<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/04/climate-change-crisis-environment-politics>
"The G20 is a perfect model of our collective failure to build institutions
capable of coping with deep, long-term, existential problems that cannot be
solved by building more weapons. On the one hand, the head of the United
Nations says that there is no way for the world to meet its 1.5C warming goal
without the leadership of the G20; on the other hand, a recent analysis found
that G20 members have, in the past five years, paid $3.3tn in subsidies for
fossil fuel production and consumption. The same group that claims to be
bailing out humanity’s sinking ship with one hand is busily setting it aflame
with the other hand. It is not good to be too pessimistic on climate change,
because we must maintain the belief that we can win this battle if we are to
have any hope at all. That said, it sure does seem like we’re screwed.
As overwhelming and omnipresent as the climate crisis is, it is not the core
issue. The core issue is capitalism. Capitalism’s unfettered pursuit of
economic growth is what caused climate change, and capitalism’s inability to
reckon with externalities – the economic term for a cost that falls onto third
parties – is what is preventing us from solving climate change. Indeed, climate
change itself is the ultimate negative externality: fossil-fuel companies and
assorted polluting corporations and their investors get all the benefits, and
the rest of the world pays the price. Now the entire globe finds itself trapped
in the gruesome logic of capitalism, where it is perfectly rational for the
rich to continue doing something that is destroying the earth, as long as the
profits they reap will allow them to insulate themselves from the
consequences."
Via Robert Sanscartier.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
