Destructive Innovation to the Unsustainability of the Environment

Abstract

This article explores the causes of environmental degradation and aims to explain the interconnection of state, capital, and masses as enhancing environmental degeneration. Innovation and production processes have progressed under the guise of economic gains, and entrepreneurs' efforts to produce new things, coupled with capitalistic mottos,added to the hazardous environmental pollution. My argument is backed up by the theory of tread mill production as a political-economic explanation of the causes of environmental degradation. This stance refers to the extensive capitalistic search of the state and masses as getting stuck on a "treadmill" where they have not improved economically, yet their pursuits for economic development lead them to damage the environment. Using the narrative of New York 2140, this study warns about the possible menace thwarted back by the environment. This study highlights how the innovation process under capitalistic goals leads to unnecessary over-consumption, which ultimately results in environmental unsustainability.