Major shifts in consumption that have been successful include the removal of lead from petrol, the banning of CFCs in aerosols, the regulation of the use of DDT and other super toxic pesticides, labelling of foods to show use by dates, added chemicals, flavours and preservatives and reducing rates of smoking while raising the acceptance that smoking greatly increases the risk of certain cancers.
What do all of these have in common?
Well for starters, they all had the backing of the scientific community as being very important for the long term health of people and the environment in which we have to live. Links were made, the science developed, was peer reviewed and accepted as more likely than not and acted on.
Next, none of these changes really impacted on big oil, coal mining or the notion that economic growth should be the driving imperative of every single person on the planet.
The problem now is that the latest scientifically backed peer-reviewed actions that need to happen to improve the lot of us all into the future are aimed squarely at the really big players in the world markets – big oil and mining – and they don’t like it. It is also the case that many people are finally starting to question the economic growth model that is fucking up every little nook and cranny on the planet and the high priests of endless growth really don’t like that!
In the same way that the makers of the carcinogenic pesticides that were destroying the farmland they were applied to for decades to come fought the science with everything they could muster (look at some of the outrageous claims made against Rachel Carson after her book Silent Spring suggested the need for urgent investigation into the dangers of certain pesticides), and big tobacco questioned the links between tobacco smoking and cancer right up to the bitter end, the big mining interests here and abroad will fund the pseudo-science of denial in relation to anthropogenic climate change and will fight tooth and nail to maintain the status quo for as long as they can.
You see, the difference now is that the fight is not about taking the lead out of petrol, or listing additives in food so as to increase consumer choices, or taking a cautious approach to pesticide use. These things, and the other successful campaigns above, did not attempt to shut an industry down. They simply put further restrictions or requirements into play that let the industry keep on keeping on while accepting that the science was highlighting health concerns and regulators were adjusting the playing field accordingly.
Petrol producers could keep producing petrol, just not leaded petrol. Big oil keeps going, everyone is happy. Chemical producers could keep operating as successfully as ever, but not in regards to wanton manufacture and use of DDT and food manufacturers could keep adding whatever they want within reason to their product, just list it so consumers can decide if they want to purchase it or not.
The same could be said of the current explosion in free-range and organic as consumer choices. No one is shutting anything down, chickens and cows, pigs and grains and fruit and vegetables all keep on keeping on, the mining industry (including big oil) keeps providing the raw material for the power, the transport, the fertilizers and the feed, the storage and the physical infrastructure and everyone is happy. All hail the false economy.
But this time it is different. This time it is about taking the blow torch to mining and oil, as the two biggest producers of carbon, and hence the two of the biggest producers of inputs into anthropogenic climate change. Like with DDT and tobacco, the industry denies and questions way past the acceptance of the science by the vast majority of actual real life dyed in the wool experts on the subject, and funds campaigns and lobbies and creates doubt where there doesn’t really seem to be any anymore.
But it isn’t just oil and coal and mining. The big issue, the real elephant in the room is the current economic model that puts growth way ahead of everything else. It drives the mining and resources booms across the globe. It drives the manufacture of totally pointless crap from non-renewable resources, it drives the production of bigger and bigger houses and stuff to fill them and power to heat and cool them, it drives environmental degradation, it drives ever increasing rates of ‘western’ diseases (like cancer, mental illness, heart disease, hypertension and obesity) it drives consumption generally and it is driving our little rock and everything that clings to its very thin and vulnerable surface into a ditch.
Meanwhile, governments across the globe will avoid the elephant in the room of economic growth equals J-curve suicide, and carry on with business as usual until Paul Gilding’s Great Disruption has the people on the streets belatedly demanding that ‘someone’ do ‘something’. But here’s the rub, we are the ‘someone’, and until there is a critical mass large enough to force a change, the ‘something’ that we all know has to happen will, like the elephant in the room, continue to hide until it is way too late.
So, maybe ‘someone’ (like you) needs to do ‘something’ (like right now) like write a letter to your local member, local newspaper or relevant federal minister. Give it a go, because if enough someones actually do something, it adds up to the change that is so undeniably necessary.
