{"id":4805,"date":"2025-01-16T18:25:37","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T18:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/global-social-challenges\/?p=4805"},"modified":"2025-01-20T19:02:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T19:02:18","slug":"does-capitalism-pose-a-bigger-threat-or-helping-hand-to-the-environment-and-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/global-social-challenges\/2025\/01\/16\/does-capitalism-pose-a-bigger-threat-or-helping-hand-to-the-environment-and-how\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Capitalism Pose a Bigger Threat or Helping Hand to the Environment and How?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Article by Matthew Hill Baptista<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo by Johannes Plenio<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ever since its origin, capitalism has grown in power and therefore its impact on the environment both positively and negatively. Through its drive to increase profitability it can damage the environment through raw material extraction, but its progress can also be defined through technological advancements which can help reverse these changes as mentioned later. However, capitalism continues to act as a relentless force which sacrifices the environment, and its nature makes it less likely to help the environment as it threatens the very idea it stands for, to make money.<\/p>\n

In order to appeal to the ever-changing market, capitalism continues to develop leading to new ways of harming the environment. This argument is founded by Ulrich Beck and his \u2018Risk society\u2019<\/a> as he argued that modern societies since the 1980s had become \u2018risk societies\u2019 which had been characterised by mega hazards due to the industrial pollution, nuclear incidents and toxins in air or water which had been caused by capitalism and its drive for profit.<\/p>\n

Despite Beck focussing on the Chernobyl disaster as he creates this concept of risk in 1986, this can be seen more recently by the introduction of lithium mining to show capitalisms apparent move to sustainability but in reality, has detrimental effects. New lithium mines<\/a> are opening globally, such as the Nevada and California mines in the USA, which will be utilised by companies such as Tesla to supposedly benefit society and the environment through electric cars. However, as this element started to be mined in mass amounts it has fallen under the same umbrella as fossil fuels and has negatively impacted the environment similarly through \u2018soil degradation, water shortages, biodiversity loss, damage to ecosystem functions and an increase in global warming\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Allan Schnaiberg at a similar time in 1980, also discusses through his concept, \u2018the treadmill of production\u2019<\/a>, as he argues that \u2018a growing level of capital available for investments and the changing allocation of such capital investment together produced a substantial increase in demand for natural resources.’ as companies begin to accumulate more money, they begin to extract more raw materials to create more effective machinery which leads to new forms of pollution. These forms of pollution harm the environment and continue to develop as capitalism continues to invest in them<\/p>\n

This concepts use of the term treadmill refers to how raw material extraction continuously increases which can be highlighted through the increasing extraction of oil since 1880, this is shown as \u2018From 1880 to the 1973 oil shock world oil production increased at an average rate of 7.3% per year, and at 1.3% per year from 1983 to 2019.\u2019<\/a>\u00a0Not only does this damage the environment by draining it of its natural resources but it has many negative impacts such as climate change through increased release of greenhouse gases which lead to many more natural disasters<\/a> such as more flooding and stronger and more dangerous hurricanes which not only threaten human life but heavily damages nature.<\/p>\n

However, these types of arguments have been referred to as an \u2018iron cage\u2019 and a deterministic view of industrial capitalism as ecological modernisation theorists \u2018now use the notion of ecological modernisation to pertain to private sector behaviours and conduct that simultaneously increases efficiency and minimise pollution and waste’<\/a>, suggesting how companies are starting to consider the environment in more of the decisions they make in order to reduce the amount of harm they release.<\/p>\n

This can be shown through companies such as Ikea<\/a> who have altered their material extraction, production and transportation methods to reduce environmental impact, but this is undermined by the fact that this company behaviour is only to portray them in a better light and to make them appear a better option to their competitors and that they do not have real motive to help the environment. Furthermore, these positive effect from a single company do not reverse all off the negative impacts from many other companies over the last multiple decades.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, referencing Beck once more, he suggests a similar view that progress made by Capitalism may help to reverse these changes through reflexive modernisation, as capitalism leads to scientific progress which can deal with consequences caused by the environmental harm. But if such progress could be made, plans would have begun to be announced, but capitalisms drive for profit prevents this, showing how capitalism does indeed harm the environment more than it helps.<\/a><\/p>\n

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