Beliefs - Amelia Greenhall

This is an era of climate emergency and mass extinction brought on by the violence and growth of capitalism and colonialism.

Capitalism’s growth imperative is the core of the problem. Never ending, exponential growth that’s just for the sake of growth — not for the value of the useful things being produced. Instead, we need to shift to focus only on producing useful things, rather than trying to continually grow each year.
We need to put hard limits on material use and waste, and cap it at lower and lower levels each year until we are back within planetary boundaries.
We need renewal, renaissance, not revolution.
An economy of quality vs quality, longer lasting, higher quality repairable products.
Ocean acidification, deforestation, soil depletion, mass extinction are the most pressing problems that could lead to collapse in the near term.
Mainly we will rely on solar and wind as clean energy to achieve the energy transition in time. (Nuclear power could be a part; fusion power is not invented yet and would take a while to scale.)
“Green growth” does not exist. Continuing to aim for production and consumption growth at 3% a year will lead to collapse no matter the energy source. Again: the core problem is capitalism’s growth imperative.
Geo-engineering is not a solution, and ecologically it is a disaster.
Carbon capture doesn’t work, and money spent on carbon capture schemes is money wasted. (CCS/BECCS)
Fracking should be banned; we should end fossil fuel subsidies, and not allow any new coal projects.
There are a lot of genuinely exciting, real solutions in electrification, solar, wind and batteries!

We need liberation for all, including access to food, water, shelter, healthcare, education; freedom from gun violence, access to abortion and reproductive healthcare, queer rights, trans rights, women’s rights, neurodivergent and disability rights, full body autonomy, body neutrality, freedom from racism, freedom from genocides, wars and violence, voting rights, labor rights, paid leave, an international minimum wage.

We should invest in building public goods and services, like:

high quality universal/public healthcare, childhood vaccination and reproductive tech like birth control, abortion, fertility treatments
education systems (especially women’s education)
public housing
better working conditions and wages
childcare and support for parents and caregivers
universal basic income

Income equality = happiness of society.

All people should have access to things needed to live well.
We should strive for public goods to cost less, so that people do not need to have high incomes and the stress of pursuing that. With efficient distribution, high human welfare can happen with relatively low GDP.
We should drastically decrease the purchasing power of the richest 10% who are responsible for over half of total carbon emissions since 1990 and are driving the climate crisis. (They consume more, the things they consume have a bigger impact, and they have so much money they end up investing most of it in ecologically destructive industries.)
Piketty has good ideas for technically implementing income and wealth equality.
The inequality, scarcity, and precariousness most people experience today has been intentionally and artificially created by those at the top in capitalism: “the threat of hunger as a weapon to enforce competitive productivity.”
Likewise, the 40-hour workweek is unnecessary for business but useful to keep people busy and unhappy and likely to consume more.

Things that help quality of life and livability

prioritizing car-free places, and walking and biking routes, and public transit
mitigating urban noise
lots of open space and natural spaces, gardens, parks, green spaces
affordable, high quality housing
community spaces like community centers, cafes, play areas, co-working spaces
places for people to access physical pleasure: food, dancing, exercise and movement, spas/saunas/hot tubs, swimming, being outside
contexts and spaces that allow us to have strong relationships and feel connected to and value friends, family, and neighbors: where we can all have opportunity to express compassion, co-operation, community, connection

Tech and Business

Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Reddit, 4chan/8chan and other social media have caused the conspiracy and polarization in the US and elsewhere, and cause and worsen violence and genocides. They are largely responsible for the extreme conspiracy and harmful beliefs of the US right-wing right now.
Social tech companies will not voluntarily fix their algorithms because those provide the core of their business model: show ads to get people to consume things they otherwise would not, which increases growth and consumption and worsens the climate crisis.
Almost all the time spent on social media makes people feel bad.
“AI” as whole is currently a bubble, and generally not useful. And also bad for society — and rather disastrous for energy usage. It is and will be huge contributor to the climate crisis.
Crypto is mostly used for gambling, money laundering — and like AI, also a disaster for energy usage, and a huge contributor to the climate crisis.
The concepts of the singularity and “effective altruism” are generally bad and harmful.
We need to shift a focus to technological innovations “designed to improve human and ecological welfare, rather than innovations designed to speed up the rate of extraction and production” and “Organizing production around human well being, investing in public goods, and distributing income and opportunity fairly” (Less is More book)
We need to end corporate interference in democracy.

Writing, Art and Publishing

Artists can and should publish their own work, and in collaboration with other artists, without waiting for a commercial publisher.
The “art world” commercially is mostly a money laundering vehicle.
Artists have a role in fighting hard to win climate justice, thinking about what we want and identifying ways to do that, showing new futures and telling stories of a path to change and a vision of victory. We need new, powerful storytelling and mythology. Stories about how to imagine a different future, how we can remake the world.
Solarpunk, climate fiction (cli-fi), general fiction and sci-fi can all focus on action and positive futures. We need things that are exciting, less doom dystopia, more opportunity to change in extraordinary ways.
Focusing on the beauty in the present moment is a big way that artists can help us fight for the future — we’re living in climate chaos, fear, economic inequality which can be overwhelming, and artists can help focus us on what we’re fighting for and keep us from becoming too miserable.