Capitalists against Climate Change
I've been wondering what it will take for the world to get serious about climate change.
What is the closest example of a large multinational effort to tackle a problem?
Tentatively I'm saying World War II. The UK could have tried to ignore the conflict in Europe. The US was more successful and stayed out of direct involvement for a full two years. Why did the capitalists get involved in fighting other capitalists? It was because Germany's version of more fascist-than-your capitalism was threatening the interests of UK and US capitalists. Ultimately the US was spending 25% of its entire economy on fighting the war (or more?) and the UK was spending even more. By contrast, we could do amazing things to stop climate change for a mere 1% of the US economy per year (and if the money was transfered from the military we'd create jobs - if it was invested in solar/wind/green houses - we could get a 5%-20% annual return in consumer savings).
Ten or twenty or thirty years from now the same capitalists that brought you Obama and that recognize that capitalism cannot be only for the
top 1%, but needs at least the top 5% to survive, will decide to do something about climate change. They will finally give in to the mass social movements that by this time are the largest global movement seen in human history and that involve over a hundred of million people.
Of course the capitalists will decide to take action on the late side, we will get catastrophic climate change (5-7 degrees F by 2100) and over a hundred million people will die (soaring food prices and a loss of farmland affecting hundreds of millions of rural people in the third world may be the worst problems we'll see). However it is comforting to know that at some point the capitalist opposition to solving climate change will break and shatter.
How will capitalism be ruined by climate change? Major cities will flood shutting down business. Insurance will get very expensive. Managing risk will be very difficult. Agricultural corporations will face both massive profits, but also devastating droughts. Massive displacement of people will lead to war and political instability. Increases in the cost of energy, food, and commodities will cause people to buy less (corporations will make profits in the short run, but ultimately scarcity will hurt them). Ultimately a lot of people are going to die and this will decrease markets for consumer products. Social movements will gain power at the expense of corporations. New progressive political parties will win elections and social movements will overthrow so-called (capitalist/corporate) democratic and undemocratic governments alike.
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