A damning wager: why corporations want individuals taking action on climate change
If you visited the Tate last December, you'll have noticed the giant iceblocks out front: their gentle melting a testament to the decidedly un-gentle process of climate change. These resolute bergs, nicked from the Arctic itself, were installed by Olafur Eliasson and Minik Rosing, to raise awareness of the precarity of human life on earth. This “Ice Watch” could melt away just as easily as all our hopes and dreams, if we don't prevent catastrophic, irreversible climactic change, which is what we're still hurtling towards like some vindictive planet-sized Titanic impersonator.
There was something about the frigid blocks that bothered me, though. The installation was sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies, not a dangerous organisation in itself, but one built on the back of high-risk financial speculation and investment banking: economic structures symbolising the very weak points in late capitalism that leave us teetering on the edge of climate disaster. The irony (is that irony?) was palpable, yet unseen, a footnote on the installation signage.
This link between corporations and climate platitudes is everywhere. The other day on the Northern Line, I noticed an advertisement on the Tube for the WWF, urging people to “make a pledge this earth hour”. These pledges included washing at 30 and committing to reduce food waste. The WWF ad assured that every personal pledge would be matched by a £1 donation by Ariel. There it is: another company, this time a vast multinational with inevitably significant air mile overheads, not just backing an environmental cause but telling us to take action as individuals to solve things.
This is despite 100 companies producing 71% of global CO2 emissions and the most significant causes of climate change being outside of individual control. That’s not to say that going vegan or taking a shower or recycling isn’t a valuable act; it’s just not going to be the defining act of climate action, ever.
It's not entirely uncommon to see pundits stressing the importance of entrepreneurship in developing new sustainable technologies: more efficient solar panels, renewable energy complexes, and sustainable or recycled alternatives to old products. But if we look to the history of revolutionary technologies like the mobile phone, it was state research institutions that popularised or organised the future for us – for better or for worse. The role of the individual in climate action is inevitably secondary. We should be realists: gone are the days where a minor change to our current lifestyles could push us within the Paris targets.
This individual inaction is exaggerated by the “hollowing out” of democratic institutions worldwide: circles of apathy, dissociation and disengagement with political goings-on. The crisis of democracy is perpetuated by crises of mental health and community engagement, creating societies where people go to work, return home, and are so reluctant to do anything gruelling that they end up being alienated from politics as a pursuit. It oughtn’t be something that’s relegated to a cadre of politicians; society is built on active consensus, not begrudging passivity.
And yet, we still hide behind the veneer of democracy like it’s the best tool we have, when it so frequently fails us. I have a friend - and I'm sure I'm not the only one - who proudly positions themselves behind social justice causes but refuses to strike or protest, on the basis that they don't see it as productive. I can empathise with this position, but it increasingly seems that our other options are running dry as time escapes us. We've given politicians our word that climate change matters, and it's been shoved onto the end of a sentence in many a manifesto, but the change hasn't come and now we're perilously behind the curve.
Climate change is a uniquely generational issue, so it's underrepresented at the polls; generations who don't lie on the cusp of planetary psuedo-apocalypse needn't put their money where their mouth is, unlike us. Because politicians have constantly low-balled how much they need to do on climate change, the degree to which we need a more forthright shift in how we manage society is ticking up and up. And the problem is self-reinforcing, just like the greenhouse effect: the longer we delay substantive political change, the more radical it has to become, but the more radical a change is, the less buy-in it has with politicians and people alike. For this reason, the only kind of individual action that matters now is the action that takes place in the streets, where we manifest under a collective banner. Getting a multinational corporation to donate £1 on our behalf will never stop climate change for good. The only way to slay the existential beast is with a sincere solution to the existential crisis: to get out in the streets and push for a total revamp of the capitalist system that can not only help resolve the climate crisis but the crises in mental health, social care, and beyond.
Advertising campaign after advertising campaign has told us we need to take individual action to solve climate change. This narrative isn't flawed in itself; recycling and energy-saving are good things to do, regardless of who's telling us to do them: the problem only comes when this personal change is seen as an alternative to large companies and institutions bothering to change themselves. If it's getting to the point of some damning wager - Ariel saying they'll give a quid for every person who washes at 30, for example - something's gone madly wrong. Large companies with shareholders to please will always try and push the burden onto us as stake-less individuals; we should be acting to push the burden back onto them. Even if we don't have shares in these companies, we all have a share in a future where we don't literally die a slow and agonising death. So forget meteorology for a moment: it's our political climate that should change first.
This individual inaction is exaggerated by the “hollowing out” of democratic institutions worldwide: circles of apathy, dissociation and disengagement with political goings-on. The crisis of democracy is perpetuated by crises of mental health and community engagement, creating societies where people go to work, return home, and are so reluctant to do anything gruelling that they end up being alienated from politics as a pursuit. It oughtn’t be something that’s relegated to a cadre of politicians; society is built on active consensus, not begrudging passivity.
And yet, we still hide behind the veneer of democracy like it’s the best tool we have, when it so frequently fails us. I have a friend - and I'm sure I'm not the only one - who proudly positions themselves behind social justice causes but refuses to strike or protest, on the basis that they don't see it as productive. I can empathise with this position, but it increasingly seems that our other options are running dry as time escapes us. We've given politicians our word that climate change matters, and it's been shoved onto the end of a sentence in many a manifesto, but the change hasn't come and now we're perilously behind the curve.
Climate change is a uniquely generational issue, so it's underrepresented at the polls; generations who don't lie on the cusp of planetary psuedo-apocalypse needn't put their money where their mouth is, unlike us. Because politicians have constantly low-balled how much they need to do on climate change, the degree to which we need a more forthright shift in how we manage society is ticking up and up. And the problem is self-reinforcing, just like the greenhouse effect: the longer we delay substantive political change, the more radical it has to become, but the more radical a change is, the less buy-in it has with politicians and people alike. For this reason, the only kind of individual action that matters now is the action that takes place in the streets, where we manifest under a collective banner. Getting a multinational corporation to donate £1 on our behalf will never stop climate change for good. The only way to slay the existential beast is with a sincere solution to the existential crisis: to get out in the streets and push for a total revamp of the capitalist system that can not only help resolve the climate crisis but the crises in mental health, social care, and beyond.
Advertising campaign after advertising campaign has told us we need to take individual action to solve climate change. This narrative isn't flawed in itself; recycling and energy-saving are good things to do, regardless of who's telling us to do them: the problem only comes when this personal change is seen as an alternative to large companies and institutions bothering to change themselves. If it's getting to the point of some damning wager - Ariel saying they'll give a quid for every person who washes at 30, for example - something's gone madly wrong. Large companies with shareholders to please will always try and push the burden onto us as stake-less individuals; we should be acting to push the burden back onto them. Even if we don't have shares in these companies, we all have a share in a future where we don't literally die a slow and agonising death. So forget meteorology for a moment: it's our political climate that should change first.
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