The futility of green washing
In
the competitive world of profit capitalism, the planet has been used
as a rubbish dump. The often dangerous wastes of mining and industry
have been piled up, put in holes, poured into rivers, lakes and
oceans, and diffused into the atmosphere. The leftovers and residues
of consumption have also been thrown all over the place. Toxic
compounds, heavy metals and micro-particles of plastic are present
from North Pole to South Pole, in the air, the soil, water and all
living organisms. And greenhouse gases are helping the Sun to roast
the surface of the globe. This poisoning and heating is threatening
most life forms, while a few, such as Sargassum, are proliferating as
never before.
It
has been estimated that between 1988 and 2014 humans consumed
slightly more fossil fuel than in all their previous industrial
history, going back to 1751 (1). It has also been said that the delay
between carbon dioxide emissions and most of their greenhouse effect
is from twenty-five to fifty years (2). If these two propositions are
true, the relatively benign climate disruptions experienced so far
are just beginning their accelerating violence. All that coal-powered
electricity in China, India and other developing countries, all that
oil and gas being pumped, dug and fracked out of the ground, all
those cars, trucks, ships and planes that have added their exhausts
to those of developed nations, it all took off in the 1990s with the
breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. That fast
acceleration in carbon dioxide emissions is now beginning to bite.
And the same can be said for pollution induced illnesses (3).
Capitalism’s
Cold War victory was planet Earth’s death toll. Production and
profits came out of the doldrums to an era of unbridled growth. In
the following decades the world’s production and consumption
doubled, as did the quantity of pollutants. And capitalism’s rescue
from the financial crash ten years ago nailed down the lid on Earth’s
coffin. If public purses and public debt had not bailed out private
speculators, the recession would have lasted, production would have
slumped and defaults would have succeeded one another like rows of
falling dominos. But in the ensuing chaos the world might have taken
time to rethink its future. That did not happen and, after barely a
year, everything was back to massive profits, debts and environmental
polluting. The next lending crisis is not far off, and resolving it
will be harder than last time because of its considerably larger
scale. Unfortunately, these last ten years have been the tipping
point beyond which there is no going back. Whatever happens now, the
planet is irremediably poisoned and warming up faster and faster. No
amount of green washing will change that.
1.
“The GCP estimates that in 2014, we will release a record 37
gigatons (GT) of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from burning coal,
oil, and natural gas, and manufacturing cement. That’s a 2.5
percent increase over emissions in 2013, itself a record year. This
brings the total industrial carbon dioxide emissions since 1751 to an
estimated 1480 Gt by the end of this year. And, remarkably, more than
half of these emissions, 743 Gt, or 50.2 percent, have been released
just since 1988.” That was written five years ago!
2.
This is not recent (2010) but it probably still holds.
“A
paper by James Hansen and others estimates the time
required for 60% of global warming to take place in response to
increased emissions to be in the range of 25 to 50 years.”
posted by le Lézard at 2:42 AM
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