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diff --git a/chapter1.md b/chapter1.md index b76ff3f..6ce717d 100644 --- a/chapter1.md +++ b/chapter1.md @@ -76,22 +76,49 @@ contributing more than my fair share to the mayhem. But if we all play our part, by following simple tips to change how we choose to consume goods and services, together we'll make a big difference. I just need to do my bit. -\[TODO: Naomi Klein? Matt Huber?\] - By calling on people to reduce their 'carbon footprint,' the rhetor suggests that global carbon dioxide emissions are determined by the aggregation of every -individual's consumption choices. However, this analysis ignores the fact that -individual consumption is usually highly constrained. In an ideal world, for -example, you might like to take public transport rather than drive, but that -might not be an option if you live in a rural area with no bus routes, or if -your local railway infrastructure is too unreliable to get you to work on time. -In an ideal world, you might like to buy lots of sustainably-produced fresh -fruit and vegetables, but tough luck if you live in a food desert. In an ideal -world, you might like to insulate your home, but there's small chance of -financing that when you've already got debts: so you carry on burning excessive -heating gas month on month.[^1] - -[1]: See @{climate-change-class-war} for more on this argument. +individual's consumption choices, plus a bit extra for whatever can't be +directly linked to consumption. This analysis acknowledges inequality, but only +insofar as people have unequal spending power. + +Thus Oxfam, in a report released in the midst of their lobbying at the 2015 +Paris COP, stated that 'individual consumption is responsible for 64% of global +emissions, with the remaining 36% attributed to consumption by governments, +investments (e.g. in infrastructure) and international transport,' before +showing that the the poorest half of the world's people only account for 10% of +the world's 'lifestyle emissions.' [@oxfam-extreme-carbon-inequality] + +However, this analysis downplays the degree to which consumption is constrained +by production decisions over which most people have no control. As Matthew Huber +puts it: + +> Carbon footprint analysis is more deeply rooted in neoclassical economics with +> its particular theory of power in the economy known as "consumer sovereignty." +> Essentially, it assumes consumers drive the economy and production with their +> choices. \[…\] Since consumers have the power to drive production decisions, +> so the analysis goes, we must focus on shaping consumer choices. This is the +> only conceivable rationale for suggesting, as the Oxfam report does, that +> individuals have their own distinct "share" of emissions. +> [@climate-change-class-war, pp. 12-13] + +But in reality, consumers are often at the mercy of production decisions. To +borrow Huber's illustration, the villain of the 'carbon footprint' narrative is +a rich consumer, say, someone who has the AC on all day in their spacious +suburban house and drives a over-sized diesel SUV to work. But imagine that +hypothetical rich consumer works in the manager's office of a fertiliser plant, +where one day he is presented with the option of sourcing low-carbon hydrogen +from electrolysis of water instead of extracting the hydrogen from coal. He +decides that the low-carbon alternative is too expensive and will make his +factory uncompetitive, so sticks with the coal. The carbon emissions of the +factory, which might be equivalent to 100,000 American consumers, are not +attributed to the manager of the factory, but to the 'carbon footprint' of the +thousands of consumers eating the food produced at the ultimate end of the +process, even though they are unlikely to have any power or even knowledge over +the manager's decisions. 'This person spends eight hours a day managing this +industrial capitalist enterprise and only perhaps forty minutes commuting to +work—so why do we only pay attention to the latter?' [@climate-change-class-war, +p. 16] Because they have mis-diagnosed the root causes of the problem, they too often go on to propose incredible solutions. The worst is simply to cut consumption. |