Say goodbye to the Jurassic age of flying for pleasure
REIMAGINING THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD FOR THE AGE OF SUSTAINABILITY
This week Inger Andersen, the executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said that “only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster”.
He added: “It is a tall, and some would say impossible, order to reform the global economy and almost halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but we must try.”
The huge challenge of transforming all global economies away from fossil fuels is the central drama of this or any other age. Historically unprecedented, it requires not just putting sustainability at the heart of everything we do, but also entirely reimagining the history of the world to date.
How can world history be recalibrated in this way? The first step has to be to reevaluate human activity to date in the light of how much each component contributed to global warming. The airplane, for instance, is celebrated as a triumph of human endeavour. It is, of course, but in terms of our climate change story, the day Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright took to the skies in 1903 was a disaster: aviation ushered in the normalisation of relentless, industrialised, CO2 emissions.
When you see a holiday picture someone an island beach thousands of miles away, it’s not a cause for congratulation— the tourist directly contributes to the decimation of species, habitats, air quality and, indeed, the natural equilibrium of the Earth. In future, the tourists in those photos will be seen as criminals in just the same way as those photos of animal trophy hunters — lions, elephants, giraffes — are now seen as murderous psychopaths.
The underlying horror of what was previously seen as an innocuous holiday will be revealed in this new historical lens. Everything has to be calibrated and recalibrated. The veneer of romance, stripped away, can reveal some ghastly home truths. Check out those sort of global tours which began in the 1970s with Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Yes those tours were all about having fun and celebrating life — for those who participated. But the CO2 bill for flying tonnes of amplification equipment around the globe, and for people flying, driving or taking the bus or train to the event, doesn’t bear thinking about. Those sorts of global tours, they’re from the Jurassic age. They all have to go the way of the dodo. There’s lots of ways of listening to music that don’t involve fleets of jets and limousines.
So what about football matches, you might ask? Yes, the CO2 price tag of tens of thousands of people getting to a sports stadium is grotesque, but this needs to be offset against the fact that, once they get there, the emissions produced by 22 people kicking a ball around are precisely zero.
Contrast that with a stadium show where the start of the performance unleashes a frenzied electrical storm which would probably power a dozen towns in Africa for a month. Each case has to be evaluated on its own merits — and an environmental component has to be included in all financial assessments.
The rebranding of history needs an overarching framework — a new economic theory. That there isn’t one in place isn’t unusual. There was no economic theory to hand immediately after the French Revolution, after the fall of communism, or what happened in Germany after World War Two. The key immediate challenge is to escort the capitalist model off the world stage, in the same way as fascism and communism were ushered off the world stage — with haste. Without further ado. There’s not a moment to lose. The capitalist model has been past its sell-by date for at least 20 years and definitely since the financial crisis of 2007–8. It has to be consigned to the dustbin of history, to free people up for the next era of humanity, which is degrowth.
It’s a race to see whether we can conquer our own worst instincts in the struggle to survive — or whether we will be overcome by them
Capitalists hate degrowth, but they would. It directly challenges their business model. Their hatred, and the misinformation campaign they wage relentlessly against any other option than the one currently tearing the world apart, has to be confronted. In ten years time the mantra of growth will be a sickly nightmare from a failed and inglorious past. Bear in mind, as you navigate through this mayhem, that degrowth doesn’t mean shutting everything down. In fact, growth will happen in the production of sustainable technologies, in the products and services that accompany them. But the idea that any global economy has to keep on growing as it is, lest everything fall apart, is for the birds from here on in.
Degrowth will happen fastest in those areas where growth is inimical to survival. If you live on a Pacific island you’re not that bothered about Amazon Prime or fancy gadgets. You’re worried about food and water and education. Stuff like holidays, cars, and meat are unnecessary as we strive to prepare the planet for life in the next 100 years.
What about the other great obstacle to human survival — war? War is tricky. Wars are big business. Wars are what we do, as a species. It’s impossible to expunge ourselves of the compulsion to wage war in a few years. Maybe the only hope is that the whole art of warfare can be reclaimed to do battle with climate change.
“Business is war by other means,” said Jack Tramiel, who survived Auschwitz and found Atari, the early gaming console company. But maybe war is business by other means, and needs to be governed by the new rules too? It’ll be interesting to see how that one plays out, but don’t hold your breath. We’re a nasty species, and we’ve been nasty for a very long time. It’s a race to see whether we can conquer our own worst instincts in the struggle to survive — or whether we will be overcome by them.
