CLIMATE CHANGE : OUR ECONOMIC SYSTEM IS KILLING US

People in the northern hemisphere are enduring suffocating and life-threatening heat while wildfires continue to rage in some countries. Our economic system, in its endless pursuit of profit, is driving the planet over the cliff while our politicians hope that we can 'adapt' our way through the crisis and leave the economic status quo untouched. But to pretend that we can tinker our way through this crisis and 'adapt' to the so-called 'new normal' is neither acceptable or moral. 

ON APRIL 17 the Persian International Airport in Asaluyeh, Iran recorded a temperature of 66.7 Celsius (152 degrees Fahrenheit). No one can live in such extreme heat, but people can certainly die.

There is a widespread life-threatening heatwave occurring throughout the northern hemisphere. In Europe several countries are buckling under the suffocating heat and wildfires have broken out in Greece and Spain - and in Canada.

The United States is also being pummelled by the heat, with roughly one-third of the country under heat warnings.

Climate scientists said that last month was the hottest June since records began in the 1880s.

If we liken the fight against climate change to a chess match we are now in the end game and we are not winning. Despite the rhetoric and promises of the politicians, we are simply not doing enough to overcome our deadly opponent and we are in real danger of being permanently checkmated. 

While much of the environmentally movement - and young people in particular - now recognise and understand that it is 'system change or climate change' our politicians will neither accept nor acknowledge that it is the very economic system they represent and defend that is pulling the planet over the cliff.  

So New Zealand's Climate Change Minister, Green Party co-leader James Shaw, continues to insist that it is 'human activity' that is responsible for climate change. This is in despite of us knowing that just one hundred corporations have been responsible for seventy one percent of the carbon emissions since 1988. In pursuit of his ludicrous 'green capitalism', Shaw continues to spread disinformation on climate change.

With the consequences of climate change becoming increasingly devastating, the political establishment have become an obstacle in the way of the real systemic change that is urgently needed. It has become increasingly obvious that the political establishment think that the need to keep the wheels of capitalism turning takes precedence even as the planet burns. It brings to mind that celebrated New Yorker magazine cartoon where a businessman tells some young people ' 'Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.'

We cannot 'adapt' our way out of this crisis. The kind of policy tweaks that politicians like James Shaw favour will simply not cut it. We have defeated climate change denialism only to be confronted with the capitalist ideology of climate change 'adaptability'. We now have to throw the kitchen sink at the crisis. To pretend that we can tinker our way through this mess and 'adapt' to the so-called 'new normal' is not acceptable. And it is also immoral. We are betraying young people who tomorrow will have to try and pick up the pieces because their elders did not do enough today.

US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that the 'runaway' pursuit of profit is unsustainable:  'Our current logic created this mess and operating in the same way will not get us out.'

In 2015 writer and activist Naomi Klein observed: 'The future is radical. When we talk about climate change in 2015, we have to accept that we've waited too long, procrastinated so long, we've allowed the problem to become so much worse that we've now reached a point when no non-radical solutions are left on the table.'

She's right. And, some seven years later, the situation has only got worse.