A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

lessons unlearned 193are those areas? What are the criteria for being ‘unavoidable’? Whodecides what is ‘unavoidable’? What it is about the way society is organisedthat makes these emissions ‘unavoidable’? How might theyultimately be made ‘avoidable’ through political action and planning?The answers to all these questions are left mysterious. Indeed, thequestions themselves go unasked.What’s left is a feeling of personal guilt and resignation, not a senseof history, politics or economics. In addition to propagating the falsehoodthat carbon credits can ‘neutralise’ emissions, such corporationsconvey a message that nothing can be done about what they call ‘unavoidable’emissions. That’s disempowering, to say the least.But maybe the awareness that comes with buying carbon credits from fi rms likethe Carbon Neutral Company will someday lead customers to other, more engagedkinds of thinking and action on global warming.Maybe, but it’s difficult to see how. The main message such firms providetoday is that individual consumers can relieve their guilt throughpurchases. It’s a classic instance of helping to shape demand for a newproduct while simultaneously offering to supply that demand.This commercial recasting of climate politics as a narrative of individualguilt and redemption tends to poison public discussion, notpromote it. It makes criticism of, say, air travel or car-centred societiesseem like a moral critique of the ‘rich and privileged’ for being‘self-indulgent’ and a call for government to ‘punish’ them. Thatonly provokes defensive reactions against calls for long-term socialaction. 451In reality, the climate crisis doesn’t require people to feel guilty. Whatit requires is for them to be aware of the deeper roots of the problem,and to join with others in political action. It requires not buying andselling ‘offset’ credits, but social responsibility.All right, but what about the public discussion encouraged by offi cial emissionstrading programmes? Emissions trading helps the public decide how much theywant to invest in action on climate change, by enabling it to focus on how strictthe emissions ‘cap’ should be, rather than arcane questions about what technologiesindustry should be required to adopt to meet that goal, which are best leftto industry itself. Emissions trading opens up an intelligent, democratic debateabout questions about overall goals, such as ‘How important is a healthy environmentanyway? When should we stop pouring money into the environmentin order to make room for more spending on education, health or foreign aid?’That’s not what happened in the US. When promulgating the sulphurdioxide trading programme, as Georgetown University law profes-