In Naess’ paper, he describes the difference between the shallow ecology movement and the deep ecology movement. Both movements have priorities and objectives in which they view ecology. Both cherish the objective of fighting against pollution and resource depletion. The biggest difference between the two is the central objectives. Shallow Ecology’s focus is on the health and affluence of people in developed countries. This alone does not encompass the entire subject of ecology and holds somewhat of a naïve view, so it is comparatively shallow to the alternative ecology movement. Deep ecology has seven key objectives, which allows it to encompass many elements that affect ecology.
Deep ecology has two relevant objectives for this essay. The third objective values diversity as it increases the chance of survival. “Survival of the fittest should be interpreted as the sense of ability to coexist and cooperate in complex relationships, rather than the ability to kill, exploit and suppress”. The third objective reminded me of Mike Hulme’s descriptions of how diversity of HDI can be positive. The 5th objective states the importance of fighting against pollution and resource depletion (Naess 1973, 1,2). This objective can be compared to the views of Vaclov Smil in his book Making The Modern World. Smil describes the importance of resources and the impacts that each resource has on the ecosystem.
Smil notes that higher affluent countries use more materials (142), which is comparable to deep ecologies’ fifth objective. When a material is extracted from the natural world there are a lot of steps in which energy is expended to create a product. When a product can be recycled, these individual energy expenditures only have to occur once for the extraction and processing of the material. When it cannot be recycled, energy has to be spent again resulting in extra fuel and material. All of the individual energy costs during the entire lifecycle of a material is evaluated with the LCA, or Life-Cycle Analysis (Smil 4.6). If countries were to lower their diversity in HDI, and rise in affluence as a result, they would raise the emissions from extraction, production, manufacturing and distribution of materials. On a multi-national scale, this could be very detrimental to our resources. As more countries become invested in extraction, manufacturing, and distribution of materials, more fuel and electricity is used.
Smil further values the possibilities of efficiency of materials. What if technology could increase the efficiency of these products to the point that it doesn’t matter how many countries are using them? Unfortunately, according to Smil, as products become more efficient, their demand raises leading to Jevons paradox (Smil 5.2). As a result, the extraction and use of materials will always increase. The world would be severely affected by the rise of emissions due to all the new countries involved in extraction, production, and distortion of materials.
The third objective of deep ecology is supported by Hulme as he describes an issue that would result from the development of more countries. The benefit of “complex relationships” (Ness 1973) are demonstrated by Hulmes analysis of how rising developments of countries lowers these diversity’s and allows the entire world to equally exploit the world’s natural materials, and produce emissions. Because of the rise in emissions due to the rise in affluences affect on trade and production, emissions would have to be kept track of, or even budgeted to ensure that we don’t over pollute the planet. Carbon trading would be a way to keep account and responsibility for the emissions of each country. Unfortunately, the implied politics that would follow such a policy would allow emissions to become a commodity and could become even less personal (Hulme 209 5.3).
The third and fifth objectives of deep ecology welcome diversity of cultures, and value materials. Hulme and Smil describe these importance’s in their books, connecting these environmental classics.
Naess, Arne. 1973. “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement.” Inquiry 16: 95–100.
Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Smil, Vaclav. 2014. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. John Wiley and Sons Ltd.