Come Down To Earth

Disrupting embedded channels of finance may be the first step towards mending a global economy that is hurtling towards climate chaos

- Sukumar Muralidharan

In scathing reproach of adult generations past and present, school kids the world over mobilised on the streets on September 20, demanding action on the global climate emergency. Influential elder voices embraced the compelling moral message, admitting to their profligacy, addiction to waste and inattention to the consequences that they would leave for future generations to remedy.

There were some, notably from the US right-wing, who scoffed. Others commented on the irony of climate change activism using as props the very same technological artefacts identified as the root of the problem. This was said not in reproach, but in recognition of the arduous pathway ahead in mitigating and reversing the multiple impacts of climate change. The actionable agenda currently is focused on fossil fuels and greening the Earth’s surface. But the task will remain unaccomplished without deep transformative changes in land-use patterns, agriculture and dietary habits.

Within accepted paradigms of thinking, the transition is viewed as a business opportunity. Limitless profit possibilities are seen in harvesting energy from renewable sources and developing viable modes of electric transportation. This manner of thinking shows all the infirmities of the economic models that created the crisis in the first place: The easy assumption that private profit is readily translated into social good.