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Is Climate Change A Result Of Capitalism? (climatecontroljournal.com)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/sustainability@piefed.zip
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This paper explores the narratives in New York 2140 that argue that climate change is driven by capitalism, which in turn changes how people experience climate change. Capitalism can be claimed as the main cause of global warming and the climate crisis, reducing the life span of many species on Earth. It is only right to try and reform capitalism or further remove it. The world is failing on the energy transition due to reasons that strike at the heart of capitalist economies, which will therefore be very difficult. The most fundamental question is whether a capitalistic society is capable of sharply reducing carbon emissions.

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[–] 2 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Capitalism can be claimed as the main cause of global warming and the climate crisis

I could claim that alligators are so angry cuz God gave them all those teeth and no toothbrushes...

Wouldn't make it true.

Capitalism sucks, but it didn't cause climate change. Any economic system could have exploited our resources and polluted our environment.

It's weird how many people want to act like economic systems are the end all be all measuring stick for everything. Shits a lot more complicated than that.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    Yes, but capitalism has a unique way of rewarding greed and sociopathic behavior, and it just so happens that greedy sociopaths tend to care the least about the environment. Further, protecting the environment often means spending money with little to no expected profit, which is antithetical to capitalism. So while humans absolutely could have destroyed the earth under any other economic system, capitalism incentivized it the most for the widest group of people.

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  • [–] -5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    capitalism has a unique way of rewarding greed and sociopathic behavior

    That is a wild and completely false statement...

    I think the problem is you're just accustomed to the current dystopian hellscape and you've fallen for the propaganda that this is "just capitalism and how it is".

    Stop doing that, billionaires spend a lot of our money trying to convince us of that. So that other people that don't understand any of this just argue with you about labels and we never band together against the oligarchs.

    Stop only caring about labels and actually think about this shit. That whole rambling no comment is just a bunch of buzzword labels you clearly don't understand

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Is capitalism the pursuit of profit über alles or not?

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  • [–] -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 child)

    ...

    That's unregulated capitalism...

    That is not ever capitalist society.

    You've fallen for propaganda, just like trump voters who can't define communism but blame it for fucking everything they don't like...

    Can you legitimately not understand that at least?

    Edit:

    Honestly it doesn't matter, the only post in this community that's ever gotten engagement is this one, and I'm not gonna hang around explaining shit

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Capitalism sucks, but it didn’t cause climate change. Any economic system could have exploited our resources and polluted our environment.

    Could you explain your reasoning? I ask, because for me, what you said is just a hypothetical generalization.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    Regional-scale, anthropogenic climate change began long before the advent of capitalism, and has been a factor in the collapse of societies before. And capitalism itself wasn't discovered in an ancient, alien tomb and accidentally unleashed upon the Earth. It's an analytical lens with which to view the way that some human societies have developed from innate human behavior.

    Capitalism is a very convenient shorthand for a whole system of behaviors that we need to wake the fuck up and stop doing, but we'd be doing those things anyway. Even bacteria in a dish of agar follow the same growth by exploitation of resources, and subsequent collapse, curve in their population.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    I mean, look at the pollution in China or their strip mining not just in China but in Africa...

    How could possibly think Capitalism is the cause of global warming?

    Like, you're acting like you need examples of non-capitalist damage to the environment, when what I'm trying to explain is there's zero connection between economic system and environmental damage.

    A capitalist society could be regulated so there's no environmental damage. So could literally any other society with a different economic system.

    A capitalist society could have so little regulation it quickly destroys the environment. But again, so could any society with whatever economic system you can imagine.

    Because economic system has absolutely nothing to do with it.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 week ago

    It seems to me that when we talk about capitalism, we have different notions in mind. So, as briefly as I can, I will try to answer your question

    How could possibly think Capitalism is the cause of global warming?

    Capitalism and it's industrialization, have been going on for over two centuries. It's easy to find the metrics that prove that CO2 emissions have increased with industrialization.

    As an economic system, it deals with exploitation of humans, exploitation of nature, with the help of some tech for profit, and this profit needs to be reinvested into making more profit, non-stop. Infinite growth is embedded in the model, even tho our planet has limits. And regulatory frameworks, obviously don't work. Otherwise we would be having a different conversation.

    In more recent decades, capitalist globalization took over the world. The countries that were previously colonized, instead of gaining their real independence, they got trapped in an economical colonization (neocolonialism) and westerners kept exploiting these places. Famous example of mining companies exploitation come mostly from Canada, Australia and US. China came late to the game and currently is in 4th position [link].

    For you, what is the reason of the climate crisis?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago

    Capitalism sucks, but it didn’t cause climate change. Any economic system could have exploited our resources and polluted our environment.

    Could have. But capitalism did.

    I like to think that a system that didn't concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few people would be less likely to pollute.

    Would you vote to poison your own river? Probably not. But the factory owners who don't live by the river don't seem to mind.

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