The environmental crisis is a many-sided crisis which has many important and inter-related aspects including air pollution, space pollution, freshwater shortages and pollution, climate change and increasing disasters, pollution and disruptions in oceans, biodiversity erosion and disruption, soil erosion and loss of natural fertility of land, desertification and deforestation, proliferation of many kinds of harmful chemicals/materials/products, excessive generation and accumulation of waste including toxic waste, disruptions in food and farming systems, depletion of ozone layer, fast spread of high risk technologies, violations of bio-safety, destruction and pollution caused by wars, war preparations and proliferation of highly destructive weapons including weapons of mass destruction.
No doubt some other aspects can be added to prepare a more comprehensive listing. All these aspects are inter-related in many ways, and harm resulting from their complex inter-actions can be higher. In practical life humanity and other forms of life are more likely to experience the combined impacts of several serious environmental problems, although these are frequently studied and discussed in isolation.
There is in fact an increasing tendency to take up various aspects of the environmental crisis in an isolated way, generally highlighting only one or two aspects. This sometimes results in strange responses of trying to reduce one aspect of the environmental crisis at the cost of increasing others.
Also the very important task of identifying those factors which are at the root of all aspects of the environmental crisis or which constitute the common root cause of the entire environmental crisis gets neglected. When the root causes are not even identified properly, how can effective remedial action take place?
The present situation can be compared to a huge mansion whose foundation is very badly damaged and so it can fall down any time. This damage is partially reflected in various cracks that have appeared in some parts of the building, and some doors and windows have been damaged. These being the more visible damage, all the effort is being spent on filling up these cracks and repairing doors and windows, while the most important damage to the foundation of the building is being neglected. So the mansion remains exposed to the danger of falling down, despite the appearance of several types of repair work being done.
If the root cause is to be stated simply and briefly, then it can be stated clearly that the roots of the environmental crisis are in three inter-related and increasing trends of greed, inequalities and wars (or war preparations).
As the population of earth has been increasing, the need for limiting the burden that is placed on environment (water sources, air, farmland, forests etc.) and therefore the responsibility to regulate and restrain our consumption has also increased to ensure that the burden on environment can be kept within certain limits. Other ways of stating this are that planetary boundaries relating to important aspects of environment should not be transcended, or that certain tipping points should not be crossed, or that the basic life-nurturing conditions of our planet should not be threatened.
However in the phase of increasing population, this self-restraint relating to consumption has not been exercised. At a certain stage of human history this became very important, but this importance was not realized. However even when this realization was made, this did not lead to the necessary response so that highly non-essential, burdensome, wasteful and harmful forms of consumption also continued and in fact went on increasing. A fast growing consumption culture has led to happiness being seen more and more in terms of the ability to acquire a wide range of attractive goods and in terms of instant gratification of various kinds, even of this is achieved by incurring indebtedness.
Another important trend has also been for increasing inequalities which makes it even more likely that those at the top will indulge in highly wasteful and burdensome consumption. They set up attractive, consumption-intensive life-style models which others try to emulate and all the way down the ladder people start aspiring for more consumption intensive life-patterns, a trend that is promoted endlessly by media advertising.
However the relentless pursuit of consumptions runs up against some critical resource constraints, and there is a grab to acquire and control the more critical resources. Those at the top are also increasingly insecure regarding how long they will be able to corner such an unfairly high share of resources. All this leads towards military means of securing concentration of excessive riches, even if this requires violence and wars.
However wars, war preparations and weapons themselves constitute one of the biggest sources of environmental destruction, while the resource grab for ensuring excess of consumer goods as well as weapons also causes large-scale environmental destruction.
When it is important to meet the needs of more people and the environmental constraints have also increased, clearly the case for equality becomes even stronger than before. However this equality is being denied while inequalities and the related resource grabs are being promoted by increasing militarization.
There is increasing need for equal sharing in such a way that the needs of all can be met without imposing intolerably high burdens on environment. While the opposite of this is happening in the form of increasing inequalities and highly wasteful consumption and resource use at the top, at the same time highly distorted and unsustainable life-styles are being promoted as the desirable norms, spreading the consumerist culture much wider. These also create conditions in which the most important issues and concerns are pushed aside, neglected.
The inequalities and injustices, the weapons and war-mongering that come with them, the unsustainable life-styles and consumerist cultures together create the base conditions which contribute to the increase of several environmental problems.
Several highly committed and creative people and activists are working for resolving various aspects of the environmental crisis in their own way. However often they cannot overcome the constraints created by the base conditions not being conducive to environment protection. Those who squeeze the unjust system the most to extract the most profits from it also prevent the environmental activists from advancing beyond certain limits, so that their profits and power are not disturbed.
Hence the environment activists engaged in many-sided creative and valuable activities must of course continue their work but they must also have a wider perspective on reducing inequalities, checking consumerism and minimizing the possibilities of wars and arms race. Reducing fossil fuels, protecting water sources, better waste management, protecting forests and planting trees and various other tasks of environment protection should get more and more attention, but a wider perspective within which all this can advanced would be very helpful for creating a strong base for environment protection.
Certainly there should be voluntary acceptance of small family norm as well as voluntary restraints on consumption and acquisition, but at the same time the bigger societal changes for reducing inequalities, arms race and wars should also be made. Such an understanding of the tasks of environment protection will also make it possible for the movement of environment protection to come much closer to the movements for justice and peace.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, When the Two Streams Met and A Day in 2071.
