Thursday, August 18, 2016

Capitalism Is Predicated Upon a Gluttony That Is Leading to Our Extinction — Mark Karlin interviews Ashley Dawson

Ashley Dawson, author of Extinction: A Radical History, will be featured on Truthout on August 21 in a question and answer about his book. At one point in the interview, he tells Truthout:
Capitalism is predicated on endless expansion. It is a socio-economic system that must grow indefinitely or cease to exist. And it has to grow at a compound rate, leading it to commodify and consume ever-greater portions of the planet at an accelerating velocity. Since we only have one planet, there is clearly a fundamental contradiction between our economic system and the environment upon which it, and all of humanity, ultimately depends. But since capitalism grows in a spatially uneven manner, some people can live obscenely affluent, insulated lives while other people face stark ecological catastrophe. But at some point capitalism will take the entire planet past a point of ecological destruction from which there will be no return, at least on any time scale that is meaningful for human beings.
Current rates of extinction suggest that we are approaching that point. Looked at in historical perspective, species often go extinct, but, at the same time, new species are also constantly evolving in a process called speciation. At the moment, however, the rate of extinction far exceeds the rate of speciation. Studies suggest that over the last fifty years a shockingly high 40 percent of the world’s flora and fauna have become extinct. And this extinction rate is accelerating.
There is a direct relationship between Dawson's argument, which details the various deleterious forces of capitalism that accelerate species extinction, and Naomi Klein's seminal book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, on the relationship between runaway global capitalism and unrelenting climate change. Both books emphasize that one of the species that may be headed for elimination from the planet is us: homo sapiens. …
Buzz flash at Truthout
Capitalism Is Predicated Upon a Gluttony That Is Leading to Our Extinction
Mark Karlin interviews Ashley Dawson, author of Extinction: A Radical History,

6 comments:

Ryan Harris said...

Maybe a self correcting process then. If Humans are the cause and the effect is extinction. Process is self limiting. Not everyone or everything will go extinct. Just the unlucky ones.

Ralph Musgrave said...

"Gluttony" is not unique to capitalism. The desire for excess worldly goods is a basic HUMAN weakness. People in the non-capitalist old Soviet Russia (especially the elite) weren't averse to conspicuous consumption.

MRW said...

Studies suggest that over the last fifty years a shockingly high 40 percent of the world’s flora and fauna have become extinct. And this extinction rate is accelerating.

What a lot of alarmist bullshit. There is no, absolutely zero, evidence for this. "Studies suggest. Indeed. Scientific journal weasel words for making shit up because they have no hard data.

Extinction of 40% of the world's flora and fauna would have been an utter catastrophe of habitat, biodiversity, crops, and ecology. Animal food chains would have been severely disrupted. The natural predator chain would have created renegade packs or species of animals threatening cities and rural areas. Furthermore, this would have been a world news alert. Look at the global story about bees, just one species.

Poachers killed three jaguars in the northern Mexican desert for their skins. This caused the local rabbit population to explode. They ate all the vegetation, and it caused a severe drought for two years.

And please, Naomi Klein is no more economically or scientifically equipped to speak about capitalism and climate change than an average highschooler. I can read just as well as she can. But I read more; I read scientific papers, which she has no training for, she has a high school degree and a couple of years of university classes under her belt. I'm certainly better educated than she is.

These people are the Paul Ehrlichs andJohn Holdrens of their age: wrong.

These people are the

Ryan Harris said...

Heightened rhetoric in election year is really insane, MRW. The media percolating ideology through the public's brains.

MRW said...

Oh Lord. These people can't (couldn't) tell the difference between carbon (a black solid, like soot, an airborne pollutant) and carbon dioxide gas (colorless, odorless, tasteless, a plant fuel and emitted from our own lungs at 40,000 PPM every three seconds). They have zero idea what radiative physics are, how radiation works--neither do unscientifically-trained journalists and advocates and a lot of climatologists--therefore, they have no clue about the N band in the infrared where the greenhouse gases that affect earth's immediate atmosphere operate, water vapor being the main one at 95% GHG concentration. None of the global climate models have accurately predicted observational data over the last 20 years. None. Not one. That's why there are 108 of them still trying to figure it out. [Hint: we only have one model for gravity because we've figured it out how it works.] Serious, credentialed scientists are denied publication if their findings disprove any aspect of the Climate Change fable. I haven't met one person who has bothered to investigate how the so-called 97% consensus was arrived at; they just believe it, including Prez Obama. And guess who he has as a science advisor? John Holdren. Co-author of one of the biggest scientific frauds (with Paul Ehrlich) of the late 20th C.

I could go on and on.

MRW said...

Co-author of one of the biggest scientific frauds (with Paul Ehrlich) of the late 20th C.

That's hyperbole on my part. I apologize. He was co-author of one of the most notably scientifically wrong predictions (with Paul Ehrlich) of the late 20th C. Also see "Future Babble: Why Pundits Are Hedgehogs and Foxes Know Best" by Dan Gardner. [Hedgehogs know 'one big thing' and are certain of it; foxes can live with uncertainty and are constantly rethinking their positions.]