As developing nations continue to materialize at an astonishing rate many questions are raised as to how these nations will develop, but more importantly how will these countries develop sustainably. Many considerations must be made first. How will these nations be governed, how will they affect the global rate of material consumption or CO2 emission, how do these countries become socially advanced, and how will the economy take its citizens out of poverty? Arne Naess in his work titled The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement considers Environmental thought pertinent to the sustainable development debate. Naess examines two approaches that he believes emerging Ecologist employ towards Climate Change; The Shallow and Deep Ecology movements. The Shallow Ecology movement considers simple objectives; “Fight against pollution and resource depletion”, as well as improving “the health and affluence of people in the developed countries”(Naess 1973, p. 95). While The Deep Ecology movement is characterized by its consideration of many more complexities than its shallow counterpart. Complexity in this case can mean ample opportunity for self contradiction of goals and of beliefs. However, the goals of The Shallow Ecology movement can stimulate unintended results. Mike Hulme in his novel Why We Disagree About Climate Change connects palpable evidence to the contradictions and realities of both The Deep and Shallow Ecology movements, after all “conventional expectations of science being able to discover the objective ‘truth’ of how the world works and to make reliable predictions of the future are challenged by the complexities of climate change” and it’s hard to truly know the correct action to take. (Hulme 2009, p. 111)
The Shallow Ecology Movement wants to improve “health and affluence”, but it’s hard to determine whether changes made to improve the “fight against pollution and resource depletion” will actually result in elevated “health and affluence”. It’s even harder to determine who will benefit the most from the action. Perhaps it will be those who are citizens of a developed nation such as The Shallow Ecology movement wants, but objectively global welfare is much more sensible. The Copenhagen Consensus Center in Denmark explored this question by asked eight distinguished Nobel Laureate economists to answer the question: “What would be the best ways of advancing global welfare … supposing that an additional $50 billion of resources were at governments’ disposal?”(Hulme 2009, p.110), whereupon the panelists replied saying that the “pay-back to human welfare of proposed climate policy measures was judged to be insufficient to allocate them any of their (hypothetical) $ 50 billion”(Hulme 2009, p.110). This is a tough contradiction to approach. Why do Ecologists promote the advancement of global health and affluence when economists, professionals in affluence by trade, believe that policy addressing Climate Change isn’t worth supporting? Ultimately Hulme reiterates that “A major disjunction is looming between climate policy and strategies for reducing poverty”(Hulme 2009, p. 278). This means that Shallow Ecology has not necessarily contradicted itself yet, as Naess stated that the affluence and health of “developed”countries was the Ecologists main goal in this movement.
Hulme instils a certain amount of hope that the Copenhagen Consensus panelists made a faulty decision and that Global welfare can still be notably benefited by climate change policy. Hulme states that “individuals and societies ascribe value to activities, assets, constructs and resources in many different ways. One of the reasons we disagree about climate change is because we ascribe these values differently” (Hulme 2009, p.112) Moreover, Hulme reminds us that the Stern Review on the economics of climate change, published by the UK Government in October 2006, concluded with an entirely different response than the Copenhagen Consensus; “the (large) costs of inaction on climate change greatly outweighed the (modest) costs of taking early initiatives to slow down the rate of warming” (Hulme 2009, p. 111). The most universal, although not the most comprehensive quantitative evaluation of economic performance is called GDP (Gross Domestic Production), which calculates a countries accumulative market value considering all final goods and services produced by a country within a given timeframe (Hulme 2009, p.114). Most importantly though Hulme states that “GDP is limited to goods and services that have a market value. As an overall indicator of wealth, of human and ecological well-being, GDP is completely inadequate. Using GDP as the sole measure of economic growth, and therefore implicitly of social ‘progress’, introduces distortions into public policy. (Hulme 2009, p.114) Hulme brings us to the conclusion that we should not look to GDP or to base economics for a critique of shallow environmentalism or for a deeper look into what stimulates social ‘progress’.
After such a deep look into Shallow Ecology, the Deep Ecology movement opens us into a new set of considerations; what promotes social ‘progress’? The Deep Ecology movement places strong emphasis on an “anti-class posture” (Naess 1973, p. 96), which he believes is created though the “diversity of human ways of life”. Naess explains class as being create with “(intended or unintended) exploitation and suppression on the part of certain groups”(Naess 1973, p. 96). This is when Making the Modern World written by Vaclav Smil can inform us of what Hulme does not; the physical reality of social progress, as created through economic development. We can also asses how climate change policy that enforces a “fight against pollution and resource depletion” (one of Deep Ecologies objectives) contradicts its prior goal of creating social “symbiosis”, thus contradicting itself as I stated earlier. Hulme states that the “expansion of trade and the growth in international tourism offers the best route out of poverty for many of the world’s developing nations”, by way of the foreign exchange earnings that raise GDP in developing regional locations (Hulme 2009, p. 278). Smil throughout Making the Modern World considers time and time again how “declining specific use of energy – be it per unit of extracted raw material or finished product – has been one of the key markers of modernization”(Smil 2014,p. 143), as these declines are marked by “long-term efficiency gains”. In theory this means that less material is used, but efficiency doesn’t mean less; “increases in overall fuel and (even more so) electricity consumption have been driven by a combination of continued population growth and increasing per capita consumption engendered by higher standards of living and higher mobility”(Smil 2014,p. 143). If the Deep Ecology movement wants to reduce global poverty and support symbiosis they may not want to support the fight against pollution and resource depletion because unfortunately the two don’t pair easily. By developing international trade and tourism, mobility and standards of living are increased as increases in foreign exchange earnings flowing into impoverished nations. This means that more electricity and fuel is consumed, not reduced.
Citations
Naess, Arne. 1973. (95-100) “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement.” Inquiry 16
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.