The Tesla is everything wrong with capitalist climate 'solutions'
And a note on love under capitalism.
Despite everything, there was a full house at our speed dating event last week. And a waiting list.
Despite everything - I mean, despite the chronic disillusionment with the political elite and with men who find it too much effort to text back and the death wails of the US imperial empire in our phones and the rising cost of a beer after work and the tiredness that makes us cancel and stay home to eat/sleep/work/repeat - despite that, people showed up.
And keep showing up, at all our events. And the events I’ve attended. We need and want human connection. Particularly with people who give a shit rather than another crypto bro or privileged person who doesn’t vote because ‘every political party sucks’ but they continue to turn a blind eye when the corruption grants them benefits).
Last week I wrote about polyamory, monogamy and the way that capitalism and the patriarchy has hijacked our love lives and continues to try to control and restrict how we relate to people around us. And then I swallowed the extreme awkwardness and shared it on LinkedIn too, the last place I would normally go to talk about dating.
The public engagement on the post was low. But then many people started messaging me privately to share their own thoughts and experiences with alternative ways to love and connect.
How can it be that talking about love and relationship structures is more awkward than another post about outrage and shock that [insert evil corporation/government] have [done evil thing]? Perhaps because the second sits nicely in the imperial framework of our society. We have the scripts to frame these horrors. The comfort zone of outrage and reactive messaging.
Love, polyamory, the private life are taboo topics yet they are the core of resistance. Western capitalism is anti-love, anti-care and anti-revolution.
Not ‘some forms’ of Western capitalism, not ‘extreme’ capitalism. Economic structures rooted in individualism and ‘competitiveness’ will never generate conditions for fruitful community-building, development of healthy relationships and freedom to choose how and who to love, without shame and without apology.
We will generate those conditions. We build those structures. We resist and we show up.
What’s Going On?
Majority of world supports environmental protection at the expense of economic growth.
As men dominate the Epstein files headlines, we must listen to the voices of the survivors.
How a colonial Nairobi library was restored and given back to the people.
European Parliament passes resolution that says trans women are women.
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Electric SUVs are a counter-revolutionary ‘solution’ on a burning planet
A guest piece by British activist Emma de Saram. Edited by Issy Pountney.
Are things getting worse or am I just paying more attention? This is the age-old question of anyone relatively locked into the livestreamed horror movie that is otherwise known as the news.
One thing I am certain of, is that cars are getting bigger, louder and more terrifying.
The old ‘Chelsea Tractor’ trope - that inner-city upper-class Londoners buy 4x4 SUVs to get around - is overdue for an upgrade. Suburban Tank seems more appropriate. Even that, though, is far too subtle for the CIA-adjacent vehicles now roaming quiet neighbourhoods.
With their blacked-out windows and clumsy, rectangular frames, I have seen many of these militaristic machines swarm the most unsuspecting streets, pulling up to the grocery store with car-boots large enough to deploy a small army and seize every sandwich in the land. I almost got bumped by one earlier this week, my eyes rolling as it blasted some cacophony, filling my lungs with its diesel fumes.
This inflation is not just my imagination though. Described as ‘Carspreading’, conventional passenger vehicles are getting bigger and SUVs sales are rising - making up nearly half 46% of global car sales in 2022. Data from the International Council for Clean Transportation shows that the length of vehicles has increased by more than 19cm (7.4in) from 2001 to 2020.
Not that size matters, obviously, but when size equates to more global heating, emissions and preventing children playing outside - it matters - a lot.
The growth of SUVs is taking place alongside the so-called electric vehicle revolution - which is all too often communicated as a silver bullet for reducing transport emissions.
The environmental and climate impact from cars is vast and urgently requires rapid reduction. Our World in Data reports that transport accounts for around one-fifth of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and road travel accounts for three-quarters of transport emissions, mostly coming from passenger vehicles.
Despite having lower overall tailpipe emissions, EV markets are mirroring trends toward larger vehicles, with SUVs making up over 55% of electric car sales. The greater weight of SUVs increases energy use, amplifying their environmental footprint as they require more critical raw materials such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt, with most of these materials being extracted from the Global South in a way that replicates colonial dynamics.
À la the late cultural theorist Mark Fisher, this electric vehicle/SUV dichotomy shows how quasi counter-revolutionary impulses are engulfed by capitalism. As electric cars once gained popularity as a greener solution to reducing the exponential emissions driven by capitalism, electric SUVs have emerged, capturing and entrenching this green capitalist market with tank-like vehicles that reduce tailpipe emissions but fail to challenge the fundamental over-consumption problem and obscure the extractive realities behind the ‘green’ technology.
I saw this contradiction play out on TV in the dystopian hellscape of Gilead (although, perhaps I was paying too much attention to the intricacies and potential symbolic meanings of cars). In the televised series of The Handmaid’s Tale, restricting access to transportation is a key mechanism of population control.
SUVs, with their blacked-out windows and authoritative presence, are driven by powerful figures and Guardians, denoting power and status within the strict patriarchal order. The model of SUV used is a Mercedes-Benz - a brand with a sinister history associated with Nazi Germany - functioning as a visual association with historical authoritarianism.
In what I see as an attempt to function as a contrast to the domineering SUV, the Tesla, a brand associated with popularising the modern EV, appears in the series. Driven primarily by Commander Lawrence, a high-ranking but rebellious figure who laments his role in Gilead, the Tesla is used as an escape car by those on the fringes of the regime.
While presented with somewhat more amenable connections to environmentalism, I see the Tesla as demonstrative of the symbolic inability to escape the clutches of Gilead, also reflective of our present reality. In a world designed around cars, it can feel inescapable, or at least, uncomfortable to use alternative modes of transport.
Especially for those of us already navigating disability or marginalisation, the electric car promises an allure of sustainability, while not requiring any real fundamental change.
In the real world of course, the Tesla is only a slightly greener version of the inherently damaging child of neo-liberalism, the passenger vehicle. Not to mention its inescapable ties to its founder Elon Musk’s deepening neo-fascistic tendencies. Ultimately, the SUV and electric car are both products of the same regime.
Rather than a genuine alternative to the system, electric cars only further entrench us within individualism, demonstrating the menacing successes of green capitalism. As campaigners and activists, it may become easy to become complacent with these easier, comforting solutions marketed to us as an alternative. But they are only adding fuel to the fire.
Transcending the binary options afforded to us by the limited horizons of the current system is where we can step in. As Bayo Akomolafe describes in relation to climate solutions, ‘we can’t think outside the ‘box’. The dream to think outside the box is exactly how boxes think’. Rather than handing over the power of climate solutions to the imaginations of those profiting from the climate crisis, we can continue to learn, organise and advocate for radical transformations.
Whether it is taking direct action or campaigning locally for better public transport infrastructure, we can all play our small role in challenging polluting regimes of power.
So Now What Do I Do?
LEARN SOMETHING
Tune into a series of online presentations on technology, design and feminism by Futuress, starting 26th February.
Online Arabic for Social Justice classes are starting from the 1st March. Sliding scale rates available.
Sign up for the four-month co-learning course ‘Knowledge is our Sweet Power’ by Common Ecologies, starting in March.
DO SOMETHING
Fondation Centre Pompadour is offering grants for feminist projects until the 28th Feb.
The Youth Climate Justice Fund is open for grant applications until the 1st March!
Brussels: Sign the open letter by the 8th March collective in support of a feminist strike against the Arizona coalition government! And check out actions on 8th - 9th March.
Stay in the loop
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