The Effects of Global Capitalism on Climate Change
The main question of whether or not global capitalism can solve climate change still stands today. I believe that global capitalism cannot solve climate change, in fact it does the opposite and encourages it. This has happened a lot recently in industrial companies around the world, specifically pertaining to things like agriculture and the production of goods and services overall. In certain situations, these companies have all had one main focus, which is money and maximizing profit. In other words, the driving force of the capitalist system has always been and still is making a profit. All relations to production exist not to satisfy basic needs, but to generate and accumulate profits. This leads to the problem of climate change and how global capitalism actually makes it worse through money grabbing.
I truly think that the ideas of global capitalism and solving climate change are polar opposites of each other. As previously stated, the main focus of global capitalism is centered around money and how to maximize profit as much as possible rather than caring about the environment and sustainability. This can be seen through the process of agriculture because the technology used in certain farmlands contributes to the issue of climate change by emitting greenhouse gases and other harmful fumes into the atmosphere. For example, the burning of farm land in Indonesia due to the desire for more space to build palm oil companies’ industrial plants creates a massive haze that travels to other places like Malaysia and Singapore and starts even more fires there due to wind. This brings excess heat to their surrounding areas and changes the air around them, eventually contributing to greenhouse gases which leads to climate change. This sudden rising of temperatures is not good for the atmosphere and the people it surrounds. Capitalism is Burning The Planet, an article submitted by ICConline, states that these fires “have nothing natural about them” and “are a real threat to life. Besides the damage they directly cause, they also aggravate global warming”. I strongly agree with what this article says here, as it goes well into detail about how specific instances of global capitalism can affect climate change in many different ways. In this case, I think man made fires due to agriculture and farming serve as a great example of how prioritizing profit over the well-being of the environment can encourage and further damage the severity of climate change.
This extensive example can do a great job of opening the eyes of people who do not recognize the negative effect that global capitalism has on climate change. Here we can see how these fires from the burning of the Indonesian farmlands are creating real threats to the environments surrounding them as well as the people living in them by contributing to the world wide problem of climate change through aggravating global warming (ICConline). This is just one example of how global capitalism strengthens the issue of climate change rather than solves it. To actually solve global capitalism’s lack of focus on sustainability and the problem of climate change in general, we should find alternative solutions to finding space to build industrial plants instead of just burning farmland for them and creating an even bigger issue, like making industrial plants smaller, but more evenly distributed. All of this shows how the power and actions of global capitalism do not solve climate change and instead encourage it to be an even bigger issue.
However, some might say the opposite and claim that global capitalism can actually help resolve the worldwide issue of climate change. Through many years of research and debate, people have been able to find ways that global capitalism actually helps the planet, in fact “saves it”, specifically with climate change and other related issues. Though I do not personally agree with this idea, people who do resonate with it still present valid points. These ways that capitalism helps the planet, climate change specifically, are mainly through technology and its advancement as well as the public awareness of environmental damage that it creates. For example, the progress of technology supported by global capitalism has allowed us to reduce our consumption of certain materials such as maps, calculators, compasses, cameras, and more by being able to include each of these and even more items into one single device such as a cellphone or a tablet. This, in turn, results in less waste and gases being released from factories making these products into the atmosphere that contribute to the problem of climate change. I can see how this ends with actually resolving the issue of climate change, or at least helping it.
The Planet Has a Fever, and The Cure is More Capitalism, a Prominent Researcher Argues, an article written by James Temple regarding climate change and capitalism, supports this idea. It states that fellow researcher and MIT scientist Andrew McAfee makes a strong case that some common and well-known negative assumptions about the effects of global capitalism on climate change are wrong a lot of the time. He states that even though it is true that technological progress and economic growth “have certainly inflicted very real environmental and social costs”, they have also “inarguably delivered massive gains in health, wealth, and standards of living” (Temple). With this, his audience can see how global capitalism can actually be beneficial towards climate change and if not completely resolve this issue, then it can most definitely help push it in the right direction towards an even better solution. Seeing this can give people who disagree with this idea a broader perspective on the concept of global capitalism as a whole and how it may not completely disregard the problem of climate change.
In conclusion, the debate of whether or not global capitalism solves climate change still stands today. However, I strongly believe that global capitalism does not solve climate change and instead makes it worse due to its strong focus on maximizing profit rather than the health of the environment. Sure it may help it, as seen from Temple’s article on McAfee’s perspective with the help of technological advancements, but it cannot fully solve it. We can see this by looking at ICConline’s article regarding the spreading of man made fires to countries in Indonesia due to global capitalism in agriculture. To fully solve the global issue of climate change, the whole world must work together to find ways to gradually reduce the presence of climate change, eventually leaving the globe with little to none of it. Climate change is a global issue, therefore it can only be resolved globally. Global capitalism cannot do this because it focuses too much on the profit that is made by certain corporations, excluding several groups. Therefore, no, global capitalism cannot solve climate change.
