This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate
By: Priya Aggarwal
Tags: Books, Climate Change, Activism, Capitalism, Technology

BOOKS

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate

Capitalism vs. Climate (Image)

Importing a pen from halfway across the globe doesn't raise an eyelid, but the idea of helping a poor island in sustainable growth seems preposterous.

The book explains how climate change is not a problem but a symptom of a much larger problem called Capitalism. Although an informative book in several ways, here are my top five key takeaways.

1. Fossil fuel companies have carbon reserves almost five times our existing carbon budget

Pumping out fossil fuel for the last 200 years is what has primarily resulted in today's situation. But what already sounds like a lot has still not exhausted even half of Earth's known stock. If we have an upper limit to how much carbon we can burn to stay within the 2°C mark, then the industry has already identified reserves that could breach that limit at least five times over.

2. Free market has created an inequality that was unnoticed till now

Popular culture calls them climate refugees. These are people that have had no contribution to the climate crisis but are paying the highest price for it. For example, Bolivia is heavily dependent on glaciers for its water supply, but their shrinking size is causing major droughts and civil unrest. It wants the rich nations that are primarily responsible for global warming to foot the bill for the damage to the economy a water crisis causes and help it develop on a green energy path. But this goes against the ethos of capitalism and is dismissed as being a call for socialism.

3. Billionaires won't save the world

Launched with much hype in 2007, Richard Branson's Virgin Green Fund is now defunct. From the profits from Branson's empire, he pledged to pump in $3 billion into the development of green aviation fuel and other climate solutions over the next 10 years. Seven years later, nearly two hundred million worth of investment was made. The reason being the unprofitability of his businesses, which made money only enough for him to keep expanding the empire.

Another billionaire who's trying to fight climate change is Bill Gates, while in the background, his foundation invests in fossil fuel companies. The intention exists, but the action is contradictory.

You can't blame businessmen for doing their business, but you can surely blame them for these PR tactics resulting in no real benefit.

What we are seeing is that accepting a changing world is easier than challenging the widely adopted economic model of the modern times.

4. Indigenous people walk a tight rope

Natives walk a thin line. On one hand, there is development and jobs. On the other, there is a risk of loss of culture and land. No matter what an outsider may want, people living on the land decide for themselves. Whether it is Alaska, where the locals welcome drilling companies and their jobs, or Montana, where locals lament the loss of native farming land to oil companies, it is a tricky job to give these people an equal chance to grow without parallel damage. Just looking at the economy is not the answer here.

5. There's not going to be a technological miracle that will just fix it

The solution lies in many small and large things across many industries — collective self, local and regional actions to push bad technologies out and pull the good ones in. Do not expect geoengineering miracles that will dim the sun or manage the sunlight. The solution does not lie in expecting that life can move as usual, and technology will suddenly solve everything. It is just a way of looking away.