http://monthlyreview.org/0207jbf.htm

The Ecology of Destruction

.........Underlying this is the fact that the class/imperial war that defines capitalism as a world system, and that governs its system of accumulation, is a juggernaut that knows no limits. In this deadly conflict the natural world is seen as a mere instrument of world social domination. Hence, capital by its very logic imposes what is in effect a scorched earth strategy. The planetary ecological crisis is increasingly all-encompassing, a product of the destructive uncontrollability of a rapidly globalizing capitalist economy, which knows no law other than its OWN DRIVE TO EXPONENTIAL EXPANSION.

Transcending Business as Usual

Most climate scientists, including Lovelock and Hansen, follow the IPCC in basing their main projections of global warming on a socioecnomic scenario described as “business as usual.” The dire trends indicated are predicated on our fundamental economic and technological developments and our basic relation to nature remaining the same. The question we need to ask then is what actually is business as usual? What can be changed and how fast? With time running out the implication is that it is necessary to alter business as usual in radical ways in order to stave off or lessen catastrophe.

Yet, the dominant solutions-those associated with the dominant ideology, i.e., the ideology of the dominant class-emphasize minimal changes in business as usual that will somehow get us off the hook. After being directed to the growing planetary threats of global warming and species extinction we are told that the answer is better gas mileage and better emissions standards, the introduction of hydrogen-powered cars, the capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere, improved conservation, and voluntary cutbacks in consumption. ...In all of these views, however, there is one constant: the fundamental character of business as usual is hardly changed at all..............

Just as we are addicted as a societies to hydrocarbon energy, we are also addicted to Business As Usual economic paradigms. Planning intelligently for a soft landing would be wise, but for humanity, I think crisis situations will be the stimulus required to precipitate the dramatic changes that will be needed to cope with the new developing realities of declining energy resources and climate change. The busy, distracted people's in the world's affluent societies, enjoying the abundance and amenities garnered from plundering the world's labor and resources, are showing little interest in making the bold changes needed to address these huge problems. The inertia of our current ways will by extremely hard to change. Perhaps it will take new people, new generations, who will not grow up in the kind of world and times we did, and therefor will not be in the position to have to unlearn the kinds of mindsets that have created the various quagmires before us now.