How the myth of unlimited growth is destroying the planet.

• Author: Buxton, Nick
• Position: Interview

Economic growth and continued expansion are a vital requirement for the current pattern of civilization. We need to change this if we are to solve the climate crisis.

Edgardo Lander, Professor of Social Sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, is one of the leading thinkers and writers on the left in Venezuela, both supportive and constructively critical of the Venezuelan revolution under Chavez. He is a member of the Latin American Social Science Council's (CLACSO) research group on Hegemonies and Emancipations and on the editorial board of the academic journal Revista Venezolana de Economia y Ciencias Societies.

Nick Buxton (NB): What challenges does the climate crisis pose us as humanity?

Edgardo Lander (EL): Unless we tackle the myths of growth and development, unless we manage in a short time to enact a radical redistribution of access to the world's commons, we will face a doomsday scenario.

We need to look at how the issue of what we call climate crisis is framed. Once you refer to it as a climate crisis, you limit the debate to how much carbon there is in the atmosphere. It becomes a technical problem. How do we reduce carbon emissions? Solutions are seen as top-down techno-fixes, when this is really about the need to change a whole pattern of civilization.

Focusing entirely on carbon and temperatures also leaves out the fact that forests have been irrevocably destroyed, seas dramatically overfished, water contaminated. An economic system based on unlimited growth contradicts a limited planet. It also attempts to obscure the political and distributional dimensions of this global crisis.

There is a huge difference between those who have historically made the greatest contribution to climate change and those who suffer its most severe impacts. Pollution invariably occurs where the poor live, while the rich live in uncontaminated areas. Therefore this isn't just about levels of pollution but also about justice. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, one billion people go hungry each day. The impact of climate change will lead to high migration, more racism, attempts to protect privilege, the rise of resource wars, more inequality and more violence. We don't have much time left.

NB: What are the roots of the current destructive pattern of civilization?

EL: They are both cultural and philosophical, with roots that go way back, but which were taken up by capitalism in rapidly increasing ways. As there can...