![]() ![]() ![]() Even seemingly inexorable institutions faltered. Millions were furloughed or lost their jobs. Teachers, children, and their parents adapted to online learning. Lockdowns limited travel and social encounters. In the early days of the pandemic, our expectations had to adjust to a sobering new reality. In the wake of COVID-19, immutable givens seemed to waver. In March 2020, however, the consequences of avoiding these vital changes became apparent. By contrast, calls from the scientific community to curb deforestation and biodiversity loss, and to regulate transnational, monocultural, industrial agriculture in the hopes of preventing the emergence of zoonotic diseases have largely gone unheeded. Governments have concentrated on regulating wet markets and providing public money to fund private ventures’ vaccine and testing development. No wonder then that, in devouring ever more of Earth’s gifts to fuel the engines of economic growth, the Moloch of globalized capitalism has helped create the conditions to unleash and exacerbate pandemics. At present, we face ecological tipping points that are unavoidable without a wholesale shift in our society’s use and sourcing of energy-a solution that is utterly incompatible with market mechanisms. Presuming that small tweaks to the existing system will suffice only serves to overestimate their potential impact and underestimate the scale of the problem they purport to address. ![]() Eco-capitalism’s primary directive remains maximizing profits for shareholders, which fundamentally conflicts with our finite world’s limits to growth. The old adage, “ the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” resonates with the inability of moderate measures to avert the present crisis. However, the milquetoast incrementalism of eco-capitalist reforms also renders them impotent. For many, it seems easier to imagine a future devoid of either a functioning ecology or human society than one free of capitalism. Its boundlessness seems to exceed our capacity to conceptualize what it is and precludes us from reasonably considering alterations to its fundamental structures. Like fish unaware they swim in water, capitalism has become a hyperobject that pervades our lives and subsumes threats to its primacy. Even worse, it is painted as inevitable, as opposed to the human construct that it is. Cultural hegemony-a process by which those in power shape social norms and values to impose a particular mode of production-presents capitalism as the most practical and effective way to address the problems we face rather than one of their ultimate causes. Proponents argue this approach is more reasonable than severe regulation because it requires only limited economic changes. Such “eco-capitalism” provides the illusion of restraining capitalism’s destructive tendencies without confronting any of its structural failures. Most governments, however, remain undeterred and continue implementing watered-down, market-driven half-measures. Capitalism’s internal logic demands infinite growth, and the neoliberal tendency toward deregulation and privatization makes averting climate change in a capitalist context impossible. Their noncompliance overshadows the individual actions we take to reduce our personal carbon footprints.Įnvironmental destruction is not an unfortunate side-effect of mismanagement but an inherent manifestation of an economic system operating by design. Although popular support is rising for bold climate action, the corporations disproportionately responsible for the majority of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have wielded their economic power to stymie regulation and spread misinformation. politicians serve primarily at the pleasure of America’s capitalist class rather than advocate for the common good of the populace and the planet we all inhabit. It seems that peeling back the genteel veneer of a return to normal where “science is real… kindness is everything” reveals an unwillingness to seriously consider the sweeping changes required this decade to avert global climate catastrophe.īiden’s embrace of the status quo is as disappointing as it was predictable. These gestures of political theatre have typified Biden’s first months in office. While many applauded the retournement, others regarded the move as merely symbolic given the treaty’s shortcomings. Photo credit to Steve Pavey.Īs upwards of ten million Texans faced a utilities crisis caused by record-low temperatures, Joe Biden signed the Paris Climate Agreement, reversing Trump’s abandonment of the same amid what was the most destructive wildfire season on record in California. The Poor People’s Campaign rallies in Washington D.C., continuing the work undertaken 50 years earlier. ![]()
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