Helpless in Climate Crisis

Image from Asian Development Bank Flickr

I read a terrifying piece of news yesterday. To sum it up, basically our planet’s temperatures are increasing at an unexpected speed, pushing us dangerously close to tipping points which mean backtracking on dramatic climate change will be near impossible. To be perfectly honest a part of me feels these limits may already have been reached but we are either as yet unaware of it or just purposefully ignoring it.  In a horrifically quick time we have essentially fucked the earth. I’m sorry but there just really isn’t a nicer way to put it, we’ve really fucked up.

When I read these stories I feel angry, but the more wrenching feeling is that of utter helplessness. The whole situation feels completely out of my control, dictated by a shadowy congress above me to whom my existence, and that of most of the rest of the world, is simply insignificant.

But yet they would have us believe that we can and should make the change. That in fact it’s not the fault of the way the global markets run that we’re in this situation, it’s actually YOUR buying habits, YOUR choice of vehicle for commuting, YOUR decision to continue procreating.

But even if these habits were our fault and the cause of environmental catastrophe they have been hard-wired into our brains. Look at the planned obsolescence of many electronic items which have now become daily requirements for the majority of people in countries like the UK and USA. We are thrown new gadgets incessantly, most of which are designed to break within a few years. This means of production is symptomatic of the short-term mind-set of capitalism which depletes limited resources and uses self-renewing sources quicker than they are able to re-stabilise.

We can try our best to recycle and reuse but the constant demand for growth means that these measures can only go so far.While the rise of recycling in the UK since 2000 has been impressive (rising from 11% to 43.2% in 2013) in recent years the level of growing improvement has begun to peter out and still fails to reach to target of 50%. This is because when initiatives began there were huge possibilities for reduction but over the years continuing to make the same level has become impossible. Hence, while initial progress may be heartening, reaching zero-waste is a practically impossible vision.

Their is a growing drive to create a kind of “green capitalism”, green consumerism being one of the most common. This places the emphasis on the change that the consumer can achieve through their purchasing power, and has been happily welcomed by many businesses, both small and large. Many brands will now have an “eco” version of their products that will cost a bit more and instil in the consumer a sense of satisfaction as they have chosen an environmentally friendly product and “greenwashing” the consumer into thinking they are making an impact.

Sir Terry Leaky, chief executive of Tesco, has been quoted saying: ‘It is only by realising our potential as people, citizens, consumers, as users that we can turn targets into reality. It will be a transition achieved not by some great invention or some great act of parliament, but through the billions of choices made by consumers every day’. This is precisely the type of thinking big corporations like Tesco want to promote to their consumers as by focusing on individual choice they take away pressure from government and big businesses to make any real changes in their proceedings. Instead shops merely have to continue business as usual but while also shelving “environmentally friendly” choices for consumers which will do more to further increase their profits than aid the environment.

By expanding their range of supermarkets companies like Tesco destroy the possibility for the growing ideas in how an economy should work, based on local and independent shops and services. Green consumerism does not only do nothing to help to environmental crisis but in fact by creating an public apathy towards more radical and necessary solutions.

The bottom line is that it is impossible to achieve economic growth without a level of environmental degradation. Hence to pull the brakes and jump off the tracks towards global climate crisis we need an entirely new economic system.

But what can I do to try to usher in the change? What can anyone else do? All I can think to do is just try to write about it and try to spread the word a little. I’d like to finish here on a strong revolutionary note, but when you feel to powerless the words are hard to muster. So for lack of them I’ll call on another’s.

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many – they are few.

-Percy Shelley