Greenwashing Climate Catastrophe

“With “capitalism in danger of falling apart” (a rare, cryptically honest quote from Al Gore), and years of stagnant global economic growth now in a free fall, the Greta campaign must be understood for what it is. An elaborate distraction that has nothing to do with protecting the natural world, and everything to do with the manufacturing of consent. The required consent of the citizenry that will unlock the treasuries and public monies under the guise of climate protection.” – Cory Morningstar and Forest Palmer , from The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – For Consent: The House is on Fire & the 90 Trillion Dollar Rescue, 2019



“Modern business must have its finger continuously on the public pulse. It must understand the changes in the public mind and be prepared to interpret itself fairly and eloquently to changing opinion.” ― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda, 1928

It is hard not to notice a stirring of consciousness regarding humanity’s dire ecological predicament beginning to seep into the mainstream these days. How can it not? Year after year records are shattered. Month after month scientists continue to be shocked and demoralized by more and more evidence of rising seas, a climate careening into a chaotic and terrifying unknown, and countless species succumbing in a biosphere perpetually under siege. Even the corporate media which has been designed as a mouthpiece of capitalist interests cannot completely veil our collective crisis. Unsurprisingly, the ruling class has begun to react, not in a way that meaningfully addresses the death cult of the current socioeconomic order, but to ensure its survival albeit with a greener face. Their cynical approach to what is the biggest existential crisis of our age is using youthful optimism and justified outrage and terror to cloud their machinations.

One such prominent youth these days is Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old Swedish girl who delivered a rousing speech at the UN Climate Change Conference and before the world’s wealthiest at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Indeed, her speech was inspiring and I do not doubt her passion or honest devotion to climate activism for a minute, but to ignore the powerful machine looking to co-opt her message would be a grave mistake. For instance, Thunberg has been given interviews in the corporate press, has been endorsed by a tech start-up company (We Don’t Have Time), and has been lauded by industry for promoting “sustainable development.”

Now certainly Thunberg is not the one manipulating any of these actors, and she should not face any kind of criticism for her part in addressing the greatest existential issue of our times. But it should be clear that most people who get interviews in the corporate media are generally not deemed to be a serious challenger to the status quo political/economic order. Corporate approved dissent is a form of censorship that gives the illusion of a lively debate, but essentially establishes a firm line in the sand when it comes to radically questioning or opposing the capitalist framework itself. And if finance companies are behind something we can be pretty sure that they are primarily in it for the money. In addition to this, the term sustainable development is meaningless on a planet that is literally on the edge of a cliff, but under the dominant economic dictatorship of money the co-opted mainstream environmental movement has pumped out these tropes making them a form of collective social conditioning.



It has in fact become only about “sustainability” despite the contradiction of sustaining a system that is at its core omnicidal. Corporations have been actively branding themselves with empty greenwashing euphemisms like “green” or “earth friendly” in the decades following the first Earth Day. It is as if our species were somehow alien visitors to this planet and being friendly to it was merely a diplomatic concern. Certainly a handful of corporations did in fact change some of their practices under public pressure and for the sake of image. Some of those changes had beneficial effects for certain species and areas. But the primary engine of capitalism that has led us to the brink of devastation is never questioned. It is sacrosanct.

With this in mind political solutions, like the Green New Deal, are being trotted out by democratic socialist and neoliberal politicians that merely cloak the problem, never identifying the root of it all: Capitalism. In fact, many of these policies are weak on protecting nature and are simply designed to keep capitalism afloat. At its core this is a system that is incapable of even beginning  to address climate change or biospheric degeneration. Its principles are based upon the exploitation of the environment for the material gain of the ruling class, kept alive through institutions of repression and corporate state violence. Under this rubric environmental causes may be soothed for some; but the poor and working class are continually battered and raped by industry and the corrupt governments that house and protect them. Indigenous peoples, who face the worst exploitation, continually see their lands desecrated and denuded by state policing factions at the behest of powerful corporations. And militarism, which is of course wedded to capitalism, ensures that all of this exploitation can continue and expand virtually unopposed by bourgeois society.

It may be a hard pill for many to swallow, but there are simply no viable answers to be found in Washington, or the hills of Hollywood, or the board rooms of Wall Street, or even at the United Nations which generally capitulates to the demands of the ruling class. They have molded each of these institutions, media industries and government bodies to fit their censorious narrative in order to suppress dissent against the current economic order, under which they so handsomely profit. And one would be wise to approach whatever they offer with great caution. After all, they have been labouring for years to dismember the commons, grow their inordinate wealth through plunder, and maintain their dominance through corruption, militarism and distraction. The sacredness of the public sphere has been defiled by the inviolable liturgy of free market dogma. And they have manufactured a culture of cruelty, devoid of character and predicated on colonization and the commodification and exploitation of everything and everyone that exists. In this way neoliberalism, the last and most ruthless stage of capitalism, has become the most elaborate and successful form of brainwashing and social control the world has ever known, convincing hundreds of millions of people of the absolute necessity of its economic tyranny and omnicidal madness.

But despite the machinations of the ruling class to obfuscate, infiltrate and co-opt movements, there remains a genuine longing for connection to the ever besieged living planet and solidarity with one another that transcends the indifferent and sadistic brutality of the capitalist order. This is especially true as capitalism begins to implode and the biosphere continues to degrade. Therefore the most coherent response to what we are witnessing will always come from ordinary people in community, especially the poor and especially indigenous peoples who are on the front lines of a war being waged by governments serving the interests of the wealthy ruling class and global capitalism. But we can be assured that anything that emanates from the halls of power will be merely another ploy to maintain their control and fill the coffers of the uber-rich at the expense of the rest of us and the living earth itself. And they have no problem using the innocent passion of a 16 year old girl to hide all of their crimes.

Kenn Orphan   2019


10 thoughts on “Greenwashing Climate Catastrophe

  1. Richard Fidler

    Well written–and thank you. Making individual choices to live simply quells the guilt I feel. Ending capitalism is more than I can tackle at age 75. Are the small steps each one of us takes of no value?


  2. Pingback: Corporations, NGOs and Governments | Loki's Revenge

  3. lokisrevengeblog

    Emissions must go down 50% in 10 years to avoid 1.5 C.
    Emissions must go down 100% in 20 years to avoid 2.0 C.
    In 10 years energy demand will rise 10% and emissions 15% or the financial system will collapse.
    Socialism and cartel banking are 100 years old. This battle will continue for another hundred if we let it.
    There has never been a 100% energy transition and takes 3 generations to complete.
    We lost 60% of the animals on earth in the last 40 years and are headed to the final tipping point.
    The final tipping point is runaway mass extinction, which cannot be stopped or reversed once started.
    We don’t have time for the old ways. Fascism infects all ideologies. All ideologies are an addiction.
    100% private carbon tax dividends means 0% for governments, NGOs and corporations.
    Socialists and Capitalists hate 100% private carbon dividends.
    The top 20% of income earners make 70% of emissions. Taxing them is the fastest way to reduce emissions.
    The only way to unite left and right is to tax the top 20% of earners with 100% private carbon tax dividends.
    We will never do this because it makes too much sense, and we’re addicted to ideology.
    Social media drives addiction to ideological extremism.


  4. Lorna Salzman

    While I agree that individual acts and behavior changes will not substantially help to solve the climate change problem, they should not be discouraged. They should be accompanied (through public education and organizing) with an agenda for institutional and policy change. There are quite a few incremental or seemingly marginal changes that in fact would seriously handicap
    capitalism’s worst excesses. The leading one is to raise energy prices via a carbon tax (fee and dividend), which the left and other deluded people are opposing for no good reason. Higher energy prices reduce consumption, which is needed to feed capitalism. The rapid termination of fossil fuels is another way, accompanied by tax policies that will encourage relocalization of not only distributed renewable energy sources like wind power but which increase the viaibility of
    local businesses. Mass food production and transportation that involve transport of foods from thousands of miles away will also be reduced via carbon taxes. If a Border Tax Adjustment (a tariff) is imposed on imports from countries without a carbon tax, imports from abroad will be
    reduced and local agriculture will benefit. Subsidies and tax breaks of course must be ended as quickly as possible. Higher energy costs will curb sprawl and housing developments in the middle of nowhere. Forcing industries to reduce overpacking and pre-processing of foods would
    encourage people to buy fresh unpackaged foods from nearby farms. Etc, etc. The point is that capitalism can be gradually curbed without having to argue about socialism. In any case what the new congressional reps really mean is social democracy, not soviet style socialism.


    1. Daniel Moskowitz

      I’m a bit skeptical of this article. Overturning capitalism is not within MY capacity. However, I don’t really own a car or need a car. I’m not the type of person who can “form community” in my area. I can only GO where people are receptive to me. One must accept a certain powerlessness. As far as militarism, I don’t really SUPPORT the War in Yemen, but what can I do about it? I don’t have the power to get Sunni and Shia Muslims to reconcile. I don’t have the power to get the United States and Russia to reconcile. To me, President Donald Trump’s attitude towards Yemen isn’t completely different to Adolf Hitler’s attitude towards the Jews. “If we stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, Americans will lose their jobs.” However, even if Trump is, in certain ways, like Adolf Hitler, what does that MEAN to most people? Maybe, it doesn’t matter because they don’t remember the Holocaust anyways?


      1. mike k

        I understand your despair about making a difference Daniel. I respect your willingness to honestly share here. In fact by doing so, you did make a small difference. If enough of us share our thoughts, maybe it will aid a general awakening, and that could lead to effective actions.


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