September 2024
As the impacts of climate change become ever more apparent capitalism seeks to rebrand itself as green. We are told that if we calculate our personal co2 footprint, buy the right (expensive) products, and do our part to recycle we can save the planet. This is categorically false. There is no way to consume our way out of this crisis. Nothing less than a fundamental shift away from the endless growth that capitalism requires can stop the glaciers from melting, the forests from burning, and the displacement of humans and animals from their habitats.
The shift to electric vehicles that is being promoted by governments across Europe and the car companies that these states subsidize is part of this thinly veiled attempt to recuperate the climate catastrophe called capitalism. There is nothing sustainable about an electric car. Every step in the global supply chain that ships an electric vehicle made in the United States to our doorstep in Amsterdam involves the exploitation of workers and the destruction of the planet. The mining of minerals for the battery alone is an incredibly destructive process. Lithium extracted in Chile contaminates local water sources, cobalt mined in the Congo involves child labor, and nickel dug out in Indonesia leaches heavy metals into the ocean. Not to mention the steel, titanium, aluminum, and plastic needed for the body of the car. These raw materials are in short supply and the scramble by states and corporations to secure access is fueling a new wave of colonialism across the global south.
Continue reading electric charging stations sabotaged around Amsterdam (Netherlands)
(image from the local scum backs of media)
