Abstract
Although there is strong scientific consensus that climate change and environmental degradation are occurring, there is also a significant body of opinion that is sceptical about, or denies the validity of, evidence for this. However it is not solely the nature of differing views about global warming or ecological disaster that is being contested but the case for or against intervention and regulation in the market. At an international level, gestures toward ‘sustainability’ are (i) compromised by combining them with declarations of the need for continued economic growth, and (ii) undermined by the arrangements put in place by existing and new transnational trade agreements. The paper examines these views and developments, and the patterns of denial, disconnection and fragmentation they display.
Highlights
In his book States of Denial, Cohen (2001: 5) observes that: The psychology of ‘turning a blind eye’ or ‘looking the other way’ is a tricky matter
The planet is suffering the consequences of various forms of environmental degradation and over‐exploitation; notable among these is the process of climate change
About this proposition there is a high degree of consensus among natural and social scientists (Huwart and Verdier 2013; Royal Society 2012) and yet – to identify the second part of the ‘problem’ – despite this knowledge and related awareness that the economics of growth are not helpful to aims of achieving environmental sustainability, the international institutions charged with responsibility for global wellbeing consistently fail to agree on sufficiently radical or powerful remedial responses
Summary
In his book States of Denial, Cohen (2001: 5) observes that: The psychology of ‘turning a blind eye’ or ‘looking the other way’ is a tricky matter. As Monbiot (2015) puts it, they will ‘promote the interests of transnational capital by downgrading the defence of human health, the natural world, labour rights, and the poor and vulnerable from predatory corporate practices’ These deals to accelerate economic transactions and growth are encouraged by bodies like the World Trade Organisation, the organisation that in 2015 shared the platform with the United Nations Environment Programme, with both acknowledging the need to ‘do more to ensure that trade and environmental policies work better together’. Of the paper I explore these problems of disconnection and denial further
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