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By James Okulaja

If I was a billionaire… why on earth would I support a movement that takes money out of my pockets? Capitalism. Capitalism fuels our climate challenges and enhances poverty but the proletariat continue to support a system without realising we are the ones that are disadvantaged the most by this selfish and corrupt monopoly. We continue to engage in discourse regarding sustainability and the environment crisis but spend our money on the corporations that exacerbate our future. We allow these corporations to conceal the solutions through agents of the media based on the fact that many of the solutions to our climate crisis subvert their interests. 

Prime time television was decorated with reports highlighting the severity of plastic straws in our climate crisis. The media played an integral role in labelling the use of plastic straws as the most significant factor. This is crucial as it demonstrates the influence that media has on the general public. Research conducted highlighted that ‘across all countries, people say they pay the most attention to climate news on television (35%)’ (Andı and Painter, 2020). This is not crucial because it highlights the source but it is crucial as the ‘propaganda model’ (Herman and Chomsky, 1988) discusses who the source is influenced by. The propaganda model labels one of the five filters of the media as ownership and in the UK, ‘just three companies (News UK, Daily Mail Group and Reach) dominate 90% of the national newspaper market’ which has increased from 71% in 2015 ( (“Report: Who Owns the UK Media?”, 2021). How are we to expect a free and independent press if gigantic corporations control and create the narrative? How are we to expect an impartial view on climate change if it subverts the interests of the partners that are funding the media? In 2020 the media hyper-focused on the use of single-use plastic straws which was marketed as an attempt to clean up our oceans and tackle the climate crisis but in reality it was a strategy used to conceal the impact fishing has on our oceans to protect the corporations that generate billions of pounds in revenue from it and divert our attention to the straws that only constitute ‘less than one percent’ (Jordan, 2018) of the issue. As a result, in October of 2020 legislation was introduced which banned the use of single-use plastic straws which to the public may have seemed a step in the right direction but in actuality was a step to protect the pockets of the top five percent. 

Capitalism is destroying the earth. Capitalism cannot function without dismantling the environment and killing ecosystems. ‘The economy is an environmental pyramid scheme, dumping its liabilities on the young and the unborn’ (Monbiot, 2019). Capitalism operates on the theory that you are entitled to whatever your money can afford. This is clearly damaging as it fundamentally neglects any other actors that can be affected. This is best demonstrated by the extensive use of coal and oil for electricity. Coal and oil generate trillions in revenue and is a direct line to profits but corporations consciously choose to use these finite resources instead of investing in solar energy which is infinite and overtly more sustainable. However, the fact that coal and oil are finite increases their value which produces more profits while deteriorating our planet and our future. It is clear that capitalism provides consent for the corporations to exhaust our planets resources and us as consumers provide them with a mandate to do so but continuing to invest our income in these companies. Until capitalism is more regulated and selfish billionaires become more empathetic, there is little hope of alleviating the environmental challenges our planet faces. 

Plastic straws and capitalist wars. 

Works Cited

Andı, Simge, and James Painter. “How much do people around the world care about climate change? We surveyed 80,000 people in 40 countries to find out.” The Conversation, 16 June 2020, https://theconversation.com/how-much-do-people-around-the-world-care-about-climate-change-we-surveyed-80-000-people-in-40-countries-to-find-out-140801. Accessed 15 March 2022.

HERMAN, E. S., & CHOMSKY, N. (1988). Manufacturing consent: the political economy of the mass media. New York, Pantheon Books.

Jordan, Rob. “Do plastic straws really make a difference?” Stanford Earth, 18 September 2018, https://earth.stanford.edu/news/do-plastic-straws-really-make-difference#gs.tt1qv8. Accessed 15 March 2022.

Monbiot, George. “Capitalism is destroying the Earth. We need a new human right for future generations | George Monbiot.” The Guardian, 15 March 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/15/capitalism-destroying-earth-human-right-climate-strike-children. Accessed 15 March 2022.

Noor, Saleha. “Why We Need to Change Capitalism for Climate Action.” Earth.Org, 30 July 2021, https://earth.org/change-capitalism-for-climate-action/. Accessed 15 March 2022.

“Report: Who Owns the UK Media?” Media Reform Coalition, 14 March 2021, https://www.mediareform.org.uk/media-ownership/who-owns-the-uk-media. Accessed 15 March 2022.

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