Week 25
Ecology is filled with hypocrisy up to the brim.
Date: 14th June 2022
Motion: THS any measure to redress the carbon footprint
Role: Leader (opp.)
Recently I watched a documentary by the FBC (domestically known as YLE) journalist Jessica Stolzmann, who had eaten a burger and been given the promise that it’d get climate-compensated in due course. She began tracking if this really was so. It turned out that the burger company paid largely lip service. The company in question is the most successful national burger franchise. Its owner has played a kind of a dual role in juxtaposition with the world-famous McDonalds. First he developed his understanding of the ropes, as if he were the McDonald brothers. Then he sold the company. After a few years’ sabbatical he bought his old company back and began to expand and redevelop it as if he was Ray Kroc. In a few years, in the early noughties, he overtook McDonalds and any other Finnish company in the burger business.
It turned out that there is an arrangement between four or five companies that lies behind that climate compensation. Two companies act as middlemen to syndicate the compensation. A start-up tech company handles the app, communications and maybe some other tech aspects. Finally, an African company sells or gives a wood-burning stove to a hapless Ugandan citizen, who uses it in her daily life and thus compensates carbon footprint for the Finnish burger company. The pretext is that the upgraded stove is more energy-efficient than the traditional one. Africans are usually oblivious to this. It is a joint scheme between two Nordic, one Silicon Valley and one Swiss firm.
In the next, I want to concentrate on ethical climate-compensation instead of such far-fetchedness.
Each Countermeasure in the Country of Origin (Instead of Outsourcing)
To make climate compensation ethical, it would need it happen in the country of the original exploitation or consumption, the “original sin“. It’s too easy to outsource the redemption of one’s sins to other continents or countries. Like, “Sin here and make Africans pay for it over there.” That does not sound fair to me. Africans might have sins of their own that they, too, should pay for on their own continent.
Reforestation Is a Good Countermeasure
Then, a measure should be tangible. It should make a difference in the balance. When we talk about compensation, one good countermeasure is reforestation, the planting of new trees. In Finland, there is a lot of knowledge about this, as is anywhere in Scandinavia or the coniferous tree belt. Outside Scandinavia, trees have been largely cut down for building material, firewood or scaffolding. But, a growing tree anywhere cannot be a bad thing, in particular if you can see a forest in addition to trees.
Renouncing a Car Is a Good Countermeasure
Another good measure is to scrap a car and take it out of traffic. I.e. if you cannot add to the amount of oxygen in the air, you can detract from the amount of pollutants in the air. I think the “PC”, the personal car, is one of the worst polluters on Earth. If all gas-driven cars were phased out of traffic and only jet and diesel engines were left to pollute, we would not have climate change as we know it. In practice, the solution would mean that any well-off person who should choose to go without a car even if (s)he could afford one, would contribute to carbon neutrality and prevent climate change.
So, if the burger company was being ethical about it, it would take a sedan, station wagon or SUV out of traffic or plant a tree – and do both in Finland. Planting trees is straightforward enough, but I would like to chuckle on the ceiling to see how the company received certificates, via or without middlemen, from people who would vouch for dumping, scrapping or uninsuring their cars (but not reselling them), which in turn should entitle the people to some benefits at the counters of the burger giant, such as a year of free coffee, or something. “The ceiling of the burger joint is the limit.”
An ancient form of Catholic wrongdoing, the trade in indulgences, is what the trade in carbon compensation most looks like. At any rate, Catholic solutions are “too good to be true”, and the Protestant in me opposes them. If we are supposed to make any difference in the world, we need to make amends that mean something.
Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t): Olen mielestäni oikealla asialla, kun vastustan tekopyhää ekologista anekauppaa. Sen tajuaminen ei pitäisi olla vaikeaa niille, jotka ovat olleet hereillä historian ja/tai uskonnon tunneilla. Muille puol(u)e(e)ni jäsenille jää runsaasti muita aiheita, jotka periaatteessa todistavat samasta asiasta. Yleinen draivi mediassa ja politiikassa on puolestaan hallituksen puolella.
Polar Ice Standpoints Society 