The clarity of a consumption crisis
The UK government has named a senior executive from Suncor - one of Canada’s largest, most controversial oil companies - as a ‘Climate Champion’.
I know.
But it’s not the absurd, ‘you couldn’t make it up’ back story that I’m here for.
I’m here for this.
Photo: Ricardo Gomez Angel via Unsplash
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about over-consumption. About why we need to stop framing the climate and biodiversity crises, plastic pollution, deforestation and so on as different problems. Because they’re not separate issues. They’re all symptoms of a single problem: over-consumption.
This Climate Champion story is the perfect illustration of why that matters.
Imagine you’re trying to prevent domestic abuse. In all likelihood you’re going to talk to abusers. You’re going to listen to their views; and try to make sense of why it’s happening in the first place.
But the abuser tells you that the way to stop the violence is for women to stop wearing short skirts or looking at other men.
The abuser’s viewpoint is useful - when it’s put into context by a psychologist; or viewed through the lens of a domestic abuse specialist. But that doesn’t mean the abuser is right.
We don’t give the abuser an equal seat at the table. We don’t view him as a champion, simply because he offered his opinion. His input is filtered, contextualised and deconstructed by an expert. It is the expert’s opinion that matters. It is the expert who is the champion of the victims of abuse.
Having an oil exec as a champion for climate change is akin to having the abuser as a champion of women’s rights.
So when we see an oil giant being lauded as a climate champion, it provokes shock, horror and amazement. It’s Orwellian.
Changing our perspective
But here’s the thing.
What if we look through the lens of over-consumption, rather than climate change?
Our perspective changes, immediately. We realise how very wrong our approach is. It becomes clear that our astonishment is misdirected.
Because we’ve missed what’s been staring us in the face all along.
We realise that ‘big business’, with its raison d’etre of ‘profit’ and ‘growth’, is never going to offer the solution; any more than the oil company or violent partner.
We realise that we shouldn’t be shocked purely by the inclusion of oil giants, fossil fuel funders, coal mining or aviation tech in the list of Canada’s 26 climate change champions.
What about the director of an economic forum - whose job it is to drive consumption - as a champion for our future?
Why are investment specialists, whose job it is to maximise ‘returns’, in the mix?
Why, even, are we celebrating a business that ‘cures’ carbon in the concrete industry - but whose website puts ‘profitability’, ‘growth’ and ‘easy implementation’ as the key drivers for adoption.
Source: https://www.carboncure.com/
Einstein is credited with saying "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them."
When we see the problem through the lens of over-consumption, then the idea that business and industry has a seat at COP26; or the notion that Davos will provide answers; or even the realisation that we look to the likes of Gates, Musk et al for leadership - should fill us with as much incredulity as oil giants as climate champions.
As we look towards COP26, with our new Canadian climate champions, Thunberg’s ‘Our House is on fire’ springs to mind.
When we treat it as an over-consumption problem, it’s clear that we’re not tackling the inferno in the house. We’re watching the flames in the shed. And we’re waiting for the arsonist to put them out.
Jesse Bragg, of campaign group Corporate Accountability, said that any business that promises alignment with the Paris Agreement but still plans to extract fossil fuels into the future “is not a climate champion” but “an obstacle to progress”.
When we apply that logic to the over-consumption problem, it’s clear why our environmental problems seem so hard to solve; why progress seems so slow; and why the ‘solutions’ simply move the problems elsewhere.
Big business - driven by profit and growth - isn’t a consumption champion. It’s an obstacle to progress.
Big business isn’t a consumption champion. It’s an obstacle to progress.
The abuser doesn’t know how to stop domestic violence; big business doesn’t know how to stop over-consumption.
We’re using the same thinking that created the problem. And we’re asking the wrong people.
Reframing our environmental crises as symptoms of a single over-consumption crisis offers clarity.
It enables us to understand why Cop26 is doomed to fail - even if it achieves its aims. It becomes obvious why progress is so slow and so difficult. The consumption lens allows us to see, clearly, that the Cop26 aims are old thinking; the thinking that got us here.
And, crucially, it gives us a meaningful way forward.
The time has come to stop lowering our hemlines and keeping our eyes fixed on the floor. It’s time to hitch our skirts, lift our heads - and stride forwards with confidence, speed and clarity towards a better future.