climate change: you can lead to way!
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a report which again shows us how much we are damaging the planet. It details the concerns about the effects climate change which include an increase in extreme weather events which will damage food production, affect health, livelihoods and biodiversity. There is a warning that we need to act now. But we don’t.
What is it that makes it so hard to change the way we live. Most of us like to eat a variety of different foods at all times of the year, drive our cars when we need to get somewhere or maybe even just for a trip out and a change of scene. We go on foreign holidays, flying thousands of miles. We buy clothes made cheaply on the other side of the world and return home to warm, heated houses. We have a great time using all these resources but most of us do know deep down that we need to change the way we live.
Globalisation has brought everything to us on a plate and the internet has helped to explain how this has been possible. There is enough simple literature on the internet to easily find out that you are wasting too much energy and food. So why do we want to hide away from it?
As a nation, those born after the end of World War II have seen the way we live improve progressively – at least materially. For those of us born after about 1965, our adult lives have been based on neoliberal economic principles. We have been born into a world which is interested in personal gain and individualism. Those who are even younger and grew up in the post Thatcher/Regan era, have never even been exposed to an opposing ideology.
It has become east to say that capitalism as we know it is the only way. All other systems have failed. But there is something which we might want to remember. Capitalism is a basic system which ultimately tends towards crisis. We have seen the latest one in 2008 but there were also crises in 2000, the early 1990’s, the late 1980’s, the 1970’s etc. And these were just in Britain! So on the basis that capitalism tends towards crisis, why do we believe in it and follow its principles.
We are driven to ‘get’ more. We want a bigger house, car, designer clothes and all the trimmings. It is the system we currently live in. Our success is built on following a system which promotes the most basic of human behaviour. We won’t change our habits because it has been bred into us that to have a foreign holiday or a car with a five litre engine is a sign of success.
So we follow the system. But if capitalism as we know it tends towards crisis, the other question is at what point should we do something? From the build up to the financial crisis in 2008, it would appear that the system is only reactive, certainly not proactive. While our lives get better, we want to bury our heads in the sand. The last thing we want is someone coming along and telling us that trouble is on the way.
So coming back to the IPCC report, realistically, when can we expect Government’s and institutions to react? Well, there are moves here and there which look good and do some good. Policies come out and companies change they way they operate. But one thing is clear, they are not the drastic changes which are required to slow the effects of climate change. Chances are that the Government which controls your country will react after the event. When food production slows, water is no longer there and people are dying, there might be a reaction. Even more likely, the big reaction will come only when it affects Europe and the US.
So what do we suggest? There are two schools of thought. Firstly, that you get the most you can from the system we live in and have the best chance later, or secondly, you start to take action now. With no opposing ideology, it looks like our neoliberal economic system is here to stay for better or worse. But there are some elements which its gets right. The world is made up by individuals. Our actions change demand which changes supply which can change the way we live.
We have the power to change the system. There won’t be radical changes without numbers, but without one person leading the way, others won’t follow. If we want to protect the planet, we need to think about the way we live. Our lives impact other peoples directly, and not just our neighbours but those in other countries.
Where the rich go, the rest of us tend to follow and the same is true of countries. If the West stops consuming in the unsustainable way we do now, the rest of the world is likely to follow. So, start leading the way!
Thanks for reading!
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Originally published at shrinkthesupplychain.com on November 3, 2014.
