Andrew Kahrl, a history professor at the University of Virginia, said he couldn't think of a single project that primarily benefited people of color. His research shows how the historically black communities that lived along the Carolinas' coast were forced out by developers and federal-infrastructure projects, including some built by the Corps. 7
The same is true of efforts to restore and "protect" beaches and shorelines through beach "nourishment" (bringing in tons of sand to replace what has been swept to sea), building artificial dunes and reinforcing beaches with rock piles and sandbags. First, these "fixes" are temporary and they can actually accelerate further erosion. "These projects also cause substantial ecological damage," Mat Gendle writes in Greensboro.com, "as they significantly alter habitats for sea life both in the underwater areas where the sand is dredged and on the beach where the sand is deposited."8
Nonetheless, since 1939, federal, state, and local governments have spent over $828 million to restock beaches in North Carolina alone, renourishing the same beaches over and over. (One, Carolina Beach, has been renourished 31 times since 1955.)
One environment group calls it "flood, rebuild, repeat." MIT professor of meteorology Kerry Emanuel calls these "unnatural disasters--disasters we cause by building structures" in places vulnerable to devastating storms. This is the kind of lunacy--from the standpoint of humanity and the planet--that capitalism-imperialism gives rise to and perpetuates, over and over and over.
As we've touched on in previous sections of this series, revolutionary socialist society would no longer be imprisoned within the parameters dictated by the economic and social relations of capitalism-imperialism. How would this new society deal with the challenges posed in regard to North Carolina's barrier islands?
One important dimension of this would be the way the new society would treat precious natural spaces:
Land, waters, forests, minerals, and other natural resources are protected and managed as "public goods." They fall within the scope of public-state ownership. Socialist-state ownership recognizes its responsibility to preserve the "commons"--the atmosphere, oceans, wildlife, and so forth--for all of humanity and for the future. 9
The new society would also be making it a priority to "provide for the recreation of the people, and to encourage their appreciation for nature and sense of awe and wonder at its many and diverse manifestations..."--and this means all sections of society, including especially those who've largely been denied these joys.
Another dimension would be that the new society would promote and train the masses of people, including the formerly oppressed, in a scientific approach to understanding and changing the world, including through the educational system. This would both enrich "recreational" time, but also better equip growing millions to contribute to dealing with natural disasters and the environmental devastation bequeathed by the current system. Science-denying, know-nothingism, relativism, and "it's in God's hands"-type thinking would no longer be promoted by society's most powerful institutions!
But still there would be extremely difficult contradictions and problems to deal with. In relation to the barrier islands, for instance:
- Given rising sea levels (which revolution will not be able to immediately halt, and which will be with us for some time), what resources--if any--should be devoted to protecting or building on the islands? And how would this be done in an environmentally sustainable way?
- It is possible (as one house in Mexico Beach proved by surviving Hurricane Michael 10), to build structures that survive even powerful storms. But should resources be devoted to that, and if so, what kinds of structures and facilities should be built?
- Places like the barrier islands would be opened up to the masses of people, both through state ownership and also by stressing public over private or individual development. However, many who were better off in the pre-revolutionary society would likely still own homes on the islands, and the new society would not take a revenging attitude towards them. In fact the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America has specific provisions allowing some people ("who were not part of that ruling class and did not play an active role in opposing the revolution") to keep some personal property, homes, and land for a period of time (provided it was not used as a means of production). So how would the new society handle the contradiction that some of these people would likely have the land best suited to public recreation? Although the CNSRNA authorizes the new state to acquire private land (with compensation) and convert it to public-state property, this contradiction would overwhelmingly be handled through public debate and discussion over how to best meet the needs of the new society--and the world--and persuading people, including the property owners, to put that first. 11
- And the new society would be fighting for everyone to see these problems in a broader context, which would itself be controversial: our main goal should be protecting the coasts (and the environment overall) for future generations. In other words, being caretakers of the planet--not simply being guided by the needs and demands (however just) of those alive at the time. In his Greensboro.com opinion piece, Gendle, a professor at Elon University in North Carolina, argues that this means, in regard to the state's barrier islands, that "we need to let the natural processes that govern island migration run their course. This almost certainly means abandoning properties to be overtaken by the sea and radically rethinking all future development of the ocean side of barrier islands.... If we want to preserve our islands, we must stop all artificial erosion interventions and let the islands move as they will." Such a proposal would likely be vigorously debated, not only by those who may have homes on the island, but those who want to preserve historic black communities, for instance, or others who want to open the islands up for people's recreation more broadly.
In putting these contradictions before society and the masses of people, and fostering debate, discussion, and initiatives to address these issues, it would be important for communist revolutionaries to tap into and unleash the love millions of people have for the beauty of nature, their desire to save the environment, and their feeling that the outdoors, parks, and so on should be shared by all.
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1. See "United Nations' Scientists Call for Drastic Action on Climate Change--The World Cries Out for Revolution," revcom.us, October 15.
2. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that if temperatures rise 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C), rising sea levels will flood coastal regions and Pacific islands. It is estimated that sea levels will increase 1.5 feet at these temperatures and that cities such as Miami and Shanghai will be largely submerged, along with a number of island nations around the world.
3. The rapid increase in the numbers of people living on or near the coasts--many directly in the path of hurricanes and storms--is a global phenomenon that has continued even as the growing danger of rising seas and warming air and water has been scientifically established. For instance, in 2010, 123 million people in the U.S.--39 percent of the population--lived in counties directly on the coasts. This is a 40 percent rise since 1970. This, too, has been shaped in many different ways by the overall workings of capitalism-imperialism.
4. "After Florence, barrier islands still doomed by rising sea," Associated Press, September 13, 2018.
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