You can’t eat money.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist that I have talked about on this blog before, seems to bring out the worst in a (mostly) male cohort across Europe. In The Netherlands, Britain and Italy, mocking the teenager and her autism seems to be a national sport. Grown men being threatened by a child who has been speaking truth to power is baffling to many of us, but let those voices not deter us from her message that is still incredibly pertinent.

When we talk about climate change, we often think about middle-class environmentalists and we focus intently on individual sins: your carbon footprint is too high, you should be vegan, you you should not take long showers, you should not use plastic bags or bottles and ideally you really ought to drive an electrical car and not have more than two children (or even better: have no children at all!). Individual acts to counter climate change are always welcome, but I am afraid the focus on personal sinfulness does little to challenge the systemic sins of large corporations, the current economic system, and the collective “climate delaying” by our governments. In addition, the narrative surrounding climate change seems to easily point the finger at the Global South, who are historically far from the worst polluters, rather than confront the West’s longstanding intransigence. This has to change.

Just to be clear, individual choices to live a sustainable lifestyle are absolutely necessary. We are all responsible for the planet because this is, to quote Pope Francis, Our Common Home after all. However, the scale of the change needed to avert climate catastrophe far exceeds what can be done by simple individual changes in lifestyle. As 70% of the green house emissions since 1988 is produced by just 100 companies it seems clear that our individual changes alone are not going to cut it. What is needed is radical, systemic, change that comes from the top. Like Vox reporter David Roberts said (and I’m paraphrasing): we will have to stop signing resolutions and producing reports at one point, and actually start implementing policy changes.

Leaving it up to the market to solve seems to be, to some, a rational response to the climate catastrophe that awaits us. But in a globalised world full of consumers where companies are the main polluters, and where the fossil fuel lobby still holds sway over decisions made by our government, it seems to me that the problem might be with the unsustainable capitalistic system we have now. If we want to steer clear from the absolute worst case scenario, we will have to do something drastic and possibly eschew capitalism altogether. Saying that, understandably, evokes memories of the 20th century’s brutal dictatorships, but there is very little preventing us from creating a system that is both democratic and does not worship the market and place it above human dignity or the survival of our planet and species. What is needed is the will and the vision of (young) ambitious policymakers and politicians who are not in the pocket of the industries that are commodifying our human experiences and ‘our common home’. We need to think beyond the current frameworks, and that includes looking beyond an unsustainable economic system that we have grown so accustomed to.

Alanis Obomsawin, the Abenaki filmmaker, once said that:

When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.

To effect actual change that is needed on a large scale we need to move beyond the highly atomised perspective of personal sins and individual carbon footprints. The sheer scale of the task ahead of us, the task we, as stewards of the earth, are burdened with, requires a radical approach. It requires the fundamental, and collective, overhaul of our current economic and political system. It needs to go beyond good will, treaties and pledges and towards radical policy changes. This will mean that we will all have to chip in, and more than anything that the largest fossil fuel and transport corporations will need to be taxed heavily. The fact of the matter is that we can’t eat money. Our common home is more than a commodity to be passed between hands, or a resource to be continually exploited at the expense of the worlds poorest, sickest and youngest. When children are dying because of air pollution induced asthma and when people around the world are dying because of extreme weather, it is clear we have to do something. It means listening to the scientists, to the young and ambitious politicians, and to the young activists like Greta (who deserves more than mockery for her passion for the planet and her autism). Right now it is not yet too late. But how much longer can we say that?