cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/10713443
For denial doesn’t only amount to rejecting the evidence, he argues – it also consists of denying our role in the climate crisis; absolving ourselves through “carbon offsets, hybrid cars, local purchases, recycling”. And in this, far more of us are implicated.
In some ways, this argument might not seem all that new. Multiple authors have pointed out that green capitalism, not rightwing deniers of the crisis, is our greatest obstacle to properly confronting the problem. DeLay agrees. The difference is the lens he brings to it – using psychoanalysis to explain the mechanisms behind denial.
I’m an engineer, so I don’t agree with the despair, but also believe that what we’ll have is a number of partial and not entirely satisfactory solutions that mitigate the problem but don’t fully solve it. And we’ll adapt because we have to. But it’s foolish to underestimate the intertia of the present way of doing things. It’s going to be a long slog, and the legacy indstries are going to fight and foot-drag until they’re driven out of business.