One does not have to be a pessimist to say that the world is heading towards an apocalypse. Nor does one need to be an optimist to say that both the economic collapse and the climate catastrophe can be avoided.

Indeed, it is a blessing in disguise that both crises have hit the globe simultaneously.
For too long, governments and the political classes all over the world addressed the various challenges in parts. Only during the Second World War did the capitalists, the socialists and the liberals come together to fight the greater menace of Nazism and Fascism. After overcoming the Fascist threat to the world, the international community created the United Nations. The stated purpose was to collectively face any global challenge.

But within a couple of years, that bonhomie disappeared into oblivion. The Cold War proved to be no less vicious. The world was divided again and the bizarre arms race began with a distinct possibility of nuclear confrontation. The Cold War was supposedly over with the meltdown of the socialist Europe and disintegration of the Soviet Union. It was regarded as a victory of the democratic forces and also of the economic model that believed in the free market.

The pendulum had moved to the other end. Free market forces have replaced the totalitarian excesses of the Communist world. The recklessness and mindless acquisitiveness of corporate global capitalism were the “new” characteristics of this phenomenon. The so-called emerging markets too quickly adapted these characteristics, and the old socialist countries proved to be even wilder in their new-found love for capitalism. Socialism was replaced by a robber-baron capitalist model.

Most commentators are trying to trace the origin of current economic and ecological crisis to the policies of the Western World in the last decade. Some of them believe that this is a “systemic aberration” while others consider it as a storm that will wither away. But this approach is very superficial; there is a hidden link between the economic crisis and climate change.

Socialist countries wreaked havoc on the ecosystem by over-emphasizing the “development model”. Many of them, particularly in the third world, thought that damage to ecosystems was inevitable in the development process. In the capitalist world, the belief was that the economic conservatives or the neo-socialists were championing the cause of environment, so they too behaved almost exactly like their socialist counterparts. The export of capital, particularly in those sectors and where there was resistance at home, spread the tentacles of the mindless market’s forces to the developing world. In that third world, there were more people and fewer resources or constrained technological advances.

When the global markets began to integrate, the migration of labor also dislocated the social equilibrium. Western countries, with lower populations and more developed markets, could contain the forces of economic and ecological anarchy. The new capitalism in the rest of the world was experiencing “greed” and the market for the first time. When the U.S.-spread financial system enveloped most of the world, with it came the Wild West in the form of corporate capitalism.

In the language of the structural interpretation of the twin crises, one can say that unless both crises are dealt with holistically it will not be possible to rescue the world from the coming apocalypse. I would like to quote George Monbiot, the leading British writer, from his book Bring on the Apocalyse to prove the symbiotic relationship between economic and ecological meltdown. He says, “A temperature rise of just 2.1 Celsius above pre-industrial levels will expose between 2.3 and 3 billion people (i.e. half of the world population) to the risk of water shortages. The glaciers and snowpack that supply many cities are melting rapidly. Rising sea levels threaten coastal aquifers... There is a danger of an overall decline of food production even as the human population continues to rise... This means that hundreds of millions must die to bring population into line with food supply.”

In rather graphic terms, he concludes, “Every society is four missed meals away from anarchy.” To avoid that catastrophe, the world will have to give up its corporate and nationalist identities, the religious and ethnic distinctions, the ideological hang-ups and lifestyles. No single nation, not even the G-20, can resolve this crisis. If the United Nations too is incapable of dealing with this crisis, then the world will have to come together in yet another form, like it did after World War II.