New paper claims unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster

Record heat, record emissions, record fossil fuel consumption. One month out from Cop28, the world is further than ever from reaching its collective climate goals. At the root of all these problems, according to recent research, is the human “behavioural crisis”, a term coined by an interdisciplinary team of scientists.

  • floofloofEnglish
    33·
    10 months ago

    The team calls for more interdisciplinary research into what they have dubbed the “human behavioural crisis” and concerted efforts to redefine our social norms and desires that are driving overconsumption. When asked about the ethics of such a campaign, Merz and Barnard point out that corporations fight for consumers’ attention every second of every day.

    “Is it ethical to exploit our psychology to benefit an economic system destroying the planet?” asks Barnard. “Creativity and innovation are driving overconsumption. The system is driving us to suicide. It’s conquest, entitlement, misogyny, arrogance and it comes in a fetid package driving us to the abyss.”

    The problem is capitalism and the individualism and consumerism it encourages. There’s already plenty of analysis of the problems of capitalism and the difficulties of moving past it. Maybe these interdisciplinary studies would help, but in the end the problem is not so much a lack of understanding of the problem, but that the ruling classes under capitalism will use all means available to obstruct what everyone with open eyes knows needs to be done.

    • FaceDeer@kbin.social
      12·
      10 months ago

      Yeah, clearly the problem is capitalism. Non-capitalist countries never despoil the environment with massive projects aimed at industrialization, divert rivers for ill-conceived agricultural development, run decrepit nuclear reactors until they melt down while covering the disaster up, and so forth.