Capitalism vs The Climate
We are entitled to look back at 2014 with some pride. Recent achievements include democratic elections where the old political elite were told where to go; while the economic development during the past two or three decades is rather impressive and resulted in the rise of a middle class — accompanied by a mushrooming of shopping malls; eateries of excellent quality and dazzling variety; daily additions to the number of cars, mobile phones, tablets and pads.
Read Naomi Klein’s latest book This Changes Everything, Capitalism vs The Climate, and the pride turns into a chill.
She convincingly argues the case that climate change (i.e., increasing global temperatures caused by the emission of greenhouse gasses) is real, and that in spite of the fact that negotiations on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions started in 1990, we now face the very real possibility that the initially targeted 2 degrees Centigrade increase in temperatures will be overshot by two to four degrees. Increased melting of Arctic ice sheets and glaciers can thus be expected, resulting in rising sea levels, more frequent and more severe flooding, and the eventual disappearance of several coastal areas and island nations, such as the North Java coast and the Maldives. And then there will be droughts, severe droughts—which will adversely affect agricultural production, especially in tropical areas—more frequent and more severe storms, hurricanes, typhoons and other natural disasters.
?THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
by Naomi Klein
Publisher: Allen Lane (16/9/2014)
Klein analyses in great detail how we, mankind, managed to manoeuvre ourselves into that unenviable position and comes up with one word to encompass it all: capitalism.
As the title of the book indicates, “capitalism” is, in this context, set directly against “climate”. And the neo-liberal, market orientated system is praised for bringing extraordinary wealth and economic growth, but blamed for the damage this has inflicted on the environment. Rivers have been polluted by the uncontrolled dumping of waste, and the air by the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. And even more against the grain, Klein argues that the parts of capitalism that are the main culprit are “free trade” and “the constant drive for endless economic growth.”
In Klein’s words, “There is no question that the trade architecture and the economic ideology embedded within it played a central role in sending emissions into hyperdrive.” Multinationals as a result scour the globe in search of the cheapest and most exploitable labour force. Led by the US, the journey passed through Mexico and Central America to South Korea, but by the end of the 1990s China had become the main destination— “a country where wages were extraordinarily low… and the state was willing to spend seemingly limitless funds on massive infrastructure projects… all to ensure that that the lights stayed on in the factories and the goods made it from the assembly lines onto the container ships on time. A free trader’s dream, in other words—and a climate nightmare.”
There are many who do not believe that this is so, while other deniers argue that the ‘system’ will come up with technical solutions to solve these climate problems. And a third group of deniers in wealthy countries argue that it is all the fault of China, India, and Brazil… “Why bother cutting our own [US] emissions when everyone knows that the fast developing economies are the real problem.”
But unfortunately carbon dioxide keeps piling up in the atmosphere and temperatures keep rising.
The only action that can mitigate this process and eventually save the Earth, would be a total overhaul of our economic system.
Transport, energy, agriculture, industrial production, forestry, land use, urban planning, and all other aspects of the economic system need to be changed to reduce emissions. Urban centres will need to be redesigned and made safe for walking and cycling; electric power from fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas need to be replaced with renewables (wind, solar, geo-thermal, hydro); industrial as well as agricultural production should as much as possible avoid long transport routes for its raw materials and final products; and everybody—producers, consumers, public administrators—should reduce their ecological footprint.
A wide range of creative, far-reaching and comprehensive government policies and strategies, such as “sweeping bans on polluting activities, deep subsidies for green alternatives, pricey penalties for violations, new taxes, new public works programs, reversal of privatization…” will therefore be needed to initiate, guide and steer this new economic system, as the free-market system do not provide the right indicators.
It should be clearly understood that this does not entail a return to clipper ships and horse-drawn carriages. No, it would suffice to live as we did in the 1970s. We can still enjoy all the nice things we are used to, but the production processes and the philosophies behind the production processes need to be changed, together with a switch over to clean energy and a reduced emission of transport-fumes. Start by walking, cycling and commuting by light rapid transport systems.
Corporate elites and lesser capitalists, that is, CEOs, CFOs, traders, shippers, miners, loggers and nearly everybody else who has a stake in our market-driven economy, will hardly be thrilled by this prospect. In fact, they are the main deniers, lobbying for a continuation, if not an acceleration, of the present-day production methods.
And apart from the heavy duty top-down interventions, the most important role in bringing the economy round on a different tack—and thereby saving the world—is reserved for the people. Described by Klein as “Blockadia”, a non-specific location where resistance flares up “with increasing frequency and intensity wherever extractive projects are attempting to dig and drill, whether for open-pit mines, or gas fracking, or tar sands oil pipelines.”
Blockadia is happening all over the world and basically represents a people-driven request for clean air, water and unpolluted land where present and future generations can live in peace.
In Klein’s words: “Put another way, only mass social movement can save us now. Because we know where the current system, left unchecked, is headed. … To arrive at that dystopia, all we need to do is keep barrelling down the road we are on. The only remaining variable is whether some countervailing power will emerge to block the road, and simultaneously clear some alternate pathways to destinations that are safer. If that happens, well, it changes everything.”
Tell me all about your wedding. 
Miguel Covarrubias’ father was a Sunday painter. As a very young child, Miguel liked to sit by his father, watching him work. This happened nearly every weekend. Noticing his interest, his father gave the little boy paper and pencil. Miguel now happily occupied himself making pictures. As he grew, the sketches were calling attention to his burgeoning facility to draw. By the time he was fourteen years old and in high school, he was making caricatures of the teachers to the amusement of his classmates.
By the time he was eighteen, Covarrubias found himself in New York City and was soon making caricatures of personalities from the art and entertainment world, and celebrities from the political and social worlds. He also became an important contributor to the Harlem Renaissance movement. Alan Fern, a former director of the Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. wrote, <Covarrubias> “seems to us the quintessential commentator of American life in the 1920s”.
Covarrubias book, Negro Drawings was published two years later. In his preface to the book, the caricaturist, Ralph Barton attested “Covarrubias’s drawings…need merely to be looked at to be understood. To draw as Covarrubias draws, one has only to be born with a taste for understanding everything. As we look at the drawings we are aware that they bear the stamp of genius.” After its publication, the Encyclopedia Britannica listed him among the “wonders” of black-and-white artists.
The same was true for his archaeological research. The Mexican archaeologist Alfonso Caso stated, “He gave to archaeology something that it lacked….and that was an aesthetic perception of form, always correct.” The archaeologist, Michael Coe stated, “I learned much from his drawings.”
In 1913, Prince Noto Soeroto, a poet-prince of Jogjakarta, published a since long forgotten article in the first edition of Indonesia’s premier architectural magazine, The Dutch East Indies Home; Old and New (Het Nederlandsche Indische Huis Oud en Nieuw) dedicated to Pak Iko, an unknown Indonesian sculptor. Although the style is hopelessly flowery by today’s standards, its core message, the acknowledgement of the thousands of anonymous Indonesian artists, artisans and craftspeople, who carry on the nation’s ancient artistic traditions is as relevant today as it was a century ago. Soeroto begins his story with a eulogy:
The story of Iko is illustrative of the spirit of the times. A young Sundanese sculptor, his talent was first noticed in 1905 by C. den Hamer, an official in the department of native education who strongly believed in promoting local arts. Over a period of years Hamer asked Iko to produce gradually more complicated artworks. This would culminate with a commission to recreate a life-size statue of Manjushri, the Mahayana Buddha of the Future. Its inspiration was one of the great masterpieces of the Majapahit Empire carved in 1343 and installed in Candi Jago in East Java. In 1861 it disappeared and ended up a few years later in the Berlin Museum. Iko’s model was a plaster cast that can still be seen in Jakarta’s National Museum. Tragically the original was either lost or destroyed in the Second World War.
The Sun, Moon, Planets and Stars have served as the muses of artists, musicians, poets and writers since the beginning of time. Precise knowledge of the cycles of the Moon and its influences, both magical and physical (the tides), was already widespread among our Neolithic ancestors who achieved this understanding over centuries using only their bare eyes and collective memory. Indeed it can be argued that this in turn triggered a quantum leap in human consciousness. The rise of civilization is intimately linked with the development of the first full-blown calendar in the Middle East 5000 years ago. So, too, the invention of writing, marking the end of prehistory, and mathematics, were developed as sophisticated tools to accurately observe, measure and record the movements of the heavens over long periods of time.
Recent discoveries have also brought surprises. One was the discovery of a breathtakingly beautiful 4,000 year old bronze and gold “Sky Disk” in Nebra, Germany. An advanced astrolabe, the disk refutes the long popular negative stereotype that depicts the Teutonic tribes of northern Europe as bloodthirsty, smelly primitives with rotten teeth and furry hides. The Sky disk, which predates the Roman invasion of Germania by almost 2,000 years, denies the skewed image seen in Ridley Scott’s epic film, “Gladiators”. As they say, the victor writes the history.
While native calendars, based on both the cycles of the Moon and Sun, were once used as a practical device to mark the cycle of the days, weeks, months and years, in the modern world this function has been largely displaced by the Gregorian calendar, which now dominates the world. Before their conversion to other religions, the magic men of the fierce Batak people of northern Sumatra and the Dayak headhunters of Borneo relied on complicated and often beautiful calendars made of black ironwood, bamboo and bones. Inscribed with images of animals, spirit figures and naga, they were used, usually by shamans or specialists, to determine propitious days to embark on new ventures – building a house, planting a field, a headhunting expedition. The calendars also marked taboos – do not cut bamboo, avoid sacred places where attack by malevolent spirits was more likely on certain days, etc.
What are your hobbies?
It proposes, yet again, that what we see out there is only what we have in us to see, and that ‘tradition,’ which we hold so sacred, contains both deep truths and pathetic idiocies. It’s useful to note the difference, if we are all to adapt to what’s happening so fast, everywhere on the planet.
