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Recently I've been thinking about what causes and perpetuates the climate crisis. How it's not just pressures and circumstances imposed from above (by capital and governments), but also how our day-to-day practices reinforce this state of affairs. This was prompted by some recent (and not so recent) posts by @pvonhellermannn and @urlyman as well as me re-reading Pauline's paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2023.1237076/full and exploring philosophy of Michel Foucault. 1/8 7 comments
Climate Adam made a tutorial on how to talk about climate change in a productive way: https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=aCZcphy4EkU There's obviously a lot of cultural hoops to jump through there. 3/8 When someone tells you about their vacation it would be rude to point out they shouldn't have gone by a plane. When they show you their photos from a cruise it would be rude to suggest vacation close by instead. When a friend shows you their new clothes you say they look good, and not "what was wrong with the old ones?" When a child shows you their new plastic toy you say "what a cool toy" instead of "a wooden one would be better". 4/8 At work we want to look professional, so old or patched clothes are out of the question. It may be good manners to bring small gifts for your sister's children when visiting, or to buy them ice-cream when on a beach side walk. Recommending the newest movie is the most natural thing. All perfectly normal acts of kindness. And yet, they inadvertently reinforce consumerism. Similarly, our ideas about cleanliness, reliability, freedom of choice, etc. mirror and strengthen the status quo. 5/8 Interpersonally there may not be much difference between "look what I repaired" and "look what I bought", but ecologically there is a world of difference. Solving ecological overshoot would require for our cultures to bridge that gap between interpersonal and ecological. In fact, all spheres of life would need to take on an ecological dimension. 6/8 The power of fossil fuels manifests not just in disinformation campaigns and political meddling of Big Oil, but are also embedded in our everyday social practices. We are compelled to participate in a fossil way of life not just by marketing, but also by our customs, habits, our ideas of what is proper and kind and just. These often align with a strictly anthropocentric perspective, valuing human comfort and societal stability over wider ecological considerations. 7/8 A way forward is not just a matter of replacing fossil fuels with renewables. An effective climate action would mean a great cultural upheaval, breaking of many taboos, dismantling everyday practices and abandoning old habits. In other words, a culture capable of solving the climate crisis would likely be unrecognizable and alien to our prevailing modern sensibilities. 8/8 |
Gregory's Server
In particular, I am thinking about how, by even just mentioning climate change, let alone advocating for climate action, we are often going against deeply ingrained social conventions. Breaking taboos, being "insensitive", "a bore", "virtue signaling", etc.
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