The Carbon Cost of Imported Bricks and the Challenge of Greenwashing in the Built Environment

Carbon Colonialism won’t solve the crisis.

State response to the interlocking climate, biodiversity, water, inequality, and health crises has mostly been to unleash the free market to promote solutions which perpetuate the global system of pillaging and exploitation. This only protects the status quo whilst sacrificing current and future generations. We have a name for this terrible violence: greenwashing.

I’m joined today by Laurie Parsons, a senior lecturer in Human Geography, to discuss the tensions between a global political economy, national legal jurisdictions, and a populace that is drowning in information. Taking examples from his book, Carbon Colonialism, Laurie explains how the people footing the climate bill are local and indigenous people around the world who are suffering under the extractive actions of corporations and the reticence of national governments to act. He also reveals the history of greenwashing as it began in the 1960s as “Eco-Pornography”, before giving an excellent analysis of the deliberate divide and conquer tactic separating land, labour and capital has long driven wealth into the world’s most powerful nations.

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Laurie researches at Royal Holloway, the University of London, and is the principal investigator of the projects, The Disaster Trade, The Hidden Footprint of UK Imports and Investment Overseas, and also Hot Trends, How the Global Garment Industry Shapes Climate Vulnerability in Cambodia.

© Rachel Donald