{"id":36368,"date":"2018-08-04T09:47:19","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T14:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36368"},"modified":"2018-08-04T09:47:19","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T14:47:19","slug":"capitalism-killed-our-climate-momentum-not-human-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36368","title":{"rendered":"Capitalism Killed Our Climate Momentum, Not \u201cHuman Nature\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Capitalism Killed Our Climate Momentum, Not \u201cHuman Nature\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The skyline of Manhattan at sunset in New York, May 23, 2018.<\/p>\n

Photo: Saul Loeb\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

THIS SUNDAY, THE<\/u> entire New York Times Magazine will be composed of just one article<\/a> on a single subject: the failure to confront the global climate crisis in the 1980s, a time when the science was settled and the politics seemed to align. Written by Nathaniel Rich, this work of history is filled with insider revelations about roads not taken that, on several occasions, made me swear out loud. And lest there be any doubt that the implications of these decisions will be etched in geologic time, Rich\u2019s words are punctuated with full-page aerial photographs by George Steinmetz that wrenchingly document the rapid unraveling of planetary systems, from the rushing water where Greenland ice used to be to massive algae blooms in China\u2019s third largest lake.The novella-length piece represents the kind of media commitment that the climate crisis has long deserved but almost never received. We have all heard the various excuses for why the small matter of despoiling our only home just doesn\u2019t cut it as an urgent news story: \u201cClimate change is too far off in the future\u201d; \u201cIt\u2019s inappropriate to talk about politics when people are losing their lives to hurricanes and fires\u201d; \u201cJournalists follow the news, they don\u2019t make it \u2014 and politicians aren\u2019t talking about climate change\u201d; and of course: \u201cEvery time we try, it\u2019s a ratings killer.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of the excuses can mask the dereliction of duty. It has always been possible for major media outlets to decide, all on their own, that planetary destabilization is a huge news story, very likely the most consequential of our time. They always had the capacity to harness the skills of their reporters and photographers to connect abstract science to lived extreme weather events.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Capitalism Killed Our Climate Momentum, Not \u201cHuman Nature\u201d The skyline of Manhattan at sunset in New York, May 23, 2018. Photo: Saul Loeb\/AFP\/Getty Images THIS SUNDAY, THE entire New York Times Magazine will be composed of just one article on a single subject: the failure to confront the global climate crisis in the 1980s, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[111,140,141,21076,1209,1228,21075,21074,5567],"class_list":["post-36368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","tag-capitalism","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-george-steinmetz","tag-human-nature","tag-naomi-klein","tag-nathanial-rich","tag-new-york-times-magazine","tag-the-intercept"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36369,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36368\/revisions\/36369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}