One message I tried to bring across to my students in this week's class on climate is that we cannot avoid catastrophe with a narrow focus on consumption and behavioral change. We need a commitment to systemic transformation in production, energy and transportation systems.
It's quite worrying to see, though, how neoliberal elites and fossil fuel companies have—with the aid of mainstream elements in the environmental movement—succeeded in equating action on climate change with *individual* behavioral change: flying less, consuming differently, etc.
I felt like it was difficult for many students to imagine what broader systemic transformation would look like—or what it would require in terms of social mobilization and state action. Through no fault of their own, of course. This is simply what cultural hegemony looks like.
We urgently need to break out of this political horizon that seeks to reduce all action on climate change to a set of ethical prerogatives and personal responsibilities. We need to hold fossil fuel companies accountable. We need a Green Industrial Revolution—and a whole lot more.
Which is why I honestly believe that the single most important political development of recent years has been the mainstreaming of the idea of a Green New Deal or Green Industrial Revolution. Not because this is perfect, but because it helps us expand that political horizon...
... and refocus attention on the relationship between the means of production and circulation, on the one hand, and the ecological crisis on the other. Without wholesale change in the way we produce and transport goods (and people), there's little hope of averting catastrophe.
