Thus, immigrant-owned grocery stores, halal butcheries and community centres will soon be replaced by vegan chain restaurants, hip vintage clothing joints, organic food stores and coffee-shops galore, as landlords push out poor tenants to make space for more well-to-do ones. [...]
Unfortunately, creation by destruction is what capitalism does best, and its damaging practices are anything but green. This market-driven "sustainable" vision of economic activity, ecological-conscious diets and "hipness" within modern capitalism reinforce inequality and still hurt the environment.
Before I proceed further with my argument, I should mention that I am an academic, living in a "hip" part of Montreal and engage in activities that follow a particular aesthetic ethos, all of which make me very much a part of the reality I critique below. My aim is not to moralise, but rather to highlight the dangers of a political and economic system that profits from deceiving perhaps well-meaning self-proclaimed progressive folks into believing that a greener, more efficient capitalism is possible.[...]
Thus, environmental problems became framed as an issue of inefficiency that could be solved by technology and the better management of resources, which effectively neutralised the politically-oriented environmentalism of the 1960s and 1970s. [...]
In other words, the more efficient we are, the cheaper consumption gets, and in an economy predicated on endless growth, the more we consume and waste. The environment will always be at the losing endof this logic.
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