Environmental communication project. The End of the World or the End of Capitalism?
Task: Students produce an environmental communication project, which incorporates analysis and critique of the communication of an environmental issue in the media or public policy. This may take the form of an extended research essay OR creative communication project. Whatever medium you choose, originality, high-quality research, critical analysis and coherence are the key to success.
Please note there is an extensive list of relevant readings for this subject via UTS library and listed in the week-to-week activities.
Research essay: Select one question/issue from the list below. For the research essay it is essential that your project demonstrates original research and critical analysis, sustained engagement with subject material, and that it does not simply review or regurgitate previous reporting or creative treatment of the issue.
The End of the World or the end of Capitalism?
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The End of the World or the End of Capitalism?
Introduction
The debate on whether or not the production activities are responsible for the global crisis evokes different reactions, opinions, or ideologies from different members of society. Naomi Klein, a renowned author, and environmentalist calls for a rapid approach towards addressing the global crisis through a collective process cutting across the social, political, and economic divide of global society. In her book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate, Naomi Klein calls for a holistic approach seeking to redefine the capitalist economic ideologies towards embracing new principles of economic development that are friendly to the environment. The past warnings by the environmental scientists, she recognizes, have done little to effect the desired climatic changes and thus demanding more drastic steps towards curbing the crisis. Naomi shares the sentiments of majority of environmentalists around the world in wondering why it is so difficult for the world to come together in forming a united front towards addressing the impending risks posed by climate change. The unregulated use of natural resources such as burning of fossil fuels for energy creation threatens to bring the world to an end. Naomi Klein summarizes her arguments by claiming that, “we are left with a stark choice: allow climate disruption to change everything about our world or change pretty much everything about our economy to avoid that fate. But we need to be very clear: because of our decades of collective denial, no gradual, incremental options are now available to us CITATION Kle14 \l 1033 (Klein, 2014).” Naomi’s point of view, however, faces stiff opposition from politicians and other beneficiaries of capitalism who refuse to believe that the earth's ability to sustain life as a whole is diminishing at an alarming rate. Such individuals believe that sustainable economic growth and development of human beings is dependent on the continuous exploitation of Mother Nature’s self-sustaining provisions. For the proponents of capitalism and as per Frederic Jameson and Slavoj Zizek’s famous phrase, “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism” CITATION Ziz10 \l 1033 (Zizek, 2010). The parallel schools of thought and arguments raise the research question and a dilemma for society in deciding the way forward, is it towards the end of the world or the end to capitalism? Provided herein are the arguments for economic revolution towards safe production activities and the counterarguments of the earth’s self-sustenance against the same as presented in Naomi Klein’s book.
Methodology
In the effort to answer or address the research question, the study makes use of a literature review of Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate to highlight some of the arguments for global preservation against the immediate threats of climate change. The research methodology further seeks to outline the counter-arguments or the challenges facing the preservation effo...
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