Page 78 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

5 DIGITAL DESIRES: MEDIATED CONSUMERISM AND CLIMATE CRISIS 63

the profligacy of this business model. It is also indicative of a larger con-
tradiction—one many technologists tend to ignore—between an economic
system that requires endless and permanent consumer-driven economic
growth and the need to reduce our carbon output (Lewis 2013).
If media and communications technology is to have a role in tackling
climate change, it will have to be developed outside the market mecha-
nisms that dominate most production in the twenty-first century. Our
commercial system has produced a legion of what Vance Packard (1960)
once called ‘waste makers’. Only if freed from commercial imperatives can
this technology allow us to enjoy its digital benefits in ways that stress
sustainability and minimise wasteful production.
For social enterprises like Fairphone to prosper, governments need to
change the terms of trade. So, for example, legislators in France have
attempted to curtail the rampaging built-in obsolescence that characterises
commercial media and communications. The law requires manufacturers
to tell customers what the expected lifespan of products might be, and to
inform them how long spare parts would be available to repair them. In
2016, this will include a mandatory 2 year warranty, obliging manufac-
turers to repair or replace faulty appliances for 2 years after purchase (Burtt
2015).
This kind of intervention is an important first step. But it comes at a
price: in the long-term, the production of enduring technologies will never
be as profitable as the bounty provided by planned obsolescence. It also
means challenging the idea at the heart of consumer capitalism: the flawed
notion that prosperity—and happiness, fulfilment, success and security—is
measurable purely in terms of the accumulation of consumer goods. It is,
after all, this idea that enables such a widespread acceptance of planned
obsolescence. This challenge will not be easy: it runs up against the largest
and most pervasive creative sector on the planet—the advertising industry.

CLUTTERING THE CLIMATE:ADVERTISING AS A WAY OF LIFE
In September, 2016, the advertisements that normally adorn the interior of
Clapham Common Tube station in South London were replaced by playful
pictures of pussycats. For the busy commuter, the change was only a subtle
shift in the urban visual landscape. Images of cats—those most beloved of
internet creatures—might be used to sell any number of things. While the
imagery was rather more coordinated than the hotchpotch of advertising