Climate change. We all thought we were gonna have to cut back on consumption, use less fossil fuels, and change our infrastructure entirely to renewable energy.
I feel like we were expecting this because we were expecting someone to be our parent and force us to make the changes, when in fact nobody is externally enforcing that we stay on a safe climate path, and we are stuck waiting for our own societal self-discipline.
You say we, like there is anything that any amount of reusable tote bags and driving less could have done. The damage being done to our climate is primarily being done at a corporate and industrial level. People hate hearing how Capitalism is the bad guy, but profits kept being put over environmentalism. If your company wants to be competitive with companies that don’t give a shit, your options are to fight the federal government to implement regulations (expensive and time consuming), or to simply also stop giving a fuck (great next quarter, very easy).
In general, yes, the western world was under the false assumption that the leaders it had were, at the very least, aligned in the interest of self preservation. Many are still living with this false belief today.
I think it’s less about societal self discipline though; and more about the incompatibility of the societal hierarchy with working to solve the problem of climate change. The contradictions between the ruling and working class are in conflict when it comes to the priority of climate change. Climate change is an opportunity for further wealth concentration for the ruling class of our society; and that same ruling class has “drank their own Koolaid” in the idea of American and Western exceptionalism.
Capitalism is incapable of addressing the problems of climate change. It’s like trying to put out a fire and bringing a bulldozer instead of a firetruck.
I feel like we were expecting this because we were expecting someone to be our parent and force us to make the changes, when in fact nobody is externally enforcing that we stay on a safe climate path, and we are stuck waiting for our own societal self-discipline.
You say we, like there is anything that any amount of reusable tote bags and driving less could have done. The damage being done to our climate is primarily being done at a corporate and industrial level. People hate hearing how Capitalism is the bad guy, but profits kept being put over environmentalism. If your company wants to be competitive with companies that don’t give a shit, your options are to fight the federal government to implement regulations (expensive and time consuming), or to simply also stop giving a fuck (great next quarter, very easy).
In general, yes, the western world was under the false assumption that the leaders it had were, at the very least, aligned in the interest of self preservation. Many are still living with this false belief today.
I think it’s less about societal self discipline though; and more about the incompatibility of the societal hierarchy with working to solve the problem of climate change. The contradictions between the ruling and working class are in conflict when it comes to the priority of climate change. Climate change is an opportunity for further wealth concentration for the ruling class of our society; and that same ruling class has “drank their own Koolaid” in the idea of American and Western exceptionalism.
Capitalism is incapable of addressing the problems of climate change. It’s like trying to put out a fire and bringing a bulldozer instead of a firetruck.