Climate Crisis is cultural

Toward a rational View of Society: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 , 9, 10, 11 & 12

Melted tarmac, Cambridgeshire UK, summer 2017, by me

Update: see the follow-on Climate Emergency & the Geologic Record

This photo outside my village encapsulates today’s phenomenon: a road is fixed for potholes… and that same summer those patches melt in the heat! Far more dramatic photos abound in the media, but I try to bring global issues to the local, in order to follow the old saying: think globally, act locally.

Let me develop the theme: who do we think we are? from subtitle post #9 in a previous series. Here are a few socio-political facts beyond the West consume and therefore must pay:

• meat is out as it’s the most eco-destructive source of food, (Guardian)
• over a decade ago was a research paper about the westernization of Asian diets (ResearchGate), which by simple population count and increased living standards in the East will dwarf diet changes in the West
• demand for petrol cars is increasing in India, and given the population there and increased standards of living (Ibef), that will also dwarf any electrification, say, in Europe
• coal isn’t dead in China, the largest producing & consuming nation (Forbes), so stopping a mine reopening in Cornwall is a drop in the ocean

Road to Wafra, southernmost Kuwait, winter 2010, by me

In other words, closing coal mines in Germany (LA Times), eating vegan in America (Forbes) or cycling in England (Cycle Republic) is blowing sand in the wind compared with what happens abroad… So why do we take such a responsibility of, say, carbon offsetting that is tricky (Guardian) or clean energy that is a loophole in UK (Good Energy)?

Be it in the press (Guardian) or academia (SRI), the invisible elephant in the room is neo-liberalism as a ripple effect of colonialism. As I mentioned earlier (at left, link), the fall of Communism left no counter-vailing influence to Capitalism and ushered in unfettered neo-liberalism (see Guardian) and its current populist offshoots on both sides of the Atlantic.

And should there be any doubt, a recent video by the new journalistic alternative The Intercept will allay any fear of confusion:

But let me suggest that the story behind the story is this:

• the Western elite still behave a Colonialists, like business still thinks the Earth his there to be exploited, and we cannot live without their products
• they’re still patronizing toward the rest of the world, who they suggest should join not only in our standards of living but our climate activism
• environmental catastrophes make the news when it affects the West and our livelihood, not when it’s safely tucked away in the rest of the world

Let me close with this call to arms by George Monbiot (12 Apr. 2019) — and the fact it appears in an irreverent comedy show in Britain shows how upside-down media reporting is in the absence of the mainstream — but that’s another story…