Your purchase is expressed in a caring manner, but when it is used to cover your tracks and continues as if nothing happened, like the service provided by Cheat Neutral, it ends up being a deception. It will be something like that.
It may be tempting to praise those who purchase offsets, whether carbon or fraudulent. At least they recognize that their actions are problematic and that their actions are having a negative impact. But if you think about it, is it really better than doing nothing?
This includes all the hallmarks of an abusive relationship. You confess everything you did wrong, apologize, buy something nice to show you care, and then continue to do the very thing you apologized for.
exploit
What carbon offsets and fraudulent offsets have in common is that they exploit our sense that something is wrong, offer quick solutions, and ultimately hide the root of the problem and pretend the problem doesn’t exist. That means you will have to do it.
Let’s be honest, many “greening” strategies are actually just gaslighting. Gaslighting is when one person makes another person question their own reality.
Gaslighters do this by coming up with a “rational” explanation for the problem, often blaming the victim who has been harmed by the problem, and then taking credit for solving the problem and claiming personal responsibility. completely obscures the fact that they were the cause of the problem. first place. Often all of this happens in quick succession, so fast that you don’t even realize you’re receiving a gas ignition.
Another particularly alarming example of green gaslighting comes from a pair of 23-year-old sophomores at Texas A&M University, Brent Whitehead and Matt Lowestrow. They bought shipping containers full of servers and hired them into shipping containers to earn $4 million in 2021. They used electricity from gas flares generated from offshore oil and gas fields to sell Bitcoin. mine.
Drilling for oil often releases natural gas as well. Although it can be captured, producers typically burn it, releasing CO2 in the process. Whitehead and Lowestrow could “solve” the problem by saving that gas from just burning it and instead using it to generate profit, powering Bitcoin mining servers packed into containers. I thought.
Sure it’s efficient, but it doesn’t actually “solve” the problem. It just makes more efficient use of oil and gas reserves. The masses are exposed to gaslit, both literally and figuratively. Given the climate emergency, the fact that oil drilling should have stopped 10 years ago simply does not add up logically.
intervention
Similarly, corporate communications campaigns have persuaded us that we can trust fossil fuel companies to green our companies and our economies, and that they are at the forefront of a sustainable transition.
You’ll be thought stupid by big business oligarchs and the pundits who parrot them, you’ll be ridiculed with names ranging from “socialist” to “infidel,” and you’ll be dealt with by corporate elites. They are suspected of not doing so and are ridiculed for being backwards. The problems they created.
This is despite all the evidence to suggest that not only are their efforts repeatedly failing, but that their interventions are further reinforcing the problems we face.
contaminated
Green gaslighting also repackages the violence of colonization as morally progressive and “green.”
When Israel was declared a state in May 1948, the forced removal of the inhabitants of 500 villages and towns in historic Palestine led to the destruction of native trees such as oak, carob, and hawthorn, as well as olive, fig, almond, etc. of crops were destroyed.
In place of this unique biodiversity, new settlers planted a monoculture of European pine. These monocultures acidified the soil, reduced undergrowth, and increased the likelihood of fires, further destroying local ecosystems.
All this is justified with the slogan “Let the desert bloom.” The idea is that local Palestinians are mismanaging the desert and only settlers can make it green.
For decades, Israel has deprived Palestinians of a livable environment through complete ecological destruction. Palestinians in Gaza have long struggled to access clean water, with 96 percent of the Gaza Strip’s freshwater resources contaminated.
shelling
The situation deteriorated sharply after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli Defense Forces offensive on Gaza.
Satellite images show that almost 50 percent of agricultural land and tree cover, including edible olive groves and orchards, have been destroyed, exacerbating the famine imposed on Palestinians in Gaza.
Soils are being depleted of their life-supporting potential through the destruction of trees, continuous carpet bombing, aerial spraying of chemical herbicides, use of chemical warfare, and release of toxic substances such as heavy metals.
Palestinians, on the other hand, simply harvested medicinal herbs, obtained firewood from leftover trees for basic subsistence, invaded protected areas that used to be grazing areas for cattle, or used the land for subsistence. They are arrested, interrogated, tortured, injured, and killed just because. fertile and rich.
However, while Palestinians’ carbon emissions per person are approximately 0.8 tons per year, Israelis emit approximately 12 times that amount, or just under 10 tons per person per year.
Despite burning the equivalent of 150,000 tons of coal within just 60 days of its unprecedented bombardment of Gaza, exceeding the annual emissions of an entire country like Belize, Israel still refuses to attend United Nations meetings. , promoting their country’s action on climate change.
holier than thou
Whether we’re talking about green war crimes or absurd climate change measures like mining Bitcoin from gas flares, green gaslighting is a way of treating victims as if they were the culprits. Under cover, it helps perpetrators of environmental destruction gain green credit.
This is far more insidious than greenwashing, where a few potted plants or a solar panel or two can boost your reputation. Green gaslighting refers to being able to displace, violate, and abuse others in the name of being sustainable and progressive, while questioning the sanity of those being abused. .
Those who have experienced the worst kinds of abuse and are now faced with the sanctimonious attitude of their abusers are very likely to question their own sense of reality.
Green gaslighting is a form of psychological torture. That is why it is so effective in justifying the current state of “sustainability.” Green gaslighters claim to be the heroes of our time, yet they are either doing nothing or making things worse.
these authors
Vijay Koringibadi is an assistant professor at Concordia University’s School of Community and Public Affairs in Montreal, Canada. He is also a co-editor of the website uneven earth.
Aaron Vansingjian is the founder and co-editor of. uneven earth co-author with The future is degrowth. He has been published in guardian, truth, open democracyand ecologist.
Sustainability Class: How to take back our future from lifestyle environmentalists is published by The New Press and will be available today, Tuesday, December 10, 2024.
