{"id":66035,"date":"2023-10-25T07:04:12","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T12:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66035"},"modified":"2023-10-25T07:04:12","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T12:04:12","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-xxv-more-greenwashing-sustainable-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66035","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXV–More Greenwashing: ‘Sustainable’ Development"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXV<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Tulum, Mexico (1986) Photo by\u00a0author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More Greenwashing: \u2018Sustainable\u2019 Development<\/strong><\/p>\n

This contemplation was prompted by an article<\/a> regarding an \u2018independent\u2019 think tank\u2019s report that presented the argument that government funding of the oil and gas industry needed to be shifted towards \u2018green\/clean\u2019 alternatives. I\u2019ve included a few hyperlinks to sites that expand upon the concepts\/issues discussed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Context, it\u2019s always important. This \u2018independent\u2019 think tank, the International Institute for Sustainable Development<\/a>, is part and parcel of the corporate\/business \u2018greenwashing<\/a>\u2019 of our world and \u2018solutions\u2019 to its various dilemmas. It\u2019s primary mission is \u2018sustainable\u2019 development\/growth, a gargantuan oxymoron on a finite planet. Infinite growth. Finite planet<\/a>. What could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n

In fact, the perpetuation of this continued pursuit of perpetual growth is seen quite clearly in the absence of any discussion about curtailing our growth but rather finding ways to \u2018sustain\u2019 it, and the misuse of language (that has become endemic in the environmental movement) and the simplified \u2018solution\u2019 offered by arguing that government funds need to be directed away from the climate change-causing oil and gas industry and towards the \u2018clean\u2019 energy alternatives of \u2018renewables\u2019.<\/p>\n

Left out of this discussion to shift funds to what the think tank argues is more \u2018sustainable\u2019 (and one has to wonder how much funding is derived for the think tank\u2019s activities from individuals and businesses seeking to profit from increased funding for widespread adoption of alternative energy) is the increasing evidence that \u2018green\u2019 alternatives to fossil fuels are neither \u2018green\u2019 (because of their ongoing dependence on fossil fuels and environmentally-destructive upstream industrial processes and downstream waste disposal issues) nor actually \u2018renewable\u2019 (because of their ongoing dependence upon finite resources, especially fossil fuels and rare-earth minerals). These are, of course, quite inconvenient facts regarding all energy sources: they are ecologically destructive and depend upon finite resources. The only source that is truly \u2018renewable\u2019 is biomass but it would be required in such massive quantities for our current world population and global complexities that it must be considered finite and environmentally problematic.<\/p>\n

Nowhere is the non-mainstream idea of degrowth<\/a> proposed. Instead, we are led to believe that business as usual (continued growth) is entirely feasible and infinitely sustainable by adjusting where our resources in terms of money and labour are directed: away from the oil and gas industry and towards energy alternatives. Devastating climate change will then be averted (as well as all the other negative consequences of exploiting and using fossil fuels) and life can continue uninterrupted as we all live happily ever after.<\/p>\n

Until and unless we confront the very idea of continued growth and, in almost all cases, reverse this trend there is zero chance of us stopping, let alone mitigating, the various existential dilemmas we have created as a consequence of our expansion and its concomitant exploitation of finite resources. I believe it\u2019s fair to argue we have significantly overshot the planet\u2019s natural environmental carrying capacity, have blown past several important biophysical limits that exist on a finite planet, and have just the collapse that always accompanies such situations to experience in the future.<\/p>\n

Many will continue to deny this predicament we find ourselves in. They will firmly believe in the comforting and cognitive dissonance-reducing narratives that individuals and groups, like the International Institute for Sustainable Development, are leveraging to direct resources to particular industries. This is quite normal for anyone beginning to grieve a significant loss which is what we are facing: the imminent demise of our globalised, industrial world and its many complexities and conveniences. We (particularly those in so-called \u2018advanced\u2019 economies that consume the vast majority of finite resources and rely upon the exploitative industries that leverage these resources to create the many conveniences to feed and house us) would rather believe in fantasies, myths, and fairy tales<\/a> than recognise and confront the impending challenges of a life without most (all?) of our complex and energy-intensive tools.<\/p>\n

Life without these conveniences is fast approaching it would appear. We have encountered diminishing returns on our investments in such complexities. We have soiled vast regions of our planet with the waste products of our expansion and exploitive endeavours. We have very likely reached a peak in global complexity<\/a> and will begin our reversion to the norm of much more simplified ways.<\/p>\n

Some of the negative consequences of our expansion and increasing complexity have been acknowledged. Instead of slowing our march towards the cliff ahead, however, the vast majority (all?) of our \u2018ruling class\u2019 (whose primary motivation, I would argue, is the control and expansion of the wealth-generating systems that provide their revenue streams), as they so often (always?) do is leverage the increasingly obvious crises to enrich themselves. They use narrative control<\/a> mechanisms (particularly their influence over the mainstream media and governments) to craft stories extolling solutions and salvation that not only preserve their revenue streams but expand them in a kind of final blow off top of resource extraction and use; ignoring, of course, the environmental fallout of this.<\/p>\n

The more obvious \u2018solution\u2019 of reversing the growth imperative is avoided at all costs. Marketing \u2018sustainable\u2019 growth via \u2018green\/clean\u2019 energy alternatives is preferred. Humanity cannot only have its cake and eat it, but it can do so in a vastly improved world of technological wizardry and infinite improvements. Ignore that pesky fact about living on a finite planet over there, it\u2019s a distraction from our ingenuity and creativity. Do not raise skepticism<\/a> about our ability to overcome challenges. Life is much more happily viewed from inside the Matrix<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXV Tulum, Mexico (1986) Photo by\u00a0author More Greenwashing: \u2018Sustainable\u2019 Development This contemplation was prompted by an article regarding an \u2018independent\u2019 think tank\u2019s report that presented the argument that government funding of the oil and gas industry needed to be shifted towards \u2018green\/clean\u2019 alternatives. I\u2019ve included a few hyperlinks to sites that […]<\/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":[2,3,4,5,6,7],"tags":[1499,27351,2675,150,30371,2327,1647,1406,2328,31469,15442,7943,5833,769,30370,33947],"class_list":["post-66035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-carrying-capacity","tag-clean-energy-2","tag-cognitive-dissonance","tag-collapse","tag-collapse-cometh","tag-finite-planet","tag-finite-resources","tag-green-energy","tag-infinite-growth","tag-predicaments","tag-renewables","tag-solutions","tag-steve-bull","tag-sustainability","tag-todays-contemplation","tag-todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66035","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=66035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66036,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66035\/revisions\/66036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}