#mcst4200

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The Climate Change Equation

Climate Change = Capitalism + Globalism + Centrism

It’s 2017, and yes, people still ignore climate change. Even those that understand it exists ignore it, many people who are guilty of this are also guilty for rising sea levels; maybe not individually, but collectively. Those people who still do not accept climate change as a scientifically proven and witnessable fact can be explained with three simple words: hierarchical, individualistic, egocentric. Yale researchers explain that people with strong “egalitarian” and “communitarian” worldviews (tend to value collective action and social justice) overwhelmingly accept the scientific consensus on climate change (36). Those who are “hierarchical” and “individualistic” (opposed to government assistance, supportive of industry, believe in meritocracy) reject this scientific consensus (36). These people tend to be politically conservative and religious, or at least believe in humankind’s superiority to and dominion over nature. As a professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne puts it, climate change is for many conservatives “an affront to their deepest and most cherished basic faith: the capacity and indeed the right of ‘mankind’ to subdue the Earth and all its fruits and to establish a ‘mastery’ over Nature” (41).

Those who many understand its existence but do nothing about it, or worse, continue to refute it, do so in the name of industry and capitalism. As the author of This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein writes, “we have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the entire period we have been struggling to find a way out of this crisis” (18). Governments and scientists began talking seriously about greenhouse gas emissions in 1988 – the same year that the term globalization was used as a way of understanding the new global economy. The measures to combat climate change have not been taken since then because policy makers and names within big, energy-producing industries believe that to regulate emissions and industry-made pollution would fetter that industry’s growth. Instead, they seek to privatize the public sphere, deregulate the corporate sector, and lower corporate taxation, all to fuel their money-making machines.

Scientists have vocalized the steps that need to be taken in order to slow down the rate at which sea levels rise and the atmosphere warms. The information is out there and available, and yet nothing is done because those steps stand in the way of global trade agreements and corporate productivity. It must be that those in charge of these fossil-fueled ventures know the impact their business has on the planet, because new industries pop up alongside old ones where the wealthy invest in greenspaces for “carbon credits,” develop heartier, extreme-weather tolerant seeds, and essentially bet on patterns in climate change. The centrist ideology, paired with capitalism, explains this maddening inaction and exploitation: dollar for dollar, it’s more efficient to focus on economic development than climate change.

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Obama was no god

In chapter four of This Changes Everything, author Naomi Klein discusses the way an ecologically-minded approach to a crippled economy could have improved the economy, political perspectives on climate change, and the environment as a whole. 

After George W. Bush’s presidency, the economy was in a state of disrepair. The financial crisis, often dubbed “the Great Recession,” played along poorly with a failing automotive industry, failing banks, and a stimulus package that acted as a last-ditch effort to bolster the economy. Klein writes that, “the stimulus package could have been used to build the best public transit systems and smart grids in the world. The automotive industry could have been dramatically reengineered so that its factories built the machinery to power that transition” (122). She goes on to speak about how the banks could’ve played a different role: “Retrofitting factories on that scale is is expensive, to be sure, and that’s where the bailed out banks could have come in” (123) -- the government could’ve used the leverage they had over the banks to get them to do this. 

The reason none of these things happened and the condition of our planet’s health and our nation’s position on climate change and alternative energy has continued to decline is simply, and frustratingly, a matter of culture. Right-wing politicians painted green ideas as something that would only add to our country’s debt; it would be another cost and another burden. There was little to no talk about the thousands of jobs that would’ve been created under the above model, the ability for this plan to rebuild communities was ignored, and the government was not interested in doing this kind of long-term economic planning. 

It’s incredibly frustrating to see how alternative plans could’ve been put into place that would stimulate the economy, improve communities across the country, and work on mitigating the damage we are doing to the environment. Of course, it’s not surprising, because our culture largely values a free market ideology and not one that involves long-term blueprints that involve actual benefit to real people, communities, and the planet. Alternative plans such as the one above were not marketed well or received well, and the free market ideology won over again. 

I would like to see a nation undertake this plan to see how much truth and reality the plan holds. It looks great on paper, and would take quite a bit of strategy and time to unfold, but if the benefits are as Klein supposes, it would all be worth it. 

[oliviaescribe]

Feminism and Ecological Rights

The feminist movement has had several iterations since it came to the fore in the early nineteenth century. The movement has evolved over the past hundred or so years as an ever-inclusive sociopolitical paradigm shift; what began as a (mostly) white women’s rights movement pushing for the right to vote and own property is a movement that now acknowledges inequity across lines of race and color, ability, class, body shape and weight, gender expression, and sexual expression in its fourth wave. Feminism isn’t so much anti-man or pro-woman as it is anti-patriarchy, fighting against the structures that put white, male, straight, cis interests above all others.

Ecological activism, too, has evolved over time. One of the biggest pushes in American culture to protect and preserve wildlife came during the time of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. Under Roosevelt’s time in office, the National Park system was developed and measures were taken to begin preserving swaths of wilderness. This protection was predicated under the idea that man was a steward of the land, and therefore needed to protect it. It was our backyard, after all, and who wants a backyard filled with cement and smokestacks? Roosevelt, however, was also an avid hunter and very much into colonial pursuits. Early ecological activism wasn’t perfect, by any means. The 1970s saw a major shift with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which took a look at man’s role in polluting the earth and changing the environment with our destructive practices. Today, ecological activism and green-thinking involves more than just land preservation; it considers pollution, climate change, sustainable agriculture and industry, alternative energy, preservation of endangered species, land rights, and the rights of indigenous people. Ideally, anyway… The political realm of environmental protection hasn’t quite caught up with all these ideals.

Both movements, essentially, have come to include more rights and protections for the disenfranchised. After centuries of use and abuse and marginalization by the steely grip of patriarchy, groups supported by intersectional feminism and ecological activists are gaining some footing. The rights of the Earth and the commons have by no means saturated the public conscience, but it’s finally begun that process. By examining the tenets of feminism, budding environmental activists and politicians seeking to increase protections for the earth and its people can learn how to shape the language of change to its most effective form. The earth, like every person on it, should have rights. Although it cannot speak for itself, it demands the respect every being on the planet deserves because each organism is a vital part of our collective existence and the earth itself is an organism. Just as society is a volatile, ever-evolving organism of sorts that relies on every individual within it to remain intact, so is the earth. It should be understood that our planet is a living, every-changing organism constantly changing and being changed by the other organisms that live on it. In order to keep the systems of society and ecology intact, the rights of all vectors of change must be realized and protected.

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A Feminist Perspective on the Environment

One of the recurring themes in Klein’s book is the idea that all people rich and poor are equally  entitled to the Earth’s natural resources, However, the average person doesn’t enrich themselves from these resources the same way that, say, an energy corporation, which uses up a vastly disproportionate share on a multinational scale and netting billions of dollars. The decisions made by energy corporations invariably have impacts on the environment, it’s just a matter of how bad.

 Environmental disasters such as the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico are horrendous both in the sense that they kill wildlife and disrupt habitats, but also that they destroy the livelihoods of indigenous people who live off of nature. Those select few at the top of the corporate ladder get to decide what risks are worth taking, when their personal gain is outweighed by negative effects that they don’t have to directly experience. It’s not their own livelihood that they are ruining, so it’s a lot easier to take that risk. Another factor is that more than 95% of all energy providers’ executive boards are all male. The result is that environmental decisions that affect all of us, male and female, are being made by a non representative minority acting very much in their own self interest.

Another key point Klein makes is that global warming will limit resources, cause freak weather conditions and generally make life more difficult. The rich, however, will be better equipped to access what resources are left, and will be able to shore themselves up against the coming changes. Overwhelmingly, it is rich males that will refuse to sacrifice their profit margins for the greater good, and continue to destroy our environment. As much as the corporate male superstructure still has the power to subjugate, this represents a different kind of challenge to females, and to humanity at large.  

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When comparing feminist movement and perspective to environmental activism in our world today, there are a few overlapping characteristics in which the past and current effectiveness of the feminist movement could be influential in providing insight to environmental activism on a large scale. When reading through chapter 3, “Public and Paid For,” Naomi Klein discusses the value of government’s legislatures in different cities of Germany voting to take back control of their city’s variety of power grids from corporations that had paid for the control over these power sources in the past. The voters, however, have rapidly began moving towards legislations that put the cities governing officials back in charge, which is essentially wiping out the energy privatization by the old providing corporations. Shifting this power has made it possible for these citizens to make their energy payments to the city and bolster their economy with their own money, instead of paying an outside corporation to provide power and then watching their money go to the pockets of third party shareholders associated with these corporations. These shareholders may or may not have the best interest of these voters’ communities in their mind when providing them their necessary energy, and they also would not be willing to pursue renewable energy resources if it meant taking a massive cut in profits, so the attempt is to allocate resources to be more beneficial for the people of the city and cut out the corporate greed in order to sustain more effective means of energy for everyone. Klein quoted  Anna Leidreiter, a climate campaigner with the World Future Council as saying “This marks a clear reversal to the neoliberal policies of the 1990s, when large numbers of German municipalities sold their public services to large corporations as money was needed to prop up city budgets,” (Klein, 84).

Making major policy reforms within the government is one of the driving factors of any sort of movement. Civil rights and feminism have all called for major societal reform by way of legislation and enforcement of that legislation within our country. The changing policy many other countries are seeing around climate change and environmental protection needs to be something that many of the extremely industrialized nations need to begin to accept as well. “Because one of the greatest misconceptions in the climate debate is that our society is refusing to change, protecting a status quo called ‘business-as-usual’.’ The truth is that there is no business-as-usual. The energy sector is changing dramatically all the time — but the vast majority of those changes are taking us in precisely the wrong direction,” (Klein, 124). The refusal to change is just because policy holders and powerful corporations hold this knowledge as much as they can; they create distractions and search for new and efficient methods that are often not even more beneficial in solving the problem. But they solve the problem of not losing profit to the investors in these corporations. When people wake up and see that these corporations are abusing the capitalist system for their own personal gain and not the betterment of our world and people, I think the government reform will occur rapidly. The issue is we are only hurting ourselves more and more by delaying action and continue to let these corporations and private entities manipulate our energy sources.

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Feminism and Environmentalists

The fight to better society for the survival of this world, is quite similar to the modern movement of feminism. Feminism was brought about in the 60s and has truly developed into a massive movement in today’s society. Searching and fighting for equality through the workforce, physical appearance, politics and so much more; these women continue to stand up for each other internationally and for the future of youth. Just as these women are fighting to ease the lives of individuals everywhere, environmental activists have been creating their own movement and taking the same responsibility as the feminist movement.

Feminism and ecological efforts both have the same underlying problem that they’ve been attempting for years to climb and get over: the government. As mentioned by theGreenwich research team, “’An active role for government and public sector utilities is thus a far more important condition for developing renewable energy than any expensive system of public subsidies for markets or private sectors’” (Klein, 2014, pg. 101). The government of every country has a responsibility to their people; to protect them and instill safety and happiness through these individuals and the future of the youth. However, the larger sector, that is politics, continue to prevent these necessary positive changes to be implemented and enforced. Stanford researcher, Mark Jacobson, believes this, “’this really involves a large scale transformation [and] we really need to just decide collectively that this is the direction we want to head as a society.’ And he is clear on what stands in the way: ‘The biggest obstacles are social and political−what you need is the will to do it’” (Klein, 2014, pg. 102). Similar to feminism, and every movement currently taking place, the power doesn’t only rely on small busineses, sectors, it’s the larger corporations and companies that cannot waste another minute by enforcing change to save this planet. Once large scale transformations begins to take place, the public will truly realize the importance of this crisis that is climate change. Just as feminism has been battling government laws and regulations, relentless environmental activists are dealing with the same grueling politics as, ““these are the same three decades in which almost every government in the world has been steadily chipping away at the health and resilience of the public sphere. And it is this neglect that, over and over again, turns natural disasters into unnatural catastrophes” (Klein, 2014, pg. 108). The change is constantly discussed and the fight continues, yet change has yet to truly step foot on American soil, and other nations such as China, who are two major factors in this emergency. These two countries are the ones who need to enforce laws and regulations to their public for the survival of this planet, and the health of individuals and animal and plant life around the world.

The match for equality through feminism is the same as the constant match to rally the survival of our only home; planet earth. These movements simply need to be heard, no longer by small businesses who listen and attend to their needs, but by larger sectors and corporations that will definitely have a massive impact on countries such as the United States and China. The more attention and concern this receives from larger corporations, the government may finally realize that the change for this planet and the future of youth is not tomorrow, it is now, because even yesterday is a day too late.

Reference

Klein, Naomi. (2014). This Changes Everything: Captialism vs The Climate. New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.

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Naomi Klein, Climate Change and  the Corporate Superstructure

In her book This Changes Everything, Klein explores a political and ideological landscape where the issue of climate change has lost its meaning as a crushing eventuality of our unsustainable lifestyle, and is instead conflated with liberal politics. He examines how the bipartisan cooperation on climate issues has been blocked by conservatives that see the necessary politics to curtail carbon emissions and slow global warming as being central to the liberal political agenda. It is in this way that the goals of each party in their political moment are put above their responsibility to future generations. It seems to be as much of a class issue as it is a political one; as Klein points out, the rich can afford to support themselves as resources become scarce and the environment turns unfriendly. It is the poor who will die in the billions if nothing is done, but it is the rich who are affected if their ability to exploit earth’s resources is curtailed by environmental protections.

It is telling, then, that certain industries are affected in a positive way by environmental issues. Business for private security companies is projected to grow, as those with vast financial resources increasingly need to use force to secure their place in a world made more dangerous by drought, food scarcity and displacement brought on by global warming. War profiteers worldwide, or as they are known “defense contractors” are gearing up for more business than ever, as financial institutions of the world centralize their place by investing in firepower. From a cashflow perspective, it makes more sense for these industry giants to make as much as they possibly can while they still can, and invest in an apocalyptic future where they hold dominion of resources over humanity. The alternative is to slow down their economic superstructure now in hopes of a sustainable future, but many believe that this would only slow down the tide of the inevitable. Therefore, the rich of the world want to make themselves as rich as possible before the entire system, and the world, melts down.

This attitude, this sense of entitlement to the world and everything it has to offer without thought for the future, is rooted deeply in the ideology of The West. The central idea of Christian theocracy is that humans alone were made in God’s image, and thus the rest of his dominion is for their enrichment. This, coupled with the Capitalist American idea that the individual’s pursuit of wealth is essential to the “American Dream,” give the uber rich a sense of entitlement over natural resources that not everyone has equal access to. In this era where class lines often denote political priorities, the “1%” won’t give up its position at the top of the superstructure, they would rather watch the rest of the world crumble around them while shoring up their own fortresses against the onslaught of climate change.

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Naomi Klein on Climate Change and Capitalism

I’ve always known climate change to be an extreme reality and a cause I hold deep support for, but after reading the introduction and first chapter of Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate, my perspective and the international crisis has deepened my reality.

She caught my attention from the very beginning when she was telling the story of Flight 3935 in the year 2012 and how it was unable to take off due to the fact it was sinking in the tarmac. Klein continues by saying, “it’s no myster why this has been happening: the profligate burning of fossil fuels, the very thing that US Airways was bound and determined to do despite the inconvenience presented by a melting tarmac” (Klein, 2014, pg. 2). What truly opened my eyes was when she mentioned the lack of media coverage that climate change received in all the reports and broadcasts about this story. It’s the main problem! Yet, “each supercharged natural disaster produces new irony-laden snapshots of a climate increasingly hospitable to the very industries most responsible for its warming” (Klein, 2014, pg. 2). This is us; she’s talking about this society as a whole and how we continue to act as if this life threatening change is nonexistent and insignificant.

Unfortunately, I held similar perspectives and was a part of this climate change denial as told by my quite conservatively held high school friends that global warming and climate change don’t exist and was just something made up to increase fear in everyone. Thus I was one who Klein describes perfectly as looking into climate change, “—really [looking]—but then, inevitably, we seem to forget. Remember and then forget again [because] climate change is like that; it’s hard to keep it in your head for very long” (Klein, 2014, pg. 4). The natural disasters that continue to occur are frightening to witness, yet it all begins with how our media displays these disasters; climate change related or not. Secret: they are all climate change related.

Then Klein begins to bring in the capitalism part of the book as she states, “climate change has never received the crisis treatment from our leaders, despite the fact that it carries the risk of destroying lives on a vastly greater scale than collapsed banks or collapsed buildings” (Klein, 2014, pg. 6). A very recent example of this is our newest President Trump and the recent budget adjustments such as limiting funding, or giving zero financial support, to causes such as PBS, NPR and much more who are activists and game changers within this global crisis and placing increased funds towards defensive organizations that include our military. Organizations such as PBS and NPR are the mechanisms that help sustain and reinforce the dangerous effects of climate change. However, our media, such as networks, radio, and newspapers, all continue to reinforce and sustain the negative parts of climate change by simply ignoring it’s existence and not even mentioning it within their segments; as seen in the 2012 Flight 3925 story Klein opened with. It’s a scary time our world is living in, and Klein places this all into perspective through this eye-opening book.

References 

Klein, Naomi. (2014). This Changes Everything: Captialism vs The Climate. New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.