To see the problem, consider the Tehri Dam project on India’s Bhilangana River, which submerged pristine ecosystems and ancient farms, and displaced a hundred thousand villagers. Doing that creates three problems: (1) the unmeasurable and the qualitative is necessarily devalued (2) the metric applied encodes and perpetuates existing biases and power relationships, which themselves implicate ecocide, and (3) it fosters an illusion of predictability and control that obscures the likelihood of perverse unintended consequences. To decide something scientifically, you gather data, make projections, and evaluate the likely results according to some metric. This approach also sits comfortably in our culture: it is the epitome of rationality to make decisions by the numbers. Or to use the money metaphor, CO 2 emissions become the standard of value, a number to minimise, and a metric upon which to base policy. In religion too, one thing becomes the key to everything.įollowing this template, greenhouse gases are the enemy, and the solution, the way to “ fight climate change” or “ combat global warming” (common phrases both), is to reduce emissions (or increase sequestration). In the case of money, it invites the subsumption of a multitude of values into a single standard of value money becomes the universal means to all good things, and therefore the pursuit of it becomes a universal end in itself – if only we had enough money, all our problems would be solved. In the case of war, there is an identifiable enemy – the source of all evil – and the solution is simple: to overcome that enemy by any means necessary. One thing that war, money, and religion all offer is the simplification of complex problems. On the contrary, the movement itself embodies them. This failure comes not because the movement is too radical and needs to “work more closely with business” or embrace the oxymoron of “sustainable growth.” It is rather that it is not radical enough – not yet willing to challenge key invisible narratives that drive our civilization. This is especially relevant given the near-universal agreement among activists that efforts to limit carbon emissions have failed miserably. It doesn’t mean that climate change isn’t dangerous or that humans aren’t causing it, but it does suggest that our approach to the problem could be strengthening the psychic and ideological substructure of the system that is devouring the planet. That climate-change alarm sits so comfortably within our culture’s familiar way of thinking, should give us pause. There is no time to waste! Everything is at stake! It’s do or die! How similar to the logic of money and the logic of war. Taken to its extreme, it requires that we harden our hearts to the needs in front of our faces. If we agree that the survival of humanity is at stake, then any means is justified, and any other cause – say reforming the prisons, housing the homeless, caring for the autistic, rescuing abused animals, or visiting your grandmother – becomes an unjustifiable distraction from the only important thing. Disciplined by the promise of heavenly rewards or hellish punishments, the believer distances themself from unimportant worldly things.Īnyone who is wary of these institutions might also be wary of the standard climate change narrative, which lends itself to the same mentality of sacrifice to an all-important end. Disciplined by an existential threat, a nation at war turns away from culture, leisure, civil liberties, and everything of no utility to the war effort. Disciplined by economic exigency, millions of people sacrifice time, energy, family, and what they really care about in pursuit of money. All three demand, in one way or another, the sacrifice of the immediate, the human, or the personal in service to an overarching ulterior goal that trumps all. I’ve noticed some parallels among three defining institutions of our civilization: money, war, and mainstream religion. The article was originally published in Resurgence Magazine, April 2014 This essay has been translated into French and German.
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