The Negative Side to the Green Movement
Uploaded by Comrade Basa on Oct 15, 2008
A new era of change is upon us. There now exists a movement that attempts to create a sustainable environment. The question remains how to go about this task. The film, an Inconvenient Truth has proposed that our old habits plus our old technologies have resulted in environmental damage. It further stated that by switching to new technologies we could avert or reduce the effects of global warming before environmental damage reaches catastrophic proportions. At this stage in the climate change situation, denial of global warming is no longer valid. A new idea has surfaced, the idea of eco-capitalism. It applies the base ideas of capitalism to the environment. The environment then becomes a business opportunity. The core belief of eco-capitalism is a continued exploitation of the starving nations, while maintaining a claim that a concerted effort against climate change will benefit everyone. The benefit will of course be much greater for those in the west and will make little difference for those who live anywhere else. The real solution being suggested by the eco-capitalists should be equated as such:
Old habits + New technology = Improvement
This combination of ideas is extremely worrisome. The old habit is capitalism. The new Technology will be adding the problematic old habit, resulting in catastrophic proportions of environmental damage. There is not any foreseeable improvement in sight. The ideas of eco-capitalism focus on one area, and work to enrich that area, regardless of the effects it has elsewhere. There are now two choices for western nations, since they occupy the most favourable positions globally, they do not actually need to do anything about climate change. The reason for this being, the other nations will experience whatever we experience tenfold. The west will win this whether they commit to any climate change agreement or not. Even if they were to, it would still benefit them, making it another western victory, and a loss for humankind.
The entire focus of the capitalistic environmental campaign is to create a world for our generation, and our children’s generations. This is a unilateral vision, which doesn’t really satisfy the needs of people much further than our own communities. What would happen if each community were to think for themselves, instead of thinking for the collective interests of a nation, or the world?
One does not to have a certain political affiliation to realize that economic interdependence throughout the nation is...