Changing the economy will help change climate change

by Robert McLean

Any steps to mitigate the dynamic that is expressing itself as climate change simply have to address the economy.

Kenny Ausubel's
book.

The economy is political and combined the two have supplanted and re-shaped society’s values to disconnect us from nature.

Those able to understand the reasons for and of the world’s unfolding climate difficulties say that continuation of a life that in any sense represents “business as usual” will be dogged by unending difficulties.

Those difficulties will morph into societal collapse unless we act urgently to re-position society and free it from the perverse insistence that the economy is given preference over all else.

Present consumer-based ideologies are driving the world into a cul-de-sac from which there will be no escape, not even for the frightfully rich. Climate change knows no boundaries, nor does it play favourites.

Our hard-edge consumerist and energy dependent ways are in direct conflict with the subtleties of nature and the finitudes of earth.

To escape this confrontation, we must first free ourselves from the massive human construct that has evolved and consumed humanity since the industrial revolution.

The idea that human happiness is to be found in the accumulation of goods has become so pre-eminent in the deluded modern world that many now have to rent additional space to store “the stuff” they are unable to fit in their homes.

Our search for happiness in the accumulation of consumer goods has been eagerly, enthusiastically and, I argue wrongly encouraged by proponents of the fossil fuel industry and adopted by most in that we celebrate and measure success when we look through the prism of possessions – the more we accumulate the more successful we are.

Rather than devote eight-hours a day to work that enable us to gather more possessions, we need to devote at least half that time (in other words only spend four-hour each day in the modern version of work) and use that “free” time to become a better person, work with our neighbours to build resilience into our communities and devote ourselves to better understanding the dynamics of the earth.

In doing that it is important to remember that it was author, H.G Wells, said about 100 years ago in what was something of a prescient observation: “We are in race between education and catastrophe”

Writing in “Dreaming the Future: Reimaging Civilization in the Age of Nature”, author Kenny Ausubel said:

“The challenge we face is not primarily technological. The environmental crisis is more accurately a human crisis. It’s political, cultural, and deeply personal. To succeed in this momentous transition, we’re called upon to cooperate on a grand scale. It requires the equivalent of a wartime mobilization, yet its purpose is precisely the opposite: to create peace. To get to the other side, we’re going to have to face and heal deeps wounds in our societies and ourselves."