Believe it or not, but there is another United Nations Convention on Climate Change and it opened this Monday, yesterday, in Doha, Qatar. After the failures of all the previous ones in Copenhagen in 2009, Cancún in 2010; and Durban, South Africa, last year, it is no wonder that this conference is being totally ignored in mainstream media. Despite the growing number of extreme weather disasters that are occurring throughout the world, corporate media directors do not want you to think about even the possibility of changing their system of capitalism to function in a sustainable way. You see, it simply is not possible. "So, get use to it." "This is the new normal." These are the messages, implied or literally stated, that they will be sending out through their media empires. For example, see this piece entitled "Can There Be a Silver Lining in Sandy?".
Apparently this UN convention event--although not even mentioned in the article--prompted people from this organization to present views representing the "global south" which are often juxtaposed to the "global north" and the various conferences on climate change. Evidently this is an alternative, and less threatening to our capitalist masters, way of dividing up the world between highly developed capitalist countries and the lessor developed capitalist, or mixed economies. In addition to presenting their familiar arguments regarding carbon reduction quotas that must be assumed by various countries, the paper surprisingly argues for the "transformation of the unsustainable capitalist system."
The big challenge of putting a process in place for collective and gradual transformation from fossil fuel-addicted system of consumption and production towards a low carbon society requires also the transformation of the unsustainable capitalist system. The carbon, oil and gas sector can’t be led by the logic of private profit. The power of fossil fuel corporations has to be dismantled and societies, not the state-bureaucrats, have to take control over these resources and enterprises.Unfortunately, after making this point, the authors then backtrack, apparently to appease capitalist authorities, by making this statement:
To change the patterns of consumption and production we need to move beyond the all-dominating, profit-driven and unsustainable capitalist system that exploits people and ruin ecosystems.
A "one size fits all" model like neoliberalism or centralized bureaucratic socialism is not the answer. Instead, diversity should be expected and encouraged, as it is in nature.If a system is hazardous to the planet's health and human sustainability, then it must be abolished. Period.
