Steve Chapman: Capitalism and Climate Change

For some of the
people in New York this week demanding action on global warming,
the menace is not just carbon dioxide. The real Tyrannosaurus Rex
is the American economic system. On Monday, the day after the
huge march through Manhattan, a few hundred protesters showed up in
the financial district for “Flood Wall Street.” Their slogan: “Stop
Capitalism. End the Climate Crisis.”

One of them lamented to ThinkProgress that “not many people are
willing to say that the root problem of climate change is
capitalism.” Another told The Daily Beast she
was there “because I’m a Mashpee Wampanoag native to this country,
and as far as I’m concerned, Wall Street greed has been killing me
and my ancestors for 400 years.”

It’s not exactly clear how Wall Street greed was killing Native
Americans in the 17th century, since the New York Stock Exchange
didn’t come into being until 1817. But leave that aside. What was
obvious from the Monday protest is that the radical
members of the movement against climate change have some serious
misperceptions about economics and the environment.

It’s true that there are corporations that profit from goods and
services that contribute to global warming, from Exxon Mobil to
General Motors to Duke Energy. But blaming capitalists for
excessive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is like blaming grocery
stores for obesity. In each case, the business is taking its cue
from what consumers want.

View this article.