces of nature, the nation has become shackled with an economic system that insidiously devours the very fabric and natural resource base that is essential to maintaining a viable and sustaining method of operation for the survival of all forms of life.

While the Administration and Congress continue with their never ending debates and hearings over balancing the national budget (projected to be $6 trillion by 2000), the American people are being fleeced and denied the benefits of the country's natural heritage. Balancing the natural resource base with what is essential to our very existence is far removed from the thoughts and agenda of the politicians. They are more concerned with giving away the store at the expense of the American people. As a case in point, Congress passed a law way back in 1872 that gave cart blanche to the miners and the mining companies. Not all that surprising, considering what takes place in political and business circles, the Mining Act of 1872 is still on the books, and the Congress refuses to repeal that law to meet modern needs and requirements.

If there was ever an anachronism, the Mining Act of 1872 would be at the top of the list. The fee for registering a mine claim is only $2.50 to $5 an acre, plus an annual fee of $100. Even if all mining stops or never takes place, the miner or the mining company continues to own the land. And there are no royalty fees whatsoever paid on the profits that come from mining these public lands by the owners. According to The Wilderness Society's Resource Planning and Economics Department, between 1873 and 1998 $363 billion worth of gold, silver and copper were mined from public lands. If the miners and the mining companies had paid a 12.5 percent royalty that other companies pay for extracting nonmetals from public land, such as oil, just these three metals alone would have added $40 billion to the treasury of the United States. (What a bargain for the miners and the mining industries.) Balancing the national budget seems to have a hollow ring in the halls of Congress.

The extraction, refining, dispersing, and the disposal of metals and their byproducts have created immense damage to the environmental and ecological systems. Mining has degraded the land, created quarries and vast open pits and enormous amounts of solid waste. During 1991 more than 1,000 million metric tons of copper ore were dug up just to obtain 9 million metric tons of metal. Besides contaminating the air, water and soil during the mining and refining process, fine particles of trace metals are dispersed that accumulate in the soil and the aquatic ecosystems, and in the animal and human food chain. Leaching from tailings from mining and the disposal of chemicals used in refining are significant sources of water pollution.

In the state of Florida, the fertilizer industry owns 515,000 acres of land that produces plant and animal supplements from phosphates it digs from the ground. From an aerial view of the strip mining that goes on in Polk County for phosphate, one can see ``the whitish dimples, shaped like lakes'' showing on the ground where the fertilizing industry has created 700 million stacks of solid waste in huge piles. So far, mining for phosphates in the area has claimed 400 square miles of land, and less than half has been reclaimed or restored.

There are those environmental organizations and concerned citizens that have denounced the operations by Mulberry Phosphates and its indifference toward the impact on the environment and the health of the people in the area. From the figures that have been given to the Environmental Protection Agency by manufacturers as part of the Toxic Release Inventory program, the Environmental Working Group issued a report from these figures accusing Mulberry Phosphates of dumping large amounts of ammonia into the North Prong of the Alafia River, and that phosphogypsum with radium 226 gives rise to radon gas that causes harmful health problems. But Mulberry Phosphates has challenged the report by EWG, and as the issue continues mammoth piles of solid waste inundate the landscape. While a small fine and a desist order might come out of this matter, usually the financial position of the corporation and its political clout along with the bottom line determines the outcome regardless of the damage to the environment and the health of the people.

Now that the exploitation of metals, mineral fuels and nonmetals that went on for decades is no longer fashionable, many countries throughout the world have used a more effective approach when it comes to their mineral and nonmetals - they have gotten rid of foreign imperialism by nationalizing their natural resources. As to whether all of the people of these countries have benefited from the process is another matter and may account for a considerable amount of violence and ``terrorism'' that goes on in the world today.

AMERICA'S RESOURCE DEFICIENCIES AND THE ``SUPERPOWER'' FANTASY

Besides the past plundering of America's natural resources, its production of waste and obsolescence, and goods and services of dubious use and function, nothing has had a greater drain on the resource base of the country than the perpetuation of war and the huge defense expenditures that go toward the preparation for future wars under the guise of national security.

While the United States and the rest of the world have gone through the most destructive and devastating war in all history during World War II, the industrial, financial and vested interests in the United States, along with the cooperation of the political officialdom, decided that massive and unending defense expenditures would provide the best safety net for the status quo and business-as-usual rather than mobilizing the nation's resources for reconstruction and meaningful pursuits. With the support of the industrial establishment, Charles Wilson, president of General Electric and major defense contractor, set the tone and the course that the United States would take following World War II. Wilson called for the United States ``to begin now to set in motion the machinery for a permanent war economy.''

For over five decades the United States has become addicted and dependent on the business of war and the production and sale of arms. During the Cold War, the United States has spent $11-$12 trillion dollars on military weapons, equipment, supplies and bases worldwide since World War II. If the expenditures of those departments and agencies that are directly or indirectly involved in military affairs or activities were counted, the figure of $11-$12 trillion would be substantially higher. The United States spent a minimum of $4 trillion on nuclear weapons and their deadly legacy since 1940. The Department of Energy has become merely an adjunct of the Department of Defense. It is also the cost of maintaining the deployment of troops and bases all around the globe, protecting and providing arms, materiel and training for other countries, even for those nations that are financially and industrially developed in their own right and can afford to pay for their own defense, that is breaking the financial and resource bank.

From his research and studies, Seymour Melman of Columbia University was able to conclude that the amount of the military expenditures by the United States since World War II, and during the Cold War, would have been equivalent to the cost of replacing the entire infrastructure of the country: the basic foundation that is necessary to operate an effective functional social and industrial order - the nation's roads, power plants and waterworks, schools, housing, transportation and communication systems. It would include those installations and facilities that have been sorely neglected and allowed to deteriorate while the government and the leadership of the nation and the nomenclatura of the Soviet Union fiddled in the ideological and parasitic folly of the Cold War.

From the conventional and nuclear arms race came a permanent war economy, gaining momentum until it reached the point of overkill. By continuing the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union proceeded to produce some 50,000 missiles, warheads and nuclear weapons with the explosive power of 18,000 megatons, or the equivalent to 6,000 World War II's. While this was going on, some experts in the Department of Defense pointed out that once the United States reached the 400 level of nuclear warheads, the construction or production of any additional nuclear weapons would be a waste of money and resources. Needless to say, this lucid deduction and mathematical computation was not appreciated by those beneficiaries of the mega military expenditures and the continued growth and expansion of the military-industrial contract complex. Rather than deterrents, the ``defense'' program of the United States has become a trillion dollar business where enormous profits have been made.

A Worldwatch Paper by Michael Renner with the title of Budgeting For Disarmament: the Costs of War and Peace goes into considerable detail concerning the costs imposed by warfare and its multitudinous effects on the nations throughout the world. Renner brings out the fact that global military spending since World War II has added up to a cumulative and astronomical sum of $30-$35 trillion. As a result, military and defense expenditures that took place during the Cold War and numerous conflicts, absorbed and brought about the dissipation of substantial amounts of essential resources that could have been used for human security and economic equality, health, education, housing, poverty eradication and greater environmental sustainment.

If the United States, the former Soviet Union and other countries of the world had mobilized their natural and human resources, the expertise of their scientists and engineers all the time of the cold or ideological war for meaningful and peaceful pursuits for rebuilding and redesigning their social and technological structures into a more efficient operation, then the Americans, Russians and the peoples of the world would by now be enjoying an era of greater economic prosperity and peace. It is ironic that the United States and its leadership continue to spend trillions of dollars and waste its and the world's natural resources on the implements of war and destruction but will not spend or use its resources to put its own house in order when its survival is at stake. This would be the best idea that America could export as an example to the nations of the world.

While there was a time when the United States had a lion's share of the known natural resources in the world, it now finds itself far from being sufficient in a number of resource categories to meet its present technological and industrial society's needs. With about 6 percent of the world's population, the United States consumes 30 percent of the world's resources. From waste and the production of obsolescence, wars and their destruction, the abuse and misuse of its technology, neglect and deterioration, the United States lacks the necessary resources to operate and maintain its some thirty-five billion horsepower of prime movers.

As a matter of fact, in the lst 50 years the per capita consumption of minerals in the United States has multiplied 15 times. The United States has consumed more minerals from 1940 to 1976 than did all humanity up to 1940. In 1940, the population of the United States was 131.6 million people; now it is over 264 million, and the Census Bureau projects that there will be 20 million more people living in America by the end of this century. The implications and ramifications of this trend overshadows the constant gobbledygook that comes out of Washington.

The United States is deficient and depends on foreign countries for most of its essential mineral resources that are necessary to maintain and operate its technological-industrial and infrastructural complex. For most of its mineral resources, this country depends on foreign sources for its supply of chromium, cobalt, manganese, columbium, tin, antimony, nickel, platinum-group metals, iron ore, vanadium, etc. All of these metals are necessary and essential in the production of about everything in the United States: chemical and metallurgical industries, additives in steel making and superalloys, automotive, electric and electronics, jet engines, airframes, space and missile applications, stainless steel industry, etc.,etc.

The best or choicest areas of mineral resources are being mined, and the world's mineral reserve base has been on the decline for some time. Unless there are major discoveries in the future, nations will find the availability of minerals the most fundamental detriment to economic growth in the industrial output. As the mineral producing nations use more of their minerals for their own development, the competition among countries for minerals will become greater and take on a new dimension. And as the mineral producing nations acquire and develop markets in other countries, it is not likely they will cut off those supplies to those nations just to meet an emergency that could happen in the United States and in some of the industrial countries. Stability in many of the mineral producing nations has always been rather precarious.

Military requirements for metallic and non metallic minerals are such that the wartime consumption exceeds peacetime consumption. But with the United States being the largest producer and seller of arms in the world, the competition for minerals is not just between countries, but within the United States as to which is most important and has the highest priority when it comes to the acquisition and use of essential and critical minerals. Considering that the United States depends on foreign countries for most of its essential resources, and consumes minerals and energy on a massive scale while the resource base of the producing countries is being depleted at a rapid rate, the United States will find it difficult to maintain and operate its technological and industrial mechanism even without the ongoing burden of the parasitic and non-productive military-industrial establishment.

The U.S. economy consumes an enormous quantity of materials. In 1989, a total of 4.5 billion metric tons of natural resources were consumed in the United States - about 18 metric tons per person. Consumption of industrial minerals alone amounted to 317 million metric tons. During the past decade, this country has used more plastic on a volume basis than all metals combined, resulting in a growing volume of consumer and solid waste. Compared with other countries, the United States appears to be the largest waste generator in most categories. The amount of waste generated throughout the world, including industrial or hazardous waste, has had a deleterious effect on the environment and the health of nations.

Besides being dependent on most of its consumption of minerals, the United States has become more dependent on petroleum to operate its industrial and infrastructural complex. To put it in numerical terms, before 1979 the United States was importing about 45 percent of its oil. After 1979, as conservation kicked in as a result of the ``oil shocks'', oil imports were reduced to 32 percent by 1985. All the rhetorical bombast to establish a comprehensive conservation program to make the United States independent of foreign oil went by way of all previous political pronouncements and edicts. The petroleum industry in the U.S. was against curtailing its production of oil. Since 1985, imports of oil have been increasing, topping 50 percent last year.

The United States continues to be the largest consumer of energy in the world, about 5.4 times the global average. And liquid fuels, primarily derived from petroleum, still are dominant in the world's energy consumption. The U.S. is the largest debtor nation in the world, and its consumption from the importation of oil is one of the main reasons why it has the largest trade deficit in the world. The federal government took measures and spent millions of dollars in an effort to meet the oil crisis, but as soon as the ``oil shocks'' of 1973-75 and 1979-81 were over, and the price of oil decreased per barrel on the international market, it was back to business as usual.

While the Department of Energy could have made a major contribution toward the conservation and the increased efficiency in the use of energy, it spent a large part of its $4 trillion appropriations during the Cold War maintaining and building nuclear plants and nuclear bombs for the military instead of developing renewable resources, conservation of energy resources, and more efficient methods to curtail waste. To clean up the mess that DOE has made will amount to billions of dollars and the waste of more natural resources.

With speed limits increasing and the gas guzzlers back, it is estimated that American drivers will be using 14 percent more gasoline. As a result, the U.S. will have to import more oil. There has been little overall fuel efficiency during last year or the year before. ``Fuel efficiency has become stagnate,'' according to John DeCicco of the American Council for Emergency Efficiency Economy, a research and lobbying firm promoting energy conservation. If there are any areas left in the world where the exploration and development for oil might be feasible, for what purpose would it be to strike oil if the United States continues to operate and maintain the most inefficient and wasteful system in the world?

There is no better example than the replacement of the street car by the ruthless and underhanded methods used by the automotive, transportation, oil, tire and highway-building industries and manufacturers. These industries and companies along with financial and other vested interests undertook a brazen and systematic scheme to eliminate and destroy the trolley companies. They bought out the legislators and the city dads; set up shills or front companies called the National City Lines for the purpose of buying out and replacing the trolley companies throughout the United States. Once these entrepreneurial vultures got the upper hand and control of the trolley companies, they made certain that the street cars and light trains could not be introduced by removing the tracks and paving over the streets where the street cars ran. The street cars were stacked like worthless junk and burned to make sure they could not ever be used again. The street cars that provided low fares and efficient service for millions of people were soon replaced by automobiles and buses that clogged the streets, spewing out blankets of noxious fumes and smog. Considering how the economic system works, the millions of unhappy commuters that used the street cars had very little input in the process. It was all done in the name of ``progress'', the creation of jobs, and, of course, profits. But ``justice'' was served when the industries and the companies that conspired in the overthrow of the street car companies were found guilty in the court of law. They paid their fines of $5,000, and then proceeded to sell their wares where most of these corporations became the largest and most profitable industries in the United States and the world.

But the street cars were not the only casualty in this great conspiracy to bamboozle the American people and take them for a ride. Next came the highpower sell and spin that the United States needed a super interstate highway to accommodate the mass production of automobiles coming off the assembly lines, to provide the transportation that would come from urban development, and, by all means, national security just in case the United States got into another major war. It didn't take very long for the special interests and the pork brokers to strike a deal to make sure that the interstate road system would be built at the expense of the American people.

In the 1950s, General Motors President, Charles Wilson, became Secretary of Defense, and Francis DuPont of munitions fame, whose family was the largest stockholder in GM for obvious reasons, brokered and sold the idea that to meet modern times and the future development of the country it would be necessary to build superhighways all across the United States from the east to the west coast, and from the southern border to the Canadian border. The politicos in the highest positions of government supported and concurred with the decision to build an interstate highway system throughout the nation. Very little thought was given to the idea of what the future consequences would be from gearing and designing America's infrastructure to the automobile and the need for ever increasing consumption of oil, the impact upon the lifestyle of the people, and the effect on the environment and the resource base of the country and the world. What is good for General Motors is not good by any means for the country.

For years the United States has neglected and allowed its infrastructure to deteriorate. Keeping its 45,000 miles of highways, bridges, roads and streets in a functional condition to accommodate the millions of vehicles that use these facilities has and will continue to be a monumental undertaking for years to come. There are already 50 percent of the bridges in the country that need to be repaired or replaced. Building and extending the present hodge-podge highway system just to meet the millions of cars that are added each year to the highways and streets of the nation that have already reached a point of no return has created many serious problems.

The lack of any overall efficient and functional plan in the growth and expansion of the urban-suburban areas, and the dependence and reliance mostly on automobiles as a major means of transportation, and the extension of the meandering systems of highways and freeways in an attempt to meet the traffic gridlock has become an impossible mission, too expensive to maintain and operate, financially or resource wise. America is now stuck with the largest maze of hodge-podge in the world, covering much of the prime land of the country and requiring huge quantities of the nation's already depleted nonrenewable resources. While the United States has had many opportunities to build an efficient and comprehensive designed transportation system, the representatives of the government with the guidance of vested interests gave more credence to spending $11-$12 trillion on the parasitic folly of the Cold War and escaping to the stars, another trillion dollar diversion. The government became more concerned with the unknown than the known problems here on Earth such as overpopulation and the wasteful use of natural resources.

THE PITFALLS OF GLOBALIZATION AND THE MARKET ORIENTED ECONOMY

Trade among nations of the world in one form or another has been going on for centuries. But with the industrial and technological changes that have been taking place over the years, the economic and industrial powers of the world have recognized that something had to be done about what they considered obstacles in the way of economic growth and development. While multinational trade negotiations have been taking place since World War II to liberalize trade agreements, now a renewed and greater emphasis is being placed on global or world ``free'' trade and its remunerative potential in the scheme of world affairs. The advocates and supporters seem to think that global competitiveness without any trade barriers, and the unimpaired flow of capital investments is the wave of the future, and the United States has no other choice than to take a leading role in this grandiose venture.

While the United States has become the largest exporter of goods and services in the world, it also continues to import more goods and services than it exports. As a result of global ``free'' trade and a market oriented economy, the United States has increased its imports to the point where its trade deficits are the largest in the world and in its history. Yet, in spite of the country's ongoing huge trade deficits, the entourage of the elitists of big business and government officialdom (former and present) prevailed in the political arena with the United States becoming a member of the World Trade Organization. In this new world order and changing times, the biggest beneficiaries of world trade argued that the country must pursue a policy of globalization and ``free'' trade to prevent the country from falling into the protectionist past of the Great Depression era. While not going as far as declaring a panacea, some of the spokesmen for world ``free'' trade made the claim and prediction that the standard of living of the nations and the people would increase to as much as thirty percent. (``The cornucopia of resources that are being extracted, mined, and harvested are so poorly distributed that 20 percent of the earth's people are chronically hungry or starving, while the rest of the population, largely in the North, control and consume 80 percent of the wealth.'' From The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken. Under the present economic system most of the income and wealth is controlled and owned by the small percentage at the top of the economic ladder.)

Those concerned organizations and groups that opposed the adoption of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the ratification of the World Trade Organization argued that these agreements would: disregard any effective environmental standards; result in more plants and jobs going overseas; cause competition with cheap foreign labor; ignore social and human welfare; and the United States would lose its autonomy. Their opposition to the formation of the world and regional trade alliances, confederations and blocs would have a detrimental effect on the economy and the standard of living of the American people. As usual, the multinationals and the power elite received a mandate to continue with business-as-usual and laissez faire, not just in the United States, but worldwide.

Adding to all the hoopla over ``free trade'', the President of the United States made the claim that the formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement would in a decade make the Americas the world's largest market with more than 850 million consumers (customers), buying $13 trillion worth of goods and services. NAFTA, a trade agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, was supposed to be the instrument to provide more jobs and prosperity for the people of North America. But before the ink was dry, the value of the Mexican peso went into a free fall and became worthless, and, as a result, the financial and currency exchange markets were hard hit with losses into the billions of dollars. At the time of the devaluation of the peso, American companies lost as much as $10 billion in sales or about 16 percent of their exports of $60 billion to Mexico. But, once again, the United States made a loan of $50 billion to Mexico to shore up the peso, and to take care of the American banks and to reassure companies doing business that Mexico was now on track and they had nothing to be concerned about. Making the world safe and profitable for a world market oriented economy and multinational enterprise seems to be the fate of the American people.

One of the fallacious conclusions coming out of the idea of world ``free trade'' is the delusion of thinking that the quantity of population (the numbers game) can be equated with a greater potential of sale of goods and services, and a higher standard of living for all of the people. If this premise had any validity, this world now of 5.8 billion, and growing at 90-100 million people a year, would have created a bonanza for business enterprise long ago, and the nations and the people of the world would have been drowning in abundance and enjoying perpetual prosperity. After assessing the physical factors involved, one would conclude that the present and uncontrollable growth of population negates the possibility of any real and sustaining improvement in the standard of living for millions of people. (About 20 percent of the population in the world today live in squalor and hunger.)

The corporate financial and industrial multinationals are always watchful and on the alert to invest and move into those countries or regions of the world that present the greatest opportunities and profitable potential and gain. China, with a population of 1.2 billion people and with the fastest growing economy, has all of a sudden become a most favored nation among other countries of the world in spite of its form of government and human rights record. (The United States with a Gross Domestic Product of $7 trillion has 40 million of its own Americans living at or below the poverty level and millions of children without the proper nutrition and living in substandard conditions.) It is rather ironic that China, as a trading partner with the United States, already has a trade surplus amounting to billions of dollars. While the elite and the entrepreneurial class in China will be able to buy many of the products and goods that are produced worldwide, the future of China to catapult its economy into a market oriented bourgeois state is highly improbable. Demographics, arable land and geology will determine and dominate China's future, not world trade based on financial considerations.

The degradation of the land and the soil that is taking place throughout the world has come to China with a vengeance. While China's industrial growth has increased 50 percent a year in over six years of the 1990s, farm output has fallen for three straight years. Fertile acres of land are being replaced by plants and factories. Modernization is eclipsing a 5,000 year history of peasant agriculture. According to China's government statistics, its arable land has declined by more than half in 40 years. Each year China loses one county of land and gains one county of population. With 1/5th of the world's population, China has only 1/15th of the world's arable land. It is estimated that by 2000, China will have to import 90 million tons of grain, just to meet that part of its food requirements, which is about half of today's world grain exports. But by then, the exporting countries of grain will have to assess their own grain requirements to feed their own people.

If China with its population of 1.2 billion people were to increase its consumption of goods, products and resources through global trade on a scale and at the rate comparable to that of France, Germany, Japan and the United States, the world would endure untold ecoenvironmental devastation and resource loss of the highest magnitude.

In the book, Only One Earth, by Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos, they bring out some rather startling information concerning world development that deserves serious consideration. ``It is estimated that if rapid industrial development were to bring all of the world's people up to today's average developed standards, most minerals would have to be produced at a level five times higher than today.'' And with these calculations, sources of zinc, copper, lead, and tin (along with other mineral resources) would be used in a matter of two decades. Not a very encouraging outlook for the developing, underdeveloped or even the developed industrial countries that have endorsed unlimited and unrestricted world trade and economic expansion.

Over the years the industrial nations and the North have controlled, exploited and consumed most of the natural resources of the world. Today, economic and financial imperialism has replaced colonial imperialism with the financial institutions and government of the industrial nations being the dominant brokers in most financial and resource transactions and worldwide development. As Colin Trudge pointed out in his book, The Famine Business, ``The poor come off badly in their trade with the rich, precisely because the rich are so rich. The inequality is self-perpetuating.'' And their dependence on those front organizations such as The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (the austerity loan shark bank) has kept them in bondage to those financial institutions controlled by the industrial nations of the North.

If the United States and other nations that want to get away from where trade is based only on financial considerations and remuneration, a greater emphasis could be asserted on the advantages to all countries through counter-trade, barter and co-production with other countries for essential natural resources, materials, technological and scientific exchanges without all of the complications that come from financial and monetary considerations, and trade deficits that will cause an ``economic earthquake.''

Such an arrangement would slow down the exploitation and voracious consumption of the world's remaining natural resources just for the sake of maintaining and perpetuating a market and an aristocratic economy and form of government. What good is world or regional trade if most of the raw materials, food and goods produced go to the industrial nations and do not include and spell out a specific plan toward greater self-sufficiency and the distribution of the basics of life as a priority among those countries that are being exploited, even in those industrial nations that have poverty and squalor. Any world, or regional trade agreements, that do not include and put environmental and a sustainable resource base as its prime objectives is doomed to hastening its and the demise of modern civilization.

While the prevailing wisdom seems to be that trade lifts everyone's standard of living, Charles McMillion, a consultant and contributing editor of the Harvard Business Review, disagrees. He contends that the natural consequence of trade is the major reason why millions of Americans have seen their income shrink over the past 20 years. While millions of new jobs have been created here in the last 20 years, most of these new jobs, on net, have been in trade industries. ``And what this means over the past 20 years is a shift from highly productive high-wage jobs to less productive, lower-wage jobs,'' he said. And as trade grows, we can expect to see more social turmoil and political instability in the industrial nations as both worker and governments try to cope with less money and purchasing power. Who is going to buy all of the things that are going to be produced? He doesn't see any indication that the cheap labor of the developing and Third World Nations is going away any time soon.

While the political and power brokers in Washington contend that the United States is on the threshold of an exporting boom, McMillion thinks it is about time for the country to face up to reality. The annual trade deficit has been running around or over $150 billion for many years. ``Our trade position has collapsed,'' according to McMillion's report. At current rates, America's annual global merchandise trade imbalance will approach $220 billion this year. For the last quarter of a century, the United States has run a trade deficit. Merely making the world safe for investments and promoting exports worldwide without a balance in trade relations become a one-way street that can only lead to a head-on collision and a dead end.

Managed or world ``free trade'' with all of the various alphabetical abbreviations such as GATT, NAFTA, WTO, EU. ASEAM and subsidiaries have been formed to promote greater world trade of exports and imports, and to make it easier to shift money around the globe and give investments a freer rein in international markets. These world trade organizations are controlled by multinational oligarchies with governments acting as adjunct or pitch artists. The 500 companies in the world control 25 percent of the world's gross output while employing only .05 of one percent of the world's population. Their revenues have a greater turnover than the smallest 100 countries in the world. (``The largest 1,000 companies in the U.S. account for over 60 percent of the GNP, leaving a balance (spoils) to 11 million small businesses. The average large business is 16,500 times larger than the average small business.'' Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce, Harper Business, New York, N.Y. 1993.) With their financial clout and connections, they are too powerful to be held accountable and responsible. The cost of the degradation and the damage to the ecoenvironmental systems, to the air, water and the resource base are never included in the gross or net financial profits that come from global trade and transactions. Global trade within the framework of a monetary and market economy will only accelerate the exploitation and use of the world's already diminished and remaining resources. Questioning and challenging the purpose behind a market oriented economy, and the implementation of a viable alternative, must have the highest priority now and in the future.

Nothing has had a more devastating impact upon the world's resource base than the exponential growth of population worldwide. At the present rate of population growth, the world's population will jump from the present 5.8 billion people to 8.9 billion by 2030. The population of the world is now growing at 100 million people each year. The carrying capacity of this finite Earth cannot sustain this rate of population growth nor the present population. By not implementing measures to control the growth of population, about one-fifth or 20 percent of the world's population living in poverty and going hungry, nothing can bring more social, economic and environmental problems and upheaval than the present and future population of the nations of the world. With the rapid decline of food sources from disappearing arable land and top soil, commercial and residential development, and when major fishing areas throughout the world have reached or exceeded natural limits, millions more of the population will be faced with greater deficiencies to sustain and maintain the basic sustenance for life. Massive food shortages and more food riots will become the norm. Future Green Revolutions with the scientific and technological fix will not suffice to meet the food requirements of the population explosion and have become too expensive, financially, resource or energy wise. Besides, the biggest gains from the Green Revolution have already been realized. The consequences could be catastrophic unless there is a bold and comprehensive long-term plan designed and implemented to meet this exigency now.

ENERGY MAKES THE WORLD GO AROUND

The production and the use of energy, the ever-increasing mining of the subsoil wealth, the amount of waste being generated, along with the growth in the population worldwide, are important factors that cannot be ignored in any industrial activity and the global economy. Over the last quarter century, there have been vast changes in the production and consumption of energy. World consumption of commercial energy to meet the burgeoning rate of growth and development has increased 35 percent with the bulk of the production and consumption being in solid and gaseous fuels.

The United States is not only the largest producer of commercial energy, it is also the largest consumer. Though its per capita of commercial energy has declined by about 4 percent, its total consumption has increased by 17 percent. And at the same time, its energy use per unit of economic output has declined 17 percent. Still, the United States per capita consumption of 320 gigajoules is over 35 times that of India (9 gigajoules) and 14 times that of China (23 gigajoules). In comparison with the U.S., 19 countries, 16 of them in Africa, use less than 1.5 gigajoules of commercial energy per capita. The United States uses more energy than any of the industrial nations.

To get some idea of the magnitude of the energy and other resources used by the industrial countries alone: The industrial nations use over 70 percent of the world's resources with only 20 percent of the world's population, and the United States consumes 30 percent of the world's resources with only 6 percent of the world's population. The U.S. has the largest per capita consumption of energy and other resources in the world, yet it is a net importer of oil and depends on the mineral production nations for most of its essential minerals that are required to operate its industrial, infrastructural and social complex.

The United States is now the third largest country in the world in population. In 1790 the population of the U.S. came to about 4 million people. By 1900 the nation's population had increased to over 76 million. At the present rate of population growth, now at over 264 million, it will pass 400 million by the year 2050. At the present time the U.S. allows 800,000 immigrants into the country to become American citizens each year while at the same time thousands of illegal immigrants keep coming into the country for economic or other reasons, which adds to one of the most pressing problems that confronts this country and the world. As Carlo M. Cipolla wrote in his book, The Economic History of Population, ``We are living through this fabulous dissipation.'' But for how long? As has been stated, ``If we breed like rabbits, we will have to die like rabbits.''

If the consumption of energy continues at the present rate to meet the ever increasing expansion and development that the present economy depends on for its existence, where will all of the other natural resources come from to maintain the gluttonous appetite of this economic structure, and to operate the social and industrial mechanism with its billions of horsepower prime movers? What will be the impact on the environment and ecosystems? How will it be possible just to meet the basic needs of the world's growing population? What additional effect will the increasing use of energy have on the already deteriorating state of the infrastructure? And the health of the people and the nations of the world?

DECELERATING THE RACE TOWARD EXTINCTION

Before going ahead pell-mell with unlimited growth and development, worldwide trade imbalances, and continuing to exploit the earth's resources as if they are inexhaustible, and continuing on a collision course with the environmental and natural habitat systems, it is of the greatest urgency for all nations and governments to adopt and implement a comprehensive long-term plan that will preserve the earth's remaining resources and prevent any further degradation and destruction of the resource base.

The need for a new effective strategy and a plan of inventiveness that are compatible with the preservation of the earth's resources and habitat from further degradation and destruction is long overdue. Considering what has been done in the past, it is doubtful that any viable plan will be implemented within the framework of the present superfinancial system, and where government officials and the power brokers either represent or are in collusion with the institutions and establishments that control the economic system.

All throughout history America and the other countries have found themselves in a catch-22 situation. Being hostages to the monetary and financial system, countries are limited and forced to comply with the rules and demands that are inherent in the present economic system. As a result, the dominant control for the largest exploitation and consumption of the world's resources is by the North or the industrial nations where most of the financial centers are located and operate. Unless this bondage can be broken, there will not be any effective and viable change in the method of operating the social and economic structure. The natural resources will continue to be used in a wasteful and haphazard manner merely for the meaningless purpose of perpetuating pecuniary gain.

At this phase in history where the ever increasing magnitude of the damage and destruction of the resource base of the United States and other nations of the world goes on unabated, it becomes imperative to our well-being to take those necessary steps to prevent this onslaught before it engulfs us and before it reaches a point of no return. Taking into consideration the most important phases of history, the world is now at its most crucial state. As M. King Hubbert (1903-1989) wrote so distinctly in Energy From Fossil Fuels: Perhaps the foremost problem facing mankind at the present is that of how to make the ``transition'' from the present exponential-growth phase to a near steady state of the future by as noncatastrophic a progression as possible.

How much longer can this wanton and extravagant consumption of this nation's and the world's resource reserves continue? All of the geological estimates are in the negative.

Maybe as the only ``superpower'' left in the world, the United States could take the lead and set an example in a ``contraction'' instead of an ``expansion'' program or plan in the consumption of its and the world's already depleted and rapidly shrinking natural resources. With about six percent of the world's population, the United States consumes about 30 percent or the highest percentage of the world's resources. Needless to say, the United States has the most inefficient and wasteful economic and industrial system.

Considering that the United States has become dependent on other nations for most of its essential minerals and oil and is the largest debtor nation and has the highest trade deficit in the world, it would be in its best interests and beneficial, resource or otherwise, for this country and other nations in the world to recognize the futility of their past policies. There is no escaping the fact that the resources of this Earth are finite, and the carrying capacity of any country or region is limited. More than anything, it is the responsibility of a nation to put its own house in order.

At the present rate of economic expansion and growth, along with the present and increasing rate of population growth, the United States alone would need a much larger share of the world's output of irreplaceable and renewable resources to maintain its industrial and social operation and any growth and consumption. For any economic system that is predicated on growth and expansion for its existence, the future of that system and the nation is fraught with difficulties and problems of perpetuity. It is impossible for any industrial and technological society to expand at a compound rate for any period of time without its bringing irreparable damage to the social and industrial structure, and to the resource base of that nation and the world. In a high-energy and technological society as exists in the United States, the American people and the government can no longer afford to ignore that the laws of thermodynamics and matter and energy are universal irrespective of ideology or form of government.

The present cyclical economy with its booms and busts, recessions and depressions, panics and crises, and periods of prosperity, which provide huge profits for the corporate ``power elite'', has never been able to maintain a stable and viable economic operation nor provide what is necessary to meet the essential physical requirements of the social and technological mechanism. Instead of the natural resources, technology and know-how being mobilized for the purpose of maintaining a sustainable economy and providing society with a high standard and quality of life, most of the resources, technology and scientific expertise of this country and the world have been misused to perpetuate an economic system that is rapidly bleeding this Earth of its essential resources and creating irretrievable conditions.

How long can the Earth's remaining resources last, or nations be able to maintain some semblance of viability and sustainability with the extravagance of the industrial nations and with the present rate of population growth? While economic and financial bankruptcy can be prolonged by the creation of debt (including governments), restructuring, and through financial and currency manipulation, and the establishment of bankruptcy codes favoring megacorporations, forgiving debts, taxing the American people to bail out financial institutions, etc., natural resource bankruptcy is an entirely different matter. Once natural resources are burned, used or consumed, there is no way, thermodynamically, of extracting perennial interest from them. You cannot eat your cake and still have it.

The decline and fall of a civilization does not happen suddenly, but it is the result of many factors over the years of those pursuits and methods that can have a devastating effect on the resource base and the operations of any social and technological mechanism. Every day that this entrenched institutionalized system continues with the magnitude of damage it does to the ecoenvironmental systems, and the resource cost just to maintain this infrastructural maze of a hodge-podge, the chances for survival become remote. We must face the fact that we have mortgaged the natural heritage to maintain and perpetuate an economic anachronism.

Unless America and the other nations throughout the world can disengage and make a complete break from the present monetary and market system, which is based on unlimited growth and development for its existence, and implement a method of operation or system that is in harmony or compatible with physical reality and the limitations of this finite planet, then the decay and decline of modern civilization and our own demise become inevitable.

SOURCES, REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READING:

Cadillac Desert (The American West & Its Disappearing Water), Marc Reisner, Viking, New York, NY, 1986.

Living Within Limits, Garrett Hardin, Oxford University Press, New York, 1933.

Only One Earth, Barbara Ward & Rene Dubos, W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, NY, 1972.

Our Natural Resources & Their Conservation, Edited by A.E. Parkins & J.R. Whitaker, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., First Edition, 1939.

The Ecology of Commerce, Paul Hawken, Harper Business (Harper Collins), 1993.

Wealth, Virtual Wealth & Debt (The Solution of the Economic Paradox), Frederick Soddy, New York, NY, E.P. Dutton, Second Edition, 1933.

Who Rules America Now? G. William Domhoff, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, First Edition, l986.

World Resources 1994-95, Report by The World Resources Institute, Oxford University Press, 1994.

Worldwatch Institute, State of the World, Vital Signs & Worldwatch Papers, Washington , D.C.

The Prize, Daniel Yergen, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1991-92

Information taken from a number of publications, articles by various columnists, news services, etc.