A thought provoking essay by Alyssa Rohricht where she explores the weakness in the “green capitalist” solution to our environmental crisis and argues against carbon taxing and trading, geo-engineering, and renewable energy as ways to combat climate change for the system itself is incompatible with sustainability. By its very nature, capitalism seeks only to grow and accumulate – an idea that is diametrically opposed to a sustainable existence.
“In 1991, then chief economist of the World Bank, Lawrence Summers, sent a memorandum to colleagues at the World Bank, arguing that the World Bank should encourage exporting “dirty” industries to the less-developed countries. The argument was that 1) economically speaking, illnesses associated with pollution from the “dirty” industries would cost less in countries with lower wages, 2) that the less-developed countries are “underpolluted” and so the initial increase in pollution would be cheaper and 3) that the less-developed countries have a lower life expectancy and so illnesses caused by pollution – such as cancer – are not as much of a concern since many don’t materialize until later in life (purportedly when they would already be dead). What Summers essentially argued is that environmental health – clean air, water, and so on – is worth more in the rich countries and for rich people than it is for those in the poor and less-developed countries. Thus, in capitalist, economic terms, the lives and the quality of life of the global poor are worth less than those of the global rich.
This statement by a World Bank economist isn’t shocking in itself, however this is the basis of the system in which the vast majority of the world exists. When expressed in terms of monetary values – the only language capitalism speaks – a human life is worth more in the developed countries based on wage prospects, so the costs of pollution are less when transferred to the poor, where wages are lower, and human life carries a lower economic value. The same goes for the environment, which is valued in the capitalist system only insofar as it builds capital.”
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