comeback after having been key to the nation’s
development. But hemp has been stamped out
for commercial fiber and other use by corpora­
tions which own forests and petrochemical
technology. Prior to the expansion o f world trade
that followed World War 11, renewable crops had
been developed to provide many manufacturing
requirements including in the transportation
sector.
last chance to save nature as we know it and avert
disaster for us all. O f course, carbon dioxide
emissions w ill remain high under GATT, even
though the world scientific community has made
it clear that a 60-80% cut in emissions was
necessary from the 1980s on, in order to stave o ff
global warming. A ll in all, it appears hopeless
that GATT or NAFTA could turn into energy
conserving agreements. They are energy con­
sumption programs.
Energy and Agriculture
New Responses to Ravages o f Global
Capitalism and the WTO
or a petroleum-driven global economic
scheme to be launched when petroleum
s a result o f the ominous threat o f GATT
w ill be all used up relatively soon, an
and NAFTA to peoples’ survival, and the
explanation for this can be suggested: artificially
low U.S. gasoline prices at the retail pump.
l environmental-protection loss which
People are fooled by corporate advertising
resulted
from the previous GATT (e.g., “ dolphin-
campaigns that successfully fight ballot measures
safe”
tuna),
more people are questioning trade
to allow an additional four percent tax on gaso­
and
infrastructure.
Few people know that 80% o f
line in California, for example. This would have
world trade is controlled by transnational corpo­
paid for badly needed, less polluting and more
rations, and people who tell us these things (i.e.,
energy-efficient rail projects. Alternatives to
author Noam Chomsky) are afforded almost no
motor vehicles are needed because o f lack o f
newspaper or television coverage. I f people do
national energy security. Yet oil crises happen.
wake up to world trade as a result o f G ATT’s
In addition to government subsidies and U.S.
excesses, GATT could backfire by breeding
armed force to keep oil cheap and plentiful while
resistance in many forms.
it lasts, there is the OPEC policy o f undercutting
F
the cost o f renewable energy sources in order to
maintain market share, creating the apparent glut.
Transportation in the U.S. is vulnerable, as it
relies almost totally on oil, but people can walk,
bike, ride horses, or sail— people cannot find
alternatives to food. Agriculture is a petroleum
(oil and natural gas) affair in the developed
world, and GATT would spread this folly every­
where possible.
O il and natural gas are the main raw materials for
commercial fertilizers and other agricultural
chemicals and farm fuels, and according to the
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in
Minneapolis, “ The agricultural proposals in
GATT are really designed to help the large
multinational corporations, the seed companies,
the fertilizer and chemical companies, tighten
their control over the food system.” Tightening
control may be accurate, but perhaps the short­
term profit motive and corporate efficiency are
more to blame.
Petroleum technology has brought to the market­
place myriad “ non-food foods” and additives.
And the processing and packaging o f food are
high-energy aspects o f eating, which more and
more people are dependent on (or brainwashed
by television) to buy. , i f you want to see packag­
ing reduced in order to save trees and ease • ,•
pressure on your local,landfill, forget it: industrial
growth = corporate products’ travelling further,
securely and cleverly packaged. I f packaging
isn’t from trees it is usually petroleum.
Food w ill travel on average further under GATT
than ever before. Food already travels an average
o f 1,200 miles in the U.S.— mostly by oil-
burning trucks on our ever-expanding highway
network— before being consumed. In Europe the
distance for food travel is twice that o f the U.S.!
This contributes to driving people o ff the land to
megalopolises, which globally under GATT
could amount to almost two billion people.
(There are three b illion people still living on the
land in the world.) Who benefits? Mainly, the
middle men o f multinational corporations, truck
manufacturers and trucking firms, as well as
owners o f the last o f world petroleum supplies.
The trend in world trade is that Southern nations
are turned into petroleum-dependent export,
farmers, to the detriment o f crop diversity.
Forced to export food to pay debts, “ developing”
nations’ peoples suffer nutritionally and w ill
increasingly starve while food is exported and
non-organic methods reduce the amount o f and
the health o f topsoil. During the Irish potato
famine and recently in famine-plagued Ethiopia,
food was all the while exported from those
countries. Meanwhile, “ we tell our farmers in the
North to stop growing food at all and just turn
their land into g o lf courses,” says Helena
Norberg Hodge, author and director o f the
Ladakh Project.
GATT and N A FTA would m ultiply World Bank-
style mega-projects, in order to exploit non­
renewable resources and thus reap profits for
multinationals and cater to consumers hooked on
corporate products. Fossil fuels and nuclear
energy w ill prevail because o f their economies o f
scale and the difficulty o f owning or metering the
sun or the wind. Renewable energy sources w ill
still be largely ignored, under world trade
schemes. Energy conservation could stall, as
“ cheap” energy spurs growth which is the
purpose o f GATT and the multinationals. Cheap
energy which receives subsidies and does not
reflect external environmental costs makes the
payback period on saving energy appear too long;
this increases the rate at which nonrenewable
energy is used up.
A ll this is at a great cost to our environment,
which most thinking people hoped was going to
get consideration and actual care in the 1990s.
This decade has been defined by ecologists as the
A
In Chiapas, primarily Indian-blooded peasants
had all they could take from the central govern­
ment and exploitation from big property owners.
An estimated 3 m illion farmers in Mexico w ill be
driven o ff the land, as small farming is undercut
by free trade and agribusiness farming in the U.S.
Profits that result from this inhumane dislocation
certainly are a major influence in policy making
by our government officials who support NAFTA
and GATT.
When NAFTA was passed, the EZLN (or
Zapatista Army) launched its armed struggle the
day NAFTA took effect, January 1, 1994. In the
words o f a human rights worker in Chiapas
broadcast on the BBC, “ the people felt that
NAFTA would leave them further behind.” The
corrupt dictatorship in Mexico City then prom­
ised more roads, among other things, but the
Zapatistas didn’t bite. Instead, their demand is
for a provisional government to replace the PRI
(ruling party). The shafting that Chiapas has had
over the centuries might be lessened by social
programs and laws to protect workers and the
environment, but the EZLN knows that GATT
calls these measures “ barriers to the free flow o f
trade and capital,” and GATT requires their
elimination anyway. NAFTA and GATT are one
reason that, the EZLN wishes to tpake common,. ,
cause with other groups in other parts o f Mexico
and in other countries,;pursuingipeaceful means
i f possible. The democratic movement in Mexico
is stronger now— because o f the Zapatistas— than
it has been for several decades. Since ancient
Mayans attained and imparted the height o f
galactic knowledge, certainly Mayan descendants
can see clearly what their role today must be to
obtain freedom and justice, and share with the
world their message.
But the U.S. military could create another
Vietnam war for the sake o f protecting world
trade; it would be nothing new. The war against
GATT is on in Chiapas today and in the hearts
and minds o f well-informed grassroots environ­
mental activists everywhere.
against the rip -o ff o f genetic diversity by foreign
biotech and agribusiness multinational firms. In
Britain, protests have stopped road building and
slowed down by h alf the pace o f motorway
construction. Road fighting is a relatively recent
phenomenon in the U.K., and it w ill spread
globally until environmental destruction from
roads and the waste o f public funds end.
In the U.S., effective resistance to GATT and
NAFTA w ill not be accomplished much by the
usual lobbying o f members o f Congress, who so
often are corporate-influenced or corporate-
puppets. Lobbying and writing letters to editors
is limited activism, although those activities are
still valid. Until there is campaign financing
reform and we have the right to hold referenda to
vote on such large issues as GATT, we w ill suffer
more end runs around our few political avenues
o f change. And i f cars are afforded whole
sections o f newspapers, is there really free speech
on transportation and environmental issues?
Even i f the U.S. survives as a coast-to-coast
nation well into the 21st century and the nation
were to become more democratic, this is not any
guarantee o f reaching “ sustainability,” local-
community accountability, or bioregional-level
control over our economics and politics. So it
would be appropriate i f the big environmental
organizations worked for fundamental change in
economics, energy, land use and transportation.
But, the techno-fix for continuing present U.S.
energy habits is a cherished and money-making
principle that passes for “ green.” This is not to
say that cars ought not to be electric instead o f
gasoline, but to pursue this reform at the expense
o f supporting car-free living is too little and too
late for planet Earth. During the G u lf War,
narrow-interest techno-fixers in the environmen­
tal movement did not extend much environmen­
talist support to the anti-war movement, although
they probably meant well. Similarly, some big
environmental groups supported NAFTA, and
these groups w ill always work within the system,
even though the corporate-government system
worsens. Or even though the system might
require complete undermining and replacement
by a better system or systems. On the other hand,
many Washington, D.C. environmental leaders
know that the world economic/political machine
is naked in the face o f G ATT’s antithetical values
and the loss o f state and national sovereignty. As
GATT press coverage shows us, we are often
shown a distorted picture by our government,
industry and the corporate news media, or, we are
witnessing simply the ongoing lust for impossible
endless growth.
There is a sea change, nevertheless, in the scale
o f global exploitation by the new world order o f
GATT. There is a simultaneous transformation
among millions o f people to deal with the plight
o f the planet. Prior to GATT’s raising its head so
clearly, a new consciousness on the environmen­
tal threat was fast developing. For example,
opposing more roads adds a new dimension to
environmentalism, for many conservatives see
that saving the land goes with keeping down
taxes that must pay for “ growth.” With GATT
and the bumbling o f spendthrifts running the U.S.
government under the last three presidents,
people on the right and left are agreeing on
several issues. Maybe a consensus w ill even be
reached that it is good that “ a road moratorium
questions the underpinnings o f the expanding
megasystem,” as stated by Paul Leclerc o f the
Alliance for a Paving Moratorium.
tional corporate trade. These strategies save
money, encourage health and awareness, and
promote truly sustainable development. Moving
away from car dependency and television addic­
tion, and instead walking, biking, taking buses
and trains, and living nearer to work places, all
improve communication and further cut pollution
o f the environment. Refrigeration is actually an
unnecessary luxury when it is on a universal
scale; alternatives are available.
Thousands o f Americans already try to boycott
non-local corporate products. Many o f us prefer
to raise organic food, barter and do things
cooperatively to avoid having to enslave our­
selves to a rigid job. Lots o f money is not what
we need; rather we require what money is
supposed to provide. Recognizing the need for
fundamental change leads some to look again at
indigenous traditional societies. Did the Am eri­
can Indians need unlimited possessions or
technological toys? Even i f available or afford­
able, such pursuits were against most o f their
philosophies and survival strategies. Some o f
these values live on, to some extent in the fields
and jungles o f Chiapas, where justice— not
multinational corporate jobs or products— is
demanded. Indians o f the Americas maintained
sustainable (for the most part) societies for
millennia that did not devour or overpopulate
Earth and toxify the environment. Part o f the
common struggle for all North Americans today
should be to refrain from patronizing the K-
Marts, Wal-Marts and supermarket chains that
bring us questionable products. These corpora­
tions and many others, as well as franchises,
depend on more and more roads, wider roads,
and, above all, parking lots. The destruction o f
historic Indian sites is still going on from such
“ development,” and causes poison ru n off into our
waters from the motor vehicles on the pavement.
The best way for a potential victim o f GATT to
judge it is to first acknowledge or discover how
deteriorated the state o f the Earth has become.
The only hope may be that as global capitalism
and the rape o f the planet pass their last gasp
through GATT, perhaps, we may expect collapse
o f the economic system relatively soon. Thus, a
restructuring around local and bioregional
realities can arise from the ashes o f today’s
industrial system. Graduating from fossil-fuels
dependence to such positive changes as depaving,
road closure and restoration w ill happen eventu­
ally, when the financial resources for "growth”
are really gone, or when a social movement for a
paving moratorium prevails. The longer today’s
system paves and sucks up the planet’s life in
unprecedented entropy, the harder the adjustment
and transition to a sustainable society w ill be.
The Mayan galactic core: Hunab Ku, the one giver o f
movement and measure, the principle o f life beyond the Sun
Published Nov. 28, 1994. Written by Jan Lundberg.
Thanks to Randy Crutcher, Paul Leclerc, and D a vid
Keniston f o r editing assistance. Jan is a fo rm e r
petroleum and alternative fu els analyst f o r the o il
industry, utilities, and government. He is now
President o f the Fossil Fuels Policy Action Institute,
and E d ito r o /P a v in g M oratorium Update and A uto-
Free Times, and lives in Arcata, C a lifo rn ia He can
be reached a t telephone (707) 826-7775 o r at PO.
According to Noam Chomsky, “ more Chiapases
are bound to occur because o f GATT. Chomsky
also says that despite the advent o f the welfare
Political organizing is not the only way to work
state, the global-economy and profits-first are
Box 4347, Arcata, CA, 95521, USA
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global economics, to help undermine multina­
Seventy-five per cent o f people in the U.S. are
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r
rimes revealed as losers
with
under NAFTA: women,
sponsoiship!
blacks, Hispanics, and
semiskilled labor. The rimes
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There is no substitute for
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