Hey all! This week we’re doing a classic news update segment with some cool/interesting/important sustainable updates that I’ve come across that I thought you might all enjoy too.
THOUGHTS ON AI
Why AI Won’t Save Us from the Climate Crisis
Naomi Klein is one of my favourite thinkers and her books “No Logo” and “This Changes Everything” have been foundational for my understanding of branding, capitalism, and climate. AI has naturally been a trending topic over the last few months with some questionable claims around whether or not it’s sentient.
Naomi Klein is here to put your fears at rest with her latest article “AI machines aren’t ‘hallucinating’. But their makers are.” In it, she makes the compelling case that AI really isn’t all it’s hopped up to be. And why it certainly won’t save us from the climate crisis, nor help artists.
We live under capitalism, and under that system, the effects of flooding the market with technologies that can plausibly perform the economic tasks of countless working people is not that those people are suddenly free to become philosophers and artists. It means that those people will find themselves staring into the abyss – with actual artists among the first to fall.
The article nicely summarizes how capitalism, greed, and ignorance are all playing into the tech giant’s hallucinations that AI will “liberate” humanity.
ECONOMICS
Should Species Be Assigned Monetary Value? The Problem with Green Capitalism
So, apparently a large whale is worth approximately $2 million dollars according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In an ideal world, people would care about whales for the sake of the animals themselves—but in the real world, that's not always the case. To reach money-minded policymakers, economists at the International Monetary Fund analyzed how much the average great whale is worth, National Geographic reports this week. After accounting for the economic benefits whales provide to industries such as ecotourism—and how much carbon they remove from the atmosphere by "sinking" it in their carbon-dense bodies—the researchers estimate that one great whale is worth about $2 million over the course of its life, they report in the trade publication Finance & Development. That means that, after counting up the world's hundreds of thousands of great whales, the global population is worth about $1 trillion—though some say it's priceless. -Science Magazine
What does this mean for our future if there has to be an economic reason to value a single species? What about the species whose values as “carbon sinks” or “tourist attractions” aren’t so high? How do we define ourselves in relation to the value and intrinsic benefits of nature?
It honestly makes me a little queasy to see whales valued in their death as whalefall to the bottom of the ocean as a carbon sink and the tourism/fishing industry. They have important value to ecosystem functionality and are deeply intelligent and emotional mammals.
Adrienne Buller has been thinking on this for a while, and has even written a book on the pitfalls of Green Capitalism, entitled “The Value of a Whale: On The Illusions of Green Capitalism”. The book’s summary reads as follows:
Public understanding of, and outcry over, the dire state of the climate and environment is greater than ever before. Parties across the political spectrum claim to be climate leaders, and overt denial is on the way out. Yet when it comes to slowing the course of the climate and nature crises, despite a growing number of pledges, policies and summits, little ever seems to change. Nature is being destroyed at an unprecedented rate. We remain on course for a catastrophic 3 Degrees C of warming. What's holding us back?
In this searing and insightful critique, Adrienne Buller examines the fatal biases that have shaped the response of our governing institutions to climate and environmental breakdown, and asks: are the 'solutions' being proposed really solutions? Tracing the intricate connections between financial power, economic injustice and ecological crisis, she exposes the myopic economism and market-centric thinking presently undermining a future where all life can flourish. The book examines what is wrong with mainstream climate and environmental governance, from carbon pricing and offset markets to 'green growth', the commodification of nature and the growing influence of the finance industry on environmental policy. In doing so, it exposes the self-defeating logic of a response to these challenges based on creating new opportunities for profit, and a refusal to grapple with the inequalities and injustices that have created them. Both honest and optimistic, The Value of a Whale asks us - in the face of crisis - what we really value.
She did an interview with Current Affairs that talks about her book and I want to pull a couple key quotes that I think really articulate some of the reasons why green capitalism is a dangerous construct.
“We can only apply price to something that we know how to quantify. A whale is really tough to quantify. Do we care about them intrinsically? What is their value beyond that which serves the human economy? Exactly as you suggest, this calculation completely excludes anything that might be intrinsically or socially or culturally valuable. But also, from an ecological perspective, it’s complete nonsense.
If you extract out of an ecosystem just those select elements which we decide are important to the human economy, then you ignore the fact that ecosystems are incredibly complex, cohesive wholes, and you can’t just select out little items that you find economically valuable and still maintain a consistent and thriving ecology. And that is a huge problem with this approach.
But this isn’t something that’s happening on the fringes with some nerds at the International Monetary Fund running some equations in their spreadsheet. It is becoming an increasingly popular way for policymakers and the private sector to think about this issue.” -Buller via Current Affairs
The monetary value of climate and the externalities that can be caused to the environment without a second thought in the pursuits of profit also intersects with how carbon credits are used.
“One of the central problems with what you call ‘green capitalism’ is that it tries to find solutions to the climate crisis that do not violate certain assumptions. One assumption is that we cannot disrupt the economic status quo in certain ways. So if you aren’t allowed to do even minimal disruption to business as usual, then you will get to things like carbon offsetting.
You talk about how all of the fossil fuel company websites mention how seriously they take the problem of climate change. They say things like, Well, we’re going net zero. So, you’re not going to be a fossil fuel company anymore? And then, as you point out, it turns out a lot of it is based on offsetting, this idea that you can do the same thing you were already doing as long as you agree to pay a penance fee, an indulgence for your sins.” - Nathan J. Robinson via Current Affairs interview with Buller
To truly confront climate crisis, we’re going to have to confront capitalism and understand that we can’t economize or buy our way out of the crisis we’re in. There’s no cutesy form of capitalism that is somehow the saving grace that will keep status quo and avoid the whole world. Putting a monetary value on whales won’t stop ocean acidification, the mass extinction crisis, nor the overfishing of krill that whales depend on.
To read the full interview:
FUTURE WORLD
Alas! Neither Space Nor Bunkers Will Save our Billionaires! (very sad, truly)
To bring a bit of fun into the last couple Substacks, this video made me chuckle. She’s making fun of the actual bunkers that billionaires can commission on their land for the end of the world. I’m sure that it’ll be a real cozy couple months before some part to their pool or their theatre breaks and they can’t get it anymore in apocalypse times. But it’s SO important to have a bunker to save their “toys, cars, arts, and wine!!!!”. It made me laugh a bit, in a dark satire type of way.
If you want a little bit more of a serious take on how the ultra-wealthy view their futures, consider checking out this vaguely disturbing look into "The Bezos Future" ie. Jeff Bezos' world plan. Weird sh*t. Or this Guardian article on “The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse” (after they destroy it, of course). This is mentioned in the video to, but if you want to just skip to the more serious article, there it is!
NGL, a bunker for heat events sounds kinda nice though :(
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Reading: Not quite sure what to pick up next. Possible contenders are: The Light of Eternal Spring, Crying in H-mart, Beasts of a Little Land (I guess Asian lit is the answer!).
Watching: Nothing notable this week! I guess RuPaul’s Drag Race Allstars Season 8 as comfy reality TV downtime vibes!
Listening: High Violet by The National, specifically Bloodbuzz Ohio.
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