My time so far in Environmental Studies 160 I had not stopped to think about the connections between the texts that we had been reading. This post made me have a deeper understanding of the texts we have read as well as some of the larger concepts. I have made three comparisons, one about who governs our climate, one about dematerialization and the third about modernization.
The work Why We Disagree About Climate Change by Mike Hulme and the book Who Rules the Earth? By Paul Steinberg appears to struggle to answer the big question of, who governs the climate? Hulme attempts to answer the large questions regarding how humans perceive climate as well as who in fact as control over what appears to be almost an abstract concept. Hulme feels that “one of the reasons we disagree about climate change is because we seek to govern in different ways”(Hulme 2009, 288). He also discusses at length the pros and cons of different protocols and governance strategies and understands that “there is resistance to both of these dimensions- the ‘who’ and the ‘how’- of climate governance”(Hulme 2009, 304). This clear indecisiveness of the best way to protect such an abstract thing as climate comes as no surprise and Steinberg appears to view these problems in a similar way. Steinberg discusses how international treaties for protecting our planet are great in theory but he does not appear to have much faith in their reality. He questions “but do all of these treaties mean anything? The short answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no. The longer answer is that global cooperation, and the system of law that underpins it, take place in circumstances that bear little resemblance to lawmaking as you and I understand it. For one thing, there is no international government to enforce the law”(Steinberg 2015, 165). Steinberg holds the view point that there is no real way to govern climate and that it is almost impossible to set restrictions on different counties. I believe that both of these opinions tie together have helped me come to the conclusion that there is no simple answer to law making and controlling the world’s climate, even with all of the pollution and effects that humans are having on it.
Vaclav Smil’s work Making Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization presents a very methodical approach to the concept of dematerialization and describes steps for reducing the amount of waste produced by humans especially in the western world (Smil 2014). Leigh Phillips work Austerity Ecology & The Collapse-Porn Addicts has an opposing view on dematerialization and appears to view it critically along with consumerism (Phillips 2015). Smil believes that dematerialization should be the “reduction of material inputs in production can be accomplished in four principal ways: by gradual improvements that do not involve new materials; by substitutions of constituent materials with lighter or more durable alternatives; by intensified recycling, particularly effective in those cases where reusing brings major energy savings; and by the introduction of entirely new devices that perform the desired functions with only a fraction of the mass needed for their predecessors” (Smil 2014, 122). These are all great ways for producing less waste with the vast amounts that humans especially in the western world are consuming, but this does not address how each individual consumer may feel about being told that they are consuming too much. Phillips believes parts of dematerialization to be rooted in western centric ideas of consumerism and “that little world ‘we’ in the demand that ‘we all should consume less’ that bothered me so much, the idea that ‘we’ in the West, every last one of us were living the life of Riley, of carefree luxury and prosperity”(Phillips 2015, 9). Phillips brings in the opinion that not all people living in the west are actually consuming that much or able to. I think that these two works work in juxtaposition, with Smil giving very practical examples for how waste can be reduced and we can dematerialize and then Phillips giving a more personal opinion on how we feels about being told to consume less, when he already feels he does not have enough.
A connection that I found between Leigh Phillip’s Austerity Ecology & The Collapse-Porn Addicts and Shellenberger’s work Love Your Monsters: Environmentalism and the Anthropocene were their similar views on modernization. Both of these authors appeared to view modernization as a good thing in regard to our changing environment and disagreed with the sentiment that modernization should be halted to preserve our climate. Shellenberger presents the idea of “modernization theology” which he believes will require “replacing the antiquated notion that human development is antithetical to the preservation of nature with the view that modernization is the key to saving it” (Shellenberger 2011, 215). The idea that modernization is conducive to beneficial change is also reflected in Phillips work as he states his opinion that, “it’s time for progressives to remind themselves of the dark origins of anti-modernism, and understand that however well-meaning many of its supporters may be, this ideology is reactionary with respect to social progress and ultimately won’t ‘save the planet’ anyway”(Phillips 2015, 26). Phillips appears to have a little bit more of an aggressive approach, feeling that the way many “progressive” minded people feel toward modernization is plain incorrect. Phillips feels that as a society we should be better off using the knowledge and technology that is available to us to combat our changing world rather than shying away from what we as humans have already created or are creating. Overall these two authors take a very similar stance on modernization both appearing to view it as a tool that can be used to benefit the effects of climate change.
Citations:
Hulme, M. Why we disagree about climate change: understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Phillips, Leigh. Austerity ecology & the collapse-porn addicts: a defense of growth, progress, industry and stuff. Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2015.
Shellenberger, Michael, and Ted Nordhaus, eds. 2011. Love Your Monsters: Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene. Breakthrough Institute.
Smil, Vaclav. Making the modern world: materials and dematerialization. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley, 2014.
Steinberg, Paul F. Who rules the earth?: how social rules shape our planet and our lives. New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press, 2015.