“I want you to panic,” Greta Thumberg states in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. The climate is changing and yet we are not. Thumberg is not the first but one of many climate activists who is communicating the idea that we are not doing enough. That the global society has chosen to turn a blind eye and ignore the detrimental consequences of our behaviour. We merely put bandaid solutions onto gaping wounds and state that we have solved the issue; hoping that no one will notice the flaws in our system. The effect of colonial actions such as capitalism and neoliberalism put advanced industrialized societies as a clear power in the global dynamic. The countries with massive influence, who are least affected by the current consequences of climate change, are choosing “solutions”, to a global issue that mainly affects lower economically developed countries (LEDC). They are choosing “solutions” such as planting more trees only to cut them down again. This is not only wrong but detrimental to our survival for numerous reasons. One being that colonialism has always perpetuated a society of segregation, hierarchies and clear divides in income. This has caused LEDC to be more strongly affected by climate change and not have readily available resources to prevent catastrophic damage. From the past to the present colonialism has had destructive impacts on other societies developments by abusing power to fulfill their own wants and needs.
From colonialism stemmed neoliberalism. Neoliberalism has been forced on societies with lower power through structural adjustment. For instance, free market is “open” to solely corporate capitalists to utilize their wanted resources which negatively affect other areas, while it is institutionally non-accessible to everyone else. This allows large corporations to gain obscene amounts of capital while abusing the atmosphere without consequences. Yet, we are still sold the idea of how to make ourselves more environmentally friendly. We are told to sit back and relax because the same people who refuse to compromise their capital income for the environment are going to save the planet. It is ironic that governments and large GHG producing companies are the cause and act as the solution.
We choose to be ignorant because to understand the situation would be terrifying for a plethora of reasons. The scariest of all, for governments and large corporations, is not death, but the fact that they will lose capital and have to change their behaviour. Capitalism is a multi-disciplinary system that controls our global society and has caused us to be capital crazed and ignorant to all other means of developing. It has become impossible to convince governments to take the necessary measures to prevent further environmental degradation because they refuse to compromise. The very core of capitalism is wealth, and environmental initiatives are not appealing as they usually decrease short-term economic input. Although we continuously forget that the world is a place and not a sum of money.
Advanced industrialized societies will find positive sounding “solutions” to climate crisis events and completely ignore the possibility of preventative measures; not understanding it would have reduced the original destruction. Climate change is occurring and while the effects are upon us today, this does not mean we cannot prevent further damage. The consequences, including massive ecological loss, rising global temperatures and rising sea levels have an effect on human society and not just non-human biota.
There should be two plans of action. The first is to treat the symptoms of the climate crisis by individualized initiatives for countries to prevent damage that is going to occur. For instance, coastal countries will be strongly impacted by rising sea levels and the increasing severity of storms, and as such should have coastal barriers to protect infrastructure, or plans to repair the wetlands that acts as a natural flood barrier. While aspects of the first plan are occuring, it is not to the extent that is needed. This is especially noticeable with top-down solutions that are brought from HEDCs and implemented into LEDCs with the colonial idea that they are “there to make things better”. In reality locals understand the environment to such an extent that they have their own solutions for protection and prevention, but not always the resources or capital to implement them.
The second part is to produce meaningful action, that includes limitation surrounding, the true emitters of GHG. Without this vital step the first plan is useless. Countries can only protect themselves for so long against the inevitable unless there is a change of action. A change in the system we choose to live by so religiously. A system that is clearly flawed as we cannot change it without uproar and catastrophe. That this to capitalists, is a fate worse than death by the climate crisis. There is a need to hold GHG emitters, and governments who have allowed this to continue, accountable for their actions and to create actionable initiatives that will have a true impact on halting the production of GHG. The true problem is this needed plan will not occur, as allowing this to happen would mean a loss of capital, a change in our current economic structure, and recognition that more action is needed to be done.
While it is true that the climate crisis is affecting every corner of the earth, there is a clear cause that refuses a solution. Refuses to compromise capital to survive. The clear power dynamic with those at the top of the hierarchy not only refusing to take meaningful action but pretending to have solutions is incredibly dangerous. They are giving a false sense of safety and it blocks real action from occurring because we are wasting our incredibly limited time on “solutions” that have been proven insufficient. We are globally and unequally affected by this crisis and those in power will sit idly by and watch as capital, that they will never get to use, increases as our planet slowly dies, knowing there were solutions that we refused.
