By Alex Lenferna
As a person who is going to live quite a bit longer than President Zuma, (or so I hope, although perhaps six wives supported by the state is the key to longevity) the State of the Nation address (SONA) was worrying.
Not only did Zuma spark a rather ironic note by swearing allegiance to the very Constitution he has been doing so well to undermine.
Not only did Zuma laud the successes of South African education in the face of much evidence to the contrary.
Indeed, not only did Zuma herald COP17 as a “historic and precedent setting” outcome along the lines of the Kyoto Protocol conference – perhaps the analogous aspects relate to the Kyoto Protocol’s inadequacy in dealing with climate change?
More than all of this, Zuma painted a picture of South Africa’s development, characterised by the “industrialisation” of South Africa, which has alarming implications for the future, my future, our future, the youth’s future and our climate’s stability.
Much of Zuma’s speech revolved around the plundering of South Africa’s natural resources in order to attain economic growth, an economic growth that so far only reaches a select few; that is, despite SONA’s repeated focus on poverty alleviation. And without drastic change, history, I fear, will repeat itself. Indeed, the minerals-(dirty)-energy complex that has dominated South Africa for so long, and which, far from alleviating the poverty of our country, has widened our economic inequalities even under the rule of the ANC, continued to be alluded to as the panacea of our economic woes.
Now, I am not naïve enough to suggest that our economy as it stands will be able to sustain itself without mining and energy, but the green economy is surely not consistent with the path of development that Zuma has painted. I know in isiZulu green and blue are one and the same word, but I didn’t realise the same applied to green and brown, for indeed the future that Zuma has painted is one consistent with a brown economy rather than the green one repeatedly mentioned in SONA – brown economy referring to an outdated fossil economy rather than being a racist slur, of course.
SONA confirmed that coal power through Medupi and Kusile are still on track to be developed and new rail line infrastructure is set to be established to help facilitate the continued growth of South Africa’s coal economy. Whether Anglo American Corporation and BHP Billiton will continue to see extremely reduced prices in electricity (BHP Billiton for example, received a $200-million subsidy in 2010) remains to be seen; or perhaps not, given the unacceptably confidential nature of those rates. Be that as it may, not only will Medupi and Kusile lock South Africa further into a coal-dependent future, but the debt from those purchases, owed to the far-from-magnanimous World Bank, will continue to haunt us for years to come as well as move precious resources away from the transition to the much needed green economy. I for one am not counting on Eskom’s sketchy track record to make the profits needed to pay back the loan any time soon.
Indeed it’s not clear where the source of finances for the grand infrastructure-state-capital expansion that SONA envisions will come from. If indeed it is from sources like the World Bank it is only fitting that much of Zuma’s speech focuses on the facilitation of cheap port systems in South Africa, for they’re going to be needed to facilitate the onslaught of one-sided extractive globalisation that characterises a country locked into loans from the World Bank and their kin. As Patrick Bond points out, our willingness to acquiesce to World Bank demands was demonstrated, among other occasions, when Trevor Manuel repressed debate on the World Bank’s conflict of interest in running the Green Climate Fund, last year in Tokyo – a conflict of interest which could/will see false solutions to climate change, such as carbon capture and storage, sold off for great profits as the real thing.
Faith Briol, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency, points out that “delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent to compensate for the increased emissions.” So where are we going? Apart from a few allusions to the green economy, much of South Africa’s great infrastructure drive envisioned by SONA is set to prop up the dirty mining-energy complex of South Africa. As such, our arguably insufficient commitments [PDF] under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change seem to be getting further beyond our reach.
Credit, however, is perhaps due to Zuma for outlining the importance of continuing the “search” for – not roll-out of – renewable energies. I can’t help but think that in many ways South Africa’s renewable energy development is meant as a way to placate green economy proponents as opposed to a serious attempt to transition our economies. Indeed, with just over $0.2-billion loaned for renewable energies from the World Bank compared to the $3.75-billion for dirty development, it’s hard to think otherwise. I am not claiming that we face an easy switch to renewables or a green economy, for in South Africa, as in many places, we are faced with an apparent energy dilemma: we have an expanding industrial economy, which we are fuelling with fossils, but green resolutions that are asking us to do otherwise. This is indeed a tricky dilemma as Faranaaz Parker’s balanced article on SA’s energy mix suggests. This, however, is the time that we in South Africa need to see past this dilemma.
Yes, we cannot continue to fuel the current industrial mining-energy complex without mega energy projects, but what are the products of our current economy, and seemingly the one that Zuma proposes, which are so valuable? Top-down, unequal industrial development that benefits a few, often at the expense of many – including the health of our climate. Is this really the economic product that we want? For the majority of South Africans (except for the symbolic 1%), I’m not so sure.
We need to redefine our development paradigm to include more localised bottom-up development, which includes ecological considerations and health as important development indicators, for which renewable energies and less resource-intensive development is more suited. We as a nation need to begin to question and rethink the development paradigm shoved down our throats, which has allowed us to become one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters and resource-intense economies in the world, but still allows for such great poverty and inequality, represented by growing urban sprawl with elite pockets of wealth surrounded by burgeoning squatter camps, coupled with environmentally insensitive and often degrading development.
The industrial development paradigm that we currently seem hell-bent on pursuing, and which SONA punts, is failing throughout the Western world, and many of the reasons why it did originally work consisted, to a significant extent, in the West’s exploitation and their exportation of negative impacts beyond their own borders. We don’t have access to quite the same (perverse) privilege, so why emulate something that is not “sustainable” – however you choose to interpret this famously ambiguous term?
Before ending, it’s worth quoting John Perkins at length:
“We prefer to believe the myth that thousands of years of human evolution has finally perfected the ideal economic system, rather than to face the fact we have merely bought into a false concept and accepted it as gospel. We have convinced ourselves that all economic growth benefits humankind and the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. Finally, we have persuaded one another that the corollary is true: that people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded…”
As Zuma attempts to stoke the fires of economic growth of our country, we must ask ourselves whether the product he is selling us is akin to the myth that Perkins describes; one that will sell our future down the river in the name of lopsided economic growth and the continuation of South Africa’s dirty mining-energy complex. South Africa is now 128th of 132 countries on the environmental performance index, and the 2nd most unequal society in the world; what further costs are we willing to pay to pursue that myth?
Alex Lenferna was the lead tracker of the South African government during COP17 under adoptanegotiator.org, as well as chairperson of the South East African Climate Consortium Student Forum. Follow Alex on Twitter , Facebook or www.adoptanegotiator.org.
That is a lot of not only’s to start the piece.
By and large i agree with you. Until Zuma surrounds himself with suitable qualified people what hope do we have?
I do wonder if this article represents the sort of dialogue Trevor Manuel was referring to in his recent address. I can’t see this going down well in Zumaville aka Parliament.
You write: “The industrial development paradigm that we currently seem hell-bent on pursuing, and which SONA punts, is failing throughout the Western world…”
Yes this might be the case for some countries in the “Western world” but it is definitely not true for India, China and Brazil – and aren’t that the places you should be looking at?
Stealing your opening: as a person who recently entered the 4th quadrant of a 100 years lifecycle the SONA was equally, if not more, worrying. Having seen the past, I worry about the future..not for me as a person but for society as a whole.
The hunger for economic growth, requiring increased available energy of whatever source, plundering nature and landscapes for short term (in our lifetime) rewards is a major threat to a long term system that will balance societal needs with available resources.
One of my old history teachers told us: “all conflicts in the world have economic imbalances as a source”.
SONA was punting more of the same in economic development. The current armed conflicts in the world are mostly about resources and fuelled by –often- external powers with vastly different interests.
The movement of New Economics –NEF- does not have all the answers but is more on track to addressing some of the global economic problems. It calls for local vs global economics; it calls for an overhaul of the financial systems and introducing bartering between people in local communities. The strongest opposition is coming from governments and banks.
I wouldn’t want to know how South Africa would have looked today if we did not have a mining industry. As Peter Bruce of Business Day like to say – in SA we farm and mine. That is our economy and competitive advantage. Significant proportions of tax revenue and industries in SA depend on the mining sector.
Business and industry try to be efficient all the time – get more for less. So if there was a way of saving energy in the mining industry they would adapt it because it makes good business sense.
Of course that is assuming they don’t get subsidies (cheap power/water) and that there are proper property right regimes in place (pollution, fracking, acid water etc). I think it is important that we get these things in place rather than advocating for renewable energy that simply cannot compete and aren’t reliable enough at this stage.
With regards to inequality please note that SA scores poorly (Gini) in terms of those countries for which there are indicators. That excludes a lot of other countries on the continent and poorer nations.
Until and if the labour laws are scrapped we have no hope. Cosatu control the employment scene and they make sure that they look after their members that they have and do nothing to further the employment of others. It was only yesterday that Zuma was on again about changing the Constitution, not for the protection of the voters but for the protections of his clique. Zuma wants a second term and now that he has done what he should have done years ago, get rid of Malema who has already caused immeasurable damage to the economy and the country, he feels that he ‘qualifies’. There is a campaign on at this time for everyone to employ one and get jobs for all. Well that’s not going to happened because everyone who is stupid enough to employ one will get a striker, a trasher, an “I deserve” and someone bent on destroying the very job they have just received, or worse to contend with. If you cannot select and change employees then nobody is going to employ anyone.
BEE, BEEEE, BEEEEEE, Afirmative Action do not work and retard the growth that we could have and SADTU are hell bent on producing more illiterate teachers and ‘learners’ than we already have. Please president Zuma, resign and take all your relatives and friends with you as we have no hope whilst you steer us into oblivion but as long as you stay out of jail, that’s all that matters?. Malema had lots of valid complaints but revolution, song and dance is not the way to achieve anything.
@Pater
“There is a campaign on at this time for everyone to employ one and get jobs for all. Well that’s not going to happened because everyone who is stupid enough to employ one will get a striker, a trasher, an “I deserve” and someone bent on destroying the very job they have just received, or worse to contend with. If you cannot select and change employees then nobody is going to employ anyone.”
I have ben there and it is the norm, never mind the lies! The number of time I have had qualifications, capabilities, experience, references, testimonials, requests for absence shown to be complete fabrications would shock even the most forgiving. And then to be promised a delivery time and have it utterly ignored, from even your own staff. And beware the CCMA, the taker of all things that do not conform to ‘fair discrimination’.
And finally the useless education that even the university ‘graduates’ don’t have.
You are right, we have no hope..
I’m with HD particularly because I read this
http://www.karoospace.co.za/karoo-space-magazine/talking-point/118-mining-fracking-and-acid-mine-drainage-in-south-africa-a-beginners-guide
last night and it made a huge impression.
I immediately realised how necessary it is to get the unemployed out of Gauteng and help them become self-employed. I’ve never believed that allowing the Rand to grow more is good sense; it now appears to me to be nonsense.
@Peppi, I agree that we shold look to Brazil, China and India too, but we must be wary to celebrate their successes without examining the negatives that come with their development too. If we look to their inequalities, extractive and sometimes repressive nature, there are certainly many problems that abound. But I do agree that there are lessons to be learnt.
@HD Thank you for the correction with regards to the Gini Coefficient. I am not arguing that mining and agriculture hasn’t done a lot for South Africa. I am saying that we must look at how it has benefited us, and whether that is cause to rethink our development paradigm and how mining and energy fit into it. I agree that renewables have their issues, but that’s why I say it is better suited to a different developmental paradigm. The article had space limits, and so I couldn’t really get into it in depth.
@ MLH Thank you for the link to the very informative article. I agree in many ways, and particularly enjoy a great quote in the article: “At the very heart of it is the way we as a nation transition from an extractive economy that has mobilized massive wealth to be repatriated to investors offshore, while leaving millions destitute, now forced to eke out a pitiful existence on a parched landscape so toxic and radioactive that places like Robinson Lake are devoid of biological life.”
@ALex.it must be bliss to be idealistic. I also think that it is most harsh to blame your President and his wifes on the climatic woes (?) The pitch of this argument is skewed and the slippery slope you create becomes very very slippery.
Now lets unpack your issues. Are you saying that SA in general should have no industrialisation? If not, then are you proposing that we regress to living off the land? How realistic is that possibility noting that the land issue (one day) will become NO 1 MAJOR issue, Watch this space.
Now, compared to ALL the western countries, African leaders are the ONLY leaders who will subscribe and abide to/with the principals of greenification of their economies, etc etc. Now, you have to concede that. Also African leaders are the only leaders who will responsibly create conditions for greenies to operate under the new wave industrialisation. Personally, I think noting that China is making huge inroads in Africa, Africa amongst other things is set to become major food producers of the world. Why because of the conditions, sustainability and consistency. Now what did we have before industrialisation. We had the land-ownership system of land-owner and land-worker. That system was not economically viable. Given the material conditions on the ground right now, with a global village, how can you prevent industrialisation. Realistically, industrialisation should be the main thrust of your argument vs greenification. Leave JZ out man, its just unnecessary
Economic growth as propogated by western economists is a false god. It exacerbates the world’s two greatest problems – depletion of finite world resources and ever increasing inequality. Intellectuals need to find a road of radical conservatism, a road that conserves world resources by turning the wealthy away from gross materialistic consumption and radical by achieving a non-destructive process of redistribution of both capacity and resources. It can be done if intellectuals will break out of the traditional paradigms they learnt at university.
@Tofolux I did not argue that industrialisation should not be pursued, nor did I say that we should ‘regress’ to living off the land. (Although why is living off the land seen as a regression though?) All I am calling for is a rethinking of development paradigm and who it benefits, as well as it’s ramifications for the future.
I believe that JZ as the president of the country might be relevant in this.
The comment on his wives was meant to be a light-hearted aside, I did not intend to blame climate change issues on that.
The tremendous damage being done to human health in SA by the unregulated and, apparently unregulatible, mines and industry also affects the ecosystems within which we live.
We need to urgently find ways of creating self employment around cleaning up the pollution and restoring the ecosystems so that our health and that of everything we share our land with is markedly improved.
I agree with your statements Alex and it is good to see that people much younger than I are becoming sensitised and sensible
Far from changing the labour laws, Cosatu wants to make them stricter and ban labour brokers.
Which will just increase xenophobia as more employers decide to employ illegal immigrants and more of them pour across our open borders for work.
The labour laws and land laws introduced by the ANC already had over 1 million workers evicted from the land long before the recession. Mostly they have been replaced by illegal immigrants who can’t claim their families originally owned the land. We were shedding jobs in SA long before the international recession.
Xenophobia is happening in the European Union in the same way as in South Africa. Here we have uneducated and unskilled pouring out of the Homelands, even dumped from the Eastern Cape in the Western Cape by the ANC “to blacked the Cape”. In Europe the West Europeans are complaining about the East Europeans taking their jobs by working for lower pay, and then living off their welfare.
Open borders do NOT work!
Plus “Equal pay for equal work” is an obsolute theory which applied to factory workers in the time of Marx.
Even people digging ditches do not work equally well. All “equal pay” does is de-motivate the achievers to slow down to the pace of the lazy – as happened in the co-operative farms of both China and Russia, which is why millions starved under communism.
This is not the ANC anyhow but a Communist/Pan Africanist party.
The original ANC wanted CLOSED borders to stop mines employing cheaper…
Xenophobia is NOT simply racism like the Kwanza Cultists believe, as my 2 examples show. It is different cultures/traditions/religions/beliefs clashing where there might or might not also be a skin colour difference.
And it ONLY happens, as history shows, when a foreign culture starts flooding into an area threatening to overwhelm the local culture.
A SMALL amount of foreigners have usually been well treated in all cultures around the globe through all of history.
Industrial revolution for China my friend. Or whoever else wishing to exploit our natural resources. See zuma is not interested in developing skills and education. nor does he want SA to be able to produce products an create alternative industries. No that might just create too much competition to his puppet masters in developed countries
Thanks Alex for a passionate and well-structured response to the industrialisation-infrastructure thrust in the 2012 SONA. As the responses show, we’re in an era of paradigm change – those of us who see that the real socio-economic development has long ago shifted into the service domain still get raised eyebrows from the establishment, who just won’t accept that the mining sector is actually shrinking. They’ve taken out 95% of the gold, the profits are abroad or in Jhb real estate, the sick ex-mine workers back home, and the acid waters are rising! I had hoped that the industrialisation paradigm had faded away with Alec Erwin; Zuma’s first year in government let off some promising notes on pushing “social innovation”. Alas, he seems to have been hauled back in by traditional “wise council”: Our famous and oh so successful mining-based economic model can still deliver a deluge of trickle-down wealth creation… Development, my friends, is what happens inside our heads – and that is inextricably linked to our education at first, and our willingness and ability thereafter to continue learning for life. On that score, as on the ones on inequality and environmental degradation, we desperately need to shift the emphasis on where we’re deploying those resources we still do have as a nation! The battle for a green economy in a just and equal society continues!
@Lyndall. you make me larf sometimes. What are you on about borders,ok now this is a biggie….within SA? What is this about dumping in WCape from Ecape. You know Berri, it is very important when one preaches and bemoans racism one has also deracialised oneself. I know its hard for some but its a daily exercise. Its like a daily prayer with a plea for salvation. Are you serious when you talk about human beings and about them dumped. Dumping is reserved for rubbish, dirt, etc Can you see the offensiveness of your sentence, I think that sometimes when peeps talk they are ignorant of a historical suffering of their brothers and sistas.
Can I say that China has one of the oldest cultures. Yes, its older than your mother-country’s ”culture”. And Chinese hav historically travelled the seas far and wide to trade and barter. But China never imposed their culture on any country. They never colonised their trade partners. In fact, the nature of their trade agreements are very progressive unlike the unnecessary demands of the West, the World Bank or IMF. It would do well for Africa to trade with China than any western partner. Point is, the nature of Chinese politics is the key. So Berri it is wrong to claim that China will colonise their trade partners. So all these spooky stories are just spooky stories.
Also, I wish someone would not toe the “line” when talking about Cosatu. Speak authoritively on facts, generalisations are just wishy washy.
Most informative, well written and researched article – thanks Alex!
As hopeless as the situation often appears, climate change is at least a ‘blip’ on South Africa’s radar. Climate change in Zimbabwe is hardly, if ever, addressed. However, perhaps our slightly ‘backward’ economy contributes little to the carbon footprint, despite the negative impacts of this for our economies well-being.
So Mr Lenferna, should thigs get real back in South Africa, could I expect that you will make your way to Mauritius and live in the South African enclave in Black River?
Tofolux
Unemployed blacks were bussed out of the Eastern Cape and dumped on empty land all over the Western Cape before the 1994 elections by the ANC.
Which is why there are black townships in places like Hermanus which had no blacks before. And also why there are over 200 black squatter camps in Cape Town below the flood line- that empty land they were dumped on was undeveloped BECAUSE it was below the floodline.
The Han, as a growing Empire, displaced and conquered many peoples both before and after communism. The Han are only ONE of 500 languages in China, which also means 500 tribal groups (ref: “Bill Bryson “Mother Tongue”).
Since communism they colonised Tibet, Mongolia and a few other areas and are still trying for Nepal and Taiwan.
@Harro Thanks for the reinforcements.
@Saskia I think Zimbabwe’s carbon footprint is significantly less than South Africa’s. We’re the 13th biggest GHG emitter in the world. I’m quite worried about adaptation in Zim though, as well as South Africa, if it’s not an issue that is being put properly on the map. You might like the following article: http://zimupdate.blogspot.com/2009/01/greenest-state-in-africa.html
@Manzanbic, I would love to come spend some time back in Mauritius, it will always be my 2nd home, but I’m hoping things don’t get too “real” here any time soon.
Tofolux
Du Bois was born in 1868 and his “The Soul of Black Folks” was written in 1903. His main work was from then to the 1930s. He lived to 1963 but was old by then. He just missed black Americans getting the vote in 1965.
He did visit Russia after the communist revolution in 1917, and also Nazi Germany, and was not impressed with either.
But his whole ideology assumes that blacks everywhere were treated like blacks in America. His Pan Africanist theories heavily influenced both Nkruhmah in Ghana, and Mbeki in South Africa.
He was an AMERICAN not an African! His knowledge of Africa was theorectical, not based on historical accuracy. He certainly visited Africa often – but that does not mean he mixed with the ordinary folk or understood their histories or cultures.
And Mbeki himself never lived in South Africa, before he came back from exile. His whole knowledge was theorectical as well. Mbeki grew up in the Homeland of the Transkei, and then went overseas to be educated.
Unlike Mandela and Zuma who both ran away from tribal authority in the Homelands to South Africa and actually lived there.
Climate change in Zim for those who are interested
:
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/life/environment/52314/views-on-climate-change.html
http://unisapress.bookslive.co.za/blog/2012/02/15/patrick-bond-banned-from-presenting-climate-change-lecture-in-zimbabwe/
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/life/environment/53154/zim-needs-climate-change-policy.html
Alex, you are quite correct. Even more imminent and urgent than climate change is facing the challenge of Peak Oil- the solutions to both challenges being essentially the same- investing in renewable energy, mass public transit and a transition to a steady-state economy.All of which demand real leadership , a willingness to face up to reality and avoid the convenient temptation into a state of denialism.It requires leadership by example and a demonstration of walking the talk and rejecting the material trappings of a luxurious, extravagant lifestyle whether by public officials or the business sector. It demands the creation and promotion of a new narrative of what constitutes the “good Life” and a vision of a better future and society given the challenges and economic headwinds we are facing. It(our situation) requires visionary and intelligent leadership, prepared to embrace real alternatives such as radical monetary reform and it demands the courage and willingness to implement these changes , fearlessly in spite of the external pressures that is brought to bear by malevolent forces.
@Alex can you please call Lyndall Berri to order?
The subject matter under discussion is industrial revolution for whom (?)
@Yaj, Hear hear
@Tofolux, you are asking the impossible.
Yaj
Which was exactly why the SOCIALIST Afrikaner developed Sasol, which was the first parastatal that Mandela sold.
Tofolux
I reply to the points you raise.
@Tofolux, I would be wary about lauding the Chinese trade agreements and dealings with Africa as being free of issues. There is much to be worried about including human rights abuses, and more subtle neo-imperialism.
@Alex
Tofolux and all of his allies line up behind this line in our crappy constitution:
“5. Discrimination on one or more of the grounds listed in subsection (3) is unfair unless it is established that the discrimination is fair.”
So, if Tofolux, or Zuma, or Malema or their representatives decide that discrimination is fair, then it is fair; Chinese or not Chinese, human rights or not. It’s their constitutional ‘get out of jail’ card, ‘we can do anything we like to anybody ‘card From education to government to commerce. Every time. Ask Juju/
New Zealand has just blocked the sale of a large amount of Dairy farms to China. Good for them. China has been buying farmland everywhere, including Africa.
It will be the Chinese feeding the world from African farms in future.
@ Graham, Tofolux is a “she” and a proud one at that!
@Alex, the superpowers have this misguided notion that they must import their values and culture on those countries they colonise.The Chinese has not made an agressive land grab of the resources of a sovereign state. Also realistically, every country needs a trade partner. Now, would I deal with America or should I deal with China? Given America’s history, I wouldnt. They do not believe in secondary industries, sustainability or infrastructural responsibilities. And America should be the plague that we avoid. Why? because despite their wholesale programming through movies that liberty, justice etc etc is AMerican, the reality shows something else. Hence WATCH out for new industrialisation under BRICSA. Also, I should remind you that JZ is informed by the industrial policy of ANC. No policy by govt belongs to JZ.
Regressing back to the land is just not possible. The superpowers is ruining the land with their artificial manufacturing of seeds stolen from Africa. The food we eat today is so manufactured the consequence of which we see is the type of diseases that we suffer from today. They are beginning to manufacture animals. What then will be the effect on the land. Also, land is a worldwide issue. It is a major issue, now with the shortage of water etc.
Alex, these are the real issues. And it seems that we are about to drop the ball on these things by focussing on issues that are so irrelevant eg see above…
@Tofolux, I am not claiming that we could possibly move back to all living off the land, if that is what you think I’m saying. My point earlier was merely to question the use of the term “regress” to living off the land. It’s merely a semantic point about the negative connotations associated with doing so. Neither am I claiming that we should stop trading , I was merely warning of lauding the Chinese, for their track record in Africa, while not as bad as America, still leaves quite a bit to be desired.
To your point on JZ, even if no “policy belongs to JZ”, I’m critiquing the policy that he represents. I’m not sure what relevance your reminder has.
I’m not denying that issues of food are a problem, in fact in other places I have argued about the importance of food production. There are indeed other important issues, such as land and water, which are inextricably linked to issues of climate change and so on, and nowhere did I suggest such issues were unimportant. Nonetheless, I believe some of the issues brought up in this article and subsequent discussion are important, and you haven’t really done much to show otherwise. Simply claiming that they are irrelevant doesn’t prove that they are so.
50 million people can’t live off the land. The idea is a sick communist joke. The cities would starve -like they would have under communism in both Russia and China, except that they both forced the urban farmers to starve instead.