COVID-19, with its day-to-day tally of people dying in all parts of the world, has our attention because it is so visible in terms of all aspects of the tragedy unfolding before us. Its immediacy in terms of fatalities, the misery of families left behind and the economic consequences of the lockdowns have been and are being felt all around. As the crisis abates, hopefully soon, there is something much bigger that we all, as individuals, communities, nations and the world, need to address with, even though it might not seem as urgent presently as COVID-19.
I am referring here to the state of our planet, which we all share together. It is under severe stress from climate change, and if we don’t act with a sense of urgency, it is likely to become uninhabitable for many of us. This might not happen in ten years or even a longer period but we are all seeing a pronounced slide in that direction.
The melting of glaciers, warming of seas and changing weather patterns are now all around us with more bush fires in Australia, for instance, starting early and lasting longer; increased frequency and intensity of cyclones all over the world, with high tides submerging low lying areas, leading to dislocation, displacement and likely disappearance of island nations. In Australia’s recent bush fires, more than one billion animals and birds were vaporized.
As David Leser writes in the Sydney Morning Herald (weekly supplement), “… we humans have managed to see off as much as 60 per cent of the world’s mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians…. We have killed half the world’s coral reefs. We have cleared half the world’s tropical forests”.
And he goes on: “We have polluted the oceans, shrunk the Arctic and Antarctic summer ice, caused droughts, heat waves, desertification, fires, flooding and storms, along with water and food shortages, on an unprecedented scale.”
It is difficult to comprehend and imagine all this, but nonetheless it is happening all the time. Its immediacy is not as apparent as COVID-19, but it is gathering further momentum even as some people continue to deny climate change. Some even say that it is a socialist/communist conspiracy against our capitalist system, which supposedly has brought us so much prosperity.
Climate change is no conspiracy against capitalist system, but it does raise issues about the sustainability of a healthy planet, subjected to increasing doses of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere.
Capitalism’s over-riding principle is profit and so-called free markets. It is argued that when almost all people are seeking to maximize profit/income, it becomes a societal gain. In other words, everybody is a winner. It is also said that there is no such thing as society or social values. It is all economics and society is simply a by-product of economic activity, seeking to to maximize social good.
Society, at its best, as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher would have argued, is a community of shareholders with every one of them seeking to maximize their dividend/profit and hence contributing to collective good.
And for this to happen, the operation of free (unregulated) markets would be a given, because it optimizes the allocation of resources as determined by demand in the free market place. As former US President Ronald Reagan would say that the government (regulation) was not the solution but problem for efficient operation of markets.
This is ‘idealization’ of capitalism, but the periodic crises of capitalist economies – the last serious one was the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008 -9, would suggest that something is seriously wrong with an ideology and system based largely on profit/greed that is prone to such periodic cycles of human misery.
Climate change is no conspiracy against capitalist system, but it does raise issues about the sustainability of a healthy planet, subjected to increasing doses of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere
Therefore, it is high time that, in the wake COVID-19, that we reimagine and rebuild a new system where human activity is centered on the kind of society that integrates human needs and the environment around us. We can’t simply keep on measuring economic activity, GDP, in terms of statistical output for two reasons.
First, because this continuous emphasis on growth for growth sake (to climb the statistical ladder) is not sustainable because the fossil fuels used to generate economic activity since industrial revolution, even more so in the last few decades, is fouling the atmosphere and choking the environment; leading to unseasonal and intense weather events and oceanic disturbances (cyclones etc.), which will continue to cause increasing human suffering and displacement, beyond our management and control.
The broad consensus is that, if the global community fails to keep global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius by end-century– and the way it is going, it would appear that it is likely to reach more that 3 degrees — our planet will become increasingly unlivable for many of us and other species that we share it with. Therefore, it is high time that we shift to renewable energy (solar, wind etc.) to fuel economic activity. In other words, we need to live in harmony with Nature rather than fouling it.
Second, growing economic inequalities of the capitalist system, which in essence operates on the principle of winner takes it all, is deepening social divisions and conflict. It is now increasingly hitting developed countries as well, where a very small percentage of filthy rich are cornering most of the wealth. And this race for being the top dog (s), with names listed among the richest in some publications, is vitiating and corroding social order all over the world.
And on top of it all, this mad rush for material things/structures is creating an intolerable strain on the planet’s resources, already fouled enough by fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas, for example) as global energy engine.
COVID-19 shows us how fragile life can be. Hence the need for putting the planet on a self-sustaining basis to energize the planet with its own sun and wind. If we don’t, the churning of seas, melting of glaciers and other related weather events will not wait for us and we might end up being collateral damage (even worse), to quote former US President Bush in another context.
The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia