As Nat Turner pointed out in a post of his, a theoretic method of saving the environmental problem while keeping capitalism would be to force the capitalists to think about it by commodifying even the environment and therefore making it unprofitable to pollute. This could be a possible way for the capitalist system to survive, but is it moral? I should think that the act of defending the environment for the one reason that there is money to gain from it is highly immoral, we should defend the environment because we need that. And because of the realization of the logical fact that if the environment goes, so will we. I believe there are inherent unbalances in the capitalist system that would create other problems we cannot necessarily think of today (after all, early socialists did not take the environmental destruction capitalism brings with it into consideration). The problems of antibiotic abuse is not only an African problem by the way, in Denmark we had an outbreak of enterochoc bacteria that through growth hormones and antibiotic treatment of farm animals had become resistant to the effects of antibiotics. It resulted in a number of deaths because no cure could immediately be found, and indirectly it resulted in a steady rise in consumption of ecological foods, and after that a rise in votes for the Socialist Unity List and the People's Socialist Party, because those two parties had been against growth hormone use from the beginning and some people figured that socialism would be a possible way out of that problem.The oil question does pose a problem though. Much of the industry is based on oil, but what then if we switch to nuclear-driven energy sources (yes, I do know that we will eventually run out of uranium too.)? Theories have also been formulated on how to synthesize oil, but it hasn't been found (surprise!) profitable yet.
One interesting thing about this is that it has been calculated that Denmark (no, I do not have pseudo-nationalist tendencies, I just argue from what I have sufficient information about) can in theory be converted to run on no fossil or nuclear fuels at all before the year 2030. It is possible to use hydrogen as an energy bearer ALREADY, but why don't we? Obviously, gasoline is more profitable to sell than water.
However, no matter if capitalism succeeds in commodifying the environment, there still is the inherent problem within capitalism of its profit-driven ethics and aesthetics - which commodifying the environment would increase even further. I believe that the profit-based mindset is the greatest problem of capitalism, and if it changes from that it cannot sensibly be called capitalism anymore. Per definition, what drives the machine of capitalism is profit and what oils its cogs is the blood of its slaves.
I believe that if we wish to see an end to the capitalist system and all its problems and unbalances, it would be more important to formulate the system that should succeed it and work for that end rather than making prophecies about how capitalism will kill itself. You see, if nothing is actually done about it, I don't think it will.
And one of the things that needs to be done today is to show the World that socialism is not about dead Russians, nuclear threats and shooting at people.
Another thing to consider is that socialists and right-wingers are much of the time talking around each others' heads. We socialists argue from the basis of 'why society will need socialism', the right-wingers from 'what could society get (or more commonly, lose) from socialism'. It's easy to see on this board. For example, you and I speak of the need for change due to environmental hazards and the thought that capitalism is immoral, respectively, while a right-winger like Nat Turner tells us that we might lose innovation from socialism and gain nothing because of the planned economy.
-Simon Weber Kongshoj
