Green Plus Issu 14

COLUMN
The top 90 companies
that are responsible for
two thirds of our global
carbon emissions
(Source: The Guardian)
We are trapped because the actions that
would be the best chance of averting catastrophe
and would benefit the vast majority – are
extremely threatening to an elite minority
that has a stranglehold over our economy (oil
and gas particularly), political process (that is
lobbied by rich corporations), and our media
outlets. Interestingly from a socialism point of
view, a research from Yales found that people
with strong ‘communitarian’ (incline towards
collective action and social justice) worldviews
accept the scientific consensus on climate
change.
Conversely, those with strong ‘hierarchical’
and ‘individualistic’ (strong support for industry)
worldviews reject the scientific consensus.
It is always easier to deny reality than to
allow our worldview to be shattered. But what
about ‘green technology’ attempts in saving
the world? Ironically, finding new ways to privatize
the commons and profit from disaster is
also what our current system is built to do. The
benefits goes to the ‘climate-ready’ crops producer
such as Monsanto, and big contractors,
insurance companies benefiting through disaster
mitigation projects. What about big companies
and Individuals such as Shell and Richard
Greenplus TM MARCH 2016
Branson declaring that environmental conservation
is in their agenda? It is nothing more than
a public relations stunt, reflected in their tiny
investment on environmental obligations.
THE CLIMATE CHANGE AND
CAPITALISM PARALLELISM
The scenario is distinctively identical across
the globe. The privatization of the public sphere,
deregulation of the corporate sector, and lower
corporate taxation, paid for with cuts to public
spending. The occupy wall street movement
echoes the real world costs of these policies, the
instability of financial market, the ever widening
rich poor gap, as well as the failing state of
public infrastructure and services. Klein reinforced
her past 15 years of experience by linking
how capitalism has systematically sabotaged
our collective response to climate change, a
happening threat that came knocking just as
this ideology was reaching its zenith.
If one has to look back at the past quarter
century of international negotiations, two
defining process stand out. There will be the
climate process, which struggles and failing
utterly to achieve its goals, and there will be
the corporate globalization process, hammering
victorious milestones, from the first trade
deal between Canada and the United States
(which forms NAFTA) to the creation of World
Trade Organization to the transformation of
large parts of Asia into sprawling free trade
zones, with the latest Trans-Pacific Partnership
Agreement. Both, interestingly began in the
1990s. In mid of 2014, the IPCC has also finally
acknowledged the reality of growing share of
total anthropogenic CO2 emissions is released
in the manufacture of products that are traded
across international borders.
A MORAL ISSUE – SOLVING THIS
SOLVING MORE
Climate destabilization is a moral issue transcended
through our current economic system.
Between 1990 and 1998, more than 94 percent
of the world’s biggest natural disasters occurred
in developing world, places with weak and poor
infrastructure, where people are not responsible
for the majority of the carbon emissions.
Instead, 80 percent of the world’s emissions
lies with just 20 percent of the inhabitants of
the world’s wealthiest nations. Research also
suggests that the climate crisis is fuelled by 90
companies (mostly oil and gas), which between
them produced nearly two thirds of the greenhouse
gas emissions since the dawning of industrial
age.
The culprits extend to huge industries such
as aviation, automobile and even military,
which are decided by consumers like us. We
know that various social issues are caused and
amplified by wealth inequality and injustice (at
all scales, from individuals to countries) which
directly contradicts humanity values and religious
teachings. Fixing this moral issue we
know, is not merely a chance to respond to the
climate crisis but it restores hope and progress
of the human race as a whole. As what James
Martin has rightly pointed out in his book
“The Meaning of the 21st Century”, we are at
the junction of our civilization in determining
our future.
THE GREAT WAKE-UP CALL
So how do we do it? Definitely not the next
generation of ‘clean’ nuclear power plants that
take another decade of research, not some giant
carbon dioxide sucking machine, not slowly
awaiting our “green companies” or “green
Messiahs”. We simply do not have the time. But
instead, people power.
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