Human caused environmental devastation didn’t start in the 1600s, capitalism did. I don’t think humans are a virus, but I don’t think that abolishing capitalism is the only critical step in preventing environmental catastrophe.
We’ve been here 200,000 years, we’ve been farming for the last 12,000 of those. Environmental destruction is, reletively, a very very new phenomenon.
That’s an a-historical point of view. There have been several environmental catastrophes, including some causing massive climactic shifts introduced by prehistoric humans, some of them are documented in 1491, by Charles Mann. Poor farming practices, including some that have been practiced for thousands of years, are a huge factor in desertification. I completely agree that the rate and scale of environmental catastrophe is new, but the risk of it and tendency towards it is not. While I think capitalism is ABSOLUTELY the single greatest barrier to addressing the catastrophe, the scale and speed of that catastrophe could be just as easily tied to population growth as the emergence of capitalism.
Given that the environmental depredation of this planet is driven by
- the farming of animal products,
- the production and consumption of energy, and
- the extraction and transformation of material resources,
can people explain why they believe that without capitalism everyone would be a vegan who doesn’t take vacations, use air conditioning, fly on airplanes, or drive a car? I also assume they’re wearing hemp and have no interest in fashion.
Keep in mind there are 8 billion people on this planet, so presumably they wouldn’t be having children either.
EDIT: the reply below completely ignores my question. Very few people seem to actually give a shit about the environment. It’s all just ideological posturing. And that is why we are fucked.
Given that the environmental depredation of this planet is driven by […] can people explain why they believe that without capitalism
capitalist industry and commerce have been the driving force of the mass extinction of the last 500 years[0][1][2]. climate change didn’t begin until the late 1800s with the rise of tycoons, and accelerated with mass production in the mid-1900s.
for a current example: datacentres are wasting entire regional electricity and water supplies on investment grifter bullshit. because it makes money. it doesn’t even turn a real profit, and it’s not everyday people paying for it.
can people explain why they believe that without capitalism everyone would be […]
could be, not necessarily would. because a humanistic, socialised means of production would: allow for truly ‘democratic’ control over what is produced; remove nested interests and subsidies to overgrown polluting industries[3]; and make alternatives viable without the need to bend or break to top-down market pressures and monetary policy dictated by dragons.
I also assume they’re wearing hemp and have no interest in fashion.
capitalism has existed for less than 300 years. consumerism has existed for less than 100 years. when you have an economic system which emphasises the independent individual — simultaneously a motivator and a mere cog in the machine — and posits that the mere potential to own things is the source of value: buying wasteful, exotic, unnecessary shit is a way to define yourself and your status. it’s called conspicuous consumption, and it happens from the micro to the macro in the lower and the upper classes, and there’s top-down pressure to do so to keep currency current.
i recommend the documentary The Century of the Self for an overview of the commodification of identity and culture.
Keep in mind there are 8 billion people on this planet, so presumably they wouldn’t be having children either.
we are already producing enough food to sufficiently feed 1.5x the world population[4], and could continue to do so even within planetary boundaries[5] with changes to economic policy and the adoption of less profitable methods of agriculture.
i didn’t cover everything here, because i recommend:
- the book Less Is More.
- familiarising yourself with the concept of the superstructure; it’s a very helpful analytical tool.
- going back to the last time you were on your malthusian debatebro bullshit and really trying to engage your imagination with much of the same arguments made there.
We don’t produce 1.5 times the food we need, as you said. We produce 100 times the food we need. Know why? To feed the billions of sentient animals that are tortured to death each year in factory abattoirs. Do you have any idea how sustainable that is? It’s not. So…
You’ve taken a roundabout way to tell me that mass adoption of veganism (literally the only way to save the environment) unfortunately has nothing to do with our economic system.
- Every 3 calories of beef require at least 100 calories of legumes.
- Worse still, the average water footprint per calorie for beef is twenty times larger than for cereals and starchy roots.
- Add the methane and the nitrogenous runoff, and you have an ecological catastrophe.
- If we ended animal agriculture, 75% of all farmland could be rewilded tomorrow.
They would simply consume less and not be as driven to consume. Capitalism drives up the consumption to ridiculous levels, greed is not actually good. We could focus the economy on needs first and ensure it exists so people can still acquire goods and services in exchange for money so no one is working for nothing. But no more wealth accumulation into the stratosphere. There’s a lot that would need to change
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s woefully inadequate. We need between 2 and 20 earths just to maintain our current standard of living, and keep in mind this number rises as poverty falls.
The only and I mean the only solutions that can support our absurd population is
- veganism
- tech advancements bordering on magic
It’s just math. I wish things were otherwise, I really do. But that’s what we need to save the rainforests and oceans and wild fauna that are still clinging to existence. Everything else is ideology.
