The story of climate change is not a new one, yet on moral grounds one can’t stop saying it again, and again, and yet again, like daily prayers.
SAJI P MATHEW OFM
I have been trying to tell this story for a long time and I feel as if I’ve failed to get the message across”, thus begins the 2006 award-winning documentary film on global warming by Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth. The story of climate change is not a new one, yet on moral grounds one can’t stop saying it again, and again, and yet again; because merely under- standing it is not equal to realising it.
Some Inconvenient Statistics
The global average atmospheric carbon dioxide in 2019 was 409.8 parts per million (ppm). Carbon dioxide levels today are higher than at any point in at least the past 800000 years, reports www.climate.gov. In fact, the last time the atmospheric CO2 amounts were this high was more than 3 million years ago, when temperature was 2°– 3° C higher than during the pre-industrial era, and sea level was 15–25 meters (50–80 feet) higher than today. Experts say that if we continue on this trend of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in twenty to thirty years, the atmospheric car- bon dioxide level would hit an irreversible level of 450 ppm, which would cause sea level to rise in an unprecedented manner; and the oceans would submerge millions of human habitats. Such alarming statistics are known to the modern world on varied aspects of the future of our common home –the earth.
How does it happen? Perhaps the ruling capitalistic ideology and its idea of development need to be examined. A capitalistic economy thrives on exploiting the natural resources, fossil fuels like, coal, petroleum, etc. for industrial production. Use of these resources, on the one hand, emit gases and wastes that pollute; and on the other hand, would devour its sources, for these are not indefinite resources. Once upon a time, capitalism was limited to a few developed countries. But today many more developing countries, including India and China, are competing for their space in the world capitalistic order. In a world of limited resources we cannot aim at unlimited growth. The Club of Rome, consists of one hundred full members selected from current and former heads of state and government, UN administrators, high-level politicians and government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists,
and business leaders from around the globe, published its first report on the state of environment, called, The Limits to Growth. It categorically suggested that economic growth could not continue indefinitely because of resource depletion.
Samir Amin, an Egyptian economist, demonstrates what the European revolutions
of modern times demanded for, and where they have arrived, and why. Living up to the aspirations of the Age of Enlightenment, the motto Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (liberty, equality and fraternity) first appeared during the French Revolution. But when the revolution ended and the next generations had less or no idea of the price the fathers and mothers of revolution paid during the 10 year long revolution, they by now more affluent, moved towards the American motto; liberty and property. Samir Amin argues that unhindered liberty and property makes inequality seem legitimate. This passage from the ‘high ideal of liberty, equality and fraternity’ to ‘the capitalistic ideal of liberty and property’ was unchallenged because the powerful were already enjoying the privileges of liberty and property. It lead people to ignore the virtues of equality and fraternity and moved on to competition among individuals and among businesses; and for every human competition for power and wealth the earth pays a price.
The UN rightly names climate change as a human-made crisis; but what the UN perhaps is not doing is not taking the radical step of stating which human, and calling those to account- ability. The UN infographics on Sustainable Development Goals highlights that material footprint has increased 70%, and each person puts out over 7 kilograms of electronic waste. Are the 80 plus percent of world’s poor have
the privilege of using 7 kilograms of electronic goods? Or are the poor only there in statistics while calculating the average electronic waste?
Acting like Masters
‘Who owns the earth’ was a question raised
by the socialist thinker Karl Marx. His critical reaction was, “Individual private ownership of the earth (land) will appear just as much in bad taste as the ownership of one human being by another.” Marx goes further to state that not even a collective society, state, or even humanity together can claim absolute ownership of the earth. Earth is prior to all these. Humans are only its occupants and beneficiaries, and not absolute owners. I hear people are already buying and selling properties on moon.
‘How old is too old’ is a question that is in my mind after witnessing a recent discussion on cutting down a 60 odd year old healthy eucalyptus tree, not posing any specific danger to anybody, on our campus gave rise to a spontaneous discussion. One leading argument was that it has long outlived its purpose. Why should a healthy tree be named as old? The question is how old is too old, in any realm
of life? 60 years may be a long period of time
for us human beings. But the eucalyptus tree
in question has 200-250 years long lifespan. Unscientific and illogical conclusions have been detrimental to the life of earth and earth’s non-human inhabitants; and at times to the life of humans too.
Climate and Capitalism
Climate and capitalism can’t go too far together. John Bellamy Foster in his essay contrasts the greatest environmentalist of 20th century, Barry Commoner’s four laws of ecology with four laws of capitalism. The four laws of ecology are (1) everything is connected to everything else: ecosystems are interconnected; and are complex. A change in one can affect the other.
(2) everything must go somewhere: there is no final waste, the waste created in one ecological process is recycled in another. (3) Nature knows best: any major man-made change in a natural system is likely to be detrimental to that system. (4) Nothing comes from nothing: the exploitation of nature always carries an ecological cost.
The laws of capitalism are clearly counter-ecological. (1) The only lasting connection between things is the cash nexus. (2) It doesn’t matter where something goes as long as it doesn’t reenter the circuit of capital. (3) The self-regulating market knows best. (4) Nature’s bounty is a free gift to the property owner. The kind of reductionism of commercial capitalism reduces the earth and its resources to things of use. For example, although it is possible to use rivers ecologically and sustainably in accordance with human needs, the giant river valley projects associated with the construction of today’s dams work against, and not with, the logic of the river.
Living elsewhere is expensive; when that day comes the population would be divided into further economic classes; and we will see the next phase of capitalism. The profit-minded capitalist, corporate system is inadequate to uphold the earth. The massive production plans and plants around the world are just for making 1 percent of the world rich. It is a systemic failure. A capitalistic system legitimizes the exploitation of the earth and its resources.
Time for a New Chipko Movement
When we exploit the earth and its resources
we are exploiting our future and ourselves. Dr. Sunil P Ilayidom, in his long speech on ecology underlines that the sun/heat that the tree bears is the shade that we enjoy. We trust the earth. This predictability of the earth makes it inhabitable. “What is the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” asks Henry David Thoreau, an American naturalist.
The earth is everyone’s responsibility. The only thing that would aid the earth is our direct engagement and involvement in the concerns of environment. According to Thomas Berry, the bomb has already gone off even without a nu- clear war. He is referring to the chemicals that humans have already dumped into rivers, shot into the air, and pumped into the earth. At least we must stop its spread.
The 1970s Chipko andolan in Uttarakhand was a landmark movement to protect trees. The colonial rule had encouraged forest clearing
to provide Himalayan teak for the English consumers. After independence, the new Indian government adopted Western-style industrial policy that continued clearing trees. As logging accelerated in the early 1970s, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, a Gandhian Social activist, proposed
a strategy to fight tree cutting. He called it Chipko, meaning hug. The villagers physically blocked those came to cut down trees, by standing with the trees in embrace. In 1975, government officials conceived a plan to circumvent the activists in the village. They called the men of the villages for a meeting and in the lure of paying them old dues. Thus the day of cutting the trees, the men were not around. But that day would eventually become history. When they came to cut trees, the women fought back under the leadership of an elderly lady named Gauradevi, guarding the trees with their bodies and preventing the forest clearing.
Ultimately, the Chipko movement managed to preserve forests across the region. The news soon reached the state capital, where the then state Chief Minister, set up a committee to
look into the matter, which eventually ruled in favour of the villagers. This became a turning point in the history of eco-development struggles in the region and around the world.
Participate in the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations
The Sustainable Development Goals or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”. The SDGs were set up in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by the year 2030. A quick examination would reveal that every one of the goals (some very strongly) that are aimed at achieving would be negated without concern for the earth.
It is fashionable to be an advocate of environment, speak and write about it; but the solution is in getting engaged with it as equal partners. Our bodies have the natural possibility of survival only because they are on earth. Work against poverty, work for good health, education, gender equality, affordable and clean energy, employment for all, sustainable cities and communities, climate action, life on land and water, peace and justice, just to mention some. Ecological concerns may not get ad- dressed in isolation.
The awareness of things ecological is yet to spread, and get the attention it needs. In the words of Cheryll Glotfelty, co-editor of The Eco- criticism Reader, we need an eco-critical reading of everything that is around. Just as feminist criticism examines language and literature from a gender-conscious perspective, and Marxist criticism bring an awareness of modes of production and economic class to its reading of texts, ecocriticism must take an earth-centered approach in reading and reviewing the mad and massive activities and projects happening around. Or we may soon discover, in the words of Thomas Berry, the cultural historian, that we have lost the paradise a second time.
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