Climate change is a topic that is seen as controversial to many. Some think of it as a topic that does not need to be discussed now because it will not happen for a long time. Others think that it is something that will never happen. Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future, has shown that his belief is that it is a major issue now, because the effects will start to harm the world’s population in the very near-future.
Robinson opens the book with a deadly heat wave that takes place in India. People lose power, can’t get proper access to water, and die due to overheating. In the text, it says “more people had died in this heat wave than in the First World War, and all in a single week and in a single region of the world” (Robinson 23). This is something that is going to happen in the coming years, so the contributors to climate change need to be recognized and stopped to prevent this.
Robinson presents how Capitalism is one of the major contributors to climate change due to a lot of the socioeconomic issues that it causes. In the text, it discusses how there are executives who “earn in ten minutes what it takes their starting employees all year to earn” (Robinson 383). There are people making so much that they do not know what to do with the money, and there are people who are making little to nothing and are barely living off of what they have. They can’t focus on climate change and contributing to help the cause because they must worry about their basic needs; they need to worry about surviving in the present. Earlier in the text, he also discusses the idea of giving people “enough,” meaning spreading the wealth to give people enough to have the right of basic needs. In the text, he says, “There is enough for all. So there should be no more people living in poverty. And there should be no more billionaires. Enough should be a human right” (Robinson 58). There are enough resources, but these corporations are run by people who are making billions of dollars a year and are not spreading the wealth. In the process, they are also destroying the environment by emitting carbon into the air with their factories. They also could be putting this money to better use, by doing things such as helping those being killed by poverty and contributing money to save the planet from destruction. However, this is not being done and based on what Robinson has said, if billionaires keep on arising and ruling the economic system, there will not be enough funds available to help and stop climate change before it is too late.
One point that could also be touched on is how the nature of capitalism in our current world incentivizes climate change. Like you said, big corporations are emitting carbon into the air with their big factories and therefore destroying the environment. Although these factories are causing climate change, the corporations may not be the problem that needs solving in order to help the earth. Big power companies could use their size and financial strength to create clean energy sources if the market system supports this change. The current system of capitalism would need to be altered to incentivize renewable energy creation over the burning of coal and carbon, but I think that the system could work once fixed.
ReplyDeleteI also thought it was interesting how Robinson noted the wide wage ratio as a factor in climate change. He notes, “The average wage ratio is like one to five hundred. Actually that was the median; one to 1,500 happens pretty often (Robinson 383). Assuming that the lowest wage is a living wage, the highest earners are making more money than one could plausibly spend in a lifetime. I agree with you that there are not enough funds available to stop climate change, and I think that altering the wage ratio could be a tactic in solving climate change if done correctly to properly allocate for all human needs.
You make several excellent points in your argument for Capitalism being a large reason for the climate crisis. In your analysis of the extreme wealth disparity between CEOs and average employees under the system of capitalism we live in currently, you succeed in portraying the horrific circumstances that are a result of wealth inequality. The greed of the ultra wealthy reflected upon by Robinson is a massive reason for the state of the planet in the novel. If the trend of recent continues in which billionaires are popping up in large numbers, the more dire the circumstances and consequences will be for the poorest humans. The people living in the poorest countries in the world are unable to put effort towards a sustainable future in order to save the planet albeit their desire to do so because of the fact that many do not have enough to survive to begin with. Meanwhile, the ultra rich of the world have such an ample surplus of money that they could literally burn it for fun and it not affect their lifestyle in any way shape or form but are unwilling to sacrifice even the smallest amount of wealth. You are right in saying that nothing can change in the world until there are restrictions on capitalism.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a very important point in the discussion of climate change, which is that the lower socioeconomic class is mainly focusing on surviving. They are not focused on buying environmentally friendly cars, clean food, or solar panels. Their main focus is living paycheck to paycheck and surviving. This same thing happens to developing countries. Creating cleaner energy is capital intensive. A lot of money is needed to research clean energy production and develop the infrastructure to create clean energy. These developing countries have other problems such as homelessness, poverty, and hunger, so that is where they will spend their money. They will use any means necessary, such as burning coal, to keep their cities running. In chapter 6, Robinson says, “Now India was being told not to burn coal, when everyone else had finished burning enough of it to build up the capital to afford to shift to cleaner sources of power” (16 - I have the online version so the numbers are different). India does not have the means to solve global climate change. Furthermore, it does not help when the developed countries, who do have the means necessary to improve clean energy production, do not. There needs to be an awakening from the developed countries to start doing something about climate change. Everyone needs to change their mindset towards the environment. It needs to start from the top, meaning the wealthy people and countries need to start caring about the environment. I do not know the answer, but I do agree with Robinson in that a mindset change needs to happen.
ReplyDeleteYou make a lot of solid points here about what Kim Stanley Robinson is critiquing about capitalism and the destruction of the biosphere to maximize profit. As stated at the beginning of our class reading, Robinson is a Marxist theorist and, subsequently, has written most of his central critiques of capitalism through this lens. This idea is confirmed by Marxist language sneaking its way into some of the dialogue, too, specifically when Frank confronts Mary on her inaction as head of the Ministry: “You have to stop thinking with your old bourgeois values. That time has passed. The takes are too high for you to hide behind the anymore” (Robinson 97). Marxist theory is based on the idea of the bourgeois upper class exploiting the proletariat lower class for profit. Marx argues that this system is unsustainable and will run itself into the ground due to the very same ideology that exploited workers for the benefit of the top. Robinson mirrors this critique when he discusses a select few hundred people getting rich off of destroying the environment—same idea of exploitation, same result of the poor suffering while the rich perpetuate the system. Capitalism is not only destined to destroy itself. It’s going to take the environment with it, too, unless we make major changes to our values worldwide.
ReplyDeleteYour points throughout your blog about climate change are validated throughout Robinson’s novel Ministry for the Future. Although the reality of Robinson’s idea is likely to not happen, the ideas that he has are extreme and in a world where everyone listens. When thinking about the people that could truly make a difference in climate change, they are also the people who are too self absorbed to care about making a difference in the world. This idea is sad but true and revealed by Robinson when he states that executives can “earn in ten minutes what it takes their starting employees all year to earn” (Robinson 383). I liked how you brought up the opposing side of capitalism by mentioning that the people who are willing to donate to try and help the environment and specifically climate change are also the ones who live paycheck to paycheck and barely survive. Overall it is important to recognize that just because people are recognized as rich and they donate some money to charities does not mean that they are actively making an effort to change the world.
ReplyDeleteI want to expand on your point that those with the most wealth are doing the most climate damage. Capitalism incentivizes climate change because many of the industries that do the most damage to the environment are also extremely lucrative. Individuals who make billions of dollars off of the oil industry are not going to advocate for cleaner energy. These individuals are the same people who pay for lobbyists or contribute to campaigns to make sure that no legislation is passed to enforce harsher climate restrictions on bigger corporations. This creates a system that almost rewards actions that are harmful to the climate and essentially punish companies that try to run "green". Companies who invest in more climate friendly products or methods will never make as much as those who do not if there are no climate restrictions, so no one will want to go that extra mile to protect the environment if it means the loss of their profits.
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