It is simply naïve to believe that we only need to inform people more intensively about the catastrophic state of the climate in order to finally bring about a change in behavior that is beneficial to the common good. Within politics, the economy or our society, we do not have a problem of knowledge, but we simply have a problem of implementation - caused by our capitalist economic system, which is calibrated for growth and profit and intrinsically shies away from investing in climate protection. It is primarily a problem of the laws of competition. Because in this system, the market participant who behaves in a way that is useful for their selfish pursuit of profit rather than for the common good has an advantage. This is another reason why our economy will never voluntarily decarbonize at the required pace.
Climate protection must therefore be decoupled from the monetary system, e.g. through a complementary carbon currency. This could be issued to all citizens as an ecological basic income in the same amount and free of charge. We would have a separate climate account for this and would now have to use it to pay for our individual CO2 consumption. From now on, everything would have a separate climate price tag in this currency. In addition to the economic price, this would now also give everything its true ecological price. This is because this new currency transparently represents the total emissions that occur along the entire value chain as a CO2 equivalent. Such a CO2 currency enables us consumers to make climate-friendly consumption decisions and contributes to self-efficacy.
➡️More information on this idea, which is also supported by renowned climate scientists such as Professor Schellnhuber, can be found on the website of the German climate protection NPO SaveClimate.Earth
•
55 w
This proposal deserves serious exploration and discussion.