The business community got a shock on Monday when its leading advocacy group appeared to make a startling announcement. A statement purporting to come from the Chamber of Commerce said the group had dropped its opposition to congressional climate change legislation and would now even support taxing carbon emissions. The news wires quickly picked up the story, and within minutes it was being reported on the websites of outlets including the New York Times and Washington Post. It also made its way onto cable news, including the Fox Business Network. It was all a prank pulled off by the Yes Men.
My only question is that they seem to suggest that carbon taxing is a good thing, but I don't think they came out and said that *carbon credit trading* was a bad thing. Like the "Clean Coal" myth, the whole "cap and trade" fiction needs to be called out. Taxing carbon won't solve anything. It needs to be banned ASAP. Trading is just subterfuge--something to make it look like action is being taken. But it's our fault for falling for it.
What we're dealing with is a species of animal (humans) who don't want to face reality:
Every single thing we do exploits someone or something somewhere.
"Trading" your "carbon credits" with other, less polluting companies, is just a shell game--it doesn't lessen pollution, it only makes it look prettier.
But too many of us think businesses need this incentive to change. You know, like little children need incentives to behave. The difference is, businesses are NOT children and neither are we. But since most of us (especially our politicians) have our fingers in our ears, childishly yelling "LALALALALALAI'MNOTLISTENINGTOYOULALALALALA." regarding most of capitalism's ills, what better way to get attention than a childish prank? Thus the Yes Men pretend to be things they're not. In this case, they pretended to be the USG doing the right thing. The response from the actual USG is to say "No, no, we're really not doing that."
Which is exactly what they did.
Societal hacking rocks!
No comments:
Post a Comment