Ever since late sixties, the issues related to the preservation of natural environment started to play an increasingly prominent role within the framework of international relations.
In its turn, this eventually led to the signing of Kyoto Protocol in 1997, the provisions of which assign country-signatories with the specified annual quotas for the emission of CO2 into Earth’s atmosphere.
Nevertheless, as time goes on, more and more people get to realize the sheer ineffectiveness of internationally enacted global policies, aimed to protect the natural environment. Partially, this can be explained by the fact that many of these policies appear to be based upon conceptually fallacious theoretical premises.
The foremost of these premises is the assumption that the concepts of environmental protection and technological progress are incompatible. Such an assumption, however, cannot possibly represent an undeniable truth-value. In fact, it is specifically technological progress, which makes the effective preservation of Earth’s natural environment possible, in the first place. In this paper, I will aim to explore the soundness of an earlier suggestion at length.
As it was mentioned earlier, it was namely during the course of late sixties and earlier seventies that the environmental movement started to become increasingly popular with more and more people in Western countries.
The phenomenon of ‘green movement’, however, cannot be thought of in terms of ‘thing in itself’ – this movement’s emergence was one among many emanations of Western left-wing social activism. According to Torgerson: “The environmentalism that came onto the public scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s was part of an outburst of activism in civil society that was followed by the emergence of a range of new social movements” (715).
What it means is that, from the very beginning, European ‘green movement’ was driven by essentially ideological considerations, on the part of its advocates, rather than by environmental activists’ genuine concern about the deterioration of environmental situation in Europe.
After all, European ‘green movement’ did not originate during the course of pre-industrial era, when there were a number of objective preconditions for the people to be concerned with environmental pollution, as something that was directly affecting the quality of their lives.
For example, by the end of 18th century, there were virtually no forests left in Europe (the trees were cut down to build ships and to be used as firewood).
Before the beginning of Industrial Revolution, Europe’s largest cities were nothing but smelly cloakas – the absence of sewers, was causing these cities’ residents to dump their biological waste onto the streets and into the rivers. It is namely the onset of Industrial Revolution, which allowed the restoration of European societies’ environmental integrity.
Therefore, it does not come as a particular surprise that environmentalist movement appears essentially ‘artificial’. This also explains the conceptual inconsistency of ‘green movement’ activists’ claim that technological progress, in general, and the process of technology-driven industrialization, in particular, are the foremost contributing factors to an ongoing pollution of the natural environment.
Apparently, the advocates of environmentalist movement lack intellectual honesty to admit that if there is anything that helps people to choose in favor of environmental friendliness, as an integral part of their existential mode, it would be these people’s close affiliation with technological progress.
Therefore, there is nothing particularly odd about the fact that, as of today, ‘green movement’ has been deprived of much of its former discursive legitimacy.
After all, one does not have to be utterly smart to realize a simple fact that, the more technologically advanced a particular society is, the less it requires natural resources to sustain the basic existence of its members. Concurrently, the less a particular society depends on an exploitation of natural resources, the more it is being environmentally friendly.
As it was noted by Eckersley: “Economic competition and constant technological innovation produce economic growth that uses less energy and resources and produces less waste per unit of gross domestic product” (254).
In its turn, this exposes the conceptual inconsistency of a so-called ‘climate justice’ theory, which places the foremost blame for an ongoing environmental pollution on technologically advanced Western countries and implies that these countries must be coerced into providing a financial aid to the ‘developing’ nations – the ‘victims of Western imperialistic euro-centrism’:
“The confrontation between capitalist development and ecological survival expressed in advancing climate change creates a new meta-imperative to live differently. All societies now depend on each other’s willingness and capacity to shift from carbon-intensive accumulation” (Goodman 500).
Apparently, it never occurred to Goodman that the actual reason why, even after the end of colonial era (which is now blamed for just about all world’s evils), people in the Third World countries continue to suffer from environmental pollution, is that the manner in which they go about sustaining their basic physical needs is conceptually extensive (technologically unfriendly).
For example, just as it used to be the case in early 18th century’s Europe, there are virtually no trees to be found in Haiti – the fact that the overwhelming majority of this country’s households remain non-electrified, cause people to cook their food in firewood-operated ovens.
Therefore, it does not come as a particular surprise that, as of today, the majority of globally enforced environmental initiatives, had effectively ceased serving even formally useful purposes. The full soundness of this suggestion can be illustrated in regards to 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
The ultimate goal of Kyoto Protocol was to reduce the amount carbon monoxide emissions into Earth’s atmosphere before 2012 by 10%-15%. Yet, the eruption of even one average volcano emits as much carbon monoxide as do all world’s coal-operated power plants together, over the period of hundred years.
As of today, Kyoto Protocol has been turned into an essentially global mechanism of money-extortion, as its primary function is being concerned with coercing Western state-signatories into purchasing CO2-emmision quotas from ‘developing’ countries of the Third World.
In other words, Western countries spend millions and millions of dollars to buy ‘air’ – hence, providing governmental officials from ‘developing’ countries with an opportunity to continue to enjoy luxury living, at the expense of Western taxpayers.
This again points out to the fact that the current practice of having ‘green discourse’ embedded into the very matrix of international relations does not make much of a sense. After all, the representatives of different countries assess the significance of environmental protection through the lenses of their culturally/religiously biased worldviews.
Whereas, highly secularized and technologically advanced Westerners perceive environmental protection as a truly pressing socio-political issue, the majority of ‘desecularized’ (religious) and technologically backward non-Westerns continue to think of nature as merely the subject of exploitation.
This simply could not be otherwise – these people’s endowment with anthropocentric mindedness (all monotheistic religions are highly anthropocentric) naturally predisposes them to think of the concept of environment’s preservation as nothing but yet another side effect of people in Western countries being gradually deprived of their biological vitality.
Therefore, it is quite impossible to agree with Curry, when he implies that the realities of economic and technological Globalization establish objective preconditions for the citizens of technologically advanced Western countries to preoccupy themselves with celebrating ‘post-secular environmental sacrality’:
“Recognition of the intrinsic value of the more-than-human natural world (in both theory and practice) is needed to prevent an all-too-human lapse into short-term instrumental exploitation (of natural resources)” (294).
It is not some vaguely defined ‘sacrality’, which results in continuously reduced rates of natural resources’ exploitation in the West, but the exponential course of technological progress, which even today makes it possible to replace natural resources with intellect, in quite literal sense of this word.
For example; whereas, 80% of the original Atlantic telephone cable’s self-cost accounted for copper, the material cost of today’s fiber-optical Atlantic telephone cable accounts for only 10%. Yet; whereas, the old cable could only sustain 128 parallel calls, the fiber-optical one sustains 750.000 parallel calls.
Technology is the actual ‘religion’ of contemporary living, because unlike the religion proper, technology does provide people with a practical opportunity to attain the status of demigods.
Apparently, in the very near future, the exponential expansion of people’s intellectual capabilities will bring about a qualitatively new historical era (posthumanism), when humanity will effectively cease depending on an environmentally unfriendly exploitation of natural resources (Miah 13).
In its turn, this will automatically make the international discourse, concerned with drawing parallels between ‘preservation of environment’ and ‘combating colonial legacy’, hopelessly outdated.
I believe that the provided earlier line of argumentation, in defense of a suggestion that the realities of today’s living render the very theoretical premise of ‘green movement’ outdated, is being fully consistent with paper’s initial thesis.
Contrary to ‘green’ activists’ claims, it is namely the exponential technological progress that allows an effective preservation of natural environment, and not the process of these people actively promoting their ideological agenda.
Thus, it will only be logically to conclude that in the very near future, the considerations of environmental protection will cease affecting international relations’ theory to the extent, as it is being the case nowadays, because these considerations are value-based – they reflect the essentially Western perception of the surrounding environment. Therefore, they cannot be considered as such that represent a universally recognized truth-value.
Bibliography
Curry, Patrick. “Post-Secular Nature: Principles and Politics.” Worldviews 11 (2007): pp. 284-304. Print.
Eckersley, Robyn. The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. Print.
Goodman, James. “From Global Justice to Climate Justice? Justice Ecologism in an Era of Global Warming.” New Political Science 31.4 (2009): pp. 99-514. Print.
Miah, Andy. “Posthumanism: A Critical History.” Medical Enhancements & Posthumanity. Eds. Berth Gordijn & Ruth Chadwick. New York: Routledge, 2007. 1-28. Print.
Torgerson, Douglas. “Expanding the Green Public Sphere: Post-Colonial Connections.” Environmental Politics 15.5 (2006): pp. 713-730. Print.