“How far can the ‘right’ (the legally and collectively assured effective possibility) of each individual, of each group, of each commune, of each nation to act as it wants, extend once we know – and we have always known it, but the ecology movement forcefully reminds us of it – that we are all embarked on the same planetary boat and that what each one of us does can have repercussions on everyone else?”[1]
~Cornelius Castoriadis
It is a good thing that there is increasingly more talk about the looming catastrophe that threatens our societies, as a result of climate change and deepening ecological crises. There is, one can suggest, an improvement in this respect in comparison to previous years, when such issues were either overlooked and kept out of the spotlight. And it’s not only citizens and social movements that emphasize on the urgency – governments and corporations try to give the impression that they too are concerned about the environment, despite the fact that they are the chiefly responsible for the current mess.
But there is a major problem with the way the issue is being examined in the mainstream, due to the dominant systemic parameters. Deeply submerged within the imaginary of top-down management and constant economic growth, it completely misses the root-causes of the ecological crises we currently face.
One stark example is the question of energy production and distribution. Mainstream environmentalists and politicians increasingly advocate in favor of the replacement of dirty fossil fuels with renewables. And while one such transition is, of course, crucial for combating climate change and environmental degradation, it is by no means the only prerequisite, since the issue is not a technical one, but a matter of paradigm.
People who tend to focus solely on the transition towards clean renewable energy accept for granted, even as ‘natural’, the current capitalist pattern of perpetual economic growth. This logic doesn’t question the parameters of the dominant system, but only seek ways of ‘greening’ them so that business as usual can continue. In its essence, this way of thinking doesn’t really strive towards resolving the forthcoming ecological catastrophe, but to only prolong the time we have left until then.
It is most certain that the energy of a democratic and ecological society will derive from renewable sources, rather than from the extraction and burning of finite resources. This is among the prerequisite for sustainability, but most certainly not the only one. In regards to this Cornelius Castoriadis has been warning social movements at least since the 1980s that projects that deal with renewable energy resources can, in part be co-opted towards ends that could not even be labelled reformist – that is, toward the end of plugging up the holes in the existing system.[2]
It is the idea that our societies can continue down the same path of perpetual growth that must be tackled. There is simply no ecological way of satisfying the ever-increasing energy needs of an increasingly wasteful way of life. In this line of thought contemporary degrowth advocate Jason Hickel calls on us to face the issue:
Even if this wasn’t a problem, we must ask ourselves: once we have 100% clean energy, what are we going to do with this? Unless we change how our economy works, we’ll keep doing exactly what we are doing with fossil fuels: we’ll use it to power continued extraction and production at an ever-increasing rate, placing ever-increasing pressure on the living world, because that’s what capitalism requires. Clean energy might help deal with emissions, but it does nothing to reverse deforestation, overfishing, soil depletion and mass extinction. A growth-obsessed economy powered by clean energy will still tip us into ecological disaster.[3]
The continuous increase of our energy use will demand the constant expansion of renewables, whose production in itself is not without its own environmental and social cost.[4] Wind turbines, solar panels, etc. are all made by rare minerals and materials that have to be extracted from the earth, with considerable ecological imprint. For a society based on extreme consumerist lifestyles there will never be enough energy, there will always be need for more.
A more holistic way to approach the issue will be to advocate simultaneously for renewables replacing dirty fossil fuels, while also resisting the dominant capitalist paradigm and advance an alternative project that seeks to degrow the economy, reduce unnecessary consumption, etc. It is only in this way that we can avert the looming ecological catastrophe.
This will imply the usage also of low-tech technologies that do not leave environmental impact, while still allowing us to live dignified life. By departing from the imaginary of perpetual economic growth we can realize that the resolvement of our daily problems can come not only from high-tech solutions, which are preferred by the current capitalist standards as more marketable and more prone to planned obsolescence, but also by simpler, older methods and techniques that may prove invaluable in dealing with the looming climate crisis, while also paving the way for an ecological society. As Hickel suggests:
Our understanding of what counts as technology should not be limited to complex machinery. Sometimes simpler technologies are more effective, more efficient, and more democratic: bicycles, for instance, are an incredibly powerful technology for helping to decarbonize urban transport, and agroecological methods are vital to restoring soil fertility.
An example for such a non-energy intensive technology can be found in the city of Yazd, located in contemporary Iran. Built between two deserts, it experiences its fair share of extreme high temperature. But since ancient times its inhabitants have developed an ingenious way of cooling and ventilation, where with a little clay they have devised an extraordinary technology that in a perpetual, natural and truly renewable way does the work of an expensive air conditioner with a heavy ecological footprint.
We are talking about the so-called “wind catchers”, chimney-like towers that draw in a pleasant cool breeze and direct it into the house of the residents for better, natural air conditioning that is non-electrically intensive, carbon-free, and with a very low maintenance cost.
In fact, many wind towers were made to connect to underground water pipes so that they could drive the cold air below ground so that the running water can also be cooled.
By this process the internal temperature of houses can drop by 8C to 12C in such a hot place.
Public transport is another approach that uses much less energy than the dominant means of transportation that has taken over most cities around the world – the automobile. Urban environments are mercilessly dominated by cars, a domination that results from a lifestyle pushed by a powerful industry and the capitalist time-is-money pace. And the dominance of the automobile contributes significantly to pollution.
The response of mainstream environmentalism has been to advance the electric car as “the ecological alternative” to the one that runs on fossil fuels. But this view tends to overlook the environmental and social cost that the production of electric cars has. What this so-called alternative actually tries to achieve is to sustain intact the consumerist lifestyle associated with automobiles, while “greening it”.
A much more ecological approach would be to shift urban mobility away from private cars and towards public transport, which is much more sustainable, with significantly smaller environmental impact and much less energy intensive. As ecosocialist Simon Pirani suggests, cities with more public transport and fewer cars are not only more socially equal, more healthy and less polluted. They also emit far fewer greenhouse gases.
Such approaches to energy may seem unprofitable in a growth-obsessed capitalist framework, where planned obsolescence is embedded into technologies so as to coerce individuals and communities into replacing, rather than repairing and sustaining what they already have. But in a democratic and ecological post-capitalist setting, self-managed by the grassroots, rather than run by profit-driven markets and elites, it seems as self-evident.
According to Richard Heinberg, author and Senior Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, we need a realistic plan for energy descent, rather than insisting on foolish dreams of eternal consumer abundance by means other than fossil fuels. Currently, politically rooted insistence on continued economic growth is discouraging truth-telling and serious planning for how to live well with less.
One such paradigm cannot be implemented in a top-down manner, because hierarchies always prioritize the interests of the ruling class – the higher your position in the social ladder, the greater your interest is in maintaining the basic systemic parameters that got you in that privileged position in the first place. Such approach can only produce shallow reforms that can lead to no meaningful change.
Instead, it must be built from the ground-up so as to reflect the needs and desires of all members of society, rather than those of tiny business and political elites. A direct-democratic society where decision-making processes are open, inclusive, and transparent, enables a shift away from the profit-driven, growth-oriented global economy towards more sustainable, and equitable alternatives that allows for greater community control over local economies and natural resources. The potentials of energy production and distribution within one such framework is highlighted by Pirani:
decentralized renewable power generation has great potential: it is well-suited to municipal and local development, and to forms of common ownership, and is compatible with more effective, and lower, levels of final use of electricity.
In a stateless post-capitalist setting, where power is equally shared by everyone collectively, we have every right to believe that the priorities and ways of doing things will be radically altered, posing questions that today may appear unthinkable, like ‘energy – why and for whom?’. Following this reasoning, Castoriadis suggests that:
another society, an autonomous society, does not imply only self-management, self-government, self-institution. It implies another culture, in the most profound sense of this term. It implies another way of life, other needs, other orientations for human life. [5]
In conclusion, it can be suggested that it’s becoming increasingly clear to a growing amount of people that no serious solution can come from the dominant systemic framework in response to ecological breakdown. Regardless of who is in position of power, it is the capitalist obsession of growth and competition that won’t allow for any substantial change to take place, but only minor reforms that mostly have to do with greening of consumerist patterns. What is urgently needed is a radical alteration of the societal organization. Only by shifting decision-making power away from bureaucratic institutions (like parliaments) and mechanisms (like the profit-driven capitalist market) towards grassroots participatory organs (such as popular assemblies and councils of delegates) that a new, much more sustainable, ecological, and democratic future can emerge.
[1] David Ames Curtis (ed.): The Castoriadis Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p251.
[2] David Ames Curtis (ed.): The Castoriadis Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p248.
[3] Jason Hickel: Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save The World (London: Penguin Books.), p21.
[4] Sophie Theresia Huber & Karl W. Steininger: ‘Critical sustainability issues in the production of wind and solar electricity generation as well as storage facilities and possible solutions’ in Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 339 (2022)
[5] David Ames Curtis (ed.): The Castoriadis Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p250.