// essays //
Fall 2014
Divest from Corporate Villainhood:
The Problem with the Binary Approach to Climate Change
Jonathan Nachman
Fall 2014
Divest from Corporate Villainhood:
The Problem with the Binary Approach to Climate Change
Jonathan Nachman
On October 21st, 2014, I joined more than 300,000 people in midtown Manhattan for the People’s Climate March, the largest rally in support of action against climate change to date. For most of the march, I walked next to protesters holding signs indicating that we should “Cook Organic / Not the Planet.” One chant I kept hearing was “Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell: take your oil and go to hell.” Some of the more extreme signs proclaimed “Climate Justice vs. Wall Street.” I was surrounded by crusaders fighting against the climate corrupting villains of the world. But who were these villains? And why did the framing of the issue as good vs. evil make me so uncomfortable?
I walked at the march with the Columbia contingent, which was organized and led by Barnard/Columbia Divest. This campus group is dedicated to the explicit goal of divesting the University endowment from fossil fuel companies. Part of its effort was a ballot initiative in 2013 declaring student support for divestment that passed with 74% support of the student body (albeit from a 36% turnout). The group painted corporations as evil, rotten, and selfish, gaining at the expense of the little guy.
In advocating for change, advocates of the cause are trying to frame the fight against climate change as a moral issue, and divestment as a moral imperative. But is this drive for moralization a help or hindrance in the fight against climate change? Though it is easy to orient the argument as “the [good] people” vs. “the [evil] corporations,” the reality is much more complicated.
The Divestment movement ignores an inconvenient truth: the largest fossil fuel companies are also some of the largest investors in alternative energy. For instance, BP, one of the world’s largest, has invested more than $7 billion in low emissions technology since 2005. The fossil fuel industry as a whole has invested $71 billion in zero and low-emissions energy technology; by comparison, the US government has spent about $43 billion (Bloomberg 2012). Granted these figures should be taken with a grain of salt, and are not incredibly impressive when looking at fossil fuel industry profits, which often number in the tens of billions for the major companies. Still, the reality remains that fossil fuel companies are among the largest investors in clean energy. To deny them investment would not just impact oil and gas operations. Clean energy technology may have a longer timeline for research payoffs, and divestment would force companies to pull out of these kinds of long haul research ventures, possibly compromising the field.
Still, the construction of villains seems to be essential in creating a broader movement. Those who attended the march had an incredibly diverse set of views: vegans, labor advocates, and indigenous-rights groups all marched together. While this kind of unity may have been possible for a positive goal (“saving the planet,”) it was helped by the creation of the ‘other’ who was seeking to undermine and exploit them all (“the corporations.”) The large multinational corporations who impact virtually everyone’s daily lives are easy targets: people have so many daily interactions with fossil fuel companies, whether it be in gassing up or paying their electric or heating bills, that the homogenized ‘fossil fuel corporation’ is a universally relatable villain. BC Divest exploits this trope to galvanize the larger student activist network. Invoking the image of corporate greed allows groups like Student Worker Solidarity [which advocates for workers’ rights] and Columbia Prison Divest [which is against for-profit prisons] to be transformed into allies, despite lacking the same goals or concerns.
The common theme espoused by these united activist groups was “Climate Justice.” But behind this slogan lurks the question of who exactly has been wronged. It is not the first-world consumers who are currently suffering, who have become wealthy and comfortable off of the cheap energy of coal and oil. Climate Justice entails some form of compensation for poor and developing countries that are suffering the consequences like Bangladesh, which has a per capita GDP of $2,100 (194th out of 228 for the world) and produces and exports much of the cheap textile work for rich markets. However, because of its geography, it will also face huge problems with sea level rises, with over 15 million people affected by a rise of even one meter. This comes despite its poverty and relatively low emissions (0.4 metric tons per capita, compared to 17.3 for the US). Surely Bangladesh deserves some measure of justice?
One proposed remedy, put into practice by countries such as Norway, is having rich countries pay poor countries for their avoidance of emissions, which can be used to also mitigate impacts of rising temperatures and sea levels. But why stop at the national level? Certain corporations within countries, such as ExxonMobil and Shell, have also become disproportionately wealthy off carbon polluting activities. Maybe these corporations should be required to pay for help to hard-hit coastal communities, or even pay other companies to reduce their emissions.
Yet we can push the issue of justice further still. After all, corporations are owned and operated by people. Can we say it would just for us to force those with shares in fossil fuel corporations to pay those who have lost homes in natural disasters or low lying coastal regions? This complication is additionally problematic because “justice” implies that the perpetrator of the wrong did so knowing the implications and immorality of his actions. But those who lived prior to the past few decades had no reason to believe that carbon emissions were or could become a problem. It was not even negligence: the tools, theory, and methodology of climate science simply did not exist. Should countries, corporations, or individual people be forced to pay simply for the path of history? Is that truly “climate justice”?
There is, however, an obvious response to this criticism: while a century ago this claim of lack of knowledge may have been valid, the problem of carbon emissions has become quite clear in the past two and a half decades. Ever since the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the UN, there has been an overwhelming body of evidence that climate change is real and dangerous. Those who own or invest corporations that rely on fossil fuel production surely must know better, and, it can be argued, should be required to pay for their negligence or injustice. So is there a solution that can both cast blame on those who have continued to contribute to the problem and also create a real impact on the climate?
Given the complicated nature of allocating blame for climate change, we must look past narratives of villainy and turn inwards. The most effective, broad method of reducing the carbon emissions driving climate change would be a universal carbon tax, imposed on every country, and every consumer. In a certain sense, this tax harms everyone: its entire purpose is to make everyday goods, transport, and food more expensive for mass consumption. It has the additional result of especially hurting those corporations (and sovereign wealth funds) that continue to extract carbon emitting fuels.
But in framing the argument on an economic basis, it is difficult to also claim a moral mantle. It is easy to ask for sacrifice to avoid giving money to the bad guys, but much more difficult to think about making yourself pay more for everyday items. Who in their right mind would willingly vote for a tax on themselves?
Battling villains is simple, as it allows us to externalize the threat to our way of life. We can claim the mantle of fighting for justice. But although raising the image of a villain may be helpful to unite people, it does not complete the work required. In the fight against climate change, the disconcerting and dangerous truth is that the enemy we must really defeat is our own desires and way of life. It is not the greed of capitalist corporations that we must fight; that is to be expected and, in the right place, desired. No, it is our own complacency and desire to cast blame on others that is really the greatest danger. We are our own worst enemies.
I walked at the march with the Columbia contingent, which was organized and led by Barnard/Columbia Divest. This campus group is dedicated to the explicit goal of divesting the University endowment from fossil fuel companies. Part of its effort was a ballot initiative in 2013 declaring student support for divestment that passed with 74% support of the student body (albeit from a 36% turnout). The group painted corporations as evil, rotten, and selfish, gaining at the expense of the little guy.
In advocating for change, advocates of the cause are trying to frame the fight against climate change as a moral issue, and divestment as a moral imperative. But is this drive for moralization a help or hindrance in the fight against climate change? Though it is easy to orient the argument as “the [good] people” vs. “the [evil] corporations,” the reality is much more complicated.
The Divestment movement ignores an inconvenient truth: the largest fossil fuel companies are also some of the largest investors in alternative energy. For instance, BP, one of the world’s largest, has invested more than $7 billion in low emissions technology since 2005. The fossil fuel industry as a whole has invested $71 billion in zero and low-emissions energy technology; by comparison, the US government has spent about $43 billion (Bloomberg 2012). Granted these figures should be taken with a grain of salt, and are not incredibly impressive when looking at fossil fuel industry profits, which often number in the tens of billions for the major companies. Still, the reality remains that fossil fuel companies are among the largest investors in clean energy. To deny them investment would not just impact oil and gas operations. Clean energy technology may have a longer timeline for research payoffs, and divestment would force companies to pull out of these kinds of long haul research ventures, possibly compromising the field.
Still, the construction of villains seems to be essential in creating a broader movement. Those who attended the march had an incredibly diverse set of views: vegans, labor advocates, and indigenous-rights groups all marched together. While this kind of unity may have been possible for a positive goal (“saving the planet,”) it was helped by the creation of the ‘other’ who was seeking to undermine and exploit them all (“the corporations.”) The large multinational corporations who impact virtually everyone’s daily lives are easy targets: people have so many daily interactions with fossil fuel companies, whether it be in gassing up or paying their electric or heating bills, that the homogenized ‘fossil fuel corporation’ is a universally relatable villain. BC Divest exploits this trope to galvanize the larger student activist network. Invoking the image of corporate greed allows groups like Student Worker Solidarity [which advocates for workers’ rights] and Columbia Prison Divest [which is against for-profit prisons] to be transformed into allies, despite lacking the same goals or concerns.
The common theme espoused by these united activist groups was “Climate Justice.” But behind this slogan lurks the question of who exactly has been wronged. It is not the first-world consumers who are currently suffering, who have become wealthy and comfortable off of the cheap energy of coal and oil. Climate Justice entails some form of compensation for poor and developing countries that are suffering the consequences like Bangladesh, which has a per capita GDP of $2,100 (194th out of 228 for the world) and produces and exports much of the cheap textile work for rich markets. However, because of its geography, it will also face huge problems with sea level rises, with over 15 million people affected by a rise of even one meter. This comes despite its poverty and relatively low emissions (0.4 metric tons per capita, compared to 17.3 for the US). Surely Bangladesh deserves some measure of justice?
One proposed remedy, put into practice by countries such as Norway, is having rich countries pay poor countries for their avoidance of emissions, which can be used to also mitigate impacts of rising temperatures and sea levels. But why stop at the national level? Certain corporations within countries, such as ExxonMobil and Shell, have also become disproportionately wealthy off carbon polluting activities. Maybe these corporations should be required to pay for help to hard-hit coastal communities, or even pay other companies to reduce their emissions.
Yet we can push the issue of justice further still. After all, corporations are owned and operated by people. Can we say it would just for us to force those with shares in fossil fuel corporations to pay those who have lost homes in natural disasters or low lying coastal regions? This complication is additionally problematic because “justice” implies that the perpetrator of the wrong did so knowing the implications and immorality of his actions. But those who lived prior to the past few decades had no reason to believe that carbon emissions were or could become a problem. It was not even negligence: the tools, theory, and methodology of climate science simply did not exist. Should countries, corporations, or individual people be forced to pay simply for the path of history? Is that truly “climate justice”?
There is, however, an obvious response to this criticism: while a century ago this claim of lack of knowledge may have been valid, the problem of carbon emissions has become quite clear in the past two and a half decades. Ever since the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the UN, there has been an overwhelming body of evidence that climate change is real and dangerous. Those who own or invest corporations that rely on fossil fuel production surely must know better, and, it can be argued, should be required to pay for their negligence or injustice. So is there a solution that can both cast blame on those who have continued to contribute to the problem and also create a real impact on the climate?
Given the complicated nature of allocating blame for climate change, we must look past narratives of villainy and turn inwards. The most effective, broad method of reducing the carbon emissions driving climate change would be a universal carbon tax, imposed on every country, and every consumer. In a certain sense, this tax harms everyone: its entire purpose is to make everyday goods, transport, and food more expensive for mass consumption. It has the additional result of especially hurting those corporations (and sovereign wealth funds) that continue to extract carbon emitting fuels.
But in framing the argument on an economic basis, it is difficult to also claim a moral mantle. It is easy to ask for sacrifice to avoid giving money to the bad guys, but much more difficult to think about making yourself pay more for everyday items. Who in their right mind would willingly vote for a tax on themselves?
Battling villains is simple, as it allows us to externalize the threat to our way of life. We can claim the mantle of fighting for justice. But although raising the image of a villain may be helpful to unite people, it does not complete the work required. In the fight against climate change, the disconcerting and dangerous truth is that the enemy we must really defeat is our own desires and way of life. It is not the greed of capitalist corporations that we must fight; that is to be expected and, in the right place, desired. No, it is our own complacency and desire to cast blame on others that is really the greatest danger. We are our own worst enemies.
// JONATHAN NACHMAN is a Junior in Columbia College. He can be reached at [email protected]. Photo by Flickr user James Ennis.