Radical Ecology: The Age of Consumer-Driven Capitalism Is Over
by max blunt at 03:00PM (CEST) on April 13, 2007

It wasn’t too long that the death of socialism, the triumph of capitalism and the end of history were being widely hailed.

What a difference a few years and a few fractions of a degree in world temperature change makes!

We may still be contemplating the end of history, but of a different sort.

It is suddenly becoming painfully obvious that the pursuit of profit and the philosophy of growth for growth’s sake and of dog eat dog is about to kill us all off.

Now that it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the earth is headed for a global heat wave the likes of which hasn’t been seen in hundreds of thousands and perhaps tens of millions of years–the kind of killing heat that in the past has led to mass extinctions–it is ludicrous to talk about things like carbon trading and raising vehicle mileage standards.

We need a revolution in the way we human beings live and the way we treat each other.

There is no way that the world’s 6.5 billion people–and especially the 2 billion of them who live in wealthier societies–can continue to consume energy at even close to the level that we have been consuming it.

There is no way we in the developed world can continue to live the way we have been living, in oversized houses, heated in winter and cooled in summer.

There is no way in the northern hemisphere we can continue to have teakwood or mahogany-floored living rooms and eat strawberries in December.

There is no way that we can continue to squander trillions of dollars on war and military spending every year.

No way, that is, if we plan on leaving a livable world for our children and grandchildren. LINK