{"id":204229,"date":"2022-01-31T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T12:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=204229"},"modified":"2022-01-29T08:56:52","modified_gmt":"2022-01-29T08:56:52","slug":"green-gaslighting-another-face-of-climate-denialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/01\/green-gaslighting-another-face-of-climate-denialism\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Gaslighting: Another Face of Climate Denialism"},"content":{"rendered":"

All the talk about \u2018net zero\u2019 measures and \u2018climate resilience\u2019 investments is just a mass deception.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A woman walks through a forest land adjacent to Mount Rainier National Park in the state of Washington, US, which is part of a project to sell “carbon credits” to individuals and companies – including Microsoft Corp – who are hoping to offset their carbon footprints. [File: AP\/Ted S Warren]<\/p><\/div>\n

25 Jan 2022 – <\/em>We are living in a moment of our planet\u2019s history where carbon dioxide concentrations have peaked for the first time in 3 million years. Humanity is well on track to see an absolutely devastating temperature increase of more than 3C by the end of the century, which would drown coastal cities, render soils in some areas uncultivable, and produce even worse and more prolonged droughts, floods, and heatwave-induced fires. Addressing climate change requires a profound transformation of global economic and political systems. This needed to happen yesterday, not 10 years from now.<\/p>\n

Commitment to immediate and comprehensive action should have been made at the much-awaited UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow last year. Instead, governments, financial institutions and corporations made pledges about reaching \u201cnet zero\u201d emissions, building \u201cclimate resilience\u201d and \u201cending deforestation\u201d.<\/p>\n

While these terms appeal to desires for a modern and ecologically-neutral society, they reflect 20 years of climate solutionism that has changed little to nothing beside filling the pockets of the wealthy. In fact, these words are used to obscure the climate crisis in an act of global\u00a0gaslighting\u00a0of epic proportions.<\/p>\n

Green gaslighting<\/h3>\n

According to the Oxford Dictionaries, the word \u201cgaslighting\u201d means \u201cthe action of manipulating someone by psychological means into accepting a false depiction of reality or doubting their own sanity\u201d.<\/p>\n

There has been a meteoric rise\u00a0in the use of \u201cgaslighting\u201d ever since the 2008 global financial meltdown. In its aftermath, political elites spent billions in taxpayers\u2019 money bailing out financial institutions which had engaged in various speculative practices, bringing executives and shareholders vast profits. At the same time, they imposed austerity measures that devastated working and middle-class households, while gaslighting them into believing that this is the only way to \u201cfix the economy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Today, the same tactic is deployed vis-\u00e0-vis climate change: \u201cclimate solutions\u201d that protect, if not boost, profits of big corporations are deployed and presented as the only way to combat climate change. Quite often, these very same corporations are responsible for the environmental devastation leading to the present climate crisis.<\/p>\n

Green gaslighting goes beyond greenwashing, which constitutes the use of ecological themes as a marketing tool to cover up ecological harm of profit-making activities. Gaslighting does more than deceive the public, it also disempowers and undermines the potential to identify the root causes of climate change and ways to address them. In essence, green gaslighting is just another form of climate denialism.<\/p>\n

Gaslighting over ecological concerns is also not a new phenomenon. Indian historian V M Ravi Kumar, for example, documented how in the 19th century British colonialists displaced Indigenous communities to cut down forests for shipbuilding across South India, which led to significant environmental degradation. When forest loss became a concern for their interests, they blamed the locals for it, planted monoculture tree plantations as a response and declared they had successfully resolved an ecological problem.<\/p>\n

The current political and economic powers dominating the planet are taking a page out of the same colonial playbook. Those largely responsible for the current environmental disaster we are experiencing are seeking to gaslight the public into ignoring this fact and accepting the continuation of a dangerous status quo as a solution for it.<\/p>\n

The \u2018net zero\u2019 deception<\/h3>\n

One of the policies that helps governments and corporations maintain the status quo is \u201cnet zero emissions\u201d, which derives from the idea that\u00a0carbon emissions and the natural processes\u00a0of carbon absorption can be assigned value (as carbon credits) and traded.<\/p>\n

COP26 will probably go down in history as the conference of the \u201cnet zero pledges\u201d. There were many of them: from India\u2019s desire to be carbon neutral by 2070, China\u2019s by 2060, to the EU\u2019s goal of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent by the year 2030, to US commitments to cut emissions by 50 percent by the same year.<\/p>\n

But these are all illusory climate action measures. \u201cNet zero emissions\u201d does not actually mean bringing emissions down to zero. Rather it refers to a set of policies that aim to compensate continued emissions with projects that absorb carbon elsewhere. These policies are supposed to help remove the extra emissions from the atmosphere through measures like tree planting, enhanced forest protection (i.e. preventing deforestation), and costly carbon capture and storage technologies.<\/p>\n

The problem is that evaluating compliance with \u201cnet zero\u201d goals is extremely difficult, and so is proving the full efficacy of these \u201ccarbon offsetting\u201d measures. For example, over the past 20 years of discussions about carbon offsets, no solid solution has been found to the problem of verifying in a transparent manner how emissions reductions are achieved.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, offsetting projects can have negative social consequences\u00a0for vulnerable communities. The push for forest expansion, for example, could result in mass displacement of peasants and Indigenous communities from their ancestral lands and into peri-urban slums where devastating poverty awaits them.<\/p>\n

Corporations are already eyeing land in developing countries for lucrative \u201ccarbon credit\u201d projects. In a report entitled \u201cNature and Net Zero\u201d by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and management consulting firm McKinsey & Co, published in January 2021, the \u201ceconomic feasibility\u201d of land around the world was mapped to establish its \u201ccarbon abatement potential\u201d. The report assigns different value to different types of lands and estimated costs of realising \u201cnatural climate solutions\u201d (i.e. carbon offset) projects on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh feasibility\u201d lands are considered those which are \u201clow cost\u201d \u2013 that is, real or potential agricultural rent from them is low and therefore, they would be more likely to be converted to forests, for example. But while the WEF and McKinsey & Co may consider such areas \u201ccheap land\u201d, for small-scale farmers, pastoralists and Indigenous communities, they are ancestral lands that often have significant cultural, religious and communal value.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, the report\u00a0does not mention the potential social and human cost of displacement and the economic and physical violence acquiring such land is likely to lead to. \u201cCarbon credit accounting\u201d\u00a0standards\u00a0that are being set up currently require that a forested area be at least 25 million hectares (roughly the area of the US state of Vermont) to qualify for carbon credits. One can only imagine what a reforestation effort trying to meet this standard would look like and the amount of forced displacement it would take to achieve it.<\/p>\n

The report also does not address the fact that eviction of small-scale farmers from their \u201ccheap land\u201d might actually result in local food crises, given that a significant portion of the world\u2019s population is fed by small farms. In fact, Oxfam and others\u00a0have warned\u00a0that the drive for and monetisation of reforestation may lead to worsening global hunger.<\/p>\n

The WEF and McKinsey report, however, does make clear the potential for profit from \u201cnatural solutions\u201d that can be monetised as \u201ccarbon credits\u201d and \u201csold\u201d to polluters. Governments and corporations have already jumped at the opportunity.\u00a0Leading the way on carbon offsets through forest conservation is the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) coalition, which in November\u00a0announced\u00a0that it has met a target of $1bn in commitments to support forest-linked carbon offsetting projects.<\/p>\n

The coalition was launched on Earth Day last year by the US, Norway, the UK and a number of corporations. It has already been joined by \u201ccarbon credit buyers\u201d, such as AirBnB, BlackRock, Delta Airlines, Burberry, Walmart, Unilever, Amazon, Bayer-Monsanto, and Nestl\u00e9. Meanwhile some 23 jurisdictions and countries, including Ghana, Nepal, Vietnam and Ecuador, have initiated technical screening procedures to enrol into the offsetting initiative.<\/p>\n

The standards that LEAF is set to observe in supporting efforts to grant these participants tradeable \u201ccarbon credits\u201d sound promising. They are supposed to \u201cpromote transparency and prevent corruption\u201d, \u201crespect the rights of the Indigenous peoples and local communities\u201d and ensure their \u201cmeaningful participation\u201d in the \u201cdesign, implementation and periodic assessment\u201d of these carbon offset projects. But how many of these governments and corporations actually have a good track record of combatting corruption and respecting civil, land and Indigenous rights?<\/p>\n

One would not be wrong to question whether this and other initiatives, donations and pledges are not just a fig leaf to cover up the intention of large corporations to continue their carbon-fuelled growth and profit pursuit unabated. It seems that these schemes would do little for the environment but they would enable an airline or an online retailer to continue their fossil-fuel-heavy operations by paying a minuscule amount of their profits for a reforestation scheme that may wipe out the livelihood of a whole rural region in the Global South.<\/p>\n

The said corporations would get the \u201cnet zero\u201d label, make their customers feel better about themselves and also retain bragging rights about how they are \u201ccreating jobs\u201d. The general public would then be gaslighted to believe that this is the only way to address our pressing environmental problems.<\/p>\n

Monetising \u2018climate resilience\u2019<\/h3>\n

Because governments and corporations know that they would never do what is necessary to rein in climate change, they have come up with a few terms to placate the masses: \u201cclimate resilience\u201d, \u201cclimate adaptation\u201d and \u201cclimate mitigation\u201d. All of these refer to our supposed ability to respond to and deal with the effects of climate change and are based on the premise that humanity can actually pull through a climate catastrophe with minimal consequences, while maintaining the global economic status quo.<\/p>\n

But \u201cclimate resilience\u201d, \u201cclimate adaptation\u201d and \u201cclimate mitigation\u201d are no more than buzzwords that drive investment and profit. Unsurprisingly, they were prominently used at COP26, where one of the\u00a0outcomes\u00a0was the announcement of various financial pledges for \u201cnature-based solutions for climate resilience\u201d.<\/p>\n

These terms also feature in reports by economists praising the monetary value of nature and calling for investment in it. For example, a 2020 report funded in part by National Geographic, found that the economic benefits of conserving 30 percent of the earth\u2019s land and oceans outweighs \u201cthe costs by at least 5-to-1\u201d.<\/p>\n

The report frames nature\u2019s value as a lucrative asset \u2013 \u201ca single underexploited type of asset\u201d, which provides $125 trillion worth of benefits to humanity. Its preservation can prevent economic losses from climate change by building \u201cresilience\u201d and generating profits in the form of booming tourism sectors, growing agricultural and forestry outputs, and regenerated fish stocks, among others. As one of the report\u2019s co-authors concludes, it is time \u201cto finance nature\u201d.<\/p>\n

This absurdity, however, does not stop at treating nature as a financial asset instead of the sole guarantor of human existence and survival that it is. The climate resilience\/adaptation\/mitigation mantra is also\u00a0used to \u201cgreenwash\u201d industrial and infrastructural projects that harm nature.<\/p>\n

All of a sudden, proposed new real estate, airport, roadway, and shipping developments that increase the anthropogenic impacts on climate and ecological breakdown \u2013 are being spun as \u201cgreen\u201d investments \u2013 or climate \u201cimpact investments\u201d. All they have to do is claim to \u201cprovide climate solutions\u201d, \u201cmitigate\u201d climate change impacts or provide \u201csustainable living\u201d and voil\u00e0\u2026 New swish developments are given the \u201cgreen\u201d light.<\/p>\n

One example is Royalmount, a $7bn real estate project under construction in the Canadian city of Montreal, which promises \u201cexperiential attractions, retail, office space and accommodations\u2026 firmly rooted in nature, rejuvenation and sustainability-minded strategies\u201d. It claims that it will be \u201ccarbon neutral\u201d, will reduce energy consumption by 34 percent and plant 450,000 trees, shrubs and perennials.<\/p>\n

That pretty landscaping is not the same thing as paying attention to ecology, that the project\u2019s \u201cimpact\u201d on Montreal\u2019s residents, already struggling with high rents, will not be a positive one and that \u201cnature\u201d will certainly be better off without this new development are facts carefully obscured by \u201cgreen investment\u201d proponents.<\/p>\n

In essence, climate \u201cimpact investing\u201d that is meant to \u201cbuild climate resilience\u201d is no different from investing in traditional asset classes, as there is no way to guarantee that the sought-after \u201cimpact\u201d helps nature or local communities. And just like the \u201cnet zero emissions\u201d slogan, it is simply a deception meant to make people believe that those most responsible for the climate crisis \u2013 rich countries, venture capitalists, and multinational corporations \u2013 are in fact the most ecologically-minded.<\/p>\n

While COP26 illustrated the extent to which these deceptions have captured the global discourse on climate changes, there are also signs that there is growing awareness of this ongoing green gaslighting. Less than a month after the conference concluded, the American film \u201cDon\u2019t Look Up\u201d was released on online platform Netflix and broke the viewership record. Making a clear reference to our climate disaster reality, the motion picture portrays the absurdity of how corporate and political interests hold back humanity\u2019s response to an extinction-level threat, while actively gaslighting the public.<\/p>\n

We may not be facing an approaching asteroid, as the characters in the film do, but our climate change response must be just as urgent. And that has to start with resisting the green gaslighting that continues to waste precious time and tuning out corporate and elite-led solutionism.<\/p>\n

We need to stop centring attention on the false \u201csolutions\u201d the wealthy and powerful are offering and refocus on the plight of the ordinary people who are already suffering from the climate crisis: the urban poor, peasants and pastoralists as well as Indigenous people. Their needs and struggles need to be central to a genuine ecological response that couples emissions reductions with degrowth, living wages and dignified working conditions, eliminates the use of fossil fuels, and reorganises the global economy away from neocolonial land grabs, resource abuse and underpaid labour and towards social justice. Anything short of this is smoke and mirrors.\u00a0The people will not be fooled.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Vijay Kolinjivadi is a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Development Policy at the University of Antwerp.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – aljazeera.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 Jan 2022 – All the talk about \u2018net zero\u2019 measures and \u2018climate resilience\u2019 investments is just a mass deception. According to the Oxford Dictionaries, the word \u201cgaslighting\u201d means \u201cthe action of manipulating someone by psychological means into accepting a false depiction of reality or doubting their own sanity\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":204230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[536,1176,547,239,2605,1690,686,2604,550,794,401,1393,993,1797,487,866,2071,541,846,1200,1255,329,92],"class_list":["post-204229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-amazonia","tag-bolsonaro","tag-brazil","tag-brics","tag-carbon-source","tag-cattle-and-ranch-farmers","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-corruption","tag-deforestation","tag-environment","tag-forest-fires","tag-global-warming","tag-greenpeace","tag-human-rights","tag-indigenous-rights","tag-jbs","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-meat-industry","tag-natures-rights","tag-rain-forests","tag-resources","tag-violent-conflict"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}