Don’t Talk To Me About Solutions

The System Itself is the Problem

It’s 2024 and I’m suspicious of “solutions”. Solutions to what, exactly? The excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that have already seen us breach the 1.5 degree limit set by the Paris Agreement? The ocean acidification that’s bleaching corals en masse? The rampant deforestation and habitat destruction that’s seen half of the world’s wilderness turned into farmland? How about the economic system with its limited prescription of value that converts what is priceless into profit? The political gridlock on climate thanks to our addiction to fossil fuels? The record-breaking profits of those energy companies with plans to double global extraction? Or the debt bondage that keeps the global south trapped in poverty? The political hierarchy that means the world’s most war-mongering country calls the shots? How about resource scarcity for an energy transition? How about water shortages? Genocide?

There’s no magic bullet for this level of complexity. What is clear—more and more as the months go on and climate goals, peace goals and equity goals are sacrificed in the name of imperialism—we need systems revolution, not systems reform. The world is looking at food shortages, droughts, a financial crisis, world war three and worsening impacts of the climate and biodiversity crisis, not to mention the likelihood of an authoritarian elected to the most powerful position in the world. This is an unprecedented eco-crisis. We need to change how we organise. And we need to organise.

I like “eco”: it comes from the Ancient Greek “οἶκος”, (pronounced eek-os) meaning household, which is the root of ecosystem, ecology, ecophilosophy etc etc. We consider “eco” to signify the environment, but what it reveals is that the environment is our home; the wide-scale wilderness of the planet itself is our home; our household, if we can step up to the role of stewards. Our household is in crisis: it’s flooding and on fire and the pipes are bursting. The back door’s been ripped open and a typhoon is tearing through the ground floor. The power’s on the blink and there’s only enough food in the freezer for a few days. Somebody on the top floor has been playing god with the chemistry set they got for christmas and sold the technique to his roommates because he has dreams of living on Mars. We’ve been banging on the door but they barricaded themselves in: they’ve still got a good view out the window. 

The gas leak is the biggest problem. It’s poisoning us. We’ve asked for help switching off the supply but someone from higher up calls down to us on the ground floor saying there’s no political will for it. “What about us?” we chorus, but he’s already disappeared into a meeting. See, he says nobody will switch the gas off if they don’t have something else to power the house with so one guy went to the roof and started working on that. We’ve been shouting at him that the flooding has probably fried the electrical circuits anyway, but the men with money say that’s an easy fix after they make a windfall on their investment. Downstairs, we need new beds and clothes and the food is running low. We see people on the staircase occasionally, they pop down and a bright flash goes off and then they disappear. We’ve tried going up the stairs but a couple of big lads tell us we’ll get thrown in the basement if we go any further. Occasionally, they’ll let someone pass, normally someone who’s scrounged a suit and tie, but only if they have a powerpoint. They go upstairs and speak to the guy with money and the guy with the chemistry set and the guy on the roof. When they come back, they say the guy with the chemistry set gets it but can’t do anything because the guy on the roof isn’t ready yet, and the guy on the roof gets it but can’t do anything because the guy with the money hasn’t given enough, and the guy with the money gets it but can’t do anything because the men with the political will say there isn’t any. Occasionally those men gather at the landing and shout down to us. They use the word “solutions” a lot and shake hands with the man with the money and wink to the guy with his chemistry set. They think we can’t see them, but we can, even through the floodwater, even through the smoke. Some of us tried to switch the gas off ourselves. We got thrown in the basement. The men upstairs called us “terrorists” but the water is rising and the fire is burning and we’ve run out of food and they won’t let us upstairs and don’t talk to me about solutions.

Those men have mismanaged our household. I have no faith in their capability to suddenly take care of it and us. That such people need to be presented with incentives in order to take rational, considered and long-term decisions only shows they are fundamentally incapable of navigating the eco-crisis they have been instrumental in causing. It doesn’t matter that system dynamics work in such a way that those people would only ever have gotten to the top had they been willing to concede to the status quo; I have empathy for their fragile spines, but more for the children of Gaza. They were never going to lead us anywhere but “here”. They are a deeply weak and disempowered group, yet they wield the world’s power. Our “solutions” need to focus on disempowering them—so we can turn the gas off. 

Anyway, I thought it was women who were meant to manage the household? 

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