The whole climate change debate now centres on who has destroyed the earth more and who will pay for it and how much. The other vivid contrast has been that as against sharing shortage of consumer goods under the Soviet system, the question now is how to dump more and more goods, even if unwanted, on the people. This is what the massive stimulus for dying companies unleashed by governments the world over aims at. Salvaging the collapsing industrial giants is just one objective. The real aim has been how to induce demand and force people to buy more.

When sales slump, production cuts, job loss and GDP fall happens. And we call it meltdown. China has been the best example of how forced consumption, i.e., dumping goods on people who otherwise cannot afford them, could help withstand the worst world economic collapse after the great depression. Karl Marx might be laughing in his grave as his prophecies prove true one after other. May be reports of the fresh demand for his Das Capital are exaggerated. For, capitalism has survived each cyclic crisis in the past though they were at the cost of massive state intervention.

It may be blasphemous to quote the grand old man. Yet he has proved right when it comes to the contemporary crisis of capitalism that has been its own creation. The market indeed has the admirable ability, in its own way, to regulate production and supply. But only to an extent. Beyond that it inexorably slips into the economic chaos of its own creation. It then invents its own devices to turn each cyclic crisis or world disaster into another opportunity to launch new projects and earn more profit. But what the old man did not perceive - and the present day aam admi is a helpless victim - is that the contemporary capitalism has every aspect of life under its control.

It always has the state to protect the crumpling profile, whenever in trouble — regardless of the huge losses it causes to the tax payers. Countries world over compete with each other to keep them alive. The modern capitalism has successfully eliminated its rival alternative systems with sheer grit. Now consider where the mindless plunder of mother earth has left us: melting glaciers, denuding forests, dying rivers, submerging islands and the horror climate change. A little rise in emission rate, it will be real catastrophe.

And the remedies suggested? Fixing emission quota for countries. The whole confrontation now is on rationing the right and the limit to pollute. That is the only remedy the economists, financiers and statesmen have for the impending catastrophe. You won't find any other solution for the crisis anywhere in the debate. But ask the aam aadmi you come across or senior citizens whiling away time in parks. They all have simple solutions: curb or ration consumption and stop waste on packaging and marketing. One is surprised at the clarity and simplicity with which the voiceless common man airs the rustic wisdom on what the world's high and mighty call complex issues, something the old man in his grave had predicted a century and half ago.

Why the mass media fail to reflect such widely held views? Herein lay the deep enigma of the modern capitalism. Consumption is its lifeline. Once consumption rate slumps, every thing from production to profits collapses. In the present matrix of competitive global trade, states are compelled to indulge in a mad race for GDP. Thus the whole concentration is on more production but with restrictions on emission. At the moment, they are proceeding with the hope that apportioning of emission can put off the dooms day. But these were the very people who had just a decade back dismissed greenhouse effect as mere scare mongering.

What is really amazing has been the modern capitalism's ability to make money from every crisis, even from human misery. The global war on emission is an opportunity for multi-billion business. Developed countries were early starters and had identified the areas for research and development of the green technology. A whole set of it is ready for marketing in the quickly expanding world market. If Kyoto Protocol can be dumped and those like India and China forced to cut emissions, it will open up huge market for West's green technology.

Watch the Vigyan Bhavan exhibition on the climate change technology, and one can gauge how massive will be the market and the huge funds needed for its introduction in existing plants and new ones. Organized by two business organizations, the conference has subjects like climate and technology transfer and international cooperation and collaboration. Transfer (sale) of green technology from the US is an important item in Manmohan Singh-Obama talks next month.

Take the housing sector. Middle classes in Delhi housing colonies have replaced the environment-friendly coolers by ACs in a big way. This is one reason attributed to Delhi becoming an 'urban heat island'. In the name of neutralizing this effect, we now have another business opportunity: 'green housing.' Already, foreign firms are lining up with the new technology which is claimed to be energy efficient. Intense lobbying has begun to make it compulsory for all new buildings. Next will be green compliance for existing buildings.

First pollute and then make profit has been a successful business strategy since the post-world war boom. In 50s and 60s, huge money was spent to spread the miracles of imported fertilizers, hybrid seeds and pesticides. Now we are told of the virtues of the old 'organic farming'. A whole industry with exclusive shelves in Walmart and ad campaign in green journals has come up. Right in India too. So the same multinationals gain both ways.

If a factory reduces emission from the standard level, it gets a 'carbon credit' which could be sold in international market. That is the kind of commercialisation the pollution has produced. A whole generation of junk food-fattened urban and semi-urban middle class has come up. And soon arrived new booming industries to cure diabetes and for flab-cutting. You have a wide choice of slimming machines that display instant results. Thus both ways they make money. (IPA Service)