Although we accept that we are responsible for climate change, we refuse to see the opportunity it provides for creating ways of living that are both better for the environment and more enjoyable for us.  This is not just true of the general public but also of economists and other ‘experts’ who take global warming very seriously but cannot think beyond the technical fixes that might allow us to continue with our current ways.  Most politicians and business leaders seem likewise incapable of thinking ‘outside the box’ of consumerism.   

Obsessed as they are with economic growth and GDP,  they do not invite the electorate to think about other ideas of progress and prosperity, and are more than happy for advertisers to retain their monopoly over the imagery and representation of pleasure and the ‘good life’.   

Even the left-wing critics of capitalism have been more bothered about the inequalities of access and distribution it creates than about the ways it confines us to market-driven ways of living. Labour militancy and trade union activity in the West have  been largely confined to protection of income and employees’ rights within the existing structures of globalised capital, and done little to challenge, let alone transform, the ‘work and spend’ dynamic of affluent cultures.