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diff --git a/chapter1.md b/chapter1.md index 8ece097..75862b6 100644 --- a/chapter1.md +++ b/chapter1.md @@ -42,16 +42,76 @@ have accurately identified the root causes of the problem. There are problems with dominant green rhetoric from beginning to end of this process. First, green rhetoric mis-diagnoses the problem. Rhetors imply that the -root cause of green evils is the combined consumption choices of all the world's -individuals. - -For example, \[EXAMPLE\] - -This idea is further reinforced with the language of 'carbon footprinting.' The -idea seems innocuous enough: tot up the carbon emissions produced in the process -of producing all the goods and services consumed by a person, and you've got -their 'carbon footprint,' their personal contribution to global carbon dioxide -emissions. +root cause of green evils is the combined choices, and particularly the +consumption choices, of all the world's individuals. + +So, when Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac come to recommend ten actions +for their readers to take to fight climate change, coming in at number 4 (after +'Let Go of the Old World,' 'Face Your Grief but Hold a Vision of the Future,' +and 'Defend the Truth') is 'See Yourself as a Citizen – Not as a Consumer.' The +problem is that we're consuming too much. The solution is to change the +psychology which causes over-consumption. + +> Much of what we buy is intended to enhance our sense of identity. Particular +> brands of clothes, soap, cookies, televisions, and cars and designed with a +> _tribe_ in mind, their attributes carefully cultivated by the consumer goods +> companies that sell the products. Identity and consumption keep moving closer +> together. In the UK, for example, the average person consumes more than 65 +> pounds of clothes every year, equivalent to about five loads of laundry. These +> purchases are driven mainly by the fact that fashion trends change every +> season. [@future-we-choose, p. 118] + +They're not alone in emphasising individual psychology as a root cause of +climate change. For example, writing about climate change, Chris Packham and +Megan McCubbin ask: + +> \[FIND QUOTE\] Why is it that 'our human reluctance to change our mindsets and +> behaviours'? Why isn't the science enough? + +Part of the answer, they argue, is that political thought is associated with the +prefrontal cortex, which is also associated with personal expression: thus, +inviting people to think differently about a political issue like climate change +can be perceived as a personal attack, preventing people from thinking +rationally. \[FIND PAGE NUMBERS\] + +This analysis assumes that the problem is one for the universal human. It is +'our human reluctance' that has to be addressed. Having identified a +psychological problem – why can't human beings like you and me act rationally +when presented with the facts? – it's natural to seek a psychological solution. +This only makes sense if, as soon as 'we' (whoever that is) start behaving +sensibly, everyone else that matters will follow our lead. + +> Remember, you're in the driving seat and the corporations and big companies +> are your wheels. If you turn right, they will turn right too. Eventually. +> \[FIND PAGE NUMBER\] [@back-to-nature] + +Fellow nature writer Benedict Macdonald extends this idea, that green harms are +driven by consumption, into a sweeping grand history of the human race from +primeval time: + +> \[…] we became systematic, methodical and determined in our eradication of +> some cornerstone species \[…] By the Middle Ages, our desire to tame the +> natural world around us grew in intensity and purpose \[…] As we began to +> industrialise, the Great Fens would be drained and our conquest of the +> land-at-scale, beginning with our deforestation in the Bronze Age, grew almost +> complete \[…] By the early twentieth century, we had for the first time the +> ability to create total order in the world around us; order that made way for +> just one species’ progress and stability: ourselves. \[…] By the late 1950s +> and early 1960s came a critical moment in human awareness. We began to notice, +> at last, the growing silence around us. By this stage, the environmental +> movement was nascent \[…] it would take further decades before, at last, the +> Ape Aware would emerge. [@cornerstones, pp. 200-202] + +In Macdonald's account, the reason 'we' – as if all humans have always had the +same powers and interests – caused so much harm to the non-human world is +because 'we' stole stuff to make 'us' richer: land, trees, food, water. Thus +'our' consumption is what drives ecological catastrophe. + +The idea that green harms are driven by human prosperity is further reinforced +with the language of 'carbon footprinting.' The idea seems innocuous enough: tot +up the carbon emissions produced in the process of producing all the goods and +services consumed by a person, and you've got their 'carbon footprint,' their +personal contribution to global carbon dioxide emissions. WWF-UK offers a popular carbon footprint calculator on their website [@wwf-footprint-calculator]. I'm promised that although 'our world is in crisis |