This time of the year is for making new year’s resolutions and this year was no exception. A local radio channel reported that a survey had revealed that the most popular one was doing more to be ‘green’. However, whilst our good intentions are worthy it is becoming ever clearer that the scale of action required goes far beyond individuals. It is also clear that despite our well-intentioned promises and the increasing alarm bell warnings of the scientific community, the well-oiled engine of consumption rolls on. It invites us through sophisticated advertising to consume the latest piece of technology or travel to exotic places and is designed to persuade us that green and infinite consumption growth can go together. You too can save the planet by buying that ‘sustainable’ cotton t-shirt with the message ‘There is no Planet B’.
Indeed, a report published by the UN Environment Programme and other research organisations revealed that the world’s nations are planning to produce about 50% more fossil fuels by 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 2°C and 120% more than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C. So much for curbing fossil fuel production and saving ourselves. As Mans Nilsson, an executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute commented ‘We’re in a deep hole – and we need to stop digging’.
And yet across the world, those messages are being ignored. Our ice caps are thawing at an unprecedented rate. The snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80% since the beginning of the 20th century. Glaciers in India are receding so fast that it is believed that most of those in the central and eastern Himalayas could virtually disappear by 2035. The impact on water resources will be devastating to the livelihoods of around 129 million farmers in India who depend on glacier meltwater to grow their crops – put bluntly, the food we eat. The edges of Greenland’s ice sheet are shrinking, and scientists say that extreme ice melt will affect coastal communities across the world. Thawing permafrost has caused ground to subside more than 4.6 metres in Alaska, worse as permafrost degrades under a warming climate, some of the carbon contained within will decompose and be released into the atmosphere. In Siberia, in what is known as the Kingdom of Winter, the permafrost is also thawing and revealing the bodies of long-dead animals preserved in the permafrost for more than 32,000 years.
GIMMS reported last year on the fires in the Arctic as well as Brazil and Bolivia which destroyed vast tracts of the Amazon forest causing huge devastation in terms of biodiversity loss and threats to valuable water resources. Reuters reported earlier this week that deforestation in Brazil rose to its highest in over a decade in 2019 under the administration of President Bolsonaro. INPE the space research organisation has suggested that the timing and location of the fires were consistent with land clearing encouraged by Bolsonaro as part of his economic development plan which has emboldened ranchers and loggers to slash and burn.
This week people across the world have been looking on in dismay at the ongoing destruction happening right now in Australia as bush fires rage, burning more than 17 million acres across the continent, destroying its biodiversity and killing hundreds of millions of animals in their path not to mention demolishing whole towns, causing loss of life and leaving frightened people in dangerous conditions on beaches waiting to be rescued. Record heat, ongoing drought and dry vegetation have all played a devastating role in the destruction, which will not only affect those habitats for years to come but will also cause an increase in carbon emissions as burning trees release it into the air. The fires will impact on people’s long-term health and damage agriculture and businesses, the consequences of which will be costly.
Extreme weather events from droughts to storms and floods are becoming the norm and the media brings them to our living rooms with instant newsflashes. We can see the devastation they bring across the globe from Australia and Asia to the US and Europe and even the UK where over recent years we have had our fair share of extreme weather from floods to heatwaves. Only this week it was reported by Public Health England that the summer heatwaves of 2019 resulted in almost 900 extra deaths and over the past four years more than 3,400 people have died as a result of extreme heat. And last November very heavy rainfall left acres of valuable farmland under many feet of water destroying crops and affecting livestock and inevitably the livelihoods of farmers. MPs warned last July that the UK was ‘woefully unprepared’ for the impact of the climate crisis.
And yet, disgracefully, some leaders around the globe still have their heads firmly in the sand over the threats to the lives of people and the natural world. The outcome of the climate conference in Madrid which took place in mid-December last year was deemed disappointing by the UN Secretary Antonio Guterres who said that the international community had lost an important opportunity to tackle the climate crisis. Laurence Tubiana from the European Climate Foundation called it a ‘far cry from what science tells us is needed’. With the prospect of next year’s climate conference being held in Glasgow, Boris Johnson has already been warned by environmentalists that preaching to other nations whilst the UK fails to make progress on its own commitments will lead to humiliation.
The commitment of the Conservatives on one of the most pressing issues of our time has been derisory. Expanding aviation and road-building plans are quite simply not compatible with eliminating CO2 emissions. Promoting electric cars may provide a stopgap solution but not a sustainable one since the batteries to power them also require energy to extract, manufacture and dispose of them and indeed the rare earth materials to make them are themselves finite. Add to that the environmental impacts of battery production for use in wind and solar power which may also negate any environmental benefits and one begins to see how things are not simply a matter of exchanging one energy source for another in a finite world of resources where everyone globally will be chasing those same raw materials to sustain and green their economies. Without consideration of the problems of resource availability and strategies to create green supply chains and more reuse and recycling of the rare materials needed for solar photovoltaics, batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines, greening our world will be fraught with difficulties.
Furthermore, our standard of living has been built on the backs of those poorer countries where many of the resources we need to maintain our lifestyles are found and whilst we benefit, those same countries have also been at the sharp end of our excessive consumption in terms of climate change and western inflicted poverty.
What is needed is a revolution in the way we think about how we live, what our values should be and how we consume. And yet, in light of the challenges we face globally, inertia and lack of real commitment could be viewed as puzzling given the future real costs both financial and physical of inadequate governmental action. However, one does not have to look very far for the answer; rampant, out of control capitalism which relentlessly feeds on driving economies regardless of the consequences. Over 40 years and more political dogma in the form of neoliberal ideology has embedded itself, not only in our governmental and political structures and educational and other institutions, but also in how the public has been led to believe economies work, persuading them that there is no other way, indeed no alternative. The price we are paying in social, environmental and economic terms has been terrifying.
Aside from the vast wealth and indescribable poverty living side by side, with swathes of working people offered up to the god of the market and reaping the consequences in low wages and precarious employment, poor housing and inadequate access to good healthcare and education and other services, we are now experiencing the inevitable environmental consequences of planetary exploitation by large global corporations which dominate the corridors of power, lobby politicians and infiltrate political circles with special advisers to serve their own profit interests. The planet and the natural environment and its resources, human labour and our public services have all become commodities to be traded in the market and bought and sold for profit. The concept of the common good has been replaced by market diktat. Governments which should be serving the interests of their people are instead serving those of large corporations and allowing them to dictate policy and legislation.
The god-like domination of market solutions to our most pressing challenges are, however, not about the common good; they are about keeping the wealth and power in the hands of the few at huge cost. Our democratic institutions are being whittled away so that capitalism in all its rottenness can continue its rape and plunder of nature, its biodiversity, its resources and the people who depend on it.
So, what can we do? It seems sometimes that we are powerless to oppose the mainstream economic orthodoxy and corporate power. However, in light of what is happening, we still do have choices. We can choose to become the ‘lords of the ashes’ or we can choose a different path; one which restores concepts of the common good and of values other than exchange for profit. We need to restore the confidence of working people in democracy and the politicians that serve them and give them confidence that their voice after having been ignored for too long will be heeded.
Shining a lens on monetary realities to show the possibilities for real change and to provide answers to the question of how we pay for a progressive agenda, a green transition and a job guarantee must be foremost in our minds now. We must find ways to reach out to those who have suffered the most as a result of 40 years of political attachment to ideologically driven agendas. We must, as a matter of priority, develop clear and comprehensible strategies to communicate to ordinary working people how an understanding of how money works opens up the opportunity to develop solutions to those serious issues which dominate their lives – from jobs and housing to the decay of public and social infrastructure and their local communities.
To that end, GIMMS is organising two events in London and Manchester with a view to exploring how that might be achieved. To buy a ticket follow the links below. In the light of the disappointing election result, this is not a time to hang up our boots; this is a time to express our solidarity with those who have been left behind and come together to develop a coherent strategy for change which will engage the nation and offer some hope for a better and indeed a sustainable future.
Professor Bill Mitchell and Professor Steve Hall Seminar – London – February 20 @ 1:30 pm – 5:00 pm – £5.98
Professor Bill Mitchell and Professor Steve Hall Seminar – Manchester – February 21 @ 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm – £5.98
Finally, GIMMS recently added a new fact sheet on the Green New Deal. If you’d like to explore the issue further or indeed find out a bit more about what MMT is please follow either or both of the links below.
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