Today, Thursday, June 5, is recognized by the United Nations as World Environment Day. Established in 1972 by the UN General Assembly, this day is meant to encourage the protection of ecosystems. According to UN documents, over 100 governments have acknowledged that a healthy environment is a right for all individuals and societies. But has this right been realized or, like many other social and human rights under capitalism, has it been trampled?
The reality suggests that this right is being increasingly violated. Has the UN managed to stop this trend? Unfortunately, evidence points to a deepening environmental crisis. Our mother Earth, currently the only known habitable planet in the universe, is facing an unprecedented ecological emergency. Rising global temperatures have accelerated evaporation and extreme droughts, especially in arid and semi-arid regions, making a healthy environment and sustainable livelihoods increasingly difficult for the majority of Earth’s inhabitants.
Polar ice caps are melting, causing sea levels to rise, which in turn amplifies global warming. Water, the lifeblood of human, animal, and plant survival has become severely polluted by industrial waste and garbage. The dumping of massive amounts of plastic into oceans has endangered billions of marine creatures, pushing many toward extinction. Protecting oceans and coral reefs is crucial for climate resilience, food security, and biodiversity, yet global systems continue to act in opposition to these goals.
Deforestation, especially in tropical zones, has led to the drying of rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Vast deserts now replace once-forested lands. The Amazon Rainforest, the world’s largest and often referred to as the lungs of the Earth, is being rapidly destroyed through intentional fires and mass logging, driven by the capitalist policies of Brazil’s government.
Unregulated extraction of natural resources by corporations, overproduction, and the imposed culture of overconsumption where products are discarded long before the end of their useful life have all exacerbated the global environmental disaster. This doesn’t only threaten human life but has already wiped out species that could not adapt, while others now live under extreme ecological stress.
The primary culprits of this crisis are corporate giants, complicit governments, war-makers, and global militaries. As a result, agreements like the Paris Accord, which promise reductions in greenhouse gases, are being crushed by capitalist competition and rendered ineffective.
In Iran, under the rule of the Islamic Republic, the environmental crisis is well-documented. The government’s self-sufficiency-in-agriculture project has had devastating consequences on the country’s water resources. Unscientific farming methods have caused groundwater levels to drop by an average of 10 meters, and many lakes are either dried up or nearing extinction. The tragedy of Lake Urmia, largely the result of dam-building projects by the IRGC, is a stark example.
Experts note that in the past 46 years, Iran has lost 90% of its wildlife, halved its forest areas, and now ranks first globally in soil erosion losing 2 billion tons of soil annually. This erosion leads to desertification, with Iran holding the world’s highest rate: every minute, 30 square meters of land turns into desert. In many plains, the situation has become so dire that farming is now banned. To this must be added the extensive pollution of water, air, and soil.
Numerous environmental activists in Iran have worked tirelessly to resist deforestation, harmful irrigation practices, and habitat loss. Yet the regime has responded with arrests, persecution, and even killings. Despite this brutality, the regime has failed to silence the environmental movement. Today, the environmental defense movement in Iran includes secular activists who challenge the regime’s anti-environmental policies.
These Iranian environmental defenders are part of a larger global movement fighting to preserve the planet’s ecosystems.
In conclusion, socialists believe that solving the environmental crisis requires a fundamental transformation of humanity’s relationship with nature from a hostile, exploitative dynamic to a cooperative and respectful one. This will only be possible under a socialist system in which greedy capitalist motives are no longer the driving force of production.
