The ecological bubble is about to burst too

(novilist.hr)

Ever since capitalism invented the credit card in the 70s, and used it to strike back at socialism, citizens of the Western Hemisphere have been living beyond their means, or rather, on debt. Living on debt and in installments has created the illusion of a comfortable life until the loans are due. And we saw what that looks like in 2008, when the global financial crisis began because the bubble of outstanding debts burst, and failing banks had to be bailed out by governments with money from the budget, which ultimately made us all poorer and made us the first generation in human history to be poorer than our parents.

We have also transferred the practice of spending capital that we have not earned to natural resources, which we ruthlessly consume beyond the capabilities of our planet. The problem is that natural resources cannot be repaired from the state budget, not even by raising interest rates, because once they are used up, it takes a very long time to regenerate. If some can be regenerated at all, such as forests cut down for construction purposes or dried up riverbeds due to global warming. The problem of living on ecological debt because we spend more and faster than nature can regenerate, is warned by the Global Footprint Network, and according to its calculations, the ecological debt has become so large that it is only a matter of days before its bubble will burst, just like the financial one from 2008.

As with consumerism, when we bought goods in installments as if we were receiving at least two salaries per month, we behave with regard to the Earth's resources as if half of the Solar System were ours and as if the resources would last forever. Back in the 90s, Pope John Paul II said of the ecological crisis that it was "a crisis of morality and true contempt for man" given that saving has long since ceased to be a virtue, and wasteful consumption has become a status symbol and socially acceptable behavior that has spilled over into environmental protection. Nowadays, anyone who saves is a fool, so environmental protection is for fools, not for the elite.

And that's exactly how the most industrially developed countries behave - arrogantly, condescending to the poor, not caring much about the environment and the climate. It's because of them that the Kyoto Agreement, which many thought could really reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere, failed ingloriously, because rich countries, all heavy industrial polluters, came up with the idea of buying up their CO2 emission quotas from poor countries and sending even more pollution into the atmosphere than they would otherwise emit. We, for example, sold our quota to the British. For money.

In order to restrain certain, primarily rich countries from irrationally consuming the Earth's resources, an attempt will now be made with the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and judging by the current practice of international law, this could also end up as Kyoto quotas, although the idea is noble and commendable. As is well known, international legal norms do not apply to great powers, so for example the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague cannot, or must not, try American soldiers if they have committed such crimes. In addition, great powers, and especially Trump's America, are known for entering and exiting various international agreements when they wish, or if the agreement does not suit them. If the US is about to withdraw from UNESCO, who is to prevent them from also withdrawing from the climate agreement or simply saying that the judgment of the court in The Hague, according to which poor countries could seek compensation from the rich for pollution, simply does not apply to the US. Nor do war crimes judgments.

However, the elites are not fools like us who care about the environment. They have very good and precise calculations about how much more global warming will increase and in which parts of the planet life will soon become impossible. The United Nations therefore warned a few years ago that we are preparing for the so-called climate apartheid in which the rich will buy escape from droughts and heat waves, while the rest of us wait for the red weather alert to go off. In the same warning, the UN states that the business elites are key to the fight against climate change, but that we cannot rely on them when it comes to helping the poor who cannot avoid global warming.