Page 223 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

18 CONCLUSION: ONE MONTH IN THE LIFE OF THE PLANET … 219

durables. In a communications environment increasing organized around
resonant images and narratives we need to develop more effective cultural
resources for hope that translate expert argument into memorable images
and engaging stories using every available popular expressive form, from
wall art and cartoons to animations and computer games.
Contests over the organization of public knowledge and argument
around climate crisis remain central but as the chapters collected here make
clear, a full analysis of the role of communication in sustaining carbon
capitalism and possible ways of moving beyond it must also interrogate the
impact of the material infrastructures, organizational complexes and
assemblies of media devices, which support and direct communication. As
Vincent Mosco reminds us in his chapter, the arrival of the Internet of
Things and the increasing diversification of the leading social media
companies into cloud computing, artificial intelligence and robotics, is
installing these corporations as central forces in shaping the direction of
advanced capitalism.
Current developments significantly increase the contribution that
communication companies currently make to climate crisis, detailed by
Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller in their chapter here. The new digital
complexes place escalating demands on energy, water and resources in their
production, transportation and use, reinforce the culture of hyper con-
sumerism detailed by Justin Lewis in his chapter in this collection, and add
to the accumulating amounts of waste and pollution already generated by
accelerating rates of digital obsolescence and disposal (see Gabrys 2013;
Grossman 2007). Faced with this new reality, we need more than ever to
ask who should own and control the essential technological and organi-
zational building blocks of communication, for what purposes, and with
what consequences for collective well being?