CONSUMING THE PLANET: THE ULTIMATE DEVIL’S BARGAIN
It could be considered a sick joke, a death wish or the act of mythical Lemmings, rushing headlong toward extinction.
But in fact, there remains precious little conscious recognition of just how desperate the situation is that we are in.
Our world is increasingly warming. We are increasingly consuming.
Therein lies the problem. And it seems an unsolvable problem.
Capitalist governments cannot survive without ever-increasing consumption. Without a steady increase in consumption and the taxes arising from that consumption, they cannot hope to provide the services ever-increasingly demanded of them. They cannot preside over a nation providing ever more jobs either. Almost every aspect of demanded reality by citizens begins to decay, unravel and dissatisfy.
If capitalist governments cannot provide what their populations demand then they will be voted out of office. Hence economic growth becomes paramount. The urgency to compete with others becomes of the highest priority. There must be more of everything that leads to increased production and consumption.
Yet the cumulative effect of all this increase in consumption, the required dissatisfaction to generate replacement at all levels, encouragement to spend and consume ever more each year… will lead to conditions such as those we are seeing now. Environmental hellscapes.
It is a vicious circle of the never-ending demand-fuelled economies increasingly burning the future ahead of them, driving everyone to create the very conditions that will lead to their ultimate demise. And the death will not be one where after dinner slumbers lead smoothly to a comfortable transition to non-being. The future looks very much like being a living hell of exquisite discomfort, permanent fear, debilitating heat and the shock and horror that will reverberate after catastrophe after catastrophe. Meanwhile, will we all still be commanded to keep buying, keep moving the furniture on the Titanic, and continue adjusting the decor of our cabins while the ship goes down?
Humans have been encouraged to indulge themselves to the limit in this modern age. Forget frugality, get out there and buy, have it all, shop till you drop… take every advantage of the full spectrum of this modern existence with all its many hedonistic pleasures. It’s all there for the taking in every variety, flavour and colour, every quality and quantity, all for you… just work like a slave for it then indulge you and your family to the limit.
We are encouraged to believe we need no Planet B, all will be taken care of, don’t worry, don’t think, just consume, eat, buy, shop and do it increasingly year after year. There’s no danger. Indulge yourselves!
Will the recognition that there are only a finite number of ‘good lives’ left to be lived sink in, the adrenalin-pumping awareness that you must up your competition with others to far higher levels than ever, creating dog-eat-dog societies to match that of the USA where such inhuman proclivities have long been seen?
It’s not a pretty picture. But how could it be? Only through the lens of the Devil’s Fishtank’s of TV, film and print media, via the creative graces of those who assist capitalist governments to sell you everything possible, always with a rosy glow behind it.
We are driven like sheep to the slaughter on the altar of a required economic growth made sweet with myriad treats for the senses, encouraged, entreated and invited to drink deep of the elixirs of modern life, to keep all necks bowed down with heads deep in the trough of ever-increasing consumption.
Don’t look up, whatever you do. You may not like what you see. It just might destroy the illusion that’s been created for you. And that would never do… would it? We can’t have the grand illusion of ‘all’s well that ends well’ leaking facts. They must be covered up with a pretty facade of billboard colours and an offer of a free sample.
We are consuming this planet. It’s the ultimate Devil’s Bargain, a bargain that most of us have consciously, or much more likely unconsciously, agreed upon… it has simply become ‘how it is’, ‘the usual’, ‘normality’, ‘what you do to survive’, or dive into and indulge in the best of what life offers. Thinking something could go wrong with any of it is someone else’s problem, a problem that will surely be taken care of… anyway ‘I’ can’t do anything about it. Things seem fine to me.
But now that the effects of all this are becoming clear, noticeable and threatening… how long can such attitudes prevail? As the death toll mounts. As the heat frazzles ever more brains. As what was blithely and blindly pleasant turns sourly from friend to foe. What might stone-cold reality look like amidst a heatwave? We may soon find out. I predict however, it won’t look pretty.
The insurance policy is invalid. No promises can now be kept. No science will save us. The empty promises of politicians will flatline like never before. All will be left to make peace with the hellscape facing them as best they can. Perhaps indulging like never before… as if these were the last days of their lives.