My Carbon Emissions Could Beat Up Your Carbon Emissions.

(This infographic can be found here)

*See below for comment.

Although the developed world often blames the developing world for environmental degradation, the picture becomes less clear when we ask who in fact the exploitation of the environment is benefiting. Articles and viewpoints such as this one from the libertarian CATO institute seem to think that market processes and the allocation and distribution of goods are inevitable. Indeed he posits that the Third World is more concerned with "following every trendy environmental fad that crosses their path than in promoting the economic freedoms and private property rights necessary to facilitate economic growth". As Ariel Salleh makes clear, this kind of dialogue completely misses the point that the ethos of "economic growth" largely glosses over differences between races, classes, genders and places in assuming that private property is an available and/or desirable ends for which to strive. For is it not private property and global capitalism that drives the kind of materialism making unsustainable production in the global South necessary?

Speaking of materialism: the CATO institute article, as well as Salleh both hint at the idea that post materialism (or affluence) are key to ecological consciousness, although both take complete opposite sides. The point in itself is an interesting one though, and one side is widely shared by many first world women, men, feminists, and otherwise: That the First World is more Eco-conscious that the Third.

It is this logic that would allow political solutions -global programs, international agreements- to presume having the answers (or at least the authority to draft "solutions") without input from those dealing with the environment everyday: namely the meta-industrial labour force around the world. Diplomatic remedies to practical realities negate the expertise inherent those who perform sustainability everyday, not to mention those who are face to face with climate change in a way that those of us separated from natural processes by technology cannot imagine.

All this to say that productivist/conventional economics like those espoused in the CATO article, as well as by self-righteous politicians making "agreements", "accords" and "directives" (no matter how well intentioned) are also reductionist. The logic seeks to perpetuate the American-Dream while chastising it's implementation, to keep the focus of economics squarely on exploitable resources and to not pay for regenerative ones which are seen as "givens", and to leave the invisible hand holding the bag when neo-liberal policies turn out to be detrimental to whole populations.

But the market does make choices of allocation and distribution on it's own, nor does it value or devalue reproductive work. It is us, the people of this world, who make these choices. It is time that each country, big or small, developed or developing, takes responsibility for it's role in climate change and social justice and start to not only re-frame the questions, but to include more actors in the solutions.

-E.

Works Cited:

Salleh, Ariel. "Ecological Debt : Embodied Debt". Eco-Sufficiency & Global Justice: Women write political ecology. Ed. Ariel Salleh, 2009. New York: Pluto Press.

Salleh, Ariel. "From Eco-Sufficiency to Global Justice".Eco-Sufficiency & Global Justice: Women write political ecology. Ed. Ariel Salleh, 2009. New York: Pluto Press.


*The infographic is a good example of how the framing of the question can distort the answer. Who is the biggest emitter of CO2? Does it matter if we all contribute to a narrative where nothing substantial is done about it anyways?