Well, maybe not the planet. The planet itself will survive. But its physical environment is incontrovertibly changing, threatening the lives of a great many living things. This is not just an extravagant claim, but the facts are borne out by the melting ice-caps, the rising sea-levels, the abnormal weather events, floods, water shortages, fires, crop failure, desertification and - importantly - by an overwhelming body of scientific opinion. Whole species are lost, populations are uprooted, people die. It is now commonplace for commentators to say ‘something must be done’.
Yet a number of interlinked social factors stand in the way of any meaningful action. Capitalism continues to plunder the world’s resources. Almost all politicians, with some honourable exceptions, do their best to support the process, relying on a mass of voters too easily swayed by misinformation. This is the philosophy (if that is the right term) which says, yes, something perhaps ought to be done, but not yet, or more slowly. At least, it is said, let us look for solutions which allow all the present features of capitalism to remain in place.
Ignoring the problems
So multi-national corporations continue to exploit. Politicians continue to prevaricate and to serve the needs of big business. The permanent arms economy continues to destroy. Populist appeals are made to voters to downplay the problems or even to denigrate or directly oppose those who would address them.
One key thing that is needed to address the problem is collaborative action. The climate emergency is global, and needs to be addressed globally. in this context, national boundaries and national environmental policies become meaningless and irrelevant. Electric cars in the wealthy global North cannot be touted as a solution to a world energy problem if they result in poverty conditions for the miners of precious metals in the global South, in the devastation of the mined landscapes, in huge transport costs during manufacture, in the use of vast amounts of water and in the demand for greatly increased amounts of electricity.
Nationalism and capitalism both grew together - both are based on the imperative of competition, rather than of co-operation. Both are counter-productive to the global environmental future. The persecution of minorities all over the world, strictures against refugees and asylum-seekers, the trend towards nationalism, of which Brexit is only one example, continuing wars and invasions, including those by Russia and the USA - all these, in drawing boundaries between people, militate against the concerted action that is needed to address the climate problem. There needs to be better - indeed, total - co-operation, rather than less.
Photo: Earth from space 1969, NASA
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