PROFIT BEFORE PLANET

 

Scientists have warned that the world is closer to a 'point of no return' after which runaway global heating cannot be stopped. But our politicians are not listening….

THE MOST alarming thing about the Guardian’s February 11 report—that scientists believe we are edging dangerously close to a 'point of no return' beyond which global heating cannot be halted—is not the warning itself. It is how quickly the story vanished. In New Zealand, it was eclipsed by the Winter Olympics and the breathless celebration of a medal win. That a sporting achievement could lead the six o’clock news on both major networks while a planetary emergency slipped quietly off the agenda says something bleak about our political and media culture. We are living through the most consequential crisis in human history, and yet the machinery of public discourse treats it as a passing curiosity, easily displaced by spectacle.

This is not accidental. It reflects a deeper, more troubling truth: governments, including our own, have convinced themselves that ecological collapse can be 'managed' through adaptation, resilience planning, and incremental policy tweaks. They cling to the fantasy that the economic status quo—the engine of endless extraction and consumption—can remain untouched. The idea that capitalism itself might be incompatible with a livable planet is treated as unthinkable, even impolite. But the physics of the atmosphere do not care about political sensitivities. The carbon budget is indifferent to ideology. And the economic system that has delivered unprecedented wealth to a minority is the same system that is destabilising the biosphere on which all life depends.

Naomi Klein put it bluntly: capitalism is at war with the planet. The evidence is everywhere. Fossil fuel companies continue to expand production despite decades of scientific warnings. Governments subsidise the very industries driving the crisis. Corporations treat ecosystems as disposable inputs. And politicians, including those in New Zealand, continue to chant the mantra of 'economic growth' as if it were a law of nature rather than a political choice. Growth has become a secular religion, and questioning it is treated as heresy.

Yet growth, as currently defined, is inseparable from environmental destruction. It demands ever-increasing resource extraction, energy use, and waste. It requires turning forests into timber, oceans into fisheries, minerals into electronics, and fossil fuels into atmospheric carbon. It rewards short-term profit over long-term stability. It externalises costs onto the environment, future generations, and the global poor. And it concentrates wealth and power in the hands of those least affected by the consequences of their decisions.

New Zealand is not exempt from this logic. Our government talks earnestly about climate commitments while simultaneously opening the door to expanded oil and gas exploration. It promises environmental stewardship while weakening protections. It speaks of sustainability while prioritising corporate interests. This is not climate leadership; it is climate denial in a more palatable form. It is the belief that we can have it both ways—that we can continue business as usual while somehow avoiding the consequences.

But the consequences are already here. New Zealanders are living through more frequent floods, more intense storms, rising sea levels, and the slow erosion of ecosystems that once seemed eternal. The idea that we can simply 'adapt' to these changes without confronting their root causes is delusional. It is a coping mechanism, not a solution.

The deeper problem is that our political class is structurally incapable of imagining alternatives. They are bound to a system that measures success in GDP growth, corporate profitability, and investor confidence. They fear the wrath of markets more than the collapse of the climate. They treat the warnings of scientists as advisory rather than existential. And they continue to reassure the public that everything is under control, even as the evidence suggests the opposite.  

It is little wonder that the Pacific Island nations of Vanuatu, Fiji, and Samoa have formally asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to include the term 'ecocide' as a crime covered by the body. If the ICC ever accepts the petition, government leaders and heads of corporations accused of committing pollution with impunity can be held liable for ecocide. Come on down, Shane Jones.

What would it mean to take the climate crisis seriously? It would mean acknowledging that the economic model driving the crisis cannot be reformed at the margins. It would mean confronting the power of corporations whose profits depend on environmental destruction. It would mean rethinking consumption, energy, transport, agriculture, and land use. It would mean shifting from an economy built on extraction to one built on regeneration. And it would mean recognising that the pursuit of endless growth on a finite planet is not just unsustainable—it is suicidal.

We are being held hostage by corporate interests and the politicians who serve them. But hostages are not powerless. The first step toward liberation is recognising the nature of our captivity. The second is refusing to accept the lie that the status quo is the only possible future. The planet is sending increasingly urgent messages. The question is whether we will listen before the point of no return becomes not a warning, but a reality. There really is a world to win.