Is capitalism the answer to ENV problems?

Why are people so alienated from nature today? We attain food from food kiosks instead of plucking berries from bushes; we attain potable water from taps instead of rivers; our roads are tarred instead of grassy greens or mud. Today, nature and the society we live in seems to be mutually exclusive.

Majority of us city dwellers forget the fact that everything we have in our lives today is a result of a forced sacrifice by nature. For instance, printing an article. Where did the paper come from? How much electricity is consumed to print it? How is electricity generated? What are the components of the printer? What materials were used to make them? How were the materials obtained? My point is, people are not unaware that we are stripping earth’s natural resources to support our daily activities.

In the past, when humans were still one with the nature, mankind depended on nature for basic survival. Today we depend on nature not for basic survival, but for greater comforts which un-coincidentally shares a positive relationship with economic development. We overconsume finite resources like fossil fuels and metals which had no economic value in the prehistoric age, in turn resulting in adverse effects on the environment which never was an issue before the age of humans.

We know the problems, yet we still continue with our lives the way it is as we have a more pressing need for profits than saving the earth. Due to capitalism, people (hence the government) are more obsessed with making money and profits gained precedence over other aspects of life, including the environment. “The point is that environmental pollution is driven by economic necessity under capitalism. Within the existing political-economic context, drastically decreasing pollution can only be brought about by economic recession.”[1]

Is capitalism really such a horrendous system?
Are capitalistic methods such as carbon credits be a solution from a problem that stems from capitalism? 

Being capitalistic involves being self-interested, hence we tend to prioritise, even our values and principles against societal ones. Even though I am not pro-capitalist, I have to admit this system is rather effective. The competitive nature of this system is what brought about the Anthropocene, where many innovative technological advancements surfaced and mankind have achieved many milestones. The environment may have been neglected, or even alienated as a result of our greed. Nevertheless, firms down the supply chain will still have to address environmental issues eventually as we are never really alienated from the nature as resources for human activity stems from nature. Or simply because as people get richer they demand for a clean (and probably green) environment. Since capitalism manipulates the idea of self-interest, there will always be a place for the environment in capitalism as a person’s environment is always part of their self-interest. It may seem otherwise today as the environmental problems are either not close to us, or are still tolerable. In time to come, these problems would be impossible to ignore and capitalism would work its magic. However, will it be too late? And, will the poor be saved from the pending catastrophe?

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[1] Adapted from Global Political Ecology by Richard Peet, Paul Robbins and Michael Watts