Category Archives: Eco-Awareness

Only the ‘Eco-Awareness’ columns from 2021 onwards are accessible here. For older Eco-Awareness columns by Larry Speight please click on the “Go to our pre-2021 Archive Website’ tag on the right of this page. Also see ‘Eco Echoes’ – a selection from his columns – in ‘Pamphlets’ under ‘Much more’ in the menu bar.

Eco-Awareness with Larry Speight: Caring for the whole biosphere

Eco-Awareness, Nonviolent News,

Two outstanding features of the multitude of commitments made to limit global warming emissions in order to prevent the average global temperature rising above 1.5C against pre-industrial levels by 2050 is the almost complete absence of any interest in preserving other species, habitats, and an element essential to life, the finite supply of clean water. The other notable feature is the almost universal view that what needs to change is our means of generating energy but not our conception of the good life on which the energy is expended. This is blind folly, strongly suggesting that we have an inaccurate, self-defeating sense of our place within nature.

While there are many organisations and individuals dedicated to halting species extinction and safeguarding the purity of water; conferences convened and summits held in an attempt to get governments to commit to binding conservation targets, the coverage of the issues in the mainstream media compared to that given to what is misleadingly called the climate emergency is scant and fleeting, Have you for example heard of COP15 or the Aichi Biodiversity Targets? I expect few people have.

A UN conference on preserving biological diversity was held in Aichi, Japan in 2011 in which governments agreed on 20 targets to reduce the loss of biodiversity. Ten years later not a single target was met and during this time we exterminated species with aplomb. In May of this year, Covid-19 permitting, the follow up conference, COP15, will be held in Kunming, China. It aims to get governments to agree to conserve 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030 and reduce government subsidies that harm biodiversity by $500 billion a year.

Giving colossal sums of money to destroy our astoundingly beautiful biosphere with its wondrous sentient life is surely insane. It is akin to sitting in a tree and sawing off the branch you are perched on. When we see cartoon depictions of this we laugh at the absurdity of it and are genuinely puzzled by the short-sightedness of the person with the saw. That we fail to see ourselves doing this very thing in regards to the biosphere is surely a failure of our imagination especially when the mass extinction of species is thought by many biologists to be a greater existential threat than climate breakdown. Our blasé attitude towards fresh water increases this threat.

If anyone doubts the latter then what other explanation is there for us not providing our water authorities with funds sufficient to process our raw sewage rather than have it flow untreated into rivers and the sea? What accounts for the large number of people who flush sanitary products down toilets and the high number of mass fish kills in our rivers? In December 2021 the Northern Ireland infrastructure minister, Nichola Mallon, gave a measure of the extent of our lack of appreciation for fresh water when she told the Stormont Assembly that on average 7m tonnes of raw sewage are released into the country’s rivers and seas every year. About 200,000 tonnes pour into the catchment area of Lough Neagh, from which 40 per cent of Northern Ireland’s drinking water is sourced, and about 250,000 tonnes into Lough Erne.

This abuse of clean water occurs across our archipelago. In fact our misuse and abuse of water, with catastrophic consequences for humankind and whole ecosystems, takes place across the world. This is thoroughly documented by Fred Pearce in his book, When the Rivers Run Dry, (2019).

The systematic and casual abuse of water is illustrative of our instrumental relationship with the biosphere. In other words we think it is there for us do with as we wish without moral consequence. This attitude towards nonhuman nature has been stitched into our culture by our institutions, including most of the world religions, and is how climate breakdown is viewed and understood. Thus the techno approach to addressing climate breakdown, which is that we can abuse the biosphere as we have always done, vis-a-via unlimited consumption, but in a way that does not lead to the average global temperature rising above 1.5C. As for the loss of biodiversity and the pollution of water we imagine that we can live well-enough without the former and that there will be a techno fix for the latter. In spite of the major differences between governments on various issues what there is near consensus on is that the eco-ravaging consumer culture that underpins our exponential-growth economy is the only show in town.

Eco-Awareness with Larry Speight

Eco-Awareness, Nonviolent News

COP26, Success or Failure?

Whether one considers COP26 a success or not depends on one’s perspective.

Indigenous peoples, the Alliance of Small Island States, people who are vulnerable to extreme weather events and those who grasp the magnitude of the catastrophe that awaits because of the rapid breakdown of the stable climate we have enjoyed since the end of the last ice-age consider COP26 an abysmal failure. For the most part these groups have little economic and political power. The most powerful political and economic players generally consider COP26 a success. This group includes the fossil fuel industries, large corporations, banks, insurance companies, wealthy individuals and the politicians who benefit one way or another from their largess.

The interest group that had the largest number of delegates at COP26 was the fossil fuel industry with 500 people. Their role was to ensure that agreements were within the perimeters of the dominant economic paradigm. This is to say that the agreements did not meaningfully deal with eco-justice or reorient the international economic order towards meeting wellbeing needs but continue to pursue the impossible to realise the aim of infinite economic growth. The large number of representatives from the fossil fuel industry was probably unnecessary as most governments share their economic fantasy.

Among the outcomes was that the 12-year old agreement to transfer $100 billion annually to low-income countries to help them transition to eco-friendly technologies, prepare for and recover from the ravages of climate breakdown, was not met. The delegates agreed to return to the matter 12-months hence. In the meantime the needs of people in low-income countries who suffer from climate breakdown related weather events will go unmet, and as any agreement reached is not legally binding the annual transfer may never materialise. The $100 billion may seem a lot but in the view of John Kerry’s chief negotiator, trillions rather than billions are needed. The amount is between $2.6 trillion and £4.6 trillion every year. The hope of the Biden administration is that this will be in the form of private capital, which means the money will be directed towards profit making enterprises rather than those which pay ecological, and by extension, human wellbeing dividends.

An agreement was reached to end deforestation by 2030 and $17 billion was committed towards this end. This sum, insufficient as it is, may well materialise but will it go to corrupt politicians and functionaries or be administered by the indigenous communities on whose lands most deforestation is taking place? Given the head-spinning rate of deforestation what will be left of these bio-rich, water regulating, carbon absorbing ecosystems that are home to millions of people by 2030? Indigenous people ask why the wait? They want deforestation to end now. If banks, art galleries and properties of all kinds are protected 24/7 by guards, security apparatus and legislation why are forests not given the protection they need?

That said the rich countries are not wholly at fault. Within 24-hours of the agreement Indonesia, a country endowed with rainforests, said it had no intention of ending deforestation within the decade. The announcement was not welcomed by the indigenous peoples of the country.

Another headline grabbing agreement was the commitment of 450 major financial institutions in 45 countries to manage their collective assets totalling over $130 trillion in line with achieving zero global warming emissions by 2050. It transpired that this was not what it seemed as the financial institutions are free to invest in new fossil fuel projects. This is a classic Alice in Wonderland trick of believing in two contradictory things at the same time otherwise known as cognisant dissonance.

Among the other feeble agreements was the one on coal made on the fourth day of the conference and the one on cars made in the second week. It transpired that some of the signatories to the agreement on coal do not use coal and the major economies that do, including China, India and the US did not sign it. Although the agreement not to produce fossil fuel engines after 2040 was signed by some major car manufacturers others, including BMW, Toyota and Volkswagen, did not sign.

Many would consider 2040, in fact the lack of immediacy and robustness of all of the agreements, as indicative of the fact that the powerful entered COP26 with the intention of making the most miserly commitments they could towards meeting the Paris Agreement’s red line of keeping the average global temperature below 1.5C by 2050. If this was the case they succeeded.

Climate Action Tracker calculate that the average global temperature will, based on the commitments made, rise to 2.4C by 2050. This temperature will make life in many parts of the Earth impossible. One may gasp at the apparent irrationality of pursuing a course that leads to this outcome. Surely the kingpins of the political and economic world would not condemn humanity and other life forms to such a fate. It is not, however, irrational if you can’t imagine an economic model different from the present one and it is not irrational if you frankly don’t care about the fate of others.

This should not cause us to despair. In fact the outcome of COP26 could be considered a revelation. This is that the fate of the biosphere, eco and economic justice, rests in the hands of each of us. We can, through our behaviour, help change the direction we are travelling in. Recognising that we are responsible for the wellbeing of each other, future generations and other life-forms is the long stride we all need to take towards healing our bio-world. As with passengers in a small boat we all have a part to play in keeping it afloat.

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Larry Speight was present in Glasgow for some of COP26 and a set of phpts taken by him there can be seen at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/albums/72177720295343615/with/51752169792/

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Eco-Awareness

Eco-Awareness, Nonviolent News

Larry Speight brings us his monthly column –

Understanding Cop26

By the time you read this Cop26 will be well under way and even if you had minimal interest in it, perhaps out of a mixture of despair and cynicism, you will nevertheless likely be aware that it is happening. As the outcome of the proceedings will profoundly affect every person and every generation until the end of humankind’s tenure on Earth, not to mention every species in the biosphere, there are some things it is important to know. Among these are its two cardinal aims.

The primary one is for the 196 countries who signed the 2015 Paris Agreement to pledge the amount of global warming emissions they will reduce by 2030 and each subsequent five years until they reach net-zero emissions by 2050. These pledges are known as ‘nationally determined contributions’. If the reduction pledges are less that what is required the average global temperature is expected to reach 2.7 degree Celsius by the end of the century. A temperature that will mean the end of civilization as we know it involving an unimaginable amount of suffering, hardship and the loss of much of humankind’s cultural heritage. The scientific consensus is that the rise in temperature can be kept below 1.5 degrees, as per the pre-industrial level, if significant reductions are made by the major economies. The global average temperature is 1.2 C while that of the Arctic is an alarming 3.5 C. These climate disrupting temperatures mean that the age of a lax regard to greenhouse gas emissions is over.

As a target is an aspiration unless based on a step-by-step procedure as to how it will be realized the signatures to the Paris Agreement have to submit a detailed plan as to how their emission reduction targets will be achieved. This involves intense political bargaining within each country as to what part of the economy has to make what greenhouse gas emission cuts. In Ireland, north and south, the sector over which much haggling is taking place is the beef and dairy sector. In the Republic the sector accounts for 37 per cent of emissions.

Another aim of Cop26 is for the wealthy countries to agree their individual share of the $100 billion annual transfer to the low-income countries to help them put in place technologies that have zero greenhouse gas emissions as well as help them mitigate and cope with the ecological catastrophes that will increasingly result from climate breakdown. The $100 billion is a fraction of the £2 trillion the International Energy Agency say is needed. The transfer pledge was made in 2009 and supposed to have been fully implemented in 2020.

Even if Cop26 goes as well as can be expected with ecstatic cheers all round there are a number of seemingly insurmountable hurdles countries have to overcome in meeting their pledges. These include dismantling and repurposing much of the physical infrastructure and financial arrangements that underpin our global economy as well as reconfiguring the dominant mindset which evolved in concurrence with them. Given the invested interests of powerful corporations and individuals making these changes within a short period of time will, even with the best of efforts, be no easy matter. The opposition of Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, to President Biden’s clean electricity program is an illustrative example. His refusal to vote in favour of the legislation has caused major setbacks. Readers may not be surprised to learn that he earns considerable financial dividends from his investments in the fossil fuel industry and represents a state which has a high number of jobs tied to coal.

The gargantuan nature of what is required is compounded by the clear lack of grasp governments, corporations, financial institutions and other bodies have of the need for a complete restructuring of society to take place without delay. Or it might be that these institutions understand the dimensions of the task but chose for the reason of short-term gain to take an incremental approach. This is one that, among other things, avoids constructing a rigorously fair and transparent taxation system, persuading people to significantly reduce their consumption of meat and dairy produce, ration their number of flights, and governments severely cutting back on the colossal sums annually spent on the military. In 2020 the global sum was $2 trillion. This includes the $72.6 billion the nine nuclear countries spent on nuclear weapons. The incremental approach, which is that of most governments, allows the vehicle we are collectively in to drive straight over the cliff into the abyss.

A number of reasons account for why society shies away from accepting that an ecological sustainable society, one that has zero greenhouse gas emissions, a thriving bio-diverse world and an absence of poverty and avoidable ill-health, cannot be a replica of our present consumerist society. The politics and marketing of electric vehicles in the format of the myth of individual autonomy and a means of status signalling exemplifies the commitment of governments and powerful business interests to the prevailing Earth destroying paradigm. This helps explain why the Irish and UK governments are intent on spending billions on new roads. The UK government plans to spend £27 billion over the next ten years.

The Earth destroying paradigm is summed up by James Ball in The New European, 21-27 October 2021. He writes that “Green tech and building can be good for growth and the environment.” Economic growth, dubbed green or not, is based on the extractive economy which in many instances has an inherent number of negatives including pollution, loss of biodiversity and poverty-level wages for many. This is in part illustrated by the case that the 70 per cent decline in the global population of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and amphibians since 1970 aligns with the worldwide rise in economic growth in this period.

The greatest impediment to becoming an ecological sustainable and equal society is not the lack of technical know how or organising abilities but our unwillingness to envisage such a society coupled with insufficient awe, love and respect for the natural world. As these can be addressed through education, in the holistic understanding of the term, there is no need for despair. Further, as each of us has a stake in the present and future health of the biosphere we are, whether we acknowledge it or not, ecological actors rather than spectators. Knowing this is empowering.

Eco-Awareness with Larry Speight:

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Dominant views, cognitive dissonance and climate breakdown

It can be said with reasonable confidence that few people are unaware of the disintegration of the bio-world as it has evolved since the last ice age 11,500 years ago. The response to its disintegration caused by how we have interacted with it over the centuries, and crucially since the industrial revolution, varies enormously.

The dominant view, biblical based and integral to capitalism, is that the Earth exists solely to meet the needs and wants of humankind. Other species, and natural processes deemed to have no practical use, or indeed considered impediments to furthering our perceived interests, are relocated, altered, destroyed or extinguished. An example is the building of the multi-billion pound HS2 high-speed train line from Birmingham to London in which every living thing in its path is sacrificed on the altar of economic growth. No amount of financial gain or travel time saved can ever replace felled ancient woodlands, altered river courses and the death of life forms through the loss of habitat.

Another view about the human-induced disintegration of the biosphere, one that is widely held but few admit to, is contained in the phrase ‘it’s no concern of mine’. This view is rooted in our culture of individualism which says one is primarily responsible for oneself, immediate family and close friends. Excluded are other folk, especially those we think of as outside our tribe, and other species. The ‘no concern of mine’ individualism encompasses the welfare of future generations who will have to live with our legacy, which as Pope Francis said is the “immense pile of filth” the “Earth has turned into”.

The trashing of nonhuman nature is based on another deeply rooted view which is that as it has no intrinsic value it is not deserving of our affection and concern. Thus litter, which is a serious hazard to wildlife, is tossed out of car windows, left by picnickers on beaches and dropped by walkers, cyclists and people who fish.

These views, combined with a degree of delusion, help account for the recent figures released by the UN which reveal that none of the commitments the 196 countries made to reduce global warming emissions at the climate change conference in Paris in 2015 have been met. In fact greenhouse gasses are on a trajectory to rise by 16 per cent by 2030 compared with 2020. This it is estimated will, if not reduced, raise the temperature to 2.7 degrees C by the close of the century. As the average global temperature continues to rise the commitments to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, which it is hoped will be underpinned by definite plans at the Cop26 conference in Glasgow in November, are seen as delusionary.

This delusion might well be due to a character trait we acquired to help us to survive. The trait induces us to say what we think others would like to hear and what we think aligns with the dominant political norms, rather than what we actually believe and are prepared to follow through on. The trait also manifests itself in people holding an idealized view of themselves markedly different from the type of person they actually are. This is particularly the case in regard to virtues including those related to living in an ecologically sustainable way. The inconsistency between belief and behaviour is known as cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance underpins the societal approach to making the immediate and radical changes needed to rebalance our relationship with nonhuman nature. We say that it is imperative that this be done with governments and local councils declaring a climate emergency but act with complacency. Another example is the expression of intent to avoid a sixth mass extinction without doing anything meaningful to prevent it from happening in changing our habits of consumption.

The science is clear about the behavioural changes needed to reduce our global warming emissions and protect biodiversity. At a personal level these include an immediate and steep reduction in the amount of meat and dairy the average person consumes; walking, cycling and using public transport rather than travelling by private car and restricting aviation for leisure purposes. Cognitive dissonance also comes into play when we think that these changes are for others but not us.

For good or ill, governments circumscribe our lives and the options open to us. Their job in the area of ecological breakdown is to pass and enforce legislation that ensures ecologically sustainable practices are abided by in every economic sector. For the legislation to be effective they need to educate, incentivize and deter whilst ensuring that the poor, the vulnerable and marginalized are not penalized but rather, to use the words of the UK government, given the “levelling-up” support they need. Active citizenship involves persuading government to do what we would like them to do, which should be predicated on the common good.

The question is can we, individually and collectively, close the cognitive dissonance gap and cohere around an agreed set of restrictions and innovations to prevent the temperature rising above the 1.5 degree level by 2050 as well as abruptly bringing an end to the sixth mass extinction. With the global temperature now close to 1.2 degree C and global warming emissions continuing to rise this seems highly unlikely. This tragic state of affairs does not, however, release us from our responsibility to live as good eco-citizens and love the Earth as we love ourselves and our nearest and dearest. Any behavioural change that protects our wondrous and beautiful Earth, even by a small degree, is more than worth it.

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Eco-Awareness with Larry Speight

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The IPCC Report & Exceptionalism

The August report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not a flippant document. It is based on the contributions of 230 of the world’s leading climate scientists and was eight years in the writing. Nearly 4,000 pages in length it was approved by 196 national governments. Its key deduction is clear and unequivocal: humankind, which is you and me, our family, friends, colleagues and neighbours are responsible for climate breakdown.

Among the report’s findings is that if the present level of emission of greenhouse gases continues unabated the average global temperature will rise above the critical level of 1.50C by 2040, as against the pre-industrial level. This we are told will be catastrophic for humanity and the life forms we share the planet with. The day-to-day circumstances of our lives will be so changed that few will find any joy in living. What should serve as a wake-up call is that the two decades left before the planet warms to 1.50C is within the life-span of most people alive today.

The year 2040 is not a bold white line at a road junction marking pre and post 1.50 C for as the average global temperature rises so will the magnitude of ecological disasters and human suffering. This year with the temperature at 1.10 C above the pre-industrial level many people living in temperate climatic zones directly experienced the consequences of global warming.

A combination of drought and high temperatures turned forests into ash. The fires destroyed towns, killed hundreds of people, displaced hundreds of thousands and subjected tens of millions to toxic smoke. The fire in British Colombia killed at least a billion creatures, mostly marine life living close to the shore. The Dixie Fire in California, which started on 13 July, has to date burnt over 1,167 square miles of forest destroying public facilities and family homes. This July and August fires in California burnt 2,500 square miles of forest.

We know from our newspapers and TV screens of the terrible forest fires in Algeria, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Siberia. The fires in Siberia are ominous as it is normally one of the coldest regions of the world. Floods washed away villages in central Europe killing in excess of 200 people, while over 300 people died in floods in China. The intensity of Hurricane Ida, which swept through Louisiana and Mississippi in late August, was likely heightened by climate beak down. In Armagh the temperature reached 31.40 C on 22 July, which is the highest temperature in Ireland since records began.

Giving voice to the seriousness of climate breakdown the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, described the report’s findings as “code red for humanity”. We have as it were been given our orders, which is to radically reduce our emission of global warming gases through changing every aspect of how we live.

Contrary to the negative clichés, the outcome of the necessary changes will likely mean improved physical and emotional wellbeing. Cycling for example will make us healthier and fitter, prolong our expected life-span whilst saving us money. Travelling by public transport and car sharing should lead to greater social cohesion. Buying local produce will contribute to the local economy. Some people will have to make what they might initially consider sacrifices. These include significantly reducing their consumption of meat and dairy and flying less frequently. The former will lead to better health and the latter can mean we get to know and enjoy the world on our own doorstep. We will also be required to devote some of our time to petitioning public bodies, financial institutions and large corporations to play their part in reducing global warming emissions and protecting biodiversity.

If we really are the ‘wise ape’ we like to think ourselves as we can make the world a more liveable place through having a clear understanding of how we see our place in the world. An inherited view, one so embedded in our psyche we for the most part are unaware of it, is that we are exceptional. We for example consider ourselves the exception among all the species that have ever existed, so exceptional that we think of ourselves as immortal, destined for an eternity in either Heaven or Hell. This belief allows us to claim moral licence to commit ecocide and in any particular year incarcerate 70 billion sentient creatures in horrendous conditions for our culinary gratification.

For many the idea of exceptionalism encompasses the belief that Aboriginal peoples have no soul and thus can be exterminated and their possessions and lands taken at will. The papal bull Romanus Pontifex issued by Pope Nicholas V in 1455 provided European colonialists with the rationale to regard Indigenous people as soulless whilst giving them the legal authority to invade their lands, steal all they owned and subjugate them. In 1835 the Reverend William Yates expressed the view that Australian Aborigines “were nothing better than dogs and it was no more harm to shoot them than it would be to shoot a dog when he barked at you.” (*1) In 1902 the politician and businessman King O’Malley told the Australian Parliament that: “There is no scientific evidence that the aboriginal is a human being at all.” (*2) In our own time Jair Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil, told an audience that: “It’s a shame that the Brazilian cavalry wasn’t as efficient as the Americans, who exterminated their Indians.” (*3)

This is the language of genocide. Taking other peoples’ land is theft. Obliterating nonhuman nature is ecocide. Destroying the entire biosphere for convenience is madness. From the exceptionalism perspective all this is nought against the belief most commonly held by religious people that “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John: 18:36) We not only think of ourselves as the exceptional species but also as the exceptional generation as we diligently disabuse the biosphere at the expense of all future human beings.

We almost certainly won’t accomplish what is required of us in regard to caring for the Earth unless there is a change in our collective mindset and we regard ourselves as Nature, without exceptions. Then we should be able to apply the golden rule of “do unto others as you would them do onto you” to the life forms, bar certain viruses, for whom Earth is also home.

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(*1) The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World, Wade Davis, 2009, p. 151

(*2) The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World, Wade Davis, 2009, p. 151.

(*3) Ernest Londono, The New York Times, 10 November 2018.

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The Delusion of the Green Economy

The idea of success has always played an important role in human society; putting food on the table, finding a compatible mate, acquiring the means to protect one’s self from severe weather, maintaining good relations with one’s neighbours and receiving respect and admiration for attributes and accomplishments such as being a good tool-maker, weaver, story-teller, singer, artist, healer, planner or negotiator. An aspect of success that should be an integral part of our sense of what it is to live a meaningful life is the effort we make towards leaving the biosphere a more diverse and healthier place than it was when we each become a short-term resident.

Outside of sports and the arts the meaning of success that society most embraces is illustrated by the case of the CEOs of large corporations receiving millions in annual bonuses, in addition to high salaries, for increasing the financial wealth of their company whilst the environmental damage done and the impoverishment caused to communities whose livelihood is dependent on the health of these ecosystems is ignored. In this all too common facet of the international economic order the harm done to people and planet is called development and is celebrated. Reinforcing this perverse view of success the CEOs are more likely to receive a state honour than a school teacher or a nurse.

As measured by the success – failure scale used by society, people are hailed successful if they are prolific consumers as in living in a large house, drive an expensive vehicle, or two or three, and take more than a few aviation-based holidays a year. By way of contrast the person who by circumstance or choice lives in a small house, uses public transport and holidays in nearby locations is considered mediocre on the consumption scale. I am sure we have all observed that the mega consumer driving a luxury vehicle and wearing expensive brand clothes receives admiring looks but not the person wearing tatty clothes and cycling to their destination. That the latter person has a considerably less negative impact on the biosphere than the former is considered unworthy of comment. In a society living by an inverse set of values people who avoid causing irreversible harm to the environment and impoverishing others would be commended.

The prevailing widespread view of success has to change if we are to make the necessary rapid transition to an ecologically sustainable society. This not only means achieving zero net emissions of greenhouse warming gases but also zero emission of pollutants, the burning, dumping and landfilling of ‘waste’ as well as protecting what biodiversity remains and healing degraded habitat. Regardless of what governments say most of the above cannot be done without a major reduction in our consumption of meat and diary products.

It is a tragedy that in spite of more and more local councils and governments declaring a climate emergency there are no signs of a substantial shift in society’s understanding of success. Perhaps this is because the model of a “new green society” proffered is based on the norms and structures of our ecologically failed one. This is no better illustrated than the drive to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

Given climate breakdown there is no doubting the need to cease using fossil fuels as quickly as possible. What, however, is not questioned is consumerism and the enabling material infrastructure that the new forms of energy will fuel. In the utopia of non-fossil fuel electrification, for which corporations and governments have drawn-up a blueprint, adults will still have their own car, be able to fly to near and distant destinations, eat as much meat and dairy as they like and be encouraged to buy the latest technological devices not to mention clothes and beauty merchandise. Given that there are close to 7.9 billion people on the planet there are simply not enough resources to enable this to happen, certainly not enough to sustain unlimited consumption for an indefinite period of time. At present the rich world uses 50 per cent more bio- resources each year than the Earth produces. If the blueprint for the “green economy” were presented to early-year primary school pupils in the form of a story they would understand it as fantasy.

The fantasy nature of the new green society is underscored by the case that the materials essential for it such as cadmium, cobalt, copper, lead, lithium and platinum have to be mined and as Thea Riofrancos informs us in The Guardian, 14 June 2021, mining causes enormous environmental damage:

“extractive activities like mining, are responsible for 90% of biodiversity loss and more than half of carbon emissions. One report estimates that the mining sector produces 100bn tons of waste every year. Extraction and processing are typically water-and energy-intensive, and contaminate waterways and soil. Alongside these dramatic changes to the natural environment, mining is linked to human rights abuses, respiratory ailments, dispossession of indigenous territory and labour exploitation. “

The “green society” as envisaged by governments and corporation, and which mainstream media accept without question, is incompatible with an equitable, ecologically sustainable society. Some of the reasons include the following:

– The environmental devastation that will be caused by mining on the gigantic scale necessary to fuel and sustain it.

– The additional trillions of litres of fresh water needed annually for the industrial processes in a period of increasing worldwide droughts.

– Mining of the minerals can emit more tons of carbon than the mined minerals. (*1)

– The environmental problems associated with disposing of trillions of defunct batteries. (*2)

– The industrialization of hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of land and sea.

– The plethora of economic injustices and human rights abuses that will underpin the drive for low costs.

With regard to the industrialization of the countryside The Economist, 12 June 2021, reports that in the United States the land occupied by solar and wind installations by 2030 might well measure 61,000 square miles. This is approximately twice the size of Ireland. Similar amounts of land and sea will be required in other parts of the world. (*3) In the envisaged clean energy utopia the idea of success will, as at present, be judged by how much we consume, the material wealth we have accumulated and the power and influence that goes with this. In other words the blueprint put forward by governments and corporations for an ecologically sustainable society is delusionary.

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(*1) Austin Price, The Rush for White Gold, Earth Island Journal, Summer 2021.

(*2) Millions of electric cars are coming. What happens to all the dead batteries? Ian Morse, Science, 20 May 2021.

(*3) Environmental minister rules huge renewable energy hub in WA ‘clearly unacceptable’, Adam Morton, Guardian, 21 June 2021.

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Larry Speight brings us his monthly column –

The Invisible Economy

“Lessenich calls this a ‘generalised desire for knowing nothing.’ ”

(The Imperial Mode of Living, Ulrich Brand & Markus Wissen, 2021, p.145)

If we mentally removed ourselves from the imperatives, routines and interests that absorb our time we might, in our absence from the theatre of life, see that the fabric of society, every cell and fibre of it, is sustained by a complex network of relationships we are not normally aware of. It is not only that our attention is so focused on living within the perimeters of our circumstances that we are ignorant of them but that the institutions that shape our society, the large corporations, powerful financial institutions and government, prefer that we remain so.

These relationships are environmental and economic. When we put an item into our shopping basket, one out of 3,000 different products many supermarkets have on display, it is extremely unlikely that we will know its life story. Our decision on whether to buy a product or not is based on our familiarity with it, the design of the packaging, quantity and price.

If the product is one we have never used before we will probably read the label to see if it will do the job we intend it for. Most labels list the product’s main ingredients, many of which will be completely meaningless to us. We can buy the item regardless or use the internet to learn about the ingredients. This, however, is time consuming and will only take us so far. There are 5,000 natural minerals and 170,000 synthetic ones. If any of the latter are in the desired product the company, wanting to protect its commercial interests, will have revealed little. If in doubt ask Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia to give you the list of ingredients in its drinks.

What companies most certainly don’t want you to know is the impact its products have on the environment in the course of their life-cycle and the remuneration the workers receive during each stage of their manufacture. The company though will have employed creative minds to lead you astray with uplifting visuals of the natural world assigned to the product you are thinking of buying, evocative and memorable catch-phrases about its health benefits and various capabilities. To discover the truth of these will involve more research.

If all is good you still can’t buy the product with a clear conscience as the company, even if it abides by the highest ethical standards, may use the profits to support products that are not produced in an ethical way. The truth is most of the things we buy have, during their life story, a negative environmental impact. The question is on learning of these, and the low wages paid to the workers who made it, are we prepared to do without. Many people take this option even though it can be a challenge.

Take the case of palm oil, an ingredient in over 50 percent of consumer products including margarine, breakfast cereal, chocolate, biscuits, shampoos, tooth paste and soap. It is also used as a biofuel for motor vehicles and power stations. The plant is mainly grown in Indonesia and Malaysia where tens of thousands of square miles of rainforest have been set alight and turned to ash in order to provide land to grow the crop. Millions of sentient creatures in the forests will have been killed by the fire and smoke including pollinating insects, orangutans and tigers. The indigenous people will have been expelled to live as paupers in a culture they were not socialised to survive and thrive in.

The 2016 report by Amnesty International ‘The Great Palm Oil Scandal’ found that in one of the plantations it surveyed the workers were not paid enough to meet their basic needs and that there were serious human rights abuses. These, the report says:

“included forced labour and child labour, gender discrimination, as well as exploitative and dangerous working practices that put the health of workers at risk. The abuses identified were not isolated incidents but due to systemic business practices.”

The ill-treatment of the workers on the palm oil plantations and the destruction wrent on the environment, in what can only be called ecocide, applies to the production of many of the products we in the high income countries consume without a second thought. These include tea, coffee, cocoa beans, cotton, bananas, and rubber as well as many types of clothing and electronic items.

The Guardian, 13 May 2021, used its centre-fold pages to highlight the environmental destruction and dangerous working conditions of people working in the informal gold mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Cobalt, another mineral of global importance that mostly originates from the DRC, is used in electronic devices that many consider as essential to their life as a set of healthy lungs These include mobile phones, laptops, digital TVs and smart speakers. Cobalt is a vital component in the batteries used in electric vehicles and other technologies which it is vainly hoped will reduce the emission of global warming gasses to the point we can continue our orgy of consumption with environmental impunity.

The out-of-sight human and environmental relationships that bind the global economy together need to be made visible. We have to release ourselves from the “generalised desire for knowing nothing”. Otherwise we will continue to act as if the terrible harms we do to sustain our way of life don’t exist. Not only can this situation last for much longer, as all the indices of biodegradation indicate, but in “knowing nothing” we are bad ancestors as well as our own worst enemy.

Eco-Awareness, NN 289

Eco-Awareness, Nonviolent News, ,

Larry Speight brings us his monthly column –

Religion and salvation

Although it is widely thought by the inhabitants of these islands that we live in a secular society this would not wash with a first time visitor from a distant country if they had listened to the radio, watched TV and read the newspapers these past few weeks. A fair amount of time was devoted by the mainstream media to the Easter celebrations, and to a lesser extent to Ramadan. The lament of Christian leaders over the Covid-19 closure of their churches received considerable media attention. In addition to covering religious festivals and giving airtime and print space to the debate of such issues as the teaching of religion in schools the traditional media, RTE 1, Radio 4 and Radio Ulster for instance, have a stable of religious programmes.

Our visitor would certainly not have missed the confluence of religion and militarism at the funeral of Prince Philip. This entwinement of military and religious symbols is on display in many a Protestant church. Examples are St Ann’s Cathedral, Belfast and St Macartan’s Cathedral, Enniskillen where an impressive amount of space is given to remembering British soldiers who died in various wars. Needless to say the people killed by these same soldiers are not mentioned, probably because they were regarded as non-entities, impediments to British sovereignty and profit. One will also observe that in some Protestant churches homage to British regiments is on par with the homage paid to saints in Catholic churches.

The pairing of religion and militarisms is a classic case of cognitive dissonance. What of the Christian ethic of not living by the sword? If abided by, air planes, ships and submarines designed to carry nuclear weapons whose sole purpose is to kill people by the million, utterly destroy material culture and decimate the nonhuman world would not be blessed in the name of the very same God held to have created life.

In Ireland, if not in other parts of our archipelago, our visitor would likely by struck by the degree of religious thought that runs like a stream through everyday conversations. In spite of the prevalence of religion in everyday life there is a marked lack of appreciation of the role it could play in affecting positive social change especially in regard to the need for us to realign our relationship with nonhuman nature.

If religion was more concerned with universal wellbeing than of trying to ensure that people go to Heaven then all the money, energy, time and administrative know-how that goes into running a religion, and adhering to the do’s and don’ts, would be channelled into eradicating poverty, assisting the needy and healing our dying biosphere. In other words the religious would be devoted to securing the salvation of all living things.

In fact if religions abided by their golden rule of love your neighbour as yourself their adherents would not destroy the handiwork of God in the first place and there would be little if any structural poverty. The retort to this might be that humans by their nature commit sin – which is to say cause harm. This does not hold. What does is that people care more about the earthly delights of a meat based diet, using a private car in a city well served by public transport, and taking regular flights than the health of the biosphere.

Barring the exception of religiously minded individuals who defy orthodoxy in compassionate and socially creative ways, the main function of religion is to provide a sense of existential comfort and security by shoring up the normal as sanctioned by the state and endorsed by society at large rather than as an agency of wholesale positive change. The “mother and baby homes” in Ireland and the forced schooling of Aboriginal children in Australia are a testimony to this as is institutionalised racism in the Church of England as recently documented by Panorama on BBC 1. It does not have to be this way. Religions could learn from liberation theology as practised by some parishes in South America.

The term liberation theology was coined by Gustavo Gutiérrez in his book A Theology of Liberation (1971). Gutiérrez encapsulated what he thought the focus of organized religion should be with the phrase “preferential option of the poor”. By this he meant that God has a preference for those considered to be outsiders and insignificant, the marginalized, vulnerable, and the poor. Gutiérrez emphasised praxis over doctrine. Fifty years on some of the mainstream religions have developed a theology of the environment underpinned by praxis. The best known text in this field is perhaps that of Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si; On Care for Our Common Home.

The Covid-19 mantra that no one is safe until everyone is safe should apply to the religious promise of salvation. In effect this means we are obliged to do what we can to save all life forms from extinction and protect the ecosystems we dwell in and are part of. This, without doubt, would be one of the cardinal messages of Jesus Christ, Muhammad and other religious figures if they breathed toxic air, saw the scattering of plastic waste, were aware of the plummeting loss of biodiversity as well as experienced extreme weather conditions that scientists link to climate breakdown.

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Eco-Awareness, NN 288

Eco-Awareness, Nonviolent News, ,

Larry Speight brings us his monthly column –

The Jevons Paradox

Technical innovations that have the capacity to reduce global warming emissions to 1.5C by 2050, as stipulated by the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement, won’t accomplish this in the absence of a cultural change in favour of people actually caring for nonhuman nature. The reason is due to what is called the Jevons paradox. This was conceived by the economist William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882) when he observed that an increase in the efficient use of coal lead to an increase in the demand for coal. In his book The Coal Question (1865) he wrote:

“It is a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to diminishing consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”

Research presented in New Scientist, 6 March 2021, gives credence to this through showing that the more energy efficient a device becomes the more people are inclined to use it resulting in an increase in the emission of global warming gases relative to the less energy efficient version of the device. Another aspect of the Jevons paradox that hinders the achievement of global warming goals is the rebound phenomenon. This occurs when the money saved through greater energy efficiency is spent on another energy consuming device or service. An example is when the money saved in the course of a year through running a zero-emissions home is spent on an overseas holiday which would not have been taken but for the savings.

The Jevons paradox means that technological innovations that have the ability to radically reduce the emission of global warming gasses and the consumption of raw materials could in practice increase both. This makes achieving net-zero global warming emissions a behavioural problem that should include the input of anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists in the formulation of government policy rather than, as is mostly the case at present, people in the technical sciences. This point is made by Hatan Shah, head of the British Academy, in the journal Nature, 23 March 2021. He writes in regard to Covid-19 that:

“Governments have sought expert advice from the beginning of the pandemic, but that expertise tended to come from people in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) – despite it being clear from the beginning that human behaviour, motivation and culture were key to an effective response.”

The case study from India mentioned below illustrates how even the most worthy of aspirations supported by adequate funding and field tested technology can be foiled in achieving widespread application through cultural blindness.

The Clean India Mission, 2014 – 2019, implemented by the Indian government with the support of NGOs provided rural communities with public toilets and household latrines. In the course of the programme $20 billion was spent building 110 million toilets for 600 million people. Follow-up surveys showed that the toilets are not as widely used as initially expected. In part this was because rural culture perceives open defecation as more wholesome, natural and convenient than using a household or public toilet. Another reason is open defecation gives women the highly valued opportunity to socialize with each other out of sight and sound of the men of their family. There is also volatile issue of caste and who cleans and maintains the toilets. (*1)

This lesson on the importance of cultural awareness and critique needs to be applied to the effort by the international community to achieve net-zero global warming emissions by 2050. One overlooked area that should be considered in this regard is the linear economy in which raw materials are extracted from the ground and after a short life as a manufactured good or unwanted food item are dumped in the ground. The examples of e-waste, clothing, plastic bottles and food give a sense of the magnitude of this, which if it were not to take place, would go a long way towards healing the biosphere. Less waste translates into less emission of global warming gases and more CO2 absorbing forests, peatlands, soil and sea grasses. It results in cleaner air, waterways, an increase in biodiversity and less persecution of indigenous peoples.

With regard to food the UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021 estimates that 931 million tonnes of food waste was generated worldwide in 2019. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation recovering just half of the food that is lost or wasted could feed the world. Producing this food involves the emission of greenhouse gases as does the decomposition process. The latter emits methane which has a global warming potential 25 times that of CO2.

The Times, 17 March 2021, reports that over 100 billion garments are produced annually from virgin materials and that 87 percent of clothing material is incinerated, sent to landfill or dumped every year. Another ubiquitous waste are plastic bottles. The City to Sea campaigning group estimate that in the UK alone 7.7 billion plastic bottles go unrecycled every day. Based on this figure the global number must be in the trillions.

An almost unseen waste, or you might say misuse of resources, are the array of electronic devices including smart phones and computers that together are called e-waste. The UN Global E-waste Monitor 2020 reports that in 2019 we created 53.6 million metric tons of electronic waste of which only 17.4 percent was recycled. The report states that:

“This means that gold, silver, copper, platinum and other high-value, recoverable materials conservatively valued at US $57 billion – a sum greater than the Gross Domestic Product of most countries – were mostly dumped or burned rather than being collected for treatment and reuse.”

Without a radical change on many fronts e-waste will reach 74 million metric tons by 2030. On top of this will be the hard to recycle hundreds of millions of batteries from electric vehicles. The Republic of Ireland for example aims to have a million electric vehicles on the road within nine years. (*2)

The widespread, even universal use, of energy efficient technologies won’t, in the absence of regarding nonhuman nature as having intrinsic value, release us from the Jevons paradox, which if they did, might avoid the collapse of the ecosphere as it has evolved since the last ice-age 11,500 years ago. Voicing the link between valuing something and protecting it the palaeontologist and science writer S.J. Gould (1941-2002) said “we will not fight to save what we do not love.”

On the basis of this understanding social scientists studying environmental change encourage education authorities to put the study of nature, learning to appreciate and love it, at the heart of curricula from nursery school to university. Intrigued by the possible outcome of this Matthew Adams, principle lecturer in psychology at the University of Brighton, recently said:

“Who knows how powerful the collective nurturing of a childhood sense of awe and wonder, and a deep attachment to nature, might be were it allowed to blossom and flourish?” (*3)

Such an education might be powerful enough to completely change how we interact with nonhuman nature and therein nullify the Jevons paradox.

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(*1) Sarita Panchang, A Year On, the Clean India Mission Falls Short, www.fairobserver.com, 8 October 2020.

(*2) Pat Leahy, The Irish Times, 27 March 2021.

(*3) Matthew Adams, I, 23 March 2021.

Eco-Awareness, NN 287

Eco-Awareness, Uncategorized

Larry Speight brings us his monthly column –

The Greenwash of Green Technologies

Compared to ten years ago when the media, governments, corporations, organized religions and educational institutions largely endorsed and actively supported the fossil fuel based economic paradigm there has, it would seem, been a radical shift in thinking in regard to our relationship with nonhuman nature. This change is underscored by the UK’s most trusted public person Sir David Attenborough coming out of the closet and declaring himself an environmentalist. During his long career in broadcasting he studiously avoided drawing the public’s attention to the dire state the biosphere is in. More recently Bill Gates, with a private fortune of £165 billion, has made his concerns known about climate breakdown through the publication of his book ‘How To Avoid A Climate Disaster’.

Galvanised by environmentally-minded celebrities, who have enormous persuasive power, a more pro-environmental stance on the part of the mass media, (*1) and a more vocal public an increasing number of governments and corporations acknowledge that the biosphere is critically ill and vow to do something about one of its main aliments, global warming. The formula, which the public whole-heartily welcome, is a techno-fix in the form of electric vehicles, wind farms, solar panels, smart grids and increased digitalisation. It is hoped that these technologies will enable the global economy to become carbon-neutral by 2050.

The evidence suggests that this hope is a case of mass delusion. A case of wanting an equitable, ecologically sustainable society with the comforts, conveniences and recreational opportunities the wealthy world is accustomed to without anyone having to change a single iota of how they live. The aim of the EU, UK and the USA to replace petrol and diesel vehicles by 2035 with electric ones as an illustrative example. Every announcement by vehicle manufacturers to produce electric-only by a near-future date is widely applauded as a long stride taken towards meeting the aim of carbon neutrality b mid-century. The scrutiny applied to new medicines and building proposals is largely absent from the plan to replace the estimated one billion fleet of fossil driven vehicles with electric ones.

One reason why people welcome electric vehicles is because they are thought to cause no air pollution. What is over-looked is the case that whether a vehicle is electric or not braking and the friction of tyres on roads creates toxic dust. In 2019 the UK government’s Air Quality Expert Group warned that breaking and tyre wear contribute to more than half of the particle pollution from road transport.

Many other negative environmental factors of fossil driven vehicles apply to electric ones including the material and organizational infrastructure needed to support them. Thus paving over precious habitat and agricultural land will continue apace. There will still be traffic congestion and fatal road collisions. In fact the latter might rise as those on foot and bicycle are likely be less aware of the presence of electric vehicles as they emit little noise. This will especially be the case is residential areas and rural settings. Mass recharging parks might be required taking up more precious land.

A critical factor in regard to ecological sustainability of electric vehicles in that the materials required to manufacture them leave an ecological footprint equal to if not exceeding that required to manufacture petrol and diesel vehicles. Cuillaume Pitron in his book The Rare Metals War (2020) writes:

“The 2016 report by the French Environment & Management Agency finds: ‘the energy consumption of an electric vehicle (EV) over its entire lifecycle is, on the whole, similar to that of a diesel vehicle.’ The report also finds that its environmental impact is ‘on par with (that of) the petrol car’. In fact, an EV might even emit more carbon dioxide than it consumes if the electricity it uses comes predominantly from coal –fired plants, as is the case in countries such as China, Australia, India, Taiwan and South Africa.” (*2).

Electric vehicles use a host of rare metals that are mined and refined at great cost to the environment and in the case of cobalt, an essential component of their batteries, more than 60 percent of which comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where it is mined using slave labour. (*3) The vehicles use alloys which at present cannot easily be recycled and nor can the batteries which have a relatively short life span. It is feared that the latter will create a ‘waste’ disposal problem no Local Council’ will be able to deal with which means they could end up in illegal dumps polluting soil and above and underground bodies of water.

When one looks at the evidence of the ecological impact of electric vehicles in the course of their lifecycle, the health and human rights issues, one can only but conclude that society has either been duped by the politicians and the vehicle manufacturers, or is happy to collude with the pretence that electric vehicles are considerably better for the environment than diesel and petrol ones.

In spite of the difficulty in recycling rare metals, especially when combined to form alloys, and the absence of any intention to curtail economic growth, which would be an anathema to the dominant economic paradigm, the assumption is that rare metals can be mined indefinably and are not what their name proclaims them to be. Their rarity is revealed by the figures provided by Pitron.

“Eight and a half tonnes of rock need to be purified to produce a kilogram of vanadium; sixteen tonnes for a kilogram of cerium; fifty tonnes for the equivalent in gallium; and a staggering 1,200 tonnes for one miserable kilogram of the rarest of rare metals; lutecium.” (*4)

The ecological calamity that will be caused in meeting the insatiable demand for the rare metals used in electric vehicles will likely be as bad as that caused by the fossil fuel industry. The same ecological hazards and human suffering incurred by the manufacture of electric vehicles pertains to all so-called green technologies including wind turbines, solar panels, smart phones, home computers and the entire infrastructure of the internet all of which require rare metals, substantive amounts of energy and vast supplies of water to manufacture and maintain.

Given the historical lack of honesty of governments and corporations – we might recall their stoic reluctance to tighten the laws on the sale of tobacco and the use of lead – it is astounding that society passively accepts the idea that so called green technology will result in a global green nirvana. It seems that belief in green technology based on rare metals is akin to the belief in diet pills which can make people who want to lose weight to do so without them having to change their diet or lifestyle in any way. What society does not want to change is the paradigm of unlimited economic growth and the power structures and behaviour patterns that are an integral part of it.

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(*1) Ian Burrell, Media on Monday, i newspaper, 22 February 2021.

(*2) The Rare Metals War: The dark side of clean energy and digital technologies, Guillaume Pitron, 2020, p. 38.

(*3) From Stone to Phone: Modern Day Cobalt Slavery In Congo, www.bylinetimes.com, 10 December 2020.

(*4) The Rare Metals War: The dark side of clean energy and digital technologies, Guillaume Pitron, 2020, p. 3 & 4.