What it Means to be an Environmentalist

The word “environmentalist” conjures up many different images to many different people. For most people it is a nice and cuddly image. For some it involves bottle feeding goats or feeling some mystical connection to nature. For others it’s bleeding heart liberals or tidy towns committees. This is not what environmentalism should be about and in the current crisis we can’t afford to let such feel-good hobbies dominate the movement. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with feeding goats or joining tidy towns. I’m sure you’d get a lot of appreciation from your neighbours (and their goats). The problem is where it ends for most people. Even those most dedicated to the environmentalist cause for a long time have tended to be taken in by the Deep Ecology philosophy which stresses the inherent value of all living beings and the interconnectedness of all of ecology. Ideas such as simple living, non-coercive population control and decline, preservation of natural habitats etc. On the more extreme ends you have anarcho-primitivists who advocate a “rewilding” of humanity into hunters or veganarchy. The problem with this, and the more moderate Green movement politics that stems from it, is that it fails to understand what the problem is.

Global Capital
This lack of understanding is a mistake, and a catastrophic one at that. Issues concerning the environment are about much more than preserving natural beauty or spiritual heritage. They are life and death for many people and one of the greatest instances of capitalist exploitation in today’s world. Our rainforests, which provide so much oxygen that they are referred to as the lungs of the world, are torn down at ever increasing rates. Our Oceans are at breaking point from toxic plastics, industrial and agricultural waste and overfishing. Tens of thousands of species will be extinct between now and 2040 and the horrific practices of industrial factory farming and slaughter would shock and horrify the vast majority of people.

Even for someone who cared nothing for animals, for natural heritage or for the ecosystem there would still be the issue that all of these practices have negative health effects for humans, they deplete our natural resources and contribute to the existential crisis of global warming. This is especially in the case with factory farming and the destruction of rainforests (often for farming). So why?

The answer is profit. It’s not that any one person or group of people makes the decision that they will trade the Earth for money. It’s that we have set up society in such a way that all of economic production is in the hands of enterprises competing to get the highest profits and at every level of these entities each individual is looking to increase the amount produced and the speed of production and reduce the costs. If they don’t, they’ll be replaced by someone who will or if they’re not replaced their company is swallowed by their more efficient rivals. This system ensures that production will always be managed by the companies that are most efficient at producing more and at cutting costs the most. This is the same reason worker’s rights are eroded, the same reason why 80% of the world shares 20% of the wealth despite owning the most resources and the same reason safety standards have been eroded. Whatever piecemeal reforms are introduced they just slow down the tide but never turn it.

Solutions
There’s no quick fix solution. There are a few necessary steps we can take to help us find solutions though. We can start viewing environmentalism differently for one. Piecemeal solutions won’t work. Consumption taxes have never worked in any significant way and punish workers for corporate pollution when in many cases, such as with the carbon tax, they have no choice but to drive to work or school. Small farmers are constantly being framed as culprits when they have no choice but to make a living in whatever way they can. The farming class and the environment are both exploited by the same giant industrial Agri-corporations. That should be a point of unity between farmers and environmentalists who both have an interest in structural change. Similarly, workers are exploited by the same companies producing vast amounts of carbon emissions.

We need to look away from the free market environmentalism of the Green Party. We need to look at the social and economic structures and hierarchies which have created and perpetuate this system of global exploitation of the Earth and its people. The fact that most of the effects of climate change are occurring in regions that produce the least CO2 and the brutal clearing of indigenous people from the rainforest lands shows how intertwined colonialism and capitalism are with environmental exploitation. We need to recognise this. We also need to recognise that changing people’s personal habits won’t impact on the climate, especially considering most of the world has no choice in their diets or farming practices. Over 70% of global emissions are produced by the top 100 corporations. Any movement that doesn’t focus on this is doomed.

Change won’t happen overnight and it won’t be easy, but it will never happen if we don’t recognise one key fact: the profit motive is not compatible with sustainability. The drive to constantly cut costs and increase output cannot be married to an ecologically friendly form of production. Environmentalism shouldn’t be nice and cuddly; it should be about fighting back.

ENDs

le Conor Dowling