Film Sessions: Capitalism and a World on Boil

NinaIllingworth May 19, 2021November 5, 2022 activism, addiction to oil, agriculture, anticapitalism, CA4, capitalism, capitalism goes or we do, capitalism is killing us, carbon emissions, CC3, class war, climate catastrophe, climate change, Climate Crisis, climate crisis is real, climate crisis protests, climate science, climate science denial, climate versus capital, dark money, degrow movement, drought, Exxon funded propaganda, FA1, feedback loops, film sessions, food insecurity, fossil fuels, global warming, greenhouse gasses, Greta Thunberg, imperialism is killing the planet, infinite growth, JT Chapman, left wing Youtube, Media Madness, Naomi Klein, neoliberalism, Nina Illingworth, Offsite Writing, oil and gas, Propaganda, ruling classes, Second Thought, Socialism, ST2, The Carter Doctrine, The Profit Motive, Theory, tipping points, Video, water crisis, Water Wars, WD7, world on boil, Youtube

Capitalism Is Incompatible With Survival

Back in early February of this year, I featured a video about the ongoing minimum wage debate in American politics by YouTube creator JT Chapman, otherwise known by the moniker “Second Thought.” As I noted then, Chapman’s work features an extremely high production quality, his essays are always jam packed with information, and the presentation is both articulate, as well as quickly paced; a quality I appreciate greatly.

In fact, the only real problem here, and the major reason I haven’t featured more Second Thought mini-documentary videos on Film Sessions, is that most of them are so damn short; I can say with some experience that it’s surprisingly difficult to crank out a thousand word analysis of a seven minute video you almost entirely agree with.

Over the past couple weeks however, Chapman has released consecutive, interrelated video essays about climate catastrophe as it pertains to capitalism, and its handmaiden imperialism respectively. In response, I’m going to change up our format a little bit here on Film Sessions and group these two videos together with a third, slightly older video about why the origins of our climate crisis don’t actually matter to our survival as a species, into a single analysis essay. To facilitate organized reading, I’ll put my analysis under each embedded video and then lump all the additional resources and citations into a footer at the bottom.

As always you can check these presentations out on YouTube by clicking the headers above each video, or simply watch inside the embedded boxes below.

Why Capitalism Can’t Handle Climate Change

At this point I strongly suspect that anyone reading this is already well aware of the statistical boundaries of the problem humans, and pretty much all other living creatures on Earth, are now facing down in terms of climate catastrophe.

The situation is, to put it politely, extremely fucking bad. Furthermore the problem is rapidly going to get much worse, our models may have underestimated just how horrifying the effects of boiling the planet might actually be, and we have precious few years to completely alter human energy production before any number of tipping points are reached. Despite the paid ravings of fossil fuel propagandists, our shared Earth is quite simply a planet on the brink, and the primary culprit is of course our old friend capitalism.

Given these unarguable realities, you might be tempted to say the obvious solution here is to get rid of capitalism to help save all life on Earth; and you’d be right. Unfortunately, but perhaps unsurprisingly, rich capitalists and most of the Pig Empire governments they control do not agree. While a more thorough discussion of the subject is somewhat beyond the scope of this essay, it is sufficient for our purposes here to note that virtually all serious ruling class action on climate catastrophe is currently being filtered through the completely unworkable rubric of so-called “green capitalism.”

In fact green capitalism is itself, a part of the problem. Even as we speak, trillions upon trillions of dollars are currently be funneled to private capital, for the sole purpose of subsidizing the profit margins of the very same companies and investors who caused the climate crisis, while we transition away from fossil fuel production; money that could be spent on simply saving the planet instead. The primary barrier here is neither public will, nor technological advancement; we can stop burning fossil fuels today, but we can’t produce clean energy cheap enough to make pursuing alternatives “competitive” with oil and gas profits for the private sector.

The bald truth is that a our capitalist society is incompatible both ideologically, and practically, with our shared goal of preventing climate catastrophe; as Second Thought demonstrates succinctly in the above twelve minute video. Touching on concepts like the profit motive, and infinite growth, as well as his own personal experiences with the deregulated Texas energy sector, Chapman effectively eviscerates the self-defeating trap that is green capitalism, while pointing out the incompatibility of massive infrastructure spending with a near fully-privatized economic model.

While much of the content in this video is also covered in the links above, our presenter also offers up a recommendation to a companion video that’s worth checking out: Why Capitalism is Killing Us (And The Planet) by Our Changing Climate.

Let’s Talk About Human Influence On Climate Change

Of course, understanding and accepting the relationship between capitalism and climate catastrophe doesn’t mean much if you’re unaware of how serious that catastrophe is. In this July 31st, 2020 video, Chapman offers an extremely brief overview of why climate crisis is definitely real, what sorts of catastrophic effects boiling the planet is likely to have, and why it fundamentally doesn’t matter if you believe the obvious truth that climate change is primarily being caused by human activity.

For bonus points, folks still on the fence about climate catastrophe should check out this Second Thought video explaining why Exxon is probably the reason you sound like a dangerous idiot. Alternately, you could just look out your window. Although some of the material included here is also incorporated into the first video we looked at, our presenter’s focus on what a world in climate crisis will look like, sets up our next video about climate-induced water imperialism.

The Water Wars Are Coming

While it’s true that some combination of statistics, scientific testimony, and the growing absurdity of climate science denial has convinced mainstream media outlets like The Guardian to report extensively on the biological and economic effects of climate crisis, there remains very little public discussion of the political ramifications involved here. While it hardly takes a genius to realize climate catastrophe is already affecting elections globally, there remain far more sinister knock on effects that rarely break into the mainstream discourse. As I’ve already discussed in an earlier article for example, one of the driving motivators behind the rise of fascism in the Pig Empire is increasing resource scarcity; a problem obviously exacerbated by climate catastrophe.

In our final video, we find Chapman delving into one of these rarely-discussed, sinister knock on effects of bringing the whole planet to a boil; specifically water imperialism. Simply put, rising temperatures and demand are stressing the global supply of usable water. As our presenter notes; given that less than one percent of the water on earth is consumable fresh water, and the vast majority of that comes from a mere five river systems globally, access to that water is quite literally a matter of life or death. Indeed, this competitive struggle for water is already a reality in some of the areas most affected by climate change, such as Africa and the Middle East.

Of course, these conflicts are currently localized outside of the imperial core, and numerous mainstream observers remain skeptical that water imperialism is a serious threat. When even U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is openly admitting future wars will be fought over water instead of oil however, you can bet your bottom dollar that Uncle Sam believes it’s real. Furthermore, as history has demonstrated quite thoroughly, when nations find it necessary to control and monopolize a vital strategic resource, Pig Empire governments have no qualms about unleashing their powerful war machines to do so. In light of the intricate relationships between capitalism, imperialism, fascism and climate catastrophe, the water wars do indeed seem inevitable.