The Climate Divide: Economy vs. Ecology
There are different factions within the climate movement. Some activists are techno-optimists and believe that we can maintain our current capitalist system. Eco-socialist activists believe that we need to transition to a regenerative, circular economy based on degrowth. Doomers believe that societal collapse is imminent and unavoidable because of the amount of global heating that is already “baked in” to the atmosphere and our unwillingness to change our behavior. Here's a summary of each type:
Techno-Optimists: These activists believe that it's possible to maintain a capitalist economy while transitioning to green energy and reducing carbon emissions. They often focus on scaling up renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, implementing carbon capture and storage (CSS) tech, and encouraging market driven solutions to reduce emissions. Politicians, entrepreneurs and other professionals are often included in this category.
Eco-Socialists: These activists believe that a circular economy, based on sustainable consumption, reduced waste, and minimal resource extraction, is essential for addressing climate change. They often focus on transitioning to a circular, degrowth economy: reducing consumption and resource extraction, recycling, upcycling, gift giving, cooperative ownership, and community-led initiatives. They also believe in policies that promote equity and human rights like the global basic income and green policies like carbon pricing and green taxes. They may or may not be doomers.
Jason Hickel also argues for degrowth but believes that it’s plausible to maintain modern society:
“It is true that the existing approach to climate policy is not going to work,” writes Hickel, an economic anthropologist. “But that is absolutely no reason for doom. It just means we have to be smarter about how we tackle the problem.”
Doomers: These activists believe that humanity is unlikely to avoid catastrophic societal collapse due to our inability to take appropriate action to stop climate and ecological breakdown. They believe that we are unlikely to transition away our current energy intensive economy and consumption-based lifestyle, which overuses earth’s finite resources and continues to emit mass quantities of greenhouse gases, in enough time to avoid societal breakdown. Doomers may include climate scientists who are sounding the alarm about the severity of the climate emergency and activists who use nonviolent direct action to demand system change.
Some doomers are learning and teaching others about how to transition to a self-sufficient lifestyle based on respecting planetary boundaries. They are preparing for what they consider the imminent breakdown of the global food supply chain, electrical grid, and other forms of systemic collapse. Some activists get angry with doomers. In their defense, many doomers have done traditional forms of activism, experienced its ineffectiveness, and reached a point of acceptance about collapse.
Jem Bendell, a global scholar who worked in green tech, is a well-known doomer. Bendell wrote the book “Breaking Together,” which argues that the collapse of modern society is unavoidable and that it can’t be rebuilt. He sees collapse as an opportunity to build a more equitable and humane society that respects ecological boundaries.
James Hansen, a current research professor at Columbia University's Earth Institute and former NASA scientist, reports that we still have time to act and for Earth to rebalance, but that the window of time to act is closing quickly. In 2023, fossil fuel emissions reached an all-time high, along with Earth’s Energy Imbalance and sea surface temperatures. Hansen says that if we don’t shift our trajectory, we could lock in 10 degrees C of global heating. That is not conducive with a livable planet.
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