By Sorrel Kinton, writer and science communicator
If we want to save the world, we have to let go idealism and embrace reality
On my grandparents bookshelf, in between biographies of Labour Prime Ministers and fifty years’ worth of ‘The Good Beer Guide’ is an enormous book entitled ‘365 ways to Save the World’. It’s sharply designed and eye-catching and so far as I can tell, has never been touched. It’s a perfect metaphor for the current state of environmentalism.
We have come a long way in terms of the prominence and acceptance of environmental issues. In my lifetime, we have gone from being the lunatic fringe in hemp underwear to a world where everything is just itching to tell you how green it is. And therein lies the problem; what was once a strong, concentrated political force has been diluted into a series of consumer lifestyle choices. The everyone-can-save-the-world optimism that gave environmentalism its voice has become a get-out-of-jail free card. It gives everyone the dangerous illusion that the world is being saved: one organic, seasonal, fair-trade banana at a time.
A framework for a new philosophy of sustainability may have arrived in the form of ‘An Ecomodernist Manifesto’, an essay by twenty-five leading environmentalists that challenges many of the traditional orthodoxies. The most fundamental is that the panacea for all our ills is ‘nature’. The myth that humanity’s problematic relationship with the natural world is a modern one is roundly busted; the authors point out that primitive hunter gatherers hunted mammoths to extinction; presumably whilst eating ‘paleo’. Rather than moving closer to nature, they argue, we should aim to ‘de-couple’ from it.
The key is intensification, which is a hard sell for an environmental movement. It would mean using more pesticides and other controversial farming methods to obtain greater yields. In energy terms it would mean a move towards high density nuclear power. It would mean more people living in cities. The biggest challenge will be persuading the public that these things are not necessarily evil after spending much of the last century persuading them of the opposite. High profile failures and breaches of trust by unscrupulous companies and government in the past means we are understandably reluctant to accept reassurances that these technologies are safe.
No technology is perfect. But with half the world living in poverty and hunger, millions dying from fossil-fuel induced illnesses, and the daily loss of irreplaceable species and habitats, quite apart from the threat of climate change, we have to be pragmatic about risks weighed with advantages.
Humanity has looked devastating, catastrophic climate change coolly in the face and decided that maybe we could be persuaded to use a hessian bag instead of plastic. You know, if it’s designer. The challenges presented by global warming are complex, vast and often incredibly dull. When you combine distant existential terror with extreme tedium, you have the perfect recipe for frustration, rebellion and disengagement, as any teenager facing exams will tell you.
Ecomodernism doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but it offers a way forward that is realistic. It deliberately leaves space for people to form their own solutions. It’s a signpost, not an instruction manual. Its power lies in its departure from the quasi-religious ideology that has plagued environmentalism, complete with sins and virtues, heaven and hell, believers and non-believers. We can live in an abundant, fair and evolving society, but to do so we will have to change the way we think.
We will have to let go of the idea that being human is the ultimate original sin and accept that we are a fluke of evolution, unable to survive without depleting our environment, but insulated from the consequences by our ability to craft technological solutions. This means learning to love humanity, being honest, and playing to our strengths to mitigate our interdependence with the biosphere instead of denying and fighting our basic nature.
