What happened to Greta Thunberg?
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As Greta’s politics have grown and evolved, they reached a point where they now make billionaire media owners, milquetoast executives of major non-profits, and more than a few politicians a little uncomfortable. All she’s done is follow the science, but over time the science has led her to see that the climate crisis doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are massive monetary incentives to destroy the planet in this capitalist system.

ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP made over $100 billion in profits in 2023 alone. In following the science, Greta had to start examining the capitalist system if she wanted to get down to the root of the climate crisis.

But Greta kept going. When she published The Climate Book in 2022, the then 19-year-old activist had some words for the entire system we live under today:

"We are never going back to normal again because ‘normal’ was already a crisis. What we refer to as normal is an extreme system built on the exploitation of people and the planet. It is a system defined by colonialism, imperialism, oppression and genocide by the Global North to accumulate wealth that still shapes our current world order.”

That was two years ago, and it’s no surprise she hasn’t been given the spotlight nearly as often since. In fact, in the wake of that book launch, she’s been the subject of countless hit pieces, and her Palestine solidarity activism has been denigrated as well.

Greta went from a cute kid saying that climate change is bad to a young adult rightly charging global systems with not only fueling the climate crisis but also being oppressive and grossly harmful to life in numerous other ways. And, perhaps most importantly, she sees these systems as interconnected and knows that radical change is necessary for the future of life on this planet.
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FULL ESSAY -- https://www.jphilll.com/p/gretas-growth

#Politics #Economics #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange

A thought-provoking article published in Nature asserts that: "Equality is essential for sustainability. The science is clear — people in more-equal societies are more trusting and more likely to protect the environment than are those in unequal, consumer-driven ones."

Here is a short excerpt...
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As environmental, social and humanitarian crises escalate, the world can no longer afford two things: first, the costs of economic inequality; and second, the rich.

Between 2020 and 2022, the world’s most affluent 1% of people captured nearly twice as much of the new global wealth created as did the other 99% of individuals put together, and in 2019 they emitted as much carbon dioxide as the poorest two-thirds of humanity.

Evidence gathered by social epidemiologists, including us, shows that large differences in income are a powerful social stressor that is increasingly rendering societies dysfunctional. For example, bigger gaps between rich and poor are accompanied by higher rates of homicide and imprisonment. They also correspond to more infant mortality, obesity, drug abuse and COVID-19 deaths, as well as higher rates of teenage pregnancy and lower levels of child well-being, social mobility, and public trust. The homicide rate in the United States — the most unequal Western democracy — is more than 11 times that in Norway. Imprisonment rates are ten times as high, and infant mortality and obesity rates twice as high.

Many commentators have drawn attention to the environmental need to limit economic growth and instead prioritize sustainability and well-being. We argue that tackling inequality is the foremost task of that transformation. Greater equality will reduce unhealthy and excess consumption, and will increase the solidarity and cohesion that are needed to make societies more adaptable in the face of climate and other emergencies.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00723-3

#Economics #Inequality #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

I don't have any problem with a market economy, per se, but I do have a BIG problem with capitalism.

In my preferred version of state socialism, there is no accumulation of capital, and thus no capitalism. All large industries and large-scale services are socialized, owned by the people and managed by the state (or by worker cooperatives, where practical).

In my version of a market economy, people can own and run small companies, hire employees, set prices, make a profit... that's all fine. But they can't buy their competitors and either take them over or put them out of business. They can't open franchises, where they sell (or rent) the right to operate a different company with the same name. They're not allowed to buy their suppliers and create a conglomerate. They aren't permitted to grow so large that the market no longer operates fairly. And every business owner's wealth will be capped with a highly progressive tax structure (which is the price of using the commons to turn a profit).

So, the marketplace as such is not the problem. The problem is capitalism.

#Capitalism #Socialism #Economics #Politics