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• 1 2021-04-25T18:57:54-07:00 Week 3, 4 Reading and Research Part 1 — Erin Kasiou 9 plain 2021-04-25T20:12:29-07:00

  The Individualisation of Environmental Responsibility

  My exploration into this concept was inspired by my research into the Capitalocene. Further readings about the Capitalocene can be found here:
  • Jason W. Moore, Anthropocene or Capitalocene? https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unsw/reader.action?docID=4529679
  • https://en.unesco.org/courier/2018-2/view-dominica-anthropocene-capitalocene
  • Wendy Arons, Tragedies of the Capitalocene https://www-degruyter-com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/document/doi/10.1515/jcde-2020-0003/html 
  
  
  
  ​​​​​​I took an environmental activism class, two years ago now, which introduced me to the idea that individuals are not to blame for the current climate crisis. Onus instead falls on the big companies which either participate in or actively fund unsustainable mining, mass deforestation, plastic production, and so on. The above photo captures the deforestation caused by gold mining in the Amazon rainforest. Does this mean, then, that every person who has purchased gold jewellery is to blame for this devastation? Is it our responsibility to boycott gold jewellery altogether, or at least undertake extensive research to ensure the precious metals we purchase are sustainably sourced? Or rather, is the mining company to blame, for tearing trees that are thousands of years old from the ground and disturbing the soil beneath? Are jewellery companies to blame, for not sourcing gold that is sustainable, or recycled? Many of us have heard the former narrative, have been advised to ‘vote with our wallets’. But this diverts the responsibility away from the major entities who are truly responsible for perpetuating the consumerist society we inhabit. Indeed, we are living in the age of the Capitalocene, which Arons (2020) defines as ‘a term that captures the fact that our ecological crises have been precipitated not by humans in some undifferentiated and generalized way, but more specifically by the global spread of capitalism and its socio-economic-ecological injustices.’
  
  
  ‘Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals’ (Lucaks 2017), the title of the article reads, the one from which the above picture is sourced. ‘Stop obsessing over how personally green you live — and start collectively taking on corporate power’ (Lucaks 2017). Indeed, the concept of the Capitalocene is proposed by Moore (2016, p. 3) as an alternative to the Anthropocene, which suggests that ‘the biosphere and geological time has been fundamentally transformed by human activity’ (reference). This, however, poses some inconsistencies. Is all of humanity equally to blame for environmental degradation? Indigenous groups, who lived harmoniously with the land, surely cannot be compared to the colonial farming and industrialisation which transformed it. The ten gigatons of carbon dioxide emitted by China in 2018 must indicate that their actions are more significant than the 0.32 gigatons released by Kazakhstan (Union of Concerned Scientists 2020). And, perhaps most importantly, the one hundred companies responsible for over seventy percent of global greenhouse gas emissions undoubtedly pose more threat than any human life ever could (Riley 2017). Such is the reality of the Capitalocene.
  
  
  Whilst we struggle to make ‘greener’ choices, with the guilt that follows each of our wasteful actions, capitalism as a whole continues to damage the environment. Above is an image of a Lego set which features a Shell petrol tanker. This perhaps functions as a metaphor for the Capitalocene. Lego represents the mass consumption of product, made from unsustainable plastic materials, whilst Shell represents mass destruction; unsustainable mining practices and the use of fossil fuels which contributes to greenhouse gases. Lego ultimately ended the multimillion-dollar partnership with Shell following campaigns against their plans to drill for oil in the Arctic (Vaughan 2014). But is it the individual’s responsibility to boycott purchasing the Lego set, to campaign against it, or is it Lego’s responsibility to avoid endorsing fossil fuels in the first place? To search for more sustainable production materials, with their millions of dollars of profit? To invest in a more sustainable future? The Capitalocene ‘signifies capitalism as a way of organising nature,’ according to Moore (2016, p. 6), and indeed it is companies like Shell and Lego which control the fate of the world around them. Their capacity to insight change is far greater than the individual’s decision to purchase a keep cup, or install Solar panels, as important as these actions still are in the grand scheme of sustainable living. To understand this division of responsibility is to understand the necessity of viewing the world as a Capitalocene rather than an Anthropocene.

  Eco-concept creation

  (Note: my final e-concept is different to the one I develop here)
  
  Eco-concept creation:
  
  Words inspired by my pictures and concept:
  • Capitalism
  • Deforestation
  • Sustainability
  • Onus
  • A word which captures the responsibility to the environment shared by humanity
  • Eco-influence
  • Sustainership: sustainable leadership
  • Preservation
  • Duty
  • Indebtedness
  • Obligation / obliged
  • Liability
  • Beholden 
  • Bound 
  • Endurance
  • Panacea
  • Wherewithal 
  • The capital panacea 
  • Scintilla = very small thing, perhaps a departure from very small actions?
  • Scintillaversion
  The eco-concept I developed from this is scintillaversion. This is a combination of the word ‘scintilla,’ meaning ‘a tiny trace or spark’ and the word ‘aversion,’ meaning ‘a strong disinclination’. I believe it captures the sentiments of the above discussion of the Capitalocene; that we need to divert our attention from the individual, smaller contributions (though still important) towards holding larger corporations and capitalist entities accountable if we are to preserve the planet under the current time pressure. It is essentially a word which encapsulates ‘looking at the bigger picture.’ It follows on from the saying ‘you can’t see the forest for the trees,’ encouraging people to focus on the importance of the bigger contributors to environmental degradation and not get so caught up in their own sustainable ‘swaps’. Perhaps the ‘eco’ aspect of this concept could be made more obvious by using the word as follows:
  • A scintillaversive approach to sustainability
  • Environmental scintillaversion
  
  
  References
  
  Arons, Wendy 2020, ‘Tragedies of the Capitalocene’, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 16–33.
  
  Danjam n.d., 671 Shell Tanker, scanned image, accessed 19 April 2021, <https://brickipedia.fandom.com/wiki/671_Shell_Tanker>
  
  Ghazzal A 2015, A waste management company named Dirty Harry uses a poster of Lord Kitchener to urge the public to recycle, digital photograph, Alamy, accessed 19 April 2020, <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals> 
  
  Lucaks, M 2017, 'Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals', The Guardian, 18 July, accessed 19 April 2021, <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals>
  
  Parenti, C, Crist, EC, McBrien, J, Haraway, DJ, Altvater, E, Hartley, D & Moore, JW 2016, Anthropocene or capitalocene? : nature, history, and the crisis of capitalism, PM Press, Oakland, CA.
  
  Riley, T 2017, 'Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says', The Guardian, 10 July, accessed 19 April 2021, <https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change>
  
  Sleu E n.d., Suriname General in Park, digital photograph, WWF, accessed 19 April 2021, <https://wwf.panda.org/?237054/41--of-Amazon-deforestation-caused-by-gold-mining-between-2001-an...>
  
  Union of Concerned Scientists 2020, Each Country's Share of CO2 Emissions, accessed 19 April 2021, <https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emissions>
  
  Vaughan, A 2014, 'Lego ends Shell partnership following Greenpeace campaign', The Guardian, 9 October, accessed 19 April 2021, <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/09/lego-ends-shell-partnership-following-greenpeace-campaign>