A Carbon-free Utopia

In recent years there has been a curious shift in mainstream discourse all around the world, but especially in the so-called developed world. We are witnessing how political leaders, fund managers and CEOs of large corporations are suddenly accepting the idea that “climate change” is a serious problem, after decades denying it even existed. More than that, they want to be seen as taking the front-lines in the global struggle against this new menace to civilization, followed by a vast cohort of green-conscious consumers, environmentalists and enthusiastic teenagers wearing “Reduce your carbon” t-shirts.

Well, that’s quite an improvement, you might say. And you are probably right. There is no doubt that climate change is the single most important threat —not just to civilization— but more importantly to the biosphere. At the same time, however, you might be going too far if you hope that this sudden political and corporate frenzy to “fight climate change” is a sign of the new (Obama?) world, where each and everyone walks in the same direction and everlasting peace, harmony and climate stability will result. Of course, that’s what they would like you to believe.

What we are actually seeing in the works is the erection of a new liberal utopia, where the smooth and placid transition to a "carbon-free" economy will allow society to overcome this pressing challenge, just as it has overcome (allegedly) all its previous challenges. In the green liberal’s mind, this carbon-free utopia involves everyone driving an electric car, industrial and domestic energy effortlessly pumped from the wind, the rivers and the sun, peace and love reigning amongst free nations, while the economy keeps growing and business goes on as usual. Sounds familiar?

Well, I have bad news for you. Climate change is not going to change the way civilization fundamentally works, no matter how bad it gets. Did you really think that you could grow the economy without leaving any footprints? Did you for one moment believe that large corporations, financiers and politicians were going to behave in a responsible and ethical way, taking into account the needs of the Earth at large and not just their selfish, petty interests? Were you hoping to see the dawn of a new era of liberal fulfilment, once more the end of history, but this time with CO2 as the convenient culprit? Were you daydreaming again?

The economic system that supports civilization is not going to redeem itself just because its practices are gravely transforming the climate and causing mass-extinction of animals and plants, untold misery of humans and non-humans alike, degradation of habitat, poisoning of water and air all over the planet. There are just too many interests in place to expect even a serious consideration of the real solutions that are needed. The global factory, no matter how destructive and abusive it may be, is too profitable for those who own it and run it. As for those who are working on the upper floors of the factory, they are too busy watching football, following fashion or twitting —in a green-friendly way, of course. As for those who are working on the lower floors of the factory, they are too busy working, avoiding being raped or praying for the rains to fall; and even if they weren’t, no one would go and ask them what they thought anyway. As for those who are not even working in the factory, but who are constantly devoured and processed by it —the polar bear, the golden toad, the coral polyp, the 20 to 30% of current species of living organisms that optimistic IPCC scenarios predict will go extinct in the upcoming decades due to global warming (40-70% in more realistic estimates)—, well, you wouldn’t even understand them if you asked; assuming you would bother to ask, of course.

So what’s going to happen now that the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the most decisive of all meetings, as it has been labelled, is about to begin? To use the scientists lingo, it is extremely likely that we will see the industrial/capitalistic interests quietly unfolding a pick-and-choose strategy, pushing forward those reforms that have a potential to create profits (for them, obviously) and gracefully binning all those other recommendations of the IPCC that may be unprofitable or too costly (for them) to implement.

In the post-Copenhagen world, therefore, wait to see a lot of lifestyle changes: good for “the economy”; they generate new demand for (their) products and (their) services. Wait to see also a lot of new technologies: they improve productivity (not more leisure and freedom for most people, but just a higher level of production; as you should have learnt by now), they generate new demand for (their) capital goods and they are a convenient way to extract untapped resources from nature. Finally, wait to see the development of new energy sources: because they need them anyway to keep powering this economy as oil becomes more expensive and because someone will have to fill the world with wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric dams and nuclear plants, not to forget all those power lines that will link you to the system —because nobody in his or her right mind will want to have less, rather than more electricity, right?

With high confidence, we can predict that this will be the "consensus" plan forward. But we shouldn’t forget that governments and corporations are already betting that climate change is going to happen anyway and they are taking positions to profit as much as possible from it: North Pole trading routes, Greenland and Arctic oil and gas explorations, new agricultural opportunities in previously cold regions, you name it.

And then you have those other recommendations of the IPCC that are going to be left behind without even a comment: taxes, macro-economic policies intended to manage development, forest and habitat conservation (not to mention recovery), financial sector reform, and all the other structural interventions that would actually imply some (small) measure of change, not just of the climate, but of the system —something nobody wants, right?

What will be left after all governments, corporations, environmental agencies and scientists agree on a plan forward and announce it with great solemnity before the planetary public?

Just the same old battered planet.

With these kinds of policies in place, it is extremely likely that destruction of habitat will continue unabated, extinction of species will continue unabated, topsoil destruction and general erosion will continue unabated, deforestation will continue unabated, emission of toxic chemicals to the atmosphere and contamination of water sources will continue unabated, genetic manipulation of life will continue unabated, overfishing and overgrazing will continue unabated, encroachment of agricultural and urban land-uses upon wilderness will continue unabated, overexploitation of ground and underground resources will continue unabated, conflicts and wars over resources will most certainly increase (future wars and colonisations might not be over gold, coal or oil anymore, but surely someone will have the resources that you need to fulfil your God-given right to grow your economy, right?).

And we haven’t even touched carbon emissions yet. Because the carbon-free liberal utopia is actually not carbon free at all. How could it be? As long as there is cheap enough oil, gas and coal to dig out of the ground expect the bulldozers and the drills to have plenty of business. In fact, the corporate-friendly consensus being built at the moment is trying to demonstrate us the "practical" impossibility of switching to even a low-carbon economy any time soon. They are actually hoping to stabilize CO2 concentrations at 450 ppm —that is, way above a pre-industrial, non-anthropogenic atmosphere— by the year 2100!

But there is much evidence that things will be looking pretty grim by then. As a recent report by James Hansen and others points out, "paleoclimate evidence and ongoing global changes imply that today’s CO2, about 385 ppm, is already too high to maintain the climate to which humanity, wildlife, and the rest of the biosphere are adapted". And they stress the need to curb emissions immediately to achieve concentrations below 350 ppm, adding that "continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions, for just another decade, practically eliminates the possibility of near-term return of atmospheric composition beneath the tipping level for catastrophic effects".

It seems clear, therefore, that decision-makers are going to base their policies on an assessment of the problem that is, not only grossly unrealistic, but foolishly dangerous. What we are talking about here are impacts on a much larger scale than most people are ready to admit, even taking into account the unlikely event that “mitigation and adaptation” policies would be implemented in the near future; not to speak of impacts on the long-term, which, in IPCC words, are “likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt” (AR4).

This carbon-free utopia, therefore, is based on delusion and manipulation. It is embraced and promoted as a way to keep doing business as usual and it only avoids the most extreme consequences of the suicidal policy —which was the preferred by the industry not so long ago— of just continuing to pump green-house gases on the atmosphere as if nothing happened. And there’s not even any certainty that those extreme consequences will be avoided anyway; just think about the risk of losing the Greenland ice-sheet or having large-scale ocean circulation changes, events on which the IPCC avoids any clear pronouncement because “there is no consensus on their magnitude” (AR4).

Let’s face it. There’s no such thing as “clean capitalism” (in the same sense that there’s no such thing as “clean coal”). There’s not even such thing as a “sustainable civilization”; and there never will be.

What’s the real solution, then? Well, you know it as well as I and everyone else. Were you really surprised when the International Agency of Energy announced recently that “CO2 emissions could fall in 2009 by as much as 3% —steeper than at any time in the last 40 years”,  thanks only to the current economic recession? Of course not. Let’s speak clearly. If you really want to mitigate climate change, stop growing. And if you want to stop killing the Earth, start to shrink, for goodness sake! What we really need is to start dismantling capitalism and the industrial economy as soon as possible. We need to put an end to the ideology of all ideologies: the doctrine of growth. Instead of “sustainable development” (a dangerous oxymoron), we should be aiming at sustainable landing. That’s what you do when your engines are on fire, you don’t add more gasoline, you don’t even try to change or fix the engines on the air; you try to land the damn plane as smoothly as possible, before it’s too late!

But let’s also be realistic (isn’t that what they think they are, realists?). It is exceptionally unlikely that they will start to dismantle their moneymaking machine any time soon. They are actually going to change whatever needs to be changed to keep on running it as long as they can. For many years, leaders of governments and corporations have been reluctant to face the costs of “adaptation and mitigation”. Finally, however, they have listened to Tancredi’s famous advice: “If we want things to stay as they are, everything will have to change”.

What is the most likely scenario after all the dust from the “climate change” hype settles and world policies have been tailored to fit the interests of the economic system? Certainly not the carbon-free utopia that propagandists are spreading all around these days, but another turn of the wheel in the machine of destruction, further expansion of the human grip on wild nature, and an improvement in the efficiency and productivity of the basic process of civilization: the transformation of life into money, that is, power and welfare for the few who possess it.




Article written for Bloc Action Day 2009.