Attack of the Space Cadets
Offworld Colonies, Racist Repression and ‘Nature-Based Solutions’

For the world’s richest and most powerful men -- men like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates -- the global environmental crisis has finally arrived. But what it means for them is not what it means for most people.

For them, argues this short piece for the World Rainforest Movement Bulletin, ecological crisis doesn’t mean a planet warming so fast it is threatening their own civilization. It doesn’t mean the worldwide decline of insect life that is now undermining human subsistence. It doesn’t mean dangerous pandemics emerging out of industrial agriculture, deforestation and globalization. It doesn’t even mean the deteriorating vitality of ordinary workers, who have seen so much of their wages, benefits and living conditions stolen by the rich over the past 50 years.

For such elites, what ecological crisis means instead is the effect it has on investment. Ecological crisis means popular rebellion, as livelihoods are ruined and workers get fed up. Rebellion means pressure on governments to regulate and repress. To do either has a cost. Worse, to do either can result in further reductions in the living work that living things can be induced to donate to corporations to ensure profits. Fewer handouts to corporations mean fewer destinations for profitable investment.

This article is available in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.