Most climate scientists sat in dread as we awaited the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on April 4 because they knew how egregious things have become.
In spite of all the proposals made, laws passed, countless Conferences of the Parties, including the Paris Agreement in 2015––which was one of the first legally binding climate agreements of its kind––CO2 emissions are still rising. When emissions first fell from 36.1 billion tons in 2019 to 34.2 billion tons in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate-conscious folks like myself foolhardily sighed in relief. Finally, politicians and industries were starting to listen.
Not surprisingly, a report last month by the International Energy Agency proved us wrong. In 2021, emissions had climbed to their highest ever: 36.3 billion metric tons of CO2. That is when we knew that sounding the doom bells on climate change hadn’t been enough.
At the Glasgow Climate Conference last year, countries voted to curb methane emissions, stop deforestation, and phase out coal (later changed to ‘phase down’ coal at the insistence of India and China) and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. To politicians, this means burning as much fossil fuel as we can until 2040 and then start to phase down.
The latest IPCC report made it crystal clear: reduce emissions drastically over the next few years, or we have no chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to IPCC, 1.5 degrees Celsius is the threshold of warming the planet can take without facing adverse consequences and extreme weather events. We are already over 1 degree Celsius of global warming. If our current actions aren’t enough, are we just delaying the inevitable?
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The answer lies in the deceptively insidious foundations of our society: capitalism. Simply put, capitalism is the antithesis of sustainability. If we want to commit to being sustainable, we have to give up fast fashion, massive consumption and the need to keep producing and growing our economies constantly.
The rate at which we are consuming natural resources has become unfeasible. If we remain unprepared and refuse to change our lifestyles and policies, our economies will eventually crash and burn.
As voting rights are being attacked across the country and the state of our democracy lies in peril, the gap between what the average citizen wants and the actions taken by elected officials widens. According to the Pew Research Center, 72% of Americans believe that climate change is a very big to a moderately big problem. Yet, any climate legislature brought into Congress, like the Green New Deal, is shut down even when it is overwhelmingly supported by voters.
This is because political campaigns cost a lot of money, and unfortunately, the biggest donors of the campaigns for most politicians have vested interest in capitalism and corporations. Take Senator Joe Manchin, for example, who has objected to multiple provisions in President Biden’s climate bill because of his ties to the fossil fuel industry. Yes, the climate bill that aims to avert disastrous climate scenarios and save lives.
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Capitalism, as a philosophy, allows unrestricted allocation and utilization of resources. Anyone can claim and take advantage of public resources like water, air and forests. This has led to a phenomenon called “the tragedy of the commons,” where public land and resources (called common commodities in economics) are overused by parties that act in their own best interests, and are eventually depleted, sometimes irreparably.
Natural systems––unlike capitalist ideas––cannot grow to infinite proportions. Several complex feedback mechanisms and limiting factors govern the growth of these resources and the populations that depend on them. Unfortunately, research has shown that our brains are unable to cope with the exponential scales of these changes and therefore, we can severely underestimate their future impacts.
Climate change will affect socially vulnerable people disproportionately, which is defined as people with lower income, educational attainment, race and ethnicity, and age, according to an EPA analysis. This means that those with money and resources will be able to survive, while the less privileged pay the price.
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Before the settlers arrived, Native Americans had occupied the Americas for thousands of years. Early European records from the 15th and 16th century show that Native American tribes were civilized and educated, practiced sustainable agriculture and forestry and understood the dangers of overuse of resources. These tribes had a spiritual connection with nature and saw their land as a gift given to them by the Spirit.
But colonizers with no connection to this land, could ruthlessly exploit the resources, and soon stole this land away from the natives. A research article by Indigenous scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang describes the United States as a settler nation-state, a country that is first colonized for profit and later, settled in.
Capitalism became unrestrained in this new cornucopia brimming with natural resources, which gave birth to transatlantic slavery and unrestrained production of commodities like sugar and tobacco. Rich merchants in England and France stole all the wealth, while natives could only watch as their land was first stolen and then corrupted by industrialization.
The biggest problem in our country today is its commitment to remaining capitalist. We forced the natives to pass on the stewardship of this promised land and now we are in danger of destroying it. Martinican author Aimé Césaire wrote in his 1950 essay “Discourse on Colonialism” that the West needs to formulate policies “founded on respect for peoples and cultures” to keep itself from dying.
To make our country truly sustainable, it is time to look back to Indigenous cultures for lessons on how to live harmoniously with the planet and create a sustainable future.