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Climate change is changing everything and time is not on our side

Today, carbon dioxide molecules make up approximately 400 parts per million. This notorious greenhouse gas is one of the most significant contributors to climate change. Merely 160 years ago, carbon dioxide molecules made up just 250 parts per million. The safe level to sustain life as we know it cannot exceed 350 parts per million. Going past this point will change all life on earth – it is changing all life on earth.

To make matters worse, the average global temperature is rising all around. This does not mean that we need to lower the temperature of the AC and carry on with business as usual. At our current rate of emissions, we are headed well past a two-degree rise in global temperatures this century. For those born this year, this could be within their lifespan.

Droughts and floods, mass extinction of species and a rise of pests, coral bleaching and acid rain, deforestation and desertification, hurricanes and tornadoes, rapidly shrinking ice caps and rising sea levels… the list goes on and on. We know that climate crisis is causing catastrophic detriment to the biosphere. And the burden of reversing these effects, if this is even possible, is left to this generation – a generation globally faced with a great recession, austerity and war, alongside other impediments that previous generations faced, including poverty, poor access to basic human needs, income disparity and so on. In the current state of affairs, it is unreasonable to demand that humans focus all their energy on tackling the climate crisis when they are also encumbered by social-economic crises. But actually, could the two be related? Naomi Klein says they have one common root: Capitalism.

If you are familiar with Naomi Klein, the best-selling author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine, you would have heard the title of her new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate. “This Changes Everything” is a sweepingly bold and somewhat vague declaration. It was also the name of a conference that took place at Friends House in London last month. But what changes everything, and what does “everything” really mean?

The recent conference was a product of a loose network of activists, including myself, who were inspired by the message of the book and wished to bring young, socially-engaged people together in a mass anti-capitalist movement. Klein, herself, asserted the need for such a gathering: “I know that books don’t change the world – social movements change the world… The fact that this has been a self-organised event… is basically the best thing that has happened to me in my writing life.” Klein has previously said, “Climate change is a civilisational wakeup-call. A powerful message, spoken in the language of fires, floods, droughts and extinctions, telling us that we need an entirely new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet.”

Economics editor of Channel 4 News, Paul Mason, also contributed to the conference, explaining the social challenges we are dealing with: “There is a feeling of paralysis or fatalism. And my generation who failed by pursuing a particular model of activism and social change at least had one thing – we did things. We didn’t stand around supposedly brilliant authors and thinkers. In the end, we said, ‘Screw them. Let’s do our own thing.’”

Mason also believes, perhaps optimistically, that capitalism is dying because it is now failing to do what it has done three or four times previously in its 200 year history: “to use new technology to create higher-value jobs, higher-waged jobs and a higher standard of living for everybody.” He suggested that the replacement would be an environmentally and socially sustainable system, not an economic one.

Francesca Martinez also took the floor in the conclusion to highlight the plague of consumerism: “We have to challenge the toxic ideas being spread – greed, individualism, self – because they are literally killing the planet and creating mass suffering.”

It has been a good year for climate activists. On Saturday 7 March 2015, an estimated number of more than 20,000 people headed towards parliament as part of the Time to Act march. The purpose of the demonstration was to challenge politicians, just two months before the general election, and seven months before the United Nations climate change conference in Paris, to put climate change on their agenda and be bold with their demands. It is clear that something must be done – not just by individuals locally, but nationally and globally too. We must all come together. Whether or not capitalism is the real issue behind these various crises can continue to be debated. In the meantime, there are many ways in which people can get involved in reversing the climate crisis and demanding social and economic justice. With your participation, perhaps our generation really can meet the crucial challenge that has been set.

Other participants of the “This Changes Everything” conference (#TCEUK) on Saturday 28 March 2015 included Natalie Bennett, Russell Brand, Nnimmo Bassey, Kate Raworth, Kate Pickett, Raoul Martinez, Asad Rehman, John Broderick, Mark Serwotka, John Hilary and Neil Faulkner. A special thanks to Daniel Macmillen, Marienna Pope-Weidemann, Caitlin Walsh and everyone else for organising the event. For more information please see http://www.thischangeseverything.co/ and http://www.timetoact2015.org/.

Image from: http://c8.alamy.com/comp/BGRX6A/protest-against-capitalism-in-trafalgar-square-london-england-britain-BGRX6A.jpg