Amitav Ghosh, indisk forfatter, om boken «The great derangement».
The plan of the Western elites
I think today’s politics is not as deranged as you think. People think that Trump and the people around him are in denial, and they don’t know about climate change. That’s not the case at all. Steven Bannon actually is one of the founders of this biodome project in Arizona. He is extremely well informed about climate change. It is not that they don’t have a plan. They have a plan – and the plan is like this: They have come to the conclusion that the only way Western lifestyle is sustainable, is that millions of people die. That’s it. That’s their conclusion.
China’s strategy
The reason China is moving on climate change, is that they are run by technocrats. They understand the issue; they understand how you can respond to the issue. Secondly, their framing of the issue is not in terms of morality or goodness or being kind to the earth. They’re framing this issue in the terms of survival. And that is the ultimately modern form of politics. Politics is, and always has been, about taking decisions that allows the body of politics to survive.
Jevons paradox
Greater efficiency of energy actually leads to more consumption, rather than less. You know the paperless paradox? People thought that once you have internet, offices would become paperless. Instead we started using much more paper. So I don’t think energy efficiency or alternative energies will solve the problem.
It’s not like creating solar panels are innocent of impact on the environment. You need all sorts of rare earth minerals, all sorts of technological apparatuses to make them.
If you take wind, these giant windmills have to be mounted on enormous concrete foundations. And concrete is, after fossil fuel, the most environmentally destructive substance that we have.
So, we really need to talk about how do we cut back.