# Fixing climate change requires a new form of excommunication Date: 2023-08-13 --- --- ### Fixing climate change requires a new form of excommunication Al Gore has it slightly wrong when he [claims the fossil fuel industry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgZC6da4mco) is slowing progress on climate change. Elana Sulakshana of the Rainforest Action Network [has it right](https://www.ran.org/the-understory/meet-liberty-mutuals-board-of-directors-and-their-fossil-fuel-connections/) — there are specific people behind the decision to continue to destroy the planet not nameless faceless corporations. But even Elana’s naming names isn’t sufficient if there is no concrete action to be taken. The people whose decisions support events like [60K people dying in Europe](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/10/climate/heat-waves-europe-deaths.html#:~:text=More%20than%2061%2C000%20people%20died,the%20pace%20of%20global%20warming.) in the summer of 2022, the [destruction of Maui](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/12/us/after-the-maui-fires-locals-fear-being-shut-out-of-recovery.html) (this one is maybe [just greed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVCydTcEXzs) but same rules apply), and countless other catastrophes are above the law because they have the power to control the law. Nor do we have the luxury of spending the next century breaking the connection between money and power if we want to save our environment. The Catholic church had a similar problem with royalty and nobles and their solution was excommunication. So even if you are Theodosius the Great, in charge of the soldiers responsible for the [massacre of Thessalonica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Thessalonica), you must repent. [Philip I of France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_I_of_France) was excommunicated for claiming his wife was too fat and he could therefore leave her. Of course bringing back excommunication may mean some will suffer when the masses abuse this power. That’s why we all wanted rule of law but some people think they are too clever for rule of law and so here we are. Plus the actions that continue to accelerate world climate change causing pollution are being conducted in the open. We don’t have to worry yet about excommunication being used on the innocent as there are so many openly guilty, very rich, perpetrators. There has been a lot of hype about the new “cancel” culture but it’s not new and its powers are much reduced from the old excommunication practice. Fixing climate change would mean creating a much more formal and strict form of cancel but also much more easily lifted once the world destroying behavior stopped — as [with King John](https://www.crf-usa.org/foundations-of-our-constitution/magna-carta.html) of Magna Carta fame when he realized fighting the Pope and the barons at the same time was unwise. ![Image](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/fixing-climate-change-requires-a-new-form-of-excommunication-80654b5c32.jpeg) Fear of social judgement is arguably the driver of human reasoning ability (see [social intelligence hypothesis](https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3100-1#:~:text=The%20social%20intelligence%20hypothesis%20is,large%20brains%20in%20extant%20animals.)) and a main source of [whatever sentience](https://medium.com/@disrael/sentience-and-fairness-6e863995774d) humans possess; this blog is about sentience as defined by the ability to go beyond original programming, OP. Not only is Greta Thunberg right to [call out greenwashing](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/11/greta-thunberg-greenwashing-edinburgh-book-festival-arts) and [politicians in general](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MjyzNpRfQw), she would be morally correct to organize social justice for the largest *individual* offenders. This is the reality that [even supposed supporters of the environment don’t want to hear](https://www.bodhi.solar/blog/climate-shaming-and-the-what-the-hell-effect). We’re all a little guilty, they say, so how can we prosecute anyone? But we are NOT all a little guilty of the most massive fraud in the history of the world — [lawsuits pending](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/oil-giants-sued-over-climate-change-deception-by-oregon-county). We are NOT all [actively lobbying](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/02/oil-and-gas-industry-spent-124-4-million-on-federal-lobbying-amid-record-profits-in-2022/) world governments to prevent alternative energy development and so hold everyone hostage. Nor does the argument that corporations must deliver value for their shareholders protect individuals making vastly more than all of the rest of society from social condemnation. **By demanding and achieving great income inequality they also achieved an inequality of responsibility.** This is the nature of insisting on a so called meritocracy. Using culture to claim greater merit and greater rewards opens the door to the use of culture to proclaim inferiority and enforce social punishment. If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen. There cannot be a system that reaps accolades without risking shame unless it’s North Korea and you are Kim Jong Un and that system will [always end up threatening the world](https://www.arabnews.com/node/2352611/world). The appeal of a world run solely by an imagined original programming of pure greed is obvious. In such a world no one is responsible for anything; we simply do whatever feels best all the time even if the air starts to boil. The problem with this all greed all the time interpretation of OP is much more than it’s being lethal. The greater issue is that it’s boring. It robs us all of agency and the ability to do anything useful. Excommunicating pollution barons isn’t where we wanted to be as a society but it is where we are. The alternative is a break with sentience so complete it would redefine us from humans to inanimate objects capable only of passively watching our lives.