When positivity rests on the ability to degrade

Cut trees, pollute waters, pave prairies. Industrialise, "add value", compete, sell. Increase wealth, move away to the gorgeous mountains. Manage from afar, while sipping a margarita beside your pool. Give charitable donations to groups you support. Feel good about yourself.

I wonder, Why do we have to degrade before we can collaborate and construct? This is the typical argument that is presented by "developed" countries--degradation of the Earth and its effusive offerings must occur to increase our "standard of living", and once we have all of our basic needs met, we will have more time to care about other things (like the Earth, which, ironically, is what provides us our basic needs).

"Development" lends itself to degradation more than it does to construct and sustain, for two reasons that I can think of. The first is that it assumes that our "needs" can be fully met. Unfortunately, this culture has done a tremendous job at conflating our needs with our wants. Think about it. How much have your needs gone down as you've grown up? If our material needs went down, our houses wouldn't look like hoarding units, and landfills and oceans wouldn't be places as thoroughly filled with junk as they are. The second is that if we are to live in an equitable, peaceful world, then the traditional ways of accumulating 'wealth', like mining, warring, etc. cannot be ways in which we continue to seek wealth.

If we look at the countries that give the most foreign "aid" (details here and here), the list is made up of those countries that have monetarily profited most from ecological degradation. Benevolence is not about lending dignity after rape has occurred. The rules of the game are structured so that these countries, and their organisations and institutions, win, every time. They are already powerful under current regimes, with aid being wagged like a carrot or a stick whenever appropriate to do so. If you believe even a shred of what John Perkins says in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, then you can see what I am getting at.

Many times we feel as if the only way to have access to power, to have control over our own lives, to do what we want to do (positively), is to be first subsumed by the system, and then create our own bubble within it when the opportunity lends itself. We must bite our tongues until we are granted permission to let loose. My contention is that the things that we aspire to, the things that we wish to see in the world, can be created by us, right here, right now. Building constructive dialogue, building community, enriching our lives, these things are impossible if we burn the bridges we will need to cross. We must engage in creative, thoughtful, respectful, cherishing ways from the outset, for then we will know with certainty that the outcomes are those that are in the collective and individual good.

A few more thoughts on privilege

I received some verbal criticism from Shelley for my thoughts on a recent post We might need their help more than they need ours, particularly centred on privilege and romanticising people that I have had no contact with. I want to elaborate a little bit on these criticisms; they are important to think about.

Haiti is economically the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, likely because of various political reasons that I do not claim to fully know or understand. To add salt to these obvious wounds, the 12 January 2010 earthquake demolished entire inhabited areas of Haiti, with many building structures collapsing because of poor building codes. It is clear when you see pictures that there was intense social devastation caused by the earthquake. But I don't think the pictures are telling the whole story. 

Over the past few years, I have been listening to stories about the recovery efforts underway in Haiti, stories about art and cultural preservation, about people from the US giving up their lives here to lend their hands and their hearts to the Haitians. In each of the stories that I have listened to, in each interview with a Haitian, I have come away time and again with the sense that the resiliency of many Haitians allows them to find a silver lining to most any situation. These stories have made me consider moving to Haiti, at least for a while, to see and to understand, if possible, what this is all about.

However, I was criticised for two reasons. Firstly, I was told that unless I navigated my time with the Haitians carefully, I would be taking advantage of them because of my privilege. In many historical cases of anthropological studies of underprivileged, disenfranchised people, the studied group has been taken advantage of, particularly because the studies in no way empower the group of people to change the situation they are in. Secondly, I was told that I don't know the Haitians, and that making blanket statements about their optimism or whatever else is dangerous, romantic, and just plain wrong.

I must admit that my intentions have been to understand a different culture, not for some sort of intellectual gratification or "to find myself", but rather to relay messages, customs, and worldviews that allow the optimism and hope that I hear from the stories. Honestly, it is difficult not to be in awe of the people that I have listened to, especially because I imagine that their compassion and empathy, if allowed to unfold in other contexts, can allow a markedly different world, one much less materialistic and ecologically degrading. I recognise at the same time that Haiti has staggering ecological problems, particularly those of deforestation and soil erosion, because of the demand for wood as fuel, degrading agricultural practices, and population growth.

How to navigate the privilege that even allows me to go to Haiti is challenging, and I don't think I could be able to chart a path without a complete immersion. Furthermore, it is important to be constantly aware that because of privilege, one can extricate oneself from most any situation, consequently leaving the underprivileged high and dry in their situation.

I think these issues are essential to think about when engaging in international work, particularly that of the (unfortunately) dominant "sustainable development."

A few thoughts on sustainability

While some people continue to deny or belittle ecological issues, others have realised that the Earth we live on is reaching its carrying capacities for this culture we've created for ourselves, which is one of degradation, extraction, greed, rape, injustice, and violence towards people and place. Many people have consequently started talking about "sustainability," and I have written about this concept many times. So many of us have started reacting to the growing crises we see around us--great efforts have curbed pollution, set in place laws that industry must comply with, and created international laws of all kinds (customary, soft, conventions). But at the same time, we have based many of our actions on the assumption that we can still continue to extract from this Earth, produce, manufacture, technologise. Indeed, very few have openly fought out against large-scale centralisation of governance structures and economies. (Although, thank goodness that the Occupy movement has threads of these messages running through it.) We all come across that Brundtland Commission definition of "sustainable development." This definition has monopolised the world's thinking on sustainability. Indeed, sustainability has come to mean "sustainable development."

But wait, wait, wait. It seems that we have lost track of the question we are trying to answer. What is sustainability? How does this question, and its framing, dictate outcomes? (When you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail.) What is the world we envision for ourselves, and how do we value the world we live in now? More generally, what is the value of the world to us? Does the world in itself have intrinsic value, or is that value only a human value that we prescribe to it? (Of course there are aesthetic values we place on everything. Aesthetics are what makes a mountain beautiful, even though it may have very little commercial value otherwise.) The reason I am asking these questions is because I want to hear your thoughts.

Jason, who always provides me with inspiration, told me how thinking about sustainability quickly leads him down a path of existentialism. But maybe that is the path of inquiry we all need to take. What is the point of living in this culture, which we are made to believe is continually trying to emancipate us from the bonds that hold us back in the past and allow us to do things more "efficiently," "without effort," "abundantly," if we don't have time to think for ourselves?

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I went to a talk today given by Dr. George Crabtree, a pretty famous materials scientist from Argonne National Labs in Illinois, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In the beginning, he mentioned how geopolitics, along with climate, affect the supposed costs conventional sources of energy, like crude oil. He then transitioned to talking about the movement away from these conventional sources by talking about the potential sustainability of the usual suspects of sustainable energy production--hydrogen, solar energy, batteries, biofuels, nuclear. But I wondered, Where are you going to get the materials needed to make your batteries and magnets and solar panels? Where will you get the lithium, lanthanum, neodymium, and other rare earth elements? Well, the largest deposits of lithium lie in Bolivia (but also in Afghanistan, now!), with an indigenous President who threatens vested interests by instituting land reform (read/listen here and here), and says "Either capitalism dies, or Planet Earth dies." At the same time, the largest deposits of rare earth metals lie in China (here's something for the techies). What will a country like the US do to get access to large reserves of lithium or rare earths? Well, maybe they go to war or assassinate those whose views are markedly different than their own.

Please do not get me wrong and call me a neo-Luddite. It seems to me, though, that if we cannot take a step back and hit the pause button for a second, that any conceptualisations we have of sustainability will be made to look like a nail because of the hammer we have in our hands. 

Social justice and sustainability - the conflict of time

The way we've posed the problem of sustainability has had a huge impact on the outcomes we've deemed as feasible. As I've written previously, the world has basically defined three pillars of sustainability- environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and economic sustainability, all of which intersect with each other but can also be mutually exclusive. The way the problem of sustainability is currently set up is such that goals and targets must be met for all three pillars - environmental, social, and economic. A "sustainable" outcome is some sort of "optimisation" of the three pillars. What this means is that there are some compromises that need to be made, and one or two of the pillars will be compromised more so than the others; there are conflicts and tensions between these pillars. Add on to this the issue of time - injustice now vs. injustice in the future - and what you have is a full-blown case of complexity and politics.

So how does a contemporary environmental justice problem fit in this paradigm? Not well. We can all agree that what we need to strive for is a world of lasting peace within ourselves and with the Earth we live on. But there are injustices that are happening right now that are a result of massive systems of oppression and violence towards people; we've exposed people to horrific living conditions, and have gotten them mired in a cycle of poverty that they honestly cannot leave. We need to deal with these issues right now. Unfortunately, as we witnessed in Delray, a semi-"just" (I cringe to use this word here.) solution now means affording people the opportunity to leave Delray by buying them out, or by beautifying their streets by funneling some money from the New International Trade Crossing project to the neighbourhood. But the bridge itself is not something that is sustainable in the long term. Rather, it further imprints on us the need for cars and trucks and shipping, while the fourteen thousand trucks passing over the bridge daily will worsen air quality for the residents left behind.

We're stuck in this mindset of trade-offs. We can give people money, but only at the expense of the environment. Short-term social justice trumps long-term sustainability. If we try to do less harm on the environment by not building the bridge, Matty Maroun will continue his monopoly, and people will have no money to leave Delray. Long-term steps toward sustainability might keep oppressive systems in place today. What I've realised is that there is no way we can live in a sustainable world unless everything (except the environment) is on the table for radical change - economy, society, culture, international politics and diplomacy.

We must act now in the best interests of those that have borne the brunt of our actions, and that means allowing these people a nicer place to live in. We must care for the abused, and welcome them into our neighbourhoods and circles, and break down the barriers that have held them back. This means that we, the privileged, need to change. Posing sustainability as a win-win problem ("sustainable development"), a problem in which we can alleviate ecological burdens on some while enjoying the lifestyles and privileges that others currently do, will only continue ecological degradation. We must therefore simultaneously envision a more holistic world - a world in which our human choices (say, of building a bridge or a dam) are tempered by an understanding that the long-term consequences of these choices lead to situations in which future short-term decisions will not be in conflict with future long-term actions needed.

On "resources"

I come back to the use of words and how words shape our thoughts, and the meanings we prescribe to the world around us. I have had particular trouble with the use of the word "resource." When one mentions the word, anyone's gut would say that a resource is something that is drawn upon and used whenever wanted. I wanted to see how the authorities of English define the word, and so I did a basic search to see how different dictionaries define the word "resource." Here's what I found.

"A stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively" ~Google definition search

"A country's collective means of supporting itself or becoming wealthier, as represented by its reserves of minerals, land, and other assets" ~Google definition search

"Something that one uses to achieve an objective, e.g. raw materials or personnel; A person's capacity to deal with difficulty; To supply with resources" ~Wiktonary

"A resource is any physical or virtual entity of limited availability that needs to be consumed to obtain a benefit from it." - ~Wikipedia 

"Personal attributes and capabilities regarded as able to help or sustain one in adverse circumstances" ~Oxford English Dictionary

Such definitions say a lot about how we view our surroundings and people. When something is coined a "natural resource," we implicitly state that it is only in its use that that particular thing in the environment is valuable. Also such a definition draws dangerous boundaries between our actions and their effects. We fail at recognising the important role that something serves without its explicit use. Even when we conserve a resource, we imply that we are saving it for later use. Now, if someone's goal is to prolong the use of something, conservation makes sense. The concept of sustainability has been morphed into one of sustainable "development," with conservation being one of the key pillars of development. But this is only a stepping stone to where we need to be.

What conservation may result in is just a slower use of a resource, without leading us to question the behaviours that lead to consumption and degradation. We operate then with the same broken cycles of existence. The notion of a resource then is dangerous. The essential thing that the definition of "resource" connotes is that things are limited, because we live in a finite world.

Professor Larimore said last night at dinner that Native Americans don't have the notion of "resource." This is something Derrick Jensen would agree to. Rather than view something as solely for the benefit of humans, things have worth and importance in themselves, and have unique positions in ecology, each with their own energy, their own role. When something is "used" by humans, there is a responsibility in the end for that thing to end up back so that someone or something else can "use" it. The notion of a resource then, would be counter to Native American philosophy. Think of the things that you consider "resources" in your life. How would the way you interact with them change if you no longer called it a "resource?"

The American Dream?

This is a picture from outside the Delray Community House in southwest Detroit. In the foreground you see a new playground. In the near background, you see the incinerator at the Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant. Notice the brown coloured effluent coming out from the smoke stacks. That effluent made the entire neighbourhood smell noxious, so much so that many residents leave the neighbourhood for a few days every year because the heat mixed with the smell are just too much to handle. Add to this the pollution of thousands of semi-trucks, an oil refinery, a cement factory, a steel factory, and what you have is a full-blown environmental disaster.

This is Detroit, the very definition, the soul, the beginning of The American Dream.

The people of Delray (see posts under the theme "Sustainable neighbourhoods in Detroit"), and many of those still residing in Detroit and other parts of the Rust Belt, have borne the brunt, the downside of The American Dream. The American Dream - of convenience, luxury, independence (as expressed through the automobile), and disposability - was envisioned when the world was thought to be abundant and plentiful for all. As has been explored throughout this blog, however, this dream was founded most fundamentally on a materialism that has required, and continues to require, a violent disturbance of nature. And as has been reiterated again and again, any violence towards nature is automatically translated into a degraded place for life. What follows are the very worst sorts of injustices and behaviour - of discrimination, of abandonment, of negligence.

The people that haven't been able to escape the so called "decline" of the Rust Belt have been those least able to leave, because of that invisible yet profoundly tangible hand holding one back - oppression. The people of Delray know this all too well. My students and I witnessed this first-hand. It is these people (and of course, the environment) that have borne the costs of the benefits we so glibly accept as our natural rights; they continue to do so day after day. They deal with corrupt government officials, they deal with inhumane corporate officials, and most sadly, they deal with our negligence of them. Think about it. This isn't some "Third World, developing country", this is Detroit, the heart of the US, thirty-five miles from Ann Arbor, the elite college city. This is happening right under our noses, within biking distance of our homes. And we are contributing to this situation.

We like to think that it is the "developing" world that needs "sustainable development", but first, let's look in our backyards. Let's see what we are a part of that is causing such injustice towards the world, in our backyards. If we all strive to make where we live a better place by not taking advantage of other places, I believe we will be on a path towards sustainability.

What "development" means for sustainability

I have written about the family of notions surrounding "development" on several occasions. Previous posts have talked about how the word is used as an adjective, e.g., "developing" countries, how tracts of land should be "developed," natural courses of "development," and how sustainability has come to mean sustainable "development" (here, here). I want to elaborate today on the arrogance of the word "development" when used in the context of describing countries, communities and just groups of people, and what this means for sustainability.

As you probably know, the meanings and connotations of words have a way of changing over time. The term "Third World," was initially used to describe countries that were neither leaning towards capitalism (and NATO) or communism (and the Soviet Union). Nowadays, many people in the West use that phrase to describe a country that is (according to Western standards) "undeveloped" or "developing." Furthermore, these "Third World" countries have economies that are "developing," according to Western-defined Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) standards.

There are several issues that come to mind because of these words and their connotations. First, it implies that Western standards are those that should be met. Since the standards on which countries want to be judged are these standards, it means that countries would prefer to graduate from being "developing" to being "developed." What does this mean for sustainability? What it means is that since the standards to be met are economic standards first and foremost, countries may lower their environmental standards so as to attract investments from "developed" countries. This most likely leads to the rapid and unthoughtful industrialisation of these "developing" countries. What it also means is that if there is any hope for a sustainable future, that necessarily comes from being "developed," i.e., if you are not developed, there are no standards on which a country can be judged to be "sustainable." This seems to me a different approach under which to view "sustainable development."

What the word "developing" connotes today is backwardness, and the sense is that there isn't much in these countries, and the people living in these countries are less fortunate than those that are in the "developed" world. But what this word masks, however, are the problems that come with being "developed," particularly under a capitalistic, competitive mindset. In my mind, there are very clear threads of reasoning that trace social issues such as the fracturing of families and declining neighbourliness and increased mental illness back to the very foundations upon which the country claims itself to be "developed." If you were to go to most any of these "developing" countries, I am sure you would find integrity in family life, and a greater spiritual and material contentment of the people. What does this mean for sustainability? It means that maybe these definitions aren't as clear cut as we think they are. Of course, while many "developing countries" are very polluted, many of them are not, and do not have to deal with toxic chemicals in their water; the serious environmental problems that we face here in the US, because of say, fracking (here, here), are just completely non-existent in these places. More importantly, what it means is that we shouldn't propagate the connotations of these words by using them in the manner that we currently do. It also means that maybe we shouldn't be using these words nonchalantly, and that we should be mindful of the full implications of using such words.

Changing the system, or navigating it with integrity

"The task of the activist is not to navigate current systems with integrity. The task of the activist is to take down systems of oppression." ~Derrick Jensen

I keep coming back to Jensen's talk the other day, because it was just full of fascinating ideas, thoughts and encouragement, but also replete with cynicism and a sense that we are just running out of time. I must agree that we are running out of time, in the biggest sense, first and foremost. With something like climate change for example, it doesn't seem like the world is gung-ho on making sure Mauritius doesn't drown. There are other deeper issues that do need to be dealt with, though, such as a redefinition of norms and ethics, which I think Jensen is trying to get at, too.

(When I say "technology," I mean the technology that has been brought into the world in the past few decades, the rate of whose introduction has followed something like Moore's law.) As I have alluded to with several posts on technology and progress (here, here, here, here, here), while I am not against technology altogether, the trend of techno-optimism are rather worrying, particularly because it has redefined what "sustainability" means. It has now come to mean "sustainable development," which fundamentally assumes that a Western-derived ethic of technological development will free us from our current society's ecologically-degrading behaviour. Instead of actually questioning our behaviour and what drives it, we come up with geo-engineering solutions that are just bound to make things worse. Now, it seems that much of our education system is set up such that it produces people to further entrench this technologically-driven, ecologically-degrading economy as the norm. And while it may be possible to engineer our way out of environmental disaster (I do not believe so), what Jensen is saying that it would be a major breakthrough if we were to take a step back and realise that our quest for ever-increasing technology has led us to where we are.

There are two ways then that Jensen says we could use our power - either we could all be techno-optimists, and make technologies that are "efficient" and "less harmful" to the environment, rather than come up with technologies that will have a degrading influence on nature and people, or we can say that the problem is our dependence on technology itself. We can get a job with BP, and try to "green" it from the inside, or we can make BP obsolete. We can try to convince people in the Department of Defense that we should have weapons that target only the intended target and minimise collateral damage, or we can stand in solidarity against everything that drives us to use violent force, and make the need for something like the Department of Defense a thing of the past. These are difficult things to do, but things that each and every one of us can influence. By saying no, we do not patronise, and we do not in any way insure the future of the system.

On framing: consumption vs. trash

Having been involved in environmental activism on campus for years now, the issue of the framing of issues is never too far from my mind. Framing the issue in the right way without compromising on your values can lead to more persuasive arguments. Today's post is on the issue of framing. Case study: consumption vs. trash.

Consumption is complicated. As defining a feature as it is in our behaviour, consumption is vague in its physicality. Consumption is solely an action. It is not something that we can touch or smell. The fact that we can't feel consumption, but rather that its existence is conveyed through the exchange of physical objects, makes it more of a mental and emotional characteristic. At the same time there is indeed a spectrum of consumption, and some consumption must occur to stay alive - with each breath I am taking I am consuming oxygen. Furthermore, many of us think that consuming leads to a happier and more meaningful life, and maybe it does - I can buy a cell phone so that I can keep in touch with my family. At the same time, we live in a society in which people are judged by their consumption habits such that they have physical objects to show for them. Therefore, it may seem very difficult to persuade people to stop consuming.

Yet the dire state of our environment is plain for all to see, and consumption has played an all too heavy hand in this state. There has been ever-increasing talk about how we live in a "materialistic" and "consumerist" world, and that we need to "consume" less if there is any hope that we avoid catastrophic climate change, or if there is any hope that we move to a more sustainable world. Probably more often than not though, we have been told that we need to consume "differently" - we are now being persuaded to buy "green" cars and "environmentally friendly" computers, which are, of course, purely oxymorons. The issue of consumption has been skirted to make us feel less guilty about what we buy. All of this increased consumption is to aid "progress" and "development;" I've written about previously, the concept of sustainability has been consciously morphed into that of "sustainable development," or in a sense, "sustainable consumption."

On the other hand, we have the problems that are borne of consumption, trash being on of them. "Trash" is both an action and an object. Trash isn't something vague or unnoticeable; it is not emotional or mental (although for me it has become so). Rather, trash is a physical manifestation of a mental and emotional construct - consumption - just like the objects we consume are physical manifestations. The objects we consume may be adding some "value" into our lives, but unless you are dealing in the business of trash, trash adds no value to what it is you consume. Instead, trash is a nuisance. Trash is felt and experienced viscerally; the fact that trash is visceral therefore makes it a wonderful metaphor of ecological degradation perpetrated by humans.

To me, the problems of trash, consumption, climate change and unsustainability are one and the same. Yet in order to have a broader impact, and in order to motivate individual action to aid the environment, what may be the appropriate framework to help guide more people? The connotations of consumption may not be wholly negative. In a sense, there is no way I can stop consuming physical things in existence in nature, particularly air, water, and food. But trash has only negative connotations associated with it. More importantly, adequately addressing trash necessarily addresses the issue of consumption - minimizing trash and waste minimizes consumption automatically. Gone are the issues of deciding whether or not to buy product X because it may be greener than product Y. The fact that trash is the result of that consumption choice obviates any need for further thought.

(Thank you to Professor Johnson and Dr. Shriberg for planting these ideas in me.)

On change

I have tried to write over the past few weeks about the economy and its relationship to sustainability. My intention with this blog is to try to lay the foundation of understanding problems facing society and the Earth, with the hope that this rudimentary foundation will serve to guide introspection and action. Today's post is about both introspection and action. I want to talk about a word so incredibly overused in the recent past, and a word that is now bubbling to the surface again with the new election cycle - change.

In a recent episode on Being, Krista Tippett spoke with Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Tippett articulated that we have placed incredible trust in something that we assumed was logical and rational, that is, the economy, which was in fact highly irrational. With the decline of the economy and staggering numbers of foreclosures across the country, people stood shocked that something like this could result from a free-market, deregulated financial sector. In fact, irrationality and unethical practices were paraded with the mask of profit and social good, especially with the mortgage crisis. With a declining economy, our government and financial institutions have tried to "reform" corporate behaviour to a certain extent, with significant backlash from those with vested interests in the economic system staying the way it is. Thus, the notion of change, the locus of President Obama's election campaign, has been highly tempered, such that dominant principles of conduct have gone largely unchanged. In this context, Tippett quoted Sharon Salzberg, a Buddhist scholar and spiritual teacher, who said "Change and suffering are inevitable parts of life."

With ever increasing amounts of ecological degradation, change is at the very heart at the concept of sustainability. A true and radical change is necessarily at the opposite end of the status quo, and any tempering of the concept of sustainability means that meaningful and durable change will always lay beyond arm's reach. Unfortunately, the dominant discourse around sustainability has been around the concept of "sustainable development." In fact, "sustainability" has come to mean "sustainable development," especially within the circles of the governing elite, including the United Nations. The most commonly cited definition of "sustainability," the definition of the Brundtland Commission, is an elitist definition of "sustainable development." This definition in no way questions or changes current structures of governance and societal behaviour, but rather further embeds past behaviour in future visions of the world. Aidan Davison wonderfully critiques the notion of sustainable development, in his book Technology and The Contested Meanings of Sustainability. 

Do you have any thoughts on the concept of change?