Tough words here from Elisabeth Robson about the severe danger of a singular focus on carbon emissions, when the crisis we face is much broader than that.
"Why are we not talking about Ecological Overshoot?"
I’m writing this as COP28 is wrapping up in Dubai, UAE. There was a lot of talk about climate change and fossil fuels — mostly whether we will “phase down” or “phase out” our use of fossil fuels — and about so-called “renewables.” The conference ended with a global goal to “triple renewables and double energy efficiency.”
“We acted, we delivered,” claimed COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, as if building more industrial technologies like wind turbines and solar panels and making more energy efficient buildings and cars will somehow restore biosphere integrity, regrow all the old-growth forests, un-pave the wetlands, un-pollute the water, land, and air, and reverse the 1000x-faster-than-normal rate we are exterminating species.
The global focus on climate change, cemented by almost 30 years of UN conferences, has blinded the world to our true predicament — that is, ecological overshoot — of which climate change is just one of many symptoms. Organizations, governments, corporations, the media are all talking about climate change and the supposed “solutions” of renewables and energy efficiency, while essentially ignoring the ongoing destruction of the natural world.
Carbon tunnel vision means other problems get short shrift. And the “solutions” that corporations are selling us in order to meet the goals set by federal and state law will actually make many of the other symptoms of ecological overshoot worse. Far worse.
Everyone’s planning assumes the same — that the economy, population, extraction, development, and consumption will all continue to grow. Indeed, an economy based on debt requires life-as-we-know-it to continue.
But this is simply not possible on a finite planet with finite resources and ecosystems already shattering under pressure. Basic laws of ecology tell us that when a species overshoots the regenerative capacity of its environment, that species will collapse. This is true for humans too.
Corporations have created technologies and industries they can sell to the world as “solutions” to climate change. These “solutions” allow corporations and the governments they influence to believe we can continue with Business As Usual. The pervasive propaganda about these “solutions” allows us regular folk to believe we can continue life-as-we-know-it without having to worry too much because “someone’s doing something about climate change.”
Unlike the “solutions” to climate change that corporations are constantly trying to sell us, there is no profitable technology that will eliminate habitat loss, species extinctions, pollution, and deforestation. And so what we hear from organizations, governments, corporations, and the media is all climate change all the time, because someone’s making money.
