This post concludes our investigation into the possibility of the existence of the capitalocene as the definition of the new epoch following the angelocene. The transition from the Anthropocene to the Capitalocene proposes the idea of leaving the age of man in favor of the age of capital. The global superpowers exhibit late stage capitalist tendencies and the Capitalocene implies that humans themselves are no longer the major players in the health of the global environment. Rather it is the specter of capitalism that has the most influence. The existence of the capitalocene depends on the strength of the relationship between the amount of capital a country has and its environmental performance. Using the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) in (capitalocene-lab-1-10-22-18.html) we were able to see that countries classified by the World Bank as high income had a better EPI than countries classified as upper middle. Upper middle countries performed better than middle income countries and so on and so forth. The existence of this relationships works to support the existence of the capitalocene.
But proving the existence of the capitalocene is not a simply as the relationship between EPI and World Bank income classification. The World Values Survey (WVS) provides new ways to look into the capitalocene (capitalocene-lab-3-11-5-18.html). The main way being that it surveyed a large number of citizens about their opinions relating to their environmental ideologies. This allows us to look at the capitalocene from a bottom up perspective rather than the top down perspective we have taken in the past. Using the WVS we looked at one low income country, a middle income country, and a high income country (using the World Bank classifications). These countries being Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and the United States respectively. We looked at the question that asked whether individuals prioritized protecting the environment or economic growth. We hypothesized that our low income country would prioritize economic growth, middle income would be somewhere in the middle and high income would prioritize the environment the most. We found that our high income country prioritize the environment the most and out middle income prioritized the environment the least, with our low income somewhere in the middle. This did not fit with our hypothesis. In conclusion the existence of the capitalocene is much more of a multifaceted issue than we originally thought. While there is a general relationship between the amount of capital a country has and its environmental performance the EPI tends to generalize for the income groups. Our WVS data supports that. Looking at the data from the top down it appears that the capitalocene must exist because of how strong the relationship looks but using the WVS data to investigate form the bottom up the environmental preferences based on income the relationship is not that simple. Drawing upon all the evidence we gathered during our capitalocene labs the evidence shows to be inconclusive. The capitalocene as an idea is far too complex to be assessed over the course of a month or so. In order to have a more conclusive answer more data must be collected and assessed. |
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December 2018
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