Political Climate Change

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the Bush administration gagged government scientists to prevent them from explaining the connection between CO2 emissions, global warming, and the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes.  The corporate media scrupulously avoided even suggesting that their might be a connection between Katrina and human induced changes in climate.  But most of the public figured it out for themselves anyway.

The people had seen media reports of debate among experts; ordinary citizens tended to reserve judgment until the effects were visible.  In reality, the scientific debate on whether human releases of CO2 and other gases were changing the atmosphere and gradually heating the planet had been settled for many years.  The only real scientific debate was over details and rates - how fast the effects would become catastrophic for huge numbers of people and other living things.  But the systematic disinformation campaign by Big Oil and allied industries had been reported in the corporate media as if this propaganda had equal weight to the overwhelming consensus of independent scientists.

But as the effects of global overheating became impossible to ignore, voters recognized the need for change.

Politicians who failed to speak out against the corporate polluters, mainly Republicans, were voted out on this issue, along with the closely related issues of the Iraq war and political corruption.  But returning control of the Congress to the Democrats, who are not wholly owned by corporate America, is only the first step on a long journey.

As the causes of the looming crises go very deep, the basic systems of production and pattern of consumption in the industrial world, the solutions must likewise be as radical and transformative as the industrial revolution.  

The constraints are powerful: not only the political clout of corporations like Exxon Mobil, making profits faster than any corporation in history, and the multi-trillion dollar investment in unsustainable technology, from cars and roads to buildings and appliances, but the unwillingness of struggling middle class citizens to sacrifice their hard earned quality of life.

Activists for change must appreciate the great achievement of industrialization to provide masses of ordinary people a level of comfort and even moderate affluence that only aristocracies could enjoy in previous societies. But mass affluence based on a one-time resource bonanza is unsustainable as the life support systems of planet Earth are destabilized. These include not only the climate system, but agriculture and even renewable resources like topsoil and fresh water.  And continuing dependence on extraction of oil and other nonrenewable resources is all too likely to lead to increasingly dangerous wars over decreasing supplies.

The transformation to a sustainable system of production and way of life cannot be accomplished at a stroke, making it all the more urgent to start immediately and proceed with all available social energy.  It will require overturning the institutional distribution of power and rewards.  Change is needed on every level, from global treaties and global corporations, through national, state and local government policies, to cultural styles and individual choices.  

People as individuals can make the effort to reduce energy waste, seek out renewable energy supplies, and buy green products.  Further, we must seek satisfaction more in human relationships than in accumulation of stuff – as Bill McKibben puts it, "fewer belongings and more belonging." All this is necessary, hundreds of millions of people must make these choices and liberate their creativity to discover new ways to live in harmony with the biosphere.

But individual change alone cannot overcome the effects of mass production and omnipresent marketing by national and global corporations, and the government policies they buy with some of their super profits. Modern corporate capitalism relentlessly rewards unsustainable practices, and imposes immense social and environmental costs on the vast majority who don’t participate in production decisions.  Although some abuses can be eliminated within the capitalist framework, in the long run private corporations must be removed from their dominant control over what we do with our resources.

Although future generations cannot participate in decisions, ordinary people can organize to transform our institutions to give everyone affected an effective voice, and access to impartial scientific information so that natural human feeling for posterity can prevail over short term greed.