Aufgabe HT 2 - Aufgabe 3.2 · Abitur NRW Englisch LK · Haupttermin · Weiterbildungskolleg 2021

Klausurteil A

George Monbiot

For the sake of life on Earth, we must put a limit on wealth

It is not quite true that behind every great fortune lies a great crime. Musicians and novelists,

for example, can become extremely rich by giving other people pleasure. But it does appear

to be universally true that in front of every great fortune lies a great crime. Immense wealth

translates automatically into immense environmental impacts, regardless of the intentions

5 of those who possess it. The very wealthy, almost as a matter of definition, are committing

ecocide.

A few weeks ago, I received a letter from a worker at a British private airport. “I see things

that really shouldn’t be happening in 2019,” he wrote. Every day he sees Global 7000 jets,

Gulfstream G650s and even Boeing 737s take off from the airport carrying a single passenger,

10 mostly flying to Russia and the US. The private Boeing 737s, built to take 174 passengers,

are filled at the airport with around 25,000 litres of fuel. That’s as much fossil energy as a

small African town might use in a year.

Where are these single passengers going? Perhaps to visit one of their superhomes, constructed

and run at vast environmental cost, or to take a trip on their superyacht, which might burn

15 500 litres of diesel an hour just ticking over, and which is built and furnished with rare

materials extracted at the expense of beautiful places. […]

A series of research papers shows that income is by far the most important determinant of

environmental impact. It doesn’t matter how green you think you are; if you have surplus

money, you spend it. The only form of consumption that’s clearly and positively correlated

20 with good environmental intentions is diet: people who see themselves as green tend to eat

less meat and more organic vegetables. But attitudes have little bearing on the amount of

transport fuel, home energy and other materials you consume. Money conquers all.

The disastrous effects of spending power are compounded by the psychological impacts of

being wealthy. Plenty of studies show that the richer you are, the less you are able to connect

25 with other people. Wealth suppresses empathy. One paper reveals that drivers in expensive

cars are less likely to stop for people using pedestrian crossings than drivers in cheap cars.

Another revealed that rich people were less able than poorer people to feel compassion

towards children with cancer. Though they are disproportionately responsible for our

environmental crises, the rich will be hurt least and last by planetary disaster, while the

30 poor are hurt first and worst. The richer people are, the research suggests, the less such

knowledge is likely to trouble them.

Another issue is that wealth limits the perspectives of even the best-intentioned people. This

week, Bill Gates argued in an interview with the Financial Times that divesting (ditching

stocks) from fossil fuels is a waste of time. It would be better, he claimed, to pour money

35 into disruptive new technologies with lower emissions. Of course we need new technologies.

But he has missed the crucial point: in seeking to prevent climate breakdown, what counts

is not what you do but what you stop doing. It doesn’t matter how many solar panels you

install if you don’t simultaneously shut down coal and gas burners. Unless existing fossil

fuel plants are retired before the end of their lives, and all exploration and development of

40 new fossil fuel reserves is cancelled, there is little chance of preventing more than 1.5C of

global heating.

But this requires structural change, which involves political intervention as well as technological

innovation: anathema to Silicon Valley billionaires. It demands an acknowledgement that

money is not a magic wand that makes all the bad stuff go away.

45 Tomorrow, I’ll be joining the global climate strike, in which adults will stand with the young

people whose call to action has resonated around the world. As a freelancer, I’ve been

wondering who I’m striking against. Myself? Yes: one aspect of myself, at least. Perhaps

the most radical thing we can now do is to limit our material aspirations. The assumption

on which governments and economists operate is that everyone strives to maximise their

50 wealth. If we succeed in this task, we inevitably demolish our life support systems. Were

the poor to live like the rich, and the rich to live like the oligarchs, we would destroy

everything. The continued pursuit of wealth in a world that has enough already (albeit very

poorly distributed) is a formula for mass destitution.

A meaningful strike in defence of the living world is, in part, a strike against the desire to

55 raise our incomes and accumulate wealth: a desire shaped, more than we are probably aware,

by dominant social and economic narratives. I see myself as striking in support of a radical

and disturbing concept: enough. Individually and collectively, it is time to decide what

“enough” looks like, and how to know when we’ve achieved it.

There’s a name for this approach, coined by the Belgian philosopher Ingrid Robeyns:

60 limitarianism. Robeyns argues that there should be an upper limit to the amount of income

and wealth a person can amass. Just as we recognise a poverty line, below which no one

should fall, we should recognise a riches line, above which no one should rise. This call for

a levelling down is perhaps the most blasphemous idea in contemporary discourse.

But her arguments are sound. Surplus money allows some people to exercise inordinate power

65 over others: in the workplace; in politics; and above all in the capture, use and destruction

of the planet’s natural wealth. If everyone is to flourish, we cannot afford the rich. Nor can

we afford our own aspirations, which the culture of wealth maximisation encourages.

The grim truth is that the rich are able to live as they do only because others are poor: there

is neither the physical nor ecological space for everyone to pursue private luxury. Instead

70 we should strive for private sufficiency, public luxury. Life on Earth depends on moderation.

Annotations:

8–9 Global 7000, Gulfstream G650, Boeing 737 – aircraft types

15 to tick over – (engine) to run slowly while the vehicle is not moving

43 anathema – here: something intensely disliked

51 oligarch – rich and powerful person with a lot of political influence

3.2 Together with your British partner school, you are attending an online conference entitled Time for Change – New Ways of Living for the 21st Century. Write a debate statement on the conference topic. Draw on what you have covered in class about social and political realities in a globalised world.

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