Page 84 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

5 DIGITAL DESIRES: MEDIATED CONSUMERISM AND CLIMATE CRISIS 69

Meanwhile, in the more potentially civic media spaces—notably the
news media—climate change has become old news, with coverage reaching
the levels of a minor news story that is neither urgent nor pressing (Daly
et al. 2015) This is, in part, because of the news media’s own commitment
to planned obsolescence (Lewis 2016).
In the twenty-first century developed world, these failures have become
endemic. But they are also grounds for optimism. Both planned obsoles-
cence and the superfluity of advertising are intrinsically unpopular.
Breaking the link between consumerism and climate change will not be
easy, but it does have the basis for a popular mandate. And social enter-
prises like Fairphone, Glimpse and Brandalism offer us glimpses of a dif-
ferent, more sustainable cultural economy—one that is a necessary
condition for questioning consumerism and addressing climate change.