Inequality and the Environment
How many pairs of shoes does one need? Every year, around 20–25 billion pairs of footwear are produced around the world[1]. Divided by the population of the planet, it gives 2–3 pair bought by an average consumer a year. Just one single year, how much shoes do we need over a lifetime? And collecting shoes is yet not the worst hobby a rich can have[2], still it gives an idea of an extent to which consumptionism became an ideology of our times and ownership is a status symbol. Maybe that systems no longer serve us and develop us individually and as societies?
The environmental statistics are depressing. Our planet is slowly dying. If you watched David Attenborough’s movie on Netflix, you already know about it. World’s wildlife populations plunge 68% in 46 years. That trends includes almost all species but humans. Like for example sharks and rays, whose population have declined by 71 percent since 1970[3]. Populations are crashing, million species of animals and plants are at risk of extinction, and on top of that, 2020 is the worst year so far in terms of climate change. There is a very small window to act against total ecological collapse.
The unique feature of humans as species is the ability to see into the future, to imagine worlds that do not exist yet and describe it. Through conscious planning, we can see scenarios, think about their consequences and re-create the world we live in. Proposing the ‘solutions’ with right consequences is particularly urgent. But is it about a change in human values and principles? Teaching people not to be greedy? But what does the word ‘greedy’ mean, when everyone needs resources (water, food, fresh air, warm shelter, and a bit of adventure) to live on, and how to quantify the environmental effects of each single action? Can we blame ourselves, or shall we make it about systemic solutions?
Can an everyman’s shopping excursion to IKEA take unimaginably bigger dimensions than it should take? Yes, of course. We — through our behaviour — guide the society and the economy. All the ‘ordinary’, average persons are given unwillingly responsibilities for the consequences of our actions and the implications of our choices. Our choices are more than that: we operate amongst complex cultural patters, where much of our behaviours have a meaning, by means of our acting we often make a statement. Buying a BILLY bookcase gets more complicated than one tends to think. Is it good for the environment? Even if the materials are OK and result of some circular economic cycles, been reused or recycled or even remade? Is the packaging OK? And the delivery? Why do I event wonder when others don’t? What if the producer is green-washing? Most probably, we will never find out with all certainty and no human being is environmentally neutral, so why judge one another?
Sustainability often takes the character of a moral imperative: it offers to the society the means for ideology driven debates — or (perhaps worse?) a path to build ideologically driven or motivated controversies. In other words — it can divide us and be weaponized against us. For the sake of mental exercise, imagine a surreal setting where Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes (enemies) share a cabin in a ship on a non-ending cruise. They are expected to reach consensus on matters they never had the same opinion. They can argue culturally, endlessly, but at least they have a common goal — find solutions to economic depression. Our society is polarized in terms of ecological beliefs: some choose not to believe even in hard facts about environmental crisis, and others blame themselves for slightest ecological sins. When we quarrel over our small actions, we forget that even though we might see and explain the world differently, we often have a common ground and little impact without acting collectively.
We need to define together the terms for which we shall then have all the pleasure and freedom to disagree amongst us. We may have all the good reasons for sticking to different explanations of the world, having different visions, taking different actions, but we have at least to agree that we speak about same phenomena and that we defend the pathways that serve the goal we aim for. When a solution is proposed, we might need to ponder about incentives created and the moral implications of its adoption. We shall not allow the ‘individual choices are to blame’ narratives to win, that only distracts us. The environmental status quo is not a result of inherent human badness, but rather a result of a system powerfully upheld. We can move from persistent narrative of blaming one-another and our human nature, to challenging a political and economic system that’s no longer fit our values and the purpose they were created for.
The issue of moralizing can be exemplified on an international scale, by terms of environmental and economic inequality. Currently, much of the nature resources is destroyed in developing countries and poor communities. At the same time, external debts distress amongst developing countries is mounting. With substantial pressure to pay back the debt, the developing countries will exploit the natural capital to cover it in the short-term. Shall we blame them, or can we think about how to stop this vicious cycle? Individually we can do little, but together we can demand that the international economic system and trade reward environmental protection. Like in the debt-for-nature swap[4] mechanism, which proposes that the debt burdens of emerging economies are alleviated in exchange for debtor nation commitment to environmental protection. Money, also the debt, often goes to things that deplete resources of our planet. The money could be spent on saving the planet instead.
Think of the sharks that are at risk of extinction due to overfishing. Many fishermen have financial incentives to keep the sharks in their nets, for the precious meat, fins, gill plates and liver oil. People are able to spend as much as they can afford to pay for, and sometimes fisherman cannot afford to leave the fish alive. Even as shark populations plummet, the governments allow fishing of the species. Instead, the governments could be incentivised by debt reduction for commitment to protect sharks and rays on the international waters. The fisherman, could then be paid for implementing the best practices that avoid catching sharks to begin with, and certainly also releasing the shark safely and making sure it survives. The experts say, it matters, for example, how long a shark struggles on the line, so fishermen should monitor their lines regularly. They should avoid shark hot spots and use shark-friendly gear that allows the creatures to break free while keeping tuna and other fish on the line. Analogous examples can be found everywhere, from climate to agricultural practices (like pal oil production) and daily activities.
We were never going to be able to sacrifice our way out of saving the planet, especially not at cost of the people who have historically done most of the sacrificing. Rich countries may afford to reuse — recycle — remake money and other assets and resources. Being rich means having a choice to be sustainable. Being poor does not provide much of an option, it is often about survival and basic needs of one and their closest family. There, money will not be buffered in ‘money tanks’ that would allow its use in the future. The populations in many countries have no capacity to afford circular economy, but stick to the ‘from hand to mouth’ model (consumers spend all of their available resources in every pay-period, who hold little or no liquid wealth). Is there any hope for emerging and developing to become sustainable of the next century? As global society, we are responsible for supporting developing countries pathway to growth, that allows then to skip some of the mid-way steps that further exploited the planet and our values, but still forge a relationship of dependency on imports and allows to industrialise, develop production of own goods and create jobs.
Societies, same as individuals, offer by unquestionable simple ways of thinking, ideologies, in which we often lock ourselves and stay there as long as we feel the comfortable when defined by them. Like the consumptionism, which quite devastating for global nature resources, yet we allowed it to bloom and be praised. Or simplistic thinking, that by moralizing and blaming we can induce change. Sustainability is not an absolute term but a quality. We can implement it in many different ways — some may be more and others less sustainable, depending on circumstances, but we can still cultivate it as a quality. We might allow for diversity in the term and pathways. Although it is difficult to not feel a certain amount of resentment towards those who seem to care little about the environmental protection, blaming them is demoralizing distraction from focusing on the economic and political systems at heart of the crisis. We can stay together as friend, not foes, enjoying what each of us likes and needs best –without feeling the need to convince or convert the others. We can afford to respect different understandings and interpretations for the notion of sustainability to different audiences. Demand changes in the system, not the individual people.
Written together with Adamantios Koumpis: https://medium.com/@adamantios.koumpis
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/227278/leading-10-global-footwear-consumers-by-country/
[2] See ‘Safari’ directed by Ulrich Seidl.
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/climate/sharks-population-study.html#:~:text=the%20main%20story-,Shark%20Populations%20Are%20Crashing%2C%20With%20a%20'Very%20Small%20Window',according%20to%20a%20new%20study.
[4] Recently, Chinese government announced that they will use the mechanism to fight environmental crises, reduce global debt and protect the environment.
