climate change vs capitalism, whyyy
I've been attempting to make my way through Naomi Klein's book This Changes Everything on capitalism vs climate change. It's been rough. Not only is this book a motherfucking dense read, it's also filled with the most depressing news ever. For example: free trade agreements that are actively preventing climate change policies from happening, the Nature Conservancy actively digging oil in an ecological reserve for an endangered bird species and still continuing to do it even after they were exposed ?!?!, the big failure of carbon trading to do simply limit carbon emissions and to instead rely on the ups and downs of the market, and the very scary possibility of geoengineering policies being established (in particular, the one where they shoot sulfur stuff into the air to make the sun's rays less intense and the planet cooler, which not only does not address the root cause of climate change, but also causes extreme droughts in Africa and Asia but that's ok as long as North America is ok, right?!). I mean, fuckkkkk, it's like the worst book but also the most important book to read.
I just finished the chapter on geoengineering and I can understand why Teresa spent a night crying on the kitchen floor because we are fucked. It is all too easy to imagine a future where panicked governments decide to engage in scientific methods they don't understand in a last ditch effort to ignore our lifestyles/root causes of climate change and to sacrifice Africans and Asians to save North America.
Geoengineering is pretty much the worst scientific strategy because
a) you can't actually test it without actually getting the entire world to engage with it,
b) it's being led by self aggrandizing MEN who think humans are the god species and therefore it's ok to regulate the sun instead of regulating ourselves,
c) they all stand to make a lot of money out of it and even more money for escapist plans to recolonize Mars or something,
d) no one seems to care that entire millions of people will suffer and die of drought at a much more rapid rate with geoengineering than with climate change, and
e) you'd pretty much have to always do this method to maintain the global temperature because the moment you stop, the haze will clear and the sun rays will be far more intense and instead of a (relatively) gradual temperature increase, we'll have a rapid 2 degree increase that few species will be able to adapt to.
In essence, we'd be fucked if they do this. And yet it seems like it's the only option on the table because no one is seriously talking about regulating capitalism and the fossil fuels industry except maybe Elizabeth Warren.
ughhh and I'm not even done with the book yet. more fun stuff to get through!
I just finished the chapter on geoengineering and I can understand why Teresa spent a night crying on the kitchen floor because we are fucked. It is all too easy to imagine a future where panicked governments decide to engage in scientific methods they don't understand in a last ditch effort to ignore our lifestyles/root causes of climate change and to sacrifice Africans and Asians to save North America.
Geoengineering is pretty much the worst scientific strategy because
a) you can't actually test it without actually getting the entire world to engage with it,
b) it's being led by self aggrandizing MEN who think humans are the god species and therefore it's ok to regulate the sun instead of regulating ourselves,
c) they all stand to make a lot of money out of it and even more money for escapist plans to recolonize Mars or something,
d) no one seems to care that entire millions of people will suffer and die of drought at a much more rapid rate with geoengineering than with climate change, and
e) you'd pretty much have to always do this method to maintain the global temperature because the moment you stop, the haze will clear and the sun rays will be far more intense and instead of a (relatively) gradual temperature increase, we'll have a rapid 2 degree increase that few species will be able to adapt to.
In essence, we'd be fucked if they do this. And yet it seems like it's the only option on the table because no one is seriously talking about regulating capitalism and the fossil fuels industry except maybe Elizabeth Warren.
ughhh and I'm not even done with the book yet. more fun stuff to get through!