How Capitalism Affects the Environment: Introduction
By: Matt Pierson
Tags: Environmental Issues, Climate Crisis, Climate Change, Capitalism, Climate Action

At the time of writing this blog post, we as a human race are facing the biggest threat to our very existence, a threat to our planet which is unfortunately dying due to our capitalistic methods of producing goods and services. We are facing the threat of climate change and global warming. This looming threat to our lives is something so heavily debated and denied of its existence in the U.S., which absolutely baffles me. How could something observable across the globe as well as factually proven by science be deemed a hoax?

Well, it’s time to wake the hell up, people. Our planet, the place in which every living thing calls home, the only planet that can sustain life in our solar system, is slowly dying. We as a human race are the ones that are killing it. We are the ones who are essentially taking carbon dioxide out of the ground from burning fossil fuels and emitting it into the atmosphere where it gets trapped, resulting in global temperatures to gradually rise year after year. All of these greenhouse gases being emitted, all for the sake of economic gain? What about the survival of the human race? Sure, we need good economies in order to theoretically increase our quality of life, but will that really matter if our planet and its inhabitants will inevitably die if nothing is done now to lessen the damage of climate change? It may very well lead to another mass extinction, which is the biggest red flag everyone living on this planet should get a grasp of and understand the significance of. With this being said, we can do something about this. The future’s not set in stone, and action on a global scale has to be done in order to prevent the worst from happening.

Before I dive deeper into the subject of climate change, I want to mention what inspired me to research this topic. Some backstory: last year during the first semester of my first year here at San Francisco State University, I took a communication studies class as part of the Metro Program. In that class, we had to do a research project as part of a speech on “What’s in a System?”, in which I did mine on the system of capitalism. For my speech, I covered only the pros of capitalism, such as the ability of being able to purchase just about anything you want on Amazon, for example. I did not cover how many cons there are two the capitalist system, so I felt like it was for the better to also teach others the flip side of the coin and talk about the actual costs of this economic system that many nations use.

Through that communications class, I also learned more about activism as a whole, and though I by no means would consider myself to be active, I am very supportive of those who are actively fighting against climate change specifically. Ever since I was in elementary, I was learning about what global warming was and how humans have been causing greenhouse gases to be trapped in the atmosphere. This concept really resonated with me ever since I first learned about it in my elementary science class, and have been constantly learning more and more about the broad topic of climate change and global warming through my own personal research and learning about small parts of it in other classes. Because of this interest in climate change, I want to be able to do my part and inform and hopefully spark interest in this topic for everyone reading these blogs as I believe that fighting it is something that everyone should get behind. We all live on the same planet, and Mother Nature takes no exceptions to who gets affected by it.

Now, you may be wondering how global warming came to be? My answer to that is simple — capitalism. The reason I say this is because in a capitalist economy, the main goal is to constantly grow through producing more goods and services for people to spend money and consume. We the consumers leave a carbon footprint behind, whether it’s by driving from our house to the store, having and taking out a large amount of garbage for the landfill bin, or simply just using electricity in our household, we are actively contributing to climate change. In order to produce these goods and services in the first place, the burning of fossil fuels is often done, which is a very common practice for many industries and companies. The side effects of this method is that greenhouse gasses get emitted into the atmosphere and eventually get trapped, causing temperatures to gradually rise over time. Essentially, carbon dioxide is being removed from the ground and being put into the atmosphere, which is where it absolutely doesn’t belong.

Martinez Refining Company in Martinez, CA. Photo by Justin Sullivan via Getty Images.

After learning about global warming over the years, and especially since awareness for it is thankfully increasing thanks to people like Greta Thunberg, it led me to wonder what changes would have to be done in the capitalistic system in order to prevent further damage to the earth? In my research thus far, the idea of many problems governments, world leaders, and people in general have to deal with are not that easy to solve was reinforced. I’ve seen many different news websites, articles, and/or research done saying that becoming vegan, being an environmentally cautious consumer, etc. is how you fight climate change, while another one may say that the only way to fight climate change is by getting rid of the capitalist system. Despite the opposing methods of helping reverse the effects of climate change, one thing is for sure — everything is easier said than done. Given that there are many different routes people and governments could go about dealing with climate change, I believe that one of the more realistic methods (although it may not seem like much) would be for investors and investment firms to push the companies that are producing all these greenhouse gasses in the first place to be held accountable for the degradation of our planet, and for them to pay the prices.