It is clear that discourse surrounding anything environmental is highly contested. Some themes, however, have shown to be far more universal than others. Agricultural workers feed the hungry masses, economists try to maximize welfare and environmentalists agree that something needs to change.
One of these trends is the usage of stuff, referring to materialism and utilization of resources, as highlighted by Vaclav Smil’s Making the Modern World and Leigh Phillips’ Austerity Ecology. Smil, with an excess of evidence, supports the two aspects of materialization: relative and absolute. Relative dematerialization– “a substantial reduction of material used” — shows its benefits “in modern manufacturing whose quests for higher productivity and lower prices has brought reduced use of materials (be they traditional and inexpensive, or modern and costly” (Smil 2014, 119). At a glance, this is a wonderful and beneficial component of tackling overconsumption, but the reduction is often only of a single material and “the reality is nothing but a complex form of material substitution” (Smil 2014, 121).
This illusion of material reduction is mirrored in the movement promoting organic farming practices. The organic food industry has increased significantly in recent years: “sales soared from $23 billion in 2002 to $52 billion in 2008, becoming the fastest growing sector of the American food marketplace” (Phillips 2014, 174). This movement has been fueled by the “mistaken belief that anything that has been genetically modified is inherently harmful,” as well as the promotions that “organic food is healthier than conventionally grown or raised food” (Phillips 2014, 175). The misconceptions of dematerialization in this industry revolve primarily around the usage of pesticides– “It is also commonly believed that organic farmers use no pesticides, but this also is not true…. Many ‘natural’ pesticides are not as effective as their synthetic cousins, and so farmers have to use more of them” (Phillips 2014, 174).
The issues surrounding natural pesticides are not restricted to the amount used. According to Phillips, organic foods have been shown to be equivalent to non-organics in terms of nutritional content, as well as risks related to increased pathogens in ‘natural’ pesticides. In addition, the potential negative impacts of natural pesticides on the environment may be greater than their synthetic alternatives (Phillips 2014, 174). The negative attributes of these ‘natural’ chemicals can be interpreted as externalities, since the market is not accounting for the impacts on a third party (not involved in the market).
In Who Rules the Earth?, externalities are explained with the example of a phone company dumping chemicals. According to Steinberg, a negative externality is when “the price mechanism itself fails” by creating prices of an item lower than the true cost, accounting for harmful impacts of chemicals. These low prices lead to increased amounts of production and consumption (Steinberg 2015, 105). In the case of organic foods, the costs passed on are the increased risks surrounding pesticide toxicity, as well as negative environmental impacts, neither of which are not compensated for with increased nutritional value, or accounted for in the selling price.
Economic justifications, including externalities, are pertinent to any environmental policy or agreement. In Why We Disagree About Climate Change, author Mike Hulme gives a brief introduction to some of the widely-regarded concepts in climate change discussions, including the most widely regarded value of economic prosperity: Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This serves as a measure of “the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time.” While “GDP is limited to goods and services that have market value” (excluding “natural capital and aesthetic values”), it is still used to assess well being of a country, and will likely remain a highly referenced form of measurement in future discussion (Hulme 2009, 114).
With GDP’s pertinence, environmental policy must navigate the pursuit of economic growth. Leigh Phillips, with his own critiques of GDP, proposes that “To achieve ever-expanding economic growth without inadvertent damage to ecological services that benefit humans requires greater and greater efficiencies in the use of material resources.” Much of this can effectively be done with “an emphasis on technological transformation [of production]” (Phillips 2014, 110). This does not impede economic growth, instead, it reroutes it.
Ultimately, change (or progress) regarding the environment boils down to the involvement of individuals, whether that is represented in how much pesticides are used to produce an organic apple, the impacts of unideal farming practices on third parties, or the economic opportunities provided by changing products.
Works Cited
- Hulme, Mike. 2009. Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Leigh Phillips, author. 2015. Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts: A Defence of Growth, Progress, Industry and Stuff. Winchester, UK ; Washington, USA: Zero Books.
- Paul F. Steinberg. 2015. Who Rules the Earth?: How Social Rules Shape Our Planet and Our Lives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
- Smil, Vaclav. 2014. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: Wiley.