Karissa Sanders
Fossil Capitalism and Climate Change There is a strong relationship between fossil capitalism and climate change and how one affects the other. Fossil capitalism is the idea that capitalism and the economic system depends upon fossil fuels for everything. Climate change is the shifting of the temperature and weather patterns that lead to more extreme weather. Fossil fuels are directly connected to the cause of climate change and the extreme change in weather and temperature. Climate change will have a direct impact on the frequency and nature of disasters in the future. Fossil capitalism relies directly on the idea of using fossil fuels to fuel the world and run the capitalist economy. Fossil fuels are required for almost everything that humanity needs under fossil capitalism. However, fossil fuels directly negatively impact the environment and cause climate change. In Facing the Anthropocene it is stated that “capitalism has been wrecking ecosystems for hundreds of years, but its assault on the entire Earth System at once is a recent development” (pg.127) and this can be inferred that the impact on the climate is from the fossil fuels used to run
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When capitalism relies on fossil fuels for everything, capitalism can be considered a direct cause of the changing climate. In Facing the Anthropocene, it states that “the shift to coal and steam did not occur because it was cheaper or more reliable–it was neither–but because it gave the factory owners better access to and control over labor” (pg.128). The idea of factory owners wanting more control or more profit is a capitalistic idea that feeds into the creation of fossil capitalism and then the negative impact on the