/sci/ - Science & Math

"Climate Change represents a failure of modern politics. Elected governments should should execute the people's will yet, in this greatest threat to our future, governments around the world have not represented the interests of the people but have allowed themselves to be held in the thrall of a powerful group of companies and the ideology of growth fetishism they embody. It is apparent to the most dim-witted observer that these corporations are 'more interested in commerce than humanity', as Thoreau wrote, and are run by executives who are, to put it most charitably, misguided and self-interested. This is truer today after the remolding of democratic political systems to give greater influence to lobbyists and insiders. The climate crisis is upon us because democracy has been corrupted; influence has replaced representation, and spin now substitutes for honest communication. The 'professionalisation' of the major political parties turned them into finely tuned vote-getting machines. Instead of being the expression of competing social forces and ideologies they are driven by polls, focus groups and minute demographic analysis. Political campaigns now occur largely in the mass media, a channel between the people and their leaders that is filled by an army of specialists whose task is to craft messages and cultivate editors. This is possible because the power of social movements has waned, and visionary politics has been swamped by the lure of affluence. For the most part, environment organizations too have been sucked into the political game of influence peddling and media management, with their leaders resigned to incrementalism, a strategy now mocked by Nature's powers."