How can this be? Humanity itself appears to be locked in a grisly death-match, struggling desperately for its very survival. But against what enemy? What is this powerful force fighting humankind to extinction? Some people would have us believe that the answer is ourselves: that we are intrinsically greedy creatures, doomed to destroy whatever we touch. In reality, however, human beings have lived on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years, and have only been emitting dangerous levels of carbon dioxide since the birth of industrialism in the 18th century.
Most of the increase in atmospheric carbon is far more recent still. A staggering proportion dates to the last few decades alone – when the danger of climate change was already well understood. If our overheating planet is a result of human greed, then it must be a special kind of greed, a kind that emerged puzzlingly late in the long history of our species and then with a sudden vengeance.
But we can give it a better and more specific name: capitalism. Unlike other ways of organising economic life, the capitalist system produces – and is dependent on – exponential growth. Before the era of industrial capitalism, economic output did not tend to change much from decade to decade, or even century to century.
The same fields produced roughly the same yields in 1200 as in 1600. The emergence of capitalism changed all that. Today, just as in the era of the steam engine, capitalist economies must grow constantly, and not to.
