Ok, I am late. I was meant to post this yesterday to tow the line with the rules of Blog Action Day, but didn’t have time. But really, in California it’s still the 15th. And the blogosphere is allowed to be chaotic…
Well, I am certainly not an environmental expert, but you don’t have to be a genius to understand that we are at a historical turning point on environmental thinking. Most of the environment-related blogs and sites I read – such as Grains of Sand, the outstanding blog of Caspar Henderson, award-winning writer and journalist on environmental affairs, who also writes on the Open Democracy site – agree that addressing environmental degradation and climate change should be the top priority for all politicians. Celebrating Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, Alex Steffen writes on WorldChanging:
“There is no longer any reasonable debate about whether or not we need to move with all possible speed towards a different way of living on this planet. To argue the contrary is now to prove oneself morally bankrupt”.
Point taken, you won’t hear a whisper from this blog, sir! But while there is (not) much talk of historical responsibilities, EcoEquity and of the right of developing nations to achieve our levels of economic welfare and prosperity, in practice most realist observers would admit that such rights will be trampled in the name of national economic self-interest.
With Western politicians more interested in wooing political constituencies, how can we expect them to make fair choices about who should bear the costs of carbon emission reduction? Are we honestly so deluded to think that the US and EU will consider slashing their economic growth perspectives, harm their own national companies, cause unemployment and possibly even political unrest, in order to help China, India or Brazil become wealthy, highly-industrialised nations? If we are, then perhaps we should simply ask Father Christmas to bring us a new atmosphere on 25 December.
The truth is, as a number of critical political ecologists concerned about international development put it, that the climate change debate could prove to be the hardest hurdle to jump for nations trying to develop. As Tim Forsythe and Zoe Young put it on Mute Magazine:
“There seems to be consensus among global elites about where to start (be afraid, be very afraid … but always trust the government), how to address the challenge (change development patterns in the South to ‘offset’ carbon emissions produced by business as usual in the North), and who is responsible (mainly you and me). Real doubts and arguments are suppressed while market-friendly ‘solutions’ are served up on a nice, glossy plate”.
For example, northern corporations – supported by government policies – are increasingly buying out large quantities of land to convert into ‘carbon sinks‘, often in areas where land tenure and land use rights are in dispute, so they don’t have to reduce their carbon emissions.
Many environmentalist would already have me gunned down for what I’ve written so far, but let me reassure them: I really do love trees! I’ve planted about 20 so far myself! But I just can’t see how we can expect our governments to solve this situation while lifting millions of people out of poverty.
So, what is to be done? Are we – generally concerned individuals, who are passionate about global justice, yet also care about passing on to our children a world where the air is breathable and the seas still populated by fish schools – just condemned to take sides? If we do not agree with this state of play, are we to be considered environmental foes?
I refuse to bow to this logic. The answers to the problems of climate change, environmental degradation and sustainable development are far more complex and intertwined than what we’re being told so far. On the one hand, we need to invest serious money into researching and identifying appropriate technologies to the economic development needs, energy consumption requirements and environmental challenges of developing countries. This would show developing nations that we are not just paying lip-service to the press when we say we want to help them fight poverty.
On the other hand, we need to engender a behavioural shift in the developed world, recognising that the neo-liberal economic principles that govern our economies and societies are also part of the problem, so it’s unrealistic to expect people not to discount the future when the socio-economic structures that surround them are giving them the opposite message. This is about much more than switching to energy-saving light bulbs. It’s about questioning one of the founding tenets of contemporary capitalism: consumerism.
Addressing climate change requires a deeper re-thinking than most governments, corporations and – dare I say – radical environmentalists are ready to concede. Gore is right: this is the end of the beginning. But – in Kevin Smith’s words – another end of the world is, indeed, possible.
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Update 18/10/07
Blog Action Day was a resounding success, with over 20,000 blogs focusing on the 15th of October on the topic of the environement (or the 16th if you’re always late like I am). Check the statistics on the Blog Action Day site and make sure you enter your email address to be notified about next year’s Blog Action Day.
Incidentally, White African wrote a post listing a number of African bloggers that have taken part in the initiative and have posted about Africa and the environment. I particularly enjoyed AfriGadget’s post entitled: where the world sees junk, Africa recycles.
GlobaLab 