A Faustian Bargain with the Climate Crisis

Debney, Ben
http://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/23/a-faustian-bargain-with-the-climate-crisis
Date Written:  2018-05-23
Publisher:  CounterPunch
Year Published:  2018
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX22619

Take as our inspiration the temptations of capitalist individualism set before us, we make the exact same bargain. The difference in this case however is that we know the disaster is coming; we don't even need to worry about what our spidey senses say, 97% of all climate scientists agree that the capitalist mentality that sees the world as an infinite resource and infinite garbage dump is warming the atmosphere. We have even less excuse.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The irony of course is that, like the passenger on the Titanic assuming that there will be enough lifeboats for everyone, the trust we put in the institutions and the general mentalities associated with global conditions as they currently prevail will be commensurately rewarded. Which is to say that we will be left holding the bag as those who created the problem run headlong in the opposite direction to accepting responsibility for the downward spiral of global society into social and environmental chaos and collapse. Such is the nature of Faustian bargains; if there is no honour amongst thieves, there will certainly be none amongst those who have stolen the future.

But just as in waking up from a nightmare, not least of which being the ones they call the Great American and Great Australian Dreams (George Carlin: there’s a reason they call them that and that's because you have to be asleep to believe it) there is every moment also an opportunity to choose differently. In every moment, we can choose to think soberly and responsibly, to act like growth has limits, to act like workers, women, people rendered the Oriental Other, the flora, fauna and ultimately the Earth itself are more than mere objects only of value as things that can be exploited for profit.
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