This blog is on hiatus. Find me elsewhere

Hello dear followers,

I really hope you’ve been well in whatever way you imagine for yourselves. Pave your paths through the tough stuff. I also hope the new year brings fresh inspiration, good health, security (but not without excitement), & magic to your shore.

For me, it’s bringing some long-needed confidence to get moving on some projects that have been in my heart for a while now. The first of these is Tomorrow Tales.

What can we do now to help make better citizens that hold equity & understanding in their heart; who value transformative healing from traumas of war, gender violence, resource scarcity, & other forms of fear; who relate to nature & our innate animism with joy, nurturing, & custodianship, learning from Indigenous & land-subsistent people from all over the world?

The very first stories we tell children could be key. They set up ways of being, expectations, & tools on how to navigate the increasingly complex, heavy world. That’s why I want to collaborate with people around the world to set a new standard of values & story-telling that can bring slow, but deep change for a better world. You can read more about the project here: https://tomorrowtales.substack.com/p/coming-soon

In the meantime, I am putting et-zeichen on hiatus. Please get in touch if you like.

& please remember to sign up so you’re across what’s happening over on the SubStack: https://tomorrowtales.substack.com/subscribe?

Green movements fail to gain global support because they forget to inscribe justice

This moment of a global pandemic has seen some contradictory messaging that Sharachchandra Lele — Distinguished Fellow in Environmental Policy & Governance at ATREE — impressively documents in the May/June 2020 issue of New Left Review. He begins by describing two contrasting, common sights on the news & social media today: the views of natural phenomena or even cities which have had their veil of pollution lifted thanks to near-universal lock downs; & the images of poverty & forced migration as we approach a never-before-seen global depression. One is an image of hope, the other of fear. Both inform the societal goals for which Lele advocates:

1. human well-being
2. social justice
3. environmental protection

“A good society will aim to ensure all three. However, recognising that ideas about individual well-being, equity & sustainability will differ among individuals, communities & cultures, we also need to specify what processes will be followed in reconciling different values & interests” (47). With so much focus being put on economic growth to increase the well-being of people in the Global South, what types of development can be overlooked? Shouldn’t we focus on multi-dimensional well-being (particularly as this will measure equality much better than GDP can)? If we have learnt any lessons about the physical & psychological maladies that come with over-development (anxiety & depression at the core), shouldn’t we do everything we can to adjust development targets that address these? Furthermore, how wise (or honest) is it to be aiming to invite the global poor into a middle-class standard of living which is already unsustainable? If we call this moment a global reset, we have the opportunity to be asking such important questions so that we have better solutions for when we make green strategies for advancing the future. “The point is to keep alive the process of constant reflection on one’s own values in the course of struggle & organisation, to see how they are influenced by our actions & by the new structures we create” (61).

Human well-being is very difficult to measure so perhaps it isn’t surprising that the tools we use conflate ultimate forms of well-being (health, education, leisure) with the conditions needed for that well-being (clean air, access to public green space). Furthermore, while one’s understanding of well-being is culturally specific, the role of nature for individual well-being is consistently considered postive, reviving, if not down-right essential. One approach of enjoying the benefits of biodiverse nature is to frequently travel to pristine forests or unpolluted shores but “to enjoy biodiversity in this way first requires the eco-tourist to be living in a domesticated environment, enjoying a privileged lifestyle that is actually harmful to both climate & wilderness” (52). It is crucial to consider who is served by proposed solutions. In the case above, spiritual growth of the individual is prioritised above the carbon emissions needed to sustain their lives in densely-populated, industralised areas which allow them to earn enough to exploit more carbon for recreational travel.

At a certain stage, this becomes a social justice issue, which functions as a mirror of environmental justice — communities that don’t have their social or human rights protected likewise don’t tend to see protection of their homes & surrounds. This is because social & environmental rights are so closely bound with one another, each having an impact on one’s livelihood, health & mental well-being, as well as overall life expectancy. In the Global South, this apparent link is the dominant discourse; meanwhile, the Global North Green movement is preoccupied with climate change & inter-species justice at the cost of social injustices based on more localised environmental issues (50).

Countries in the Global North have ‘solved’ many of their local environmental problems, partly by exporting their production to China & their waste to Africa, but partly also by building strong environmental movements in the 1970s. For many in the North, climate change — which seemed to come out of nowhere, laying bare their continuing vulnerability —became the environmental crisis. But many communities in the South are already ‘vulnered’

Sharachchandra Lele 53-54

Of course, there is no arguing that the global climate crisis is a pressing issue & must be addressed in any serious effort of environmental protection, the third of Lele’s principles. What the author argues for, however, is an appreciation that for many countries climate change is just one aspect of an “integrated, multi-dimensional environmental-cum-development crisis” (54) which must be solved holistically if real impact is to be seen. Not every country or every region is starting from the same place when it comes to responding to the climate crisis — Solutions that ignore existing disparities will ignorantly write global inequalities into their green movements.

To look for new solutions, we must have a nuanced understanding of the causes of environmental degradation as it relates to global inequality both today & in history. The big-ticket items here are capitalism & colonialism, but Lele also draws attention to poor democratic practice & a lack of control over the direction of technological development. We see that these are as interconnected as the three societal goals discussed above. For Lele, this comes down to a question of values.

To lobby for public transport in the teeth of pressure from the car industry, we must first care about future generations & then know something about the impact of fossil-fuel consumption on their lives. To generate technologies that are socially useful, we must first understand & internalize ideas of social usefulness, not deify curiosity & inventiveness for their own sakes. To stop a factory polluting a river, we need a sense of environmental justice — &, ideally, we need the polluter to share it, too.

Sharachchandra Lele 60

This change is difficult, but signs of it are everywhere. Lele cautions not to stop believing in the solutions only in so far as they are pragmatic [“because the pragmatic is a seductive pathway to the status quo” (61)]; he urges us further to think in a utopian manner. COVID-19 has opened debates over the type of world we wish to live in — a momentous historical moment that should not default to restarting the economy when we have the opportunity to reshape it. The change must come about horizontally through education, public debate, practical action, & full democratic participation. As well as scientists & engineers, this change will rely also on historians & ethical philosophers.