Page 34 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

16 G. MURDOCK AND B. BREVINI

and which has played a major role in propelling this argument to the center
of contemporary debate, recounts how she came to this conclusion fol-
lowing the watershed events of Hurricane Katrina, when American elites
capitalised on the disaster both during and after the immediate crisis. The
privatisation of the transport and energy sectors have inhibited the ability of
governments to control two of the economies most crucial to securing
change and highlighted the endemic conflict between the need for drastic
emission reductions and capitalism’s imperative of constant growth. She
argues that the dominant ideologies of neoliberalism and market funda-
mentalism have proved themselves fundamentally incompatible with the
recognition of interdependence that collective action against climate
change demands. In framing strategies for opposition and alternatives, she
highlights the emergence of ‘Blockadia’, the grassroots climate activism
spearheaded by indigenous and farming communities motivated by
dependence on, and reverence for, the land.

Section Two: Toxic Technologies: Media Machines
and Ecological Crisis
The first three chapters in the second section explore the ways that con-
temporary media systems make a double contribution to the climate crisis,
through the materials and energy they consume in production and use and
the waste they create in disposal, and in their central role as sites of product
promotion fuelling unsustainable levels of consumption.
In Chap. 3, Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller, who have been in the
forefront of work underlining the need to study media as material struc-
tures and artefacts, review the available research on the environmental
impact of media and communication technologies, and the challenges
citizens and environmental groups face in greening their uses and ensuring
pleasurable media consumption and competent citizenship in the light of
electronic waste.
In Chap. 4, Justin Lewis argues that although the energy and transport
industries are commonly considered as the major contributors to climate
crisis, the media sector is almost uniquely destructive because its strategies
for generating profit depend on creating as much electronic waste as
possible through planned obsolescence. This business model relies on
selling hardware with a built-in expiry date that becomes outdated and
requires replacement within 2 years. Some companies have gone further by
taking measures to prevent consumers from extending the life of their