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Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

globalpolicyjournal.com

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Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#151
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are conflating a few things. The idea of property came into existence long before capitalism, which seems to be the linchpin of your take. Are you suggesting we return to being hunter gatherers? If not, I’m not sure what you are proposing.

The modern capitalist concept of property is abstracted a long way from its roots. > Are you suggesting we return to being hunter gatherers? If not, I’m not sure what you are proposing. I'm not proposing anything. I'm just describing our current system of organising the world, but in physical rather than the usual virtual terms. As a physical process, our current political/economic systems are dismantling the systems…

I think you are implying that it’s “the modern system” that’s ruining the world. What’s the possibility that it’s just human nature, and the system is kinda secondary?

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#152
post #149
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not about consumption, it’s about property rights.

Well maybe we should modify property rights so that they include externalities.

I think we have that today, we could pass a carbon tax tomorrow for example. It’s the political will that is lacking.

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#153
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is incredibly short sighted. The reason why you don’t see that much pollution in your country is that it has been outsourced to other countries with more lax pollution laws and less worker protection laws. This means that fabrication of an item produces more pollution than if it was built in your country (where there’s more regulation). And then there’s even more pollution due to the long transportation haul. Bu…

Can you back that up with evidence? I'm not sure what the situation is for Europe/the UK, but for the US it really doesn't seem to be the case that we are outsourcing our emissions: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/no-the-us-didnt-outsource-...

I believe the “consumption-based CO2” graph used on the article, which is the main pillar, falls short on three accounts:

* It measures the CO2 it takes to constuct, but leaves (seems to leave out) the CO2 cost of transportation. When a TV has to travel around the world that cost isn’t trivial.

* The article focuses on CO2 exclusively. If a TV made in China produces about the same CO2 as one done on shore, all is good, even if the former involves (for example) dumping acid into a river, which would be illegal in the US. Even if we want to keep the discussion exclusively about climate change, other emissions must be taken into account. Methane for example is 50 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

* The whole part about it being “only” about 18% in the case of Europe (that’s a lot!) and that “it has not changed much in the last 30 years” (that makes it worse!)

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are to blame and are not doing enough though. Your action needs to start from there or it's just excuses.

We do carry some of the blame. But we are not responsible for local politicians all too happy to accept bribes and societies all too happy to close their eyes. Why are there no strong environmentalist movements in india? Is it a democracy or not? Cant people in china see whats happening with their rivers and cities? You cant possibly have one billion people sitting idle and doing nothing to change the status quo, and…

I actually don’t blame “they” or us. I blame the extremely rich, of all nations. And then that trickles down.

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#155
post #6
post #2

Didn't Europe cut down most of it's forests before capitalism had a name? Are communist systems much different in their treatment of nature? This seems to be a more general problem than something which is the result of capitalism

Yes indeed. Capitalism is novel in as much as it actually puts a value on many more things than other economic systems, so you could even say that it could set the fair Net Present Value of growing a tree, or of scrubbing CO2 to stay below 400ppn: what time-discount should be applied, what level of risk is acceptable for whom (any Pakistanis here?) are just input variables...

>Capitalism is novel in as much as it actually puts a value on many more things than other economic systems

Well, people do that, capitalism just recognizes it.

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#156
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, there's been - Inadvertent climate modification* - Global Warming - Anthropogenic Global Warming - Global Heating - Climate Change - Climate Crisis - Climate Emergency I don't disagree with the thrust of your point, but the same argument you make against 'climate change' could also be made against 'climate destabilizaiton', since destabilization can have human and non-human causes (for example, the ris…

Three decades of cooling was a concern. No End in Sight to 30 Year Cooling Trend https://www.nytimes.com/1978/01/05/archives/international-te...

That was a bit of a blip in the data. It has been warming in general in recent times.

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#157

Is every form of industrialization, from the USSR to the UK to the US to China, capitalist? Is the current energy transition, funded by massive amounts of capital, and the result of industrialization of technology, somehow less capitalistic? Are the ESG efforts somehow less capitalist? Sometimes, our mental frames are traps rather than tools for understanding the world. This essay makes me think that this person is q…

There’s no denying that capitalism is “grow or die”, but so is socialism. Like capitalism, socialism needs working adults to outnumber both retired seniors and non working age children. The only way socialism can avoid the constant growth requirement is if they have a “you only eat if you work” rule. Historically, socialism’s rate of pollution is on par with capitalism

I'm happy to deny capitalism is "grow or die" because it's basically rubbish. Look at some basically stable capitalist country like Switzerland. I'm sure there is some growth but even if it doesn't grow the trains would still run on time, people have food houses etc.

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#158
post #26

Hear me out: "Climate change" is a terrible phrase, of course climate changes, when talking to regular people that's like saying "water flow" to describe flooding. "Climate destabilization" or something akin to that would communicate what is happening better to the people that vote.

It's symptomatic of the fuzzy thinking that tends to infect the area and this article especially. Of course the Earth's climate has been changing ever since it formed, some billions of years before capitalism. You can't really fix 'climate change' for that reason and that it's not really a measurable thing though if you say wanted to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere you could put a price on releasing or removing CO2 and capitalism would roar ahead on doing that.

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#159
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern capitalist concept of property is abstracted a long way from its roots. > Are you suggesting we return to being hunter gatherers? If not, I’m not sure what you are proposing. I'm not proposing anything. I'm just describing our current system of organising the world, but in physical rather than the usual virtual terms. As a physical process, our current political/economic systems are dismantling the systems…

I think you are implying that it’s “the modern system” that’s ruining the world. What’s the possibility that it’s just human nature, and the system is kinda secondary?

I would guess that's unknowable. The old proximate vs distal cause problem is hard enough for simple cases, let alone something like the interactions between thousands of ecosystems, 7 billion chunks of primate psychology, and global civilisation. I am sure that capitalism is incompatible with the continuing existence of healthy living ecosystems. So (for me) your question comes down to: is capitalism inevitable (& even if it wasn't, are we now stuck with it for historical reasons?).

We can look at some things that seem salient. When you look at human societies over time and space, the vast differences in cultures are astonishing. Most people have little idea of just how different cultures have been, so their concept of 'human nature' actually just labels their own culture (I'm not suggesting that's how you're using 'human nature'). Even the subset of contemporary 'capitalist' nations are greatly variable, not the least in their levels of ecosystem destruction.

Then capitalism itself, variation notwithstanding, does depend on the metaphor of growth (I insist on 'metaphor' because nothing defensibly 'grows' in the process of deconstructing complex evolved circular systems to build simple technological ones requiring ongoing inputs). Some think this can be fixed by building 'circular economies', but I've seen nothing to suggest that this is possible at all, let alone on a relevant timescale.

We know for certain that the 'growth' metaphor/ideology doesn't spring cleanly/directly from human nature, as there's no shortage of human societies that have lived in a relatively steady relationship with their environment (here in Australia for 60,000 years or more).

So who knows? Perhaps H. Sapiens can get free of the system it has made, perhaps not. If it can, it's not going to be in a hurry, so we'd need to slow down the rate of destruction while still capitalists. I do think that's possible with appropriate application of tech, "electrify everything", tough corporate regulation, land set-asides, urban greening, etc. But because of compounding, even slow dismantling of ecosystems eventually destroys them. So H Sapiens still needs to ditch capitalism at some point.

There's certainly no guarantee that it can, because evolution, in making the species, wasn't looking to the future (and certainly not to a destiny).

Re: Climate Change Is the Product of How Capitalism “Values” Nature

#160
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are implying that it’s “the modern system” that’s ruining the world. What’s the possibility that it’s just human nature, and the system is kinda secondary?

I would guess that's unknowable. The old proximate vs distal cause problem is hard enough for simple cases, let alone something like the interactions between thousands of ecosystems, 7 billion chunks of primate psychology, and global civilisation. I am sure that capitalism is incompatible with the continuing existence of healthy living ecosystems. So (for me) your question comes down to: is capitalism inevitable (& e…

“ We know for certain that the 'growth' metaphor/ideology doesn't spring cleanly/directly from human nature, as there's no shortage of human societies that have lived in a relatively steady relationship with their environment (here in Australia for 60,000 years or more).”

In all seriousness, what societies that aren’t “hunter gatherers” or migratory that have lived in a steady state with their environment? Also, how do you define capitalism? I think we probably agree about some of the flaws of capitalism that need to change, for example infinite exponential growth, but I am very much against any kind of centrally planned system and I know of no other system that doesn’t ultimately succumb to the human desire to chase social status and ultimately excess that I would want to live in. Pre-industrial migratory societies don’t really count in my mind as a real alternative this challenge and I don’t think this problem is limited to or is driven by “capitalism”.

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