The Vulnerable Planet Summary

In “The Vulnerable Planet ” John Bellamy Foster argues that, All ecological problems faced today and in the past are brought on by humans caused factors, these problems and factors being “overpopulation, destruction of ozone layer, global warming, extinction of species, loss of genetic diversity, acid rain, nuclear contamination, tropical deforestation, the elimination of climax forests, wetland destruction, soil erosion, desertification, floods, famine, and the despoliation of lakes streams and rivers”(pg.11). In addition, In the first chapter, Bellamy discusses the history of our society and how capitalism came to be and evolved over time, starting with European colonization, where Europe began to expand and created an outflow of surplus

from peripheral countries to the core countries. This allowed the more industrialized countries to become more industrialized, while less industrialized countries focused on developing the more industrialized ones. From this Bellamy points out that “one problem is that many of the crucial sources for the streams of energy and materials that feed human society and production are declining while many of the sinks are overflowing (pg.23). meaning that as our population grows we will find it harder and harder to fulfil our capitalist needs, and must change in order to prevent environmental degradation. The world has enough food and resources necessary to feed and sustain our population, the problem lies within our food production and distribution. We need to stop producing so much and get rid of the idea that we need to continually grow and take from the Earth in order to come out on top, doing so has caused environmental conditions to worsen and has only enforced the capitalistic need for more.
Bellamy wrote this book in hopes of finding a way to better understand and coexist with our Planet Earth. In chapter two he discusses Capitalism before the industrial revolution and how it evolved into something that shaped how we would look at resources, early industrialization caused the loss of wildlife and exhaustion of the land in order to produce a certain crop. According to foster the 18th century was the start of “human dominance” over the planet. From this we can see what began the shift from family farmers to industrialized plantations. Early industrialization at the time seemed like a good thing, but now looking at it we realized what we were doing and currently doing is wrong. Most natural resources we use are not renewable, so when we use them up they are gone. We have to find a way to create a society in which we can live harmoniously with on planted. Next in chapter three, Foster talks about the Agricultural revolution, a time between the early 17th to late 19th century that showed an increase in agricultural production due to labor and land productivity. This enabled wealthy landlords with massive houses and large Estates to begin to privatize, the estates being run by tenant farmers and worked by agricultural wage laborers. The Rise of machine capitalism made possible the real subjection of the original source of wealth the soil and the worker to the Capitol. In addition to the agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution was defined as sudden take off in growth as a result of a series of economic social and ecological transformations. The Center of the Industrial Revolution was the cotton industry, which provided both its raw material and the bulk of it fine product in the form of calicos imported from India by the East India Company. Colonialism thus launched the British textile industry and remained a key to British expansion throughout the Industrial Revolution. Enabled the emergence of the modern Factory dominated by Machine production which up until the mid-nineteenth century was largely identified with a cotton Goods industry. The profits of capital led to a degree of ill health and physical deformation. This later caused restrictions and regulations in the workplace making the work environment safer for workers.
In chapter four, Bellamy discusses Capitalizing on natural resources by treating them as a source of free income, this encouraging waste on a global scale.

This in turn causing extensive damage to the environment such as toxic waste being dumped into waterways and emissions lowering air quality.”The conservation movement came to be dominated by more business-oriented forces who sought not so” much to oppose the Environmental depredations of the large corporations as to regulate and rationalize the exploitation of Natural Resources for purposes of long-term profit”(pg.75). Corporations continued to abuse the environment and took advantage of the conservation movement making it so corporations can take natural resources for their own gains with no worries for what is happening to the environment. In chapter Five Bellamy explains Colonialism and imperialism and how it has shaped our society into what it is today. Bellamy examines how the English concentrated on activities in the Indian subcontinent where beginning in 1611 they established what were called “Factories”, “points of settlement and commerce along the coast”(pg.86). These “factories” began hundreds of years ago, yet can still be seen in most cities today and has only contributed to the degradation of the environment. The economic surplus from India helped feed British industrialization and from this India was gradually integrated into the capitalistic economy as a dependency of Britain. Equally important, In chapter five Bellamy considers Ecological imperialism and how it affects native species within an ecosystem. One problems caused by ecological imperialism is Genetic erosion or the loss of diversity; not only were invaluable species lost through the extension of Agricultural monocultures But crucial varieties (land races built up over thousands of years) of key crops disappeared as well. In the last two decades around 1,000 traditional seed companies have been absorbed by International biochemical

corporations. “It is not overpopulation as much as the development of an economic system that places economic growth and profits before all else that has as we shall see brought the world to the brink of Ecological disaster”(pg.107)
Then in chapter six Foster talks about The Vulnerable Planet, and how society has changed the planet moving more toward productive technologies with intense impacts instead of less productive ones with lower ecological impacts. This being where synthetic and artificial products became more and more prominent. These synthetic and artificial products can be seen as good in that they may not be using natural resources in order to make them, but at the same time the fact that these synthetically made products cannot be broken down by natural cycles gives us another problem. Where is all this waste going? Much of this waste ends up in our waterways and then flows into the ocean and is captured by the Pacific Garbage patch. So how do these companies get away with this? Well It is crucial to emphasize that the revolution in science and technology was not simply the accumulation of scientific knowledge but the transformation of science itself into Capital. Also in Chapter six Foster lists the four laws of ecology and economic growth the first, saying everything is connected to everything else, second, everything must go somewhere, third, Nature Knows Best, fourth, Nothing comes from nothing. These laws can be seen as a guideline for how corporation should think about how they affect the environment and what they can do. Last, in chapter seven Foster considers the failure of ecological reform and how some things cannot go on without causing substantial damage to the environment. For instance the Banning of DDT or the removal of lead additives from fuel is an instance where if we did not change, many animals as well as people would have suffered. In this instance the problem was dealt with at its source through prevention, as a result the environment dramatically Improved.
In conclusion as said by Foster “Environmental Revolution Necessitates social Revolution. Only through the democratically organized social governance of both production and nature on a global scale is there any meaningful hope and even then no guarantee that the world will be cared for in common and in the interest of generation still to come, rather than simply exploited for individual short-term gain”(pg.142) This meaning in order to have an Environmental Revolution we must have a social revolution and vice versa. People need to organize and stand up to the government’s capitalistic and destructive ways in order to stop the degradation of our environment, for their gains.