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George Ford
Soc 475
Foster
11/24/2015
Combating Climate Change and the Metabolic Rift

Given the strong scientific evidence of anthropocentric warming and simultaneous lack of a
global response, it is becoming increasingly important to evaluate our methods for addressing
ecological issues. The history of environmental destruction in not just a history of the earth, but rather
one of the various interactions between earth, humans, labor, and the global system of capitalism which
robs the planet's resource. Climate change is best understood as a result of the metabolic rift between
our capitalist society and the material of the natural world. Current approaches to ecological problems
fail because they don't take into account the material history that caused them.

Metabolism and the Growing Ecological Rift

With increasingly undeniable climate change, unprecedented biodiversity loss, and a general
disappearance of earths resources, everyone with the slightest concern for ecological systems is left
asking the question of where we went wrong. While a number of theories have been deployed, critical
of everything from the early event of the agricultural revolution to our current unwillingness to invest
in renewable energies, none seems to explain the full range of ecological devastation with the totalizing
power that Marx does. Despite having written long before the epochal event of climate change, Marxs
theory of metabolism prove, up to this point, to be essential to a deep understanding of ecological
problems.
In Marxs analysis of natural, economic, and social relations he explain the metabolic rift

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created by humans and our relation natural resources. The metabolic rift itself can be defined as a
disruption in the exchange between social systems and natural systems, which is hypothesized to lead
to ecological crisis. While this theory has proven to be useful in explaining a wide range of ecological
issues, In its original formulation, it refers to the crisis in soil fertility generated by urbanization, in
that nutrients from the soil were exported to cities in the form of agricultural products, but not returned
to the landbecoming, instead, waste in urban centers. (York 2009). While the process of destroying
soil quicker than it can be repaired started in Britain and Europe, it quickly spread to America and other
parts of this world. Today only a few select ecological zones have avoided some type, if not an extreme
degree, of exploitation and subsequent deterioration.
The first agricultural revolution is often cited by philosophers, ecologists, and other academics
as the primary event leading to our current environmental quandary, however it is perhaps better
understood as just the first in a number of developments which have led to current crises.
Acknowledging the rapid deterioration of soil, scientists and engineers were quick to develop methods
of soil management which were to allow continual human domination over nature via agriculture,
only now with the notion that these practices were ultimately safe and sustainable. Rather than viewing
these developments as a solution to the negative effects of the agricultural revolution, they are better
explained as the second agricultural revolution. While the first revolution took place over a few
centuries and can be defined by improvements in manuring, crop rotation, drainage, and livestock
management, the second agricultural revolution was relatively short. Taking place between 1830 and
1880. this revolution was characterized by the growth of a fertilizer industry and the development of
soil chemistry. (Foster 200) Rather than challenging the alienating way in which humans had been
laboring over the soil, those in charge of the capitalist economy found ways to artificially maintain soil
and halt the process of deterioration. The second agricultural revolution was quickly followed by a
third (In the shift from animal to machinic labor on farms) and many more after. As if in an attempt to

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prove that they hadnt done wrong in the first place, western nations would prove their commitment to
the continual outsourcing of social and ecological problems.

From Core to Periphery; Dislocating the Harms of Capitalist Growth

The problem with capitalist strategies of course was that they didnt end exploitation, they
simply dislocated it to peripheral ecological and human systems. Drawing on the limited body of
literature for ecologically unequal exchange, Brett Clark and John Foster explain how The
environmental footprint of economically advanced nations involves appropriation of land, resources,
and labor in lesser-developed countries, increasing the environmental degradation in the latter for the
benefit of the former Exemplary of this process is the guano trade. As the agricultural revolution
progressed the demand for fertilizer rose greatly in Britain and consequently scientists found guano
could be the cure to the problems. Eventually this led to a huge rush; In 1841, the first full cargo of
guano arrived in Britain. The manure was quickly sold on the market, stimulating a drive to secure
more guano. (Clark and Foster 2009). Seeing Britains successful exploitation of Peruvian resources,
the US jumped on board, quickly leading to imperial conquer of all surrounding areas which might
contain Guano. The rush for Guano not only functioned as a type of ecological theft from the land and
the Peruvians who inhabited it, it necessitated a labor regime to extract the materials from the islands.
For this, nearly 100,000 Chinese coolies were brought in between 1849 and 1874 for labor under
conditions that could be best described as slavery. (Clark and Foster 2009). In what is no less than
ecological imperialism, the drive to continue agricultural production in western nations led to the
setting in place an entire system of colonial domination characterized by exploitation of non-western
nations, laborers, and the earth itself. We are currently facing a crises of diminishing nitrates and other
key components of fertilizer as the demand for guano and other soil-enriching resources continues to

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this day.
While the metabolic rift between human appetite and soil continues to grow, Capitalist growth
also reaches out to other resources which can be extracted and used for the purpose of continual profit.
Following a great deal of technological advancement, The ability to take coal and petroleum from the
earth accelerated the expansion of capital, releasing large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere.
(Clark and York 2005). Our use of soil leads to uncertainty over food production, however climate
change which has come as a result of capitalist growth threatens to destroy most species on the planet,
including humans. Given that the earth is already showing signs of irreversible and catastrophic
warming, it may be time to move away from a discussion of how we got here and towards one of how
we get out.
Methods and Metabolism
Despite having a wide-range of support, even the strongest point of environmental activism in
U.S. history resulted in few significant long-term changes. Produced by the radical social-political
climate of the 60s and 70s, Environmentalism found its golden age with the passing of several acts
meant to safeguard the environment and move us towards a more sustainable feature. Amongst many
others, U.S. legislature passed the Clean Air Act, the Water Quality Act, and the Air Quality Act, all in
the 60s. Focusing heavily on direct legal avenues for environmental protection, organizations such as
green peace had a successful run in affecting politics. This stint however, was short-lived. As Naomi
Klein put it, Then came the 1980's.(Klein 2014)
Just as there was finally reason to be optimistic with regards to the environment, a shift which
would alter environmentalism as we knew it Took place. With the election of Ronald Reagan and
growing power of American businesses, the shift was one of American ideology, economics, and
government. With the hailing of the free-market and disdain for any environmental regulations which
could hinder it, the 1980's led to a disastrous shift in which environmental organizations became

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increasingly pro-business or risked exiling themselves to the margins(Klein 2014). The shift to less
combative modes of activism weren't a necessity however. Some groups held their commitments
against large corporations, showing that it was poor strategizing combined with the drive for power and
wealth which led to the pro-business era of environmentalism.
The transition of environmental organizations from apparently revolutionary actors into allies of
the oil industry is saddening but should hardly surprising to ecological Marxists who have long
criticized mainstream environmentalism. While most environmental organizations focus on some
articulation of the philosophical divide between humans and nature, ecological Marxism gets into the
complex interactions between the two. What most environmentalists are just now figuring out is
something that Marx understood at the time of his writing; that you can't explain and protect natural
systems without a proper understanding of how humans, industry, and labor effect them. (Holleman
2015).
Conclusion
Given the above discussion, we may conclude that any methodological approach to protecting
the environment must directly call into question the entire capitalist system; the robbing of earths
resources and the metabolic rift as well as the economy which only treats nature as an 'externality' and
not as the fundamental component of life that it is. Rather than go on the pro-business route, Klein
mentions that The greens could have joined coalitions of unions, civil rights groups, and pensioners
who were also facing attacks on hard-won gains, forming a united front against the public sector
cutbacks and deregulation that was hurting them all. (Klein 2014) This strategy would have been more
in line with ecological Marxism than the green movement of the day, but it also would have been much
more likely to result in meaningful changes. If more environmentalists had gone this route, perhaps we
would be praising them for saving us from the perils of climate change. Instead some of these groups
are now working with oil companies, telling them where it is safe to frack.

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Works Cited

Clark, Brett, and John Bellamy Foster. "Ecological Imperialism and the Global Metabolic Rift Unequal
Exchange and the Guano/Nitrates Trade." International Journal of Comparative Sociology 50.3-4
(2009): 311-334.

Clark, Brett, and Richard York. "Carbon metabolism: Global capitalism, climate change, and the
biospheric rift." Theory and Society 34.4 (2005): 391-428.

Foster, John Bellamy. Marxs ecology: Materialism and nature. NYU Press, 2000.

Klein, Naomi. This changes everything: capitalism vs. the climate. Simon and Schuster, 2014.

Holleman, Hannah. "Method in Ecological Marxism: Science and the Struggle for Change." Monthly
Review 67.5 (2015): 1.

York, R. (2010). Metabolic rift. Retrieved from http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/154577