I have to confess I’m really over the green movement although I did get caught up in it like everyone else for a while. However, I’ve come to a realisation. It occurred to me a few months ago when there was yet another charity collection going round for an environmental cause, I spontaneously thought, “I only donate to people”, and it got me thinking.
I distinctly remember live aid and the belief that we could make a difference, then it all gradually died off. Then there was live aid 2, even quite recently Bono and Geldoff were at it again with the ‘make poverty history’ campaign. However, the environment has really stolen the limelight and we’ve all forgotten the poor, diseased and war ravaged yet again; it needs to be asked why this has happened.
Perhaps, after decades of effort and so little result, the collective charitable conscience of the west has just given up flogging a dead horse. It’s an awful thought, but maybe it explains why there is so much fervent enthusiasm for the environmental movement. It’s something new to care about, we can forget about other people at last; here’s something we might have a chance to do something about. Could it be that the environment has become a handy distraction so we don’t have to face our failure in helping people in urgent need?
Think for a moment how we would feel if we weren’t distracted by climate change. We would have to admit that all the pictures of starving children with swollen bellies, the cries of weeping mothers and the faces of young men crippled by war, all this and more, failed to sufficiently move us to do something effective about it. Even more damning is that this occurred during the era in which media established a global reach, we cannot say we didn’t know like earlier generations can. We have a lot to face up to if only we had the courage to do so.
To come back to my point, could carbon dioxide be providing the perfect smokescreen behind which we hide our collective guilt? Has the environment become the conscience-easing alternative to caring about people?
I argue that realising our failure to care for others, facing this failure truthfully, and making permanent effective commitments in this area is the most important cause in the world today. Imagine, for a moment, that we had really had started to fix poverty, disease and starvation as we moved into the new millenium. Imagine a world where Africa wasn’t decimated by aids, the Taliban weren’t destroying Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, and millions of people didn’t starve to death every year.
It’s easy for this world to exist in our imagination, but how could we achieve it in reality? I don’t intend to answer this question, but I will point out one salient truth. The structures we need to solve global problems could have been built through caring about people.
We have missed the start of the race, fallen behind and squandered the opportunity to fix the world. We had the UN, human rights, global communications, unprecedented wealth, advanced technology, efficient farming techniques, modern medicine, etc, etc – what have we done with it? The simple answer is that we’ve been selfish and greedy, we just didn’t care enough. ‘Make poverty history’ may have been achieved if wealthy nations, corporations and individuals were prepared to ‘make wealth history’ too.
The carbon tax, emissions trading schemes, and other measures to help fix the environment all have serious economic ramifications. It’s astonishing that we have been able to consider a tax to deal with climate change but not one to feed the starving. The current state of affairs is truly appalling; middle class housewives are putting groceries in reusable bags, husbands are changing the old light bulbs to more environmentally friendly ones, and the kids are signing online petitions; all while the Prime Minister rushes through new environmental laws. At the same time, the same people watch TV and agree that the Prime Minister should get tough on refugees - poor people fleeing the civil war in Sri Lanka, suicide bombers in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. While we do our bit to save the environment we foster racism, war and starvation with our cruel politics and obscene levels of consumption.
How ridiculous we must look to people in poor countries, worrying about the weather while they starve. I’ll ask you to imagine once more, but this time think of what the world would be like if we beat climate change and still carried on the same. There’d be electric cars, solar power plants, pretty flowers and war, starvation and disease. Would it really be worth it? Is this the kind of world we are being asked to all do our bit for?
Finally, if we can’t care for our own species how can we truly care for anything? Mammals survived the ice age because they were social animals that looked after each other, they shared food and huddled together to keep warm. For humans, the real question is, do we care enough to survive climate change?
While I tend to agree with you to do a degree Brad, the reason the environment’s at a tipping point is because humanity raped it, and that has led, in part, to why people are suffering from hunger and famine. Solving world hunger takes more than just throwing a whole bunch of money at it or implementing a “starvation tax”. Rampant consumerism in the developed world isn’t helping either situation, and tokenism like benefit concerts or giving $40 a month to World Vision just makes us rampant consumers feel better. It doesn’t really solve the issue.
But we need to get our own house in order before we can fix others. The Federal Opposition is only honing in on “border security” and “boat people” because they don’t want to discuss climate change. It’s not about “getting tough” on refugees, it’s about avoiding another issue. 5000 asylum seekers arrived in Australia last year on international flights and no one batted an eyelid. Take those people off the container ship, sneak them onto an airliner and fly it into Darwin or Perth and “Today Tonight” wouldn’t even investigate.
“Climate change” has blinded many to the real issues — exploitation of the poor and the waste of limited resources. They are linked together. One of the main causes of deforestation, erosion and destruction of habitat in developing nations is land-holders and producers expanding their farming into wilderness areas to satisfy the demands of the West, often pushing off traditional land-owners or “employing” them for a few dollars a week while funnelling none of the profits into the care or well-being of the people. This level of greed and corruption is fuelled by the arrogance and ignorance of your average Joe Bogan who thinks that he needs a 1000-inch flat screen plasma TV.
My argument is that educating people to care more about what they consume, think about where it comes from and where it ends up when you throw it away will lead to a better understanding of the cause and effect of their own behaviour. If people are less ignorant about the effect they are having on their own environment, it follows that they will eventually become less ignorant about the effect we all have on the greater environment, and by “environment” I mean the entire global situation. Unfortunately, people are inherently short-sighted: the conservatives will argue that climate-change strategies will create higher costs of living and cost jobs, and that’s true, but only in the relative short-term until the replacement technologies — many of which are being or have already been developed — replace the old ones.
Humans don’t matter *more* than the environment. Without the environment, there won’t be any humans. We need to tackle both problems equally and stop being distracted by circular political arguments.
Hello Brian,
Thank you for your thoughtful response, I agree with almost everything you say.
In writing the piece I took a philosophical approach with the idea that humans matter ‘more’ than the environment. I also deliberately wrote to get a response using more emotive language than usual – I’m sure you noticed.
Regarding the philosophical approach, I wanted to point out that caring is essential, you could also say that we have to make love central to the way we live. While notions of altruistic love and caring can be extended to encompass the entire universe, I suggest that the starting point is our own species. Therefore, humans do matter ‘more’ than the environment, insofar as initiating the caring response is essential for just about everything. To ask people to care more universally is quite a long shot, in this regard I see the argument that ‘caring for the environment will entail us caring more about humanity’ is putting the cart and the horse the wrong way round. It is this philosophical approach that is central to my argument.
The more I look at things this way the more illuminating I find it. Last weekend I met a lady who wanted me to sign a petition to save some big camphor laurel trees, these trees are actually a weed and most of the locals hate them where I live, but they are beautiful huge trees. However, I remember about 18 months ago an old farmer friend in his 70′s told me that he and a few others went around visiting old people that were no longer able to leave their homes, just to talk to them so they had some company, ask if they needed any help. He wasn’t part of any group, he had no petition for me to sign and wasn’t after any funding or changing any law. He just saw a need and him and a few others just helped these homebound pensioners out. The lady who wanted me to sign her petition wouldn’t have even thought about the homebound elderly in her area, caring about people is a mark of the older generation, they’re the ones running the salvation army, St Vinnnies, Palliative care, etc etc charities. Their ethic is centred in community and caring. I prefer their approach. I signed the petition, not because I cared about the trees, but because I wanted the lady to feel valued.
Kind regards,
Brad