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Society
Social Systems In Crisis
The crisis 'without'-in environmental systems-interacts with the crisis 'within', that inside society. They constitute a twin track of unsustainability. The social crisis is similarly varied. Its most extreme form, however, is the denial that society even exists, as once memorably argued by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Not surprisingly a self-absorbed and materialistic individualism, 'me first', demanding ever more rights but shunning all responsibility to others lies at the core of the contemporary social malaise. Signs of this sickness are manifold-a general anomie, moral confusion, loneliness, the 'crisis in the family', crime, drug addiction, mental health problems, the isolation of many older citizens, grotesque inequalities, cultural impoverishment, the decline of 'civility' and an increase in loutishbehaviour and purposeless violence. The point is not to romanticise previous social systems but to stress the social dimension to the sustainability crunch. The following literature also contrasts the way such social disorders persist and indeed increase alongside unprecedented (albeit unsustainable) levels of material affluence, including huge expenditures on education, health and social care services. There is no need to indulge in nostalgia for some non-existent golden age to appreciate that today's social order suffers from sustainability crunch 'within' as it does 'without' in the Earth's life-support systems. To solve that twin crisis, we should develop at the very least the modesty to appreciate that previous cultures might have got some things right. Boyden, S., et al. Homo Sapiens in the Biosphere. In Chapter 2 of their Biosphere Under Threat. OUP, 1990. Good overview of human evolutionary background and the needs it has created.
Brownell, B. The Human Community. Harper & Row, 1950. A prescient American critique of the way human communities and surrounding environmental systems were disintegrating under the impact of a more materialistic and individualistic way of living.
Drengson, A., 1979. Towards A Philosophy of Community, Philosophy Forum, 16: 101-125
Illich, I. Toward a History of Needs. Pantheon, 1977. A wide ranging set of essays exploring the impact of industrialisation and consumer society.
Jones, A. The Violence of Materialism in Advanced Industrial Society. Soc. Rev. Feb., 1987: 19-47
Lasch, C. The Minimal Self. Picador, 1984.
Lasch, C. The Revolt of Elites. Norton, 1995. Both cause and effect of the crisis within society is the 'couldn't-care-less' mentality most selfishly exhibited by society's élites.
Laslo, E. The Inner Limits of Mankind. Pergamon, 1978.
Leipart, C.. Social Costs of Economic Growth. Jnl of Econ. Issues, 20/1, 1986: 109-131
Meadows, D., ed. Alternatives to Growth. Ballinger, 1977. Contains many good articles on the themes of human needs, community and the links between social and environmental breakdown. See particularly Strategies for Societal Development by J. Davis & S. Mauch, Settlements and Social Stability by E. Goldsmith and Towards a Primary Lifestyle by R. Allen
Milbrath, L. Culture and Environment in the USA. Environmental Management, 9(2), 1985: 161-172.
Packard, V. A Nation of Strangers. McKay, 1972.
Raphael, R. Edges: Human Ecology of the Backcountry. Univ. Nebraska Pr., 1986. The fate of small rural communities in regions like California visited by 'development'.
Renner, M. An Epidemic of Guns. WorldWatch, 11(4), 1998: 12-29. Small arms are proliferating across society, symptomatic of a deeper sickness.
Roszak, T. Person/Planet: The Creative Disintegration of Industrial Society. Paladin, 1979. Argues the needs of people and those of the planet can and must harmonise.
Roszak T. The Voice of the Earth Transworld, 1993. The dangers to human well-being of becoming isolated from the rest of nature, a theme also discussed by Shepard below.
Shepard, P. Nature and Madness. Sierra, 1982. An exploration of the 'derangement' resulting from human alienation from the environment. Shepard argues that this explains the phenomenon of the child-adult and the failure to 'grow up' into a maturity that takes full responsibility for our actions.
Slater, P. The Pursuit of Loneliness. Beacon, 1970.
There are many studies about the persistence of inequality. Often gaps have widened not narrowed, with wealth not trickling down but sticking to the greedy fingers of the super-rich. One example of the literature documenting the myth of a society-open-to-all is A Class Act: The Myth of Britain's Classless Society by Andrew Adonis and Stephen Pollard. The saga of privatisation in the UK with new corporate bosses wallowing in a trough of pathological greed provides a salutary tale.
Ecology and Human Nature
A recurrent feature of any debate about social or environmental problems is the vexed matter of human nature-is it in our genes to be selfish and so destructive of others, be they fellow humans, different cultures, other species or whole environments? Are there aspects of our being, sensing as well as thinking, that offer the possibility of a more co-operative and respectful path?
Par of the human nature debate is the issue of what constitutes a 'real' need, as opposed to, say, a convenient but inessential want or self-indulgent extravagance. The underlying theme of this website is the overriding importance of the ecosphere and its 'needs' if it is to sustain life. People are of course part of ecosystems and they too have their needs. To what extent are individual needs innate, to what are they shaped by surrounding society and, whatever their source, how can they be harmonised with the demands of ecological sustainability?
Mainstream thinking veers towards the cornucopian, setting no limits to needs and desires. In turn, it has generated a 'demand society', where wants quickly sanctified as rights, mindless of the long-term effects on other peoples and other species. It is marked contrast to the traditional value systems of older cultures which often cherished modesty and self-restraint. The Marxist idea of 'to each according to his needs', for example, promises a blank cheque, regardless of the number of people to be satisfied or the nature of the expectations. In a limited world, it is little more than an eloquent suicide note.
More recently, there has been much talk about 'basic' and 'essential' needs. It has been triggered in part by the fact that conventional development schemes across Africa, Asia and Latin America not only have devastated local environments but also left poor sections of society poorer than before. The latter's needs were ignored or simply trampled upon in pursuit of 'modernisation'. At the very least, such thinking can provide a better framework-needs and needs satisfiers-than false idols such as gross national product or economic growth.
Abram, D. The Spell of the Sensuous: Human Perception in a More-Than-Human World. Pantheon, 1996.
Bateson, G. Mind and Nature: a Necessary Unity. Dutton, 1979.
Evernden, N. The Natural Alien. Univ. Toronto Pr., 1985
Kaplan R. & S. Kaplan. The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. Cambridge UP, 1989.
Kellert, S. Kinship to Mastery: Biophilia in Human Evolution and Development. Island Pr., 1997.
Kellert, S R & E.O. Wilson, eds. The Biophilia Hypothesis. Island Pr., 1993
Konner, M. The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. Perennial Books, 1983.
Lederer, K., et al. Human Needs. Oelgeschlager, 1980
Oelschaeger, M., ed. The Company of Others: Essays in Honour of Paul Shepard. Kivaki Pr., 1995.
Shepard, P. The Others: How Animals Made Us Human. Island Pr., 1995.
Watts, A. Nature, Man and Woman. Vintage, 1970.
Wilson, E.O. Biophilia. Harvard UP, 1984.
Consumerism and Its Costs
A major source of both environmental and social stress is the sheer quantity of energy and raw materials consumed by individuals across the richer sections of the world society. It has become a cliché, however, to say that 'we are all consumers. In one sense, this is true. People have been consuming resources since humanity first set foot on Earth. 'Consumerism', however, is a very different matter.
The meaning of consumerism might be made a bit clearer with a couple of examples. There is a give-away magazine called Innovations distributed occasionally with Sunday papers like The Observer. Ingredients of the good life according to Innovations range from Active Sun machines ('top up your tan') to foot snugglers ('a new use for your microwave cooker'). Equally revealing was a Sony advertisement which featured a smiling a two year old wearing a personal stereo machine, under the slogan 'His First Walkman'.
In a nutshell, consumerism equates more physical possessions with greater happiness. People define their identity and sense of fulfilment with what they consume or, perhaps, what they are seen to consume. In a way, it resembles bulimia: people gorge themselves on shopping sprees, and then 'purge' themselves in clear-outs of perfectly useful goods to the dustbin, to make way for the next round of binge shopping for the latest and most hyped novelties on the shelves.
The culture of consumerism is taking over an increasing portion of people's lives, not just in terms of time taken to travel to and from the superstore but also extra hours of work to compete in the rat-race. Even people not suffering from the 'keeping up with the Jones' idiocy find themselves locked on a treadmill on which they have to work harder and harder to afford the cars, the deep freezers, and the other gadgetry that allow them towork longer hours and commute further to work.
'Leisure' and shopping are becoming increasingly fused. Britain's biggest recent edge-of-town retail development, the Metro Centre on Tyneside, proclaims itself as a 'shopping and leisure experience', neatly uniting God and Mammon since the landlords used to be the Church of England Commissioners! Many people now spent large amounts of their sparetime in 'retail worlds' where people browse from shop to shop, buy the odd item, visit the leisure 'facility', pop into McDonalds or Burger King and then drive home. Not surprisingly, 'leisure' becomes not only an expensive but also a stressful experience. For those without work the choices are somewhat more restricted: they can only stare at the shop windows. This in turn contributes to a greater alienation and perhaps anti-social behaviour. As a result, people are having to devote more of their income to 'defensive spending' such the purchase of burglar alarms.
These trends are also creating a society based on 'round the clock' living. It is not only the environment that is suffering in terms of greater resource depletion, pollution and degradation. As, for example, a programme in the Horizon series on BBC TV showed, our minds and bodies need rest and re-creation: we are not biologically attuned to this way of life.
Add up all the other social and economic costs and it is not difficult to see why researchers for organisations like the European Commission are finding that, despite general increases in physical affluence, there has been no commensurate increase in contentment. Expectations and realities are diverging in ways that fuel a general unease and tension across society. The equation of consumerism-you are what you own and the more you own, the happier you will be-seems to be an unsustainable one.
It must be stressed that it is not long ago since a different ethos prevailed, with an emphasis on thrift, self-reliance and greater satisfactions from non-material things. Such values were not just the product of adversity in the poorer sections of the community but were common across society. Indeed there have been many communities as well as individuals who have opted consciously for more frugal lifestyle. The popular movie Witness portrays one such community, the Amish of Pennsylvania.
The transformation of western society and now large sections of the rest of the world owed a great deal to a conscious drive amongst manufacturers and retailed to create a culture of consumerism. The drive was aided by the simultaneous spread of radio, cinema, and then, of course, television. Consumerism created a society in which many people enjoyed more physical comforts and greater ease than their ancestors. But there were social, economic and environmental costs.
A constant flood of 'new' or 'improved' goods may hold out the promise of more satisfactions. Yet it could also promote greater dissatisfaction with what we already possess, leaving people more discontented than they were before. It could also render people less able or willing to trust their own skills and judgement. During, for example, one of the scares about contamination of jars of baby foods that seem to reoccur regularly, TV 'vox pop' programmes were full of anxious parents demanding to know how they were going to feed their children, something that humanity had been doing with modest success long before the birth of the baby food industry.
In all kinds of ways, then, from the rising level of personal debt to the unsustainable scale of resources demanded by current consumption patterns, the 'trappings' of affluence can turn into traps.
Connett, P. H. The Disposable Society. In F. H. Bormann & S. R. Kellert, eds. Ecology, Economics and Ethics, Yale UP, 1991.
Cross, G. Time and Money: The Making of Consumer Culture. Routledge, 1993. Durning, A. How Much is Enough? Earthscan, 1992. It poses the question that all conventional politics tend to shun, documenting the environmental costs and social dissatisfactions created by economic systems geared to ever higher consumption.
Easterlin, R. and E. Crimmins. Private Materialism, Personal Fulfilment, Family Life and Public Interest. Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 55, Winter, 1991: 499-533. A study of modern American youth.
Easterlin, R. Does Money Buy Happiness? Public Interest, 30, 1973: 3-10. An older survey of the evidence on the links between consumption and contentment. It seems that the number of Americans who describe themselves as happy has not changed significantly since the 1940s-even though, in the past 50 years, they, as a nation, have consumed more resources than all other peoples, past and present!
Ehrlich, P. & A. Ehrlich. Too Many Rich Folks. Populi, 16(3), 1989: 3-29.
Fox, R. & T. Jackson, eds. The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880-1980. Pantheon, 1983.
Goodwin, N. R. et al, eds. The Consumer Society. Island Pr., 1997
Herman, R. et al,. Dematerialisation. In Technology and Environment. National Academy Press, 1989.
Hirsch, F. The Social Limits to Growth. RKP, 1978. A major statement of the thesis that social position often depends on positional goods e.g. possession of the only cottage on an unspoilt beach and their value is eroded once more people possess them. An academic example of this phenomenon might be the drive to get a postgraduate qualification once lots of people have got a first degree, even though their occupation and future prospects 'objectively do not require it.
Holsworth, R. D. Public Interest Liberalism, and the Crisis of Affluence: Reflections on Nader, Environmentalism, and the Politics of a Sustainable Society. G.K. Hall, 1980
Kaza, S. The Not-So-Hidden Costs of Consumption. Wild Earth, Winter, 1997/98: 81-90.
Lansley, S. After the Gold Rush-The Trouble with Affluence. Henley Centre/Century Books, 1994. Useful evidence on the dissatisfactions of consumerism, focused mainly from the countries of the European Union.
Leipart, C. Social Costs of Economic Growth, Jnl of Econ. Issues 20(1), 1986: 109-131
Leiss, W. The Limits to Satisfaction. Marion Boyars, 1978. One of the best studies of the birth of consumer society and its contradictory features.
Miles, I. & Irvine, J., eds. The Poverty of Progress. Pergamon, 1982. Case studies of social discontent across a number of countries.
Miller, D. Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Basil Blackwell, 1987.
North, R. The Real Cost. Chatto & Windus, 1986. A look at the environmental costs of a number of household goods, clothes and foodstuffs
Packard, V. The Wastemakers. McKay, 1960. A classic study of planned obsolescence and other aspects of consumerism.
Samuelson, R. The Good Life and Its Discontents: The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement, 1945-1995. Times Books, 1995.
Schmookler, A.B. The Illusion of Choice: How the Market Economy Shapes Our Destiny. SUNY Pr., 1993.
Schrader-Frechette, K. Voluntary Simplicity And the Duty to Limit Consumption. In K. S. Schrader-Frechette, ed., Environmental Ethics, Boxwood Press, 1991.
Scitovsky, T. Human Desire and Economic Satisfaction. O.U.P., 1976.
Scitovsky, T. The Joyless Economy. OUP, 1976.
Seabrook J. The Race for Riches: The Human Cost of Wealth. Green Print, 1988. Seabrook tends towards a more romantic of traditional communities than is, perhaps, warranted but outlines the price being paid in the drive for greater material consumption, particularly in its 'privatised' form.
Seabrook, J. The Myth of the Market: Promise and Illusions .Green Books, 1990. A critique of the limits of consumer choice and the dictates of the so-called free market.
Seabrook, J.. Needs and Commodities. In P. Ekins, ed., The Living Economy, RKP, 1986.
Uusitalo, L,. The Environmental Impact of Consumption Patterns. Gower, 1986.
Wachtel, P. The Poverty of Affluence: A Psychological Portrait of the American Way of Life. Free Pr., 1983
Wilson, E.O. Biophilia. Harvard, 1984. This fundamental argument claims that there is a psychological and spiritual need to conserve biodiversity, not just a material one.
Zolotas, X.. Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare. World Bank, 1981.
Disneyfication
The Disney corporation and its works, especially its theme parks, embody the ersatz, oppressively managed, highly exploitative realm that some technocrats seem to regard as utopia.
Harrington, M. To the Disney Station. Harpers, Jan., 1979: 35-44.
Schickel, R. The Disney Version. Simon & Schuster, 1968.
Sterling, J. The World According to Disney. Earth Island, Summer, 1994: 32-33. Its theme parks and movies may be phoney but its environmental destructiveness and culture-blighting are all too real.
Disintegrating Family Structures
Nothing illustrates the crisis in social systems more starkly than the breakdown of the family-not the nuclear family, a highly volatile association, but the extended network of parents and relatives, a way of living characteristic of all stable communities. In many ways, the main victims are children. Different manifestations of this crisis include the divorce rate, domestic violence, delinquency, teenage pregnancy and the 'feral male' syndrome. So too is the excessive pressure on children to consume, to be style-conscious and otherwise conform to the dictates of the Growth Machine. Many grow in bedrooms that are little more than electronic cages. The Observer journalist, Melanie Phillips, has waged a valiant struggle through her regular Sunday column, to address such matters.
Henriksson, B. Not For Sale: Young People in Society. Aberdeen Univ. Pr., 1983.
Lasch, C. Haven in a Heartless world: the Family Beseiged. Basic Books, 1977.
Lasch, C. Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage and Feminism. Norton, 1995. Essays collected by the late historian and cultural critic's daughter, Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn.
Montague, P. The Obscenity of Accelerated Child-Development. The Ecologist,, 28(3), 1998: 140-142. Another example of the malign effects of our 'hothouse' society, demonstrating, once again, that faster and bigger are not more beautiful, in this case with the earlier onset of puberty.
Packard, V. Our Endangered Children. Little, Brown, 1983.
Postman, N. The Disappearance of Childhood. W.H. Allen
Zuckerman, M. 'Dr Spock: The Confidence Man' in Rosenberg, C. E., ed.. The Family in History 1975.
Cultural Homogenisation and Degradation
Evidence in the following suggests that a process of cultural degradation and moral entropy parallels the trashing of environmental systems. Part of this process is the spread of a self-indulgent and infantile culture. In this nation of dumbed down 'nitwits', individuals demand ever more rights but shirk responsibilities, living only for the present, with no notion of the future and only contempt for the past. Indeed, in extreme cases, people become nothing more than helpless victims dependent upon a whole array of therapeutic aids.
Cultural homogenisation is like monoculture in farming and forestry, with a blanket of sameness shrouding the uniqueness of different peoples and places. Clearly it is linked to technological change, especially the development of mass transportation and communication systems, global economic integration and, perhaps most significant in the long-run, the explosion of human numbers. Whatever the cause, it is another dangerous case of putting too many eggs in too few baskets.
The process has been called with justification 'McDonaldization' in which a bland uniformity spreads around the world. A massive contraction, for example, in linguistic diversity is taking place, with some 3,000 languages world-wide on the endangered list. There also seems to be an impoverishment in communication skills, of which today's political leaders provide stark testament (Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death provides further analysis and illustration, particularly of the role of media and computing technologies which many people hail as the basis of new information society). Perhaps another ugly term, 'stupefaction, might also describe this process.
It would appear at first sight that the dominant political ideologies approach the problems of modern society quite differently. On the one hand, there are the advocates of economic laissez-faire, and, on the other, adherents of social and cultural liberalism. Though one tendency condemns the other, they still share the same basic belief of 'doing your own thing'. They only differ over the best means-private market versus public provision-though even that divide is narrowing to almost nothing.
Both brands of 'permissiveness' need emotionally and economically weakened individuals on which to feed. Economic permissiveness is aided and abetted by social permissiveness, which encourages the notion of expanding needs. As a result, we are witnessing the spread of infantilism, an increasing number of child-adults, 'grown-ups' characterised by a childish desire for constant and immediate gratification, with an equally immature craving for innovation and novelty, paralleled by disdain for continuity and stability.
However, the consumption of more commodities and therapies do not guarantee lasting happiness; instead dissatisfaction and restlessness flourish. Together, economic liberalism and social permissiveness have generated demands which are bankrupting the Earth whilst, at the same time, undermining social stability and eroding individual self-reliance and self-esteem.
Abbs, P., ed. The Black Rainbow: Essays on the Present Breakdown of Culture. Heinemann, 1974.
Anon. Faking It: The Sentimentalisation of Modern Society. Social Affairs Unit, 1998. This British right-wing 'think tank' might not seem a likely source of goof thinking on sustainability but it makes some pertinent points in this study.
Barlow, M. & H-J. Robertson. The Americanisation of Canadian Education. The Ecologist, 27(4), 1997: 143-146
Bloom H. The Closing of the American Mind. Simon and Schuster, 1987. One may disagree with Bloom's definition of the cultural canon and his prescriptions but his indictment of the educational system, especially universities, provides sobering evidence of cultural degradation. David Orr's Ecological Literacy (SUNY, 1992), should be imbibed at the same time.
Bly, R. The Sibling Society. Looks at how society is becoming dominated by adults who squabble like little children.
Collins, M. Tears'R'Use. The Guardian, 19/1/98. Looks at the role of the media in the self-indulgent 'crying game'.
Fussell, P. Bad or the Dumbing of America. Simon & Shuster, 1991
Himmelfarb, G. The De-Moralisation of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values. Vintage, 1996.
Hoggart, R. The Way We Live Now. Pimlico, 1995
Hughes, R. Culture of Complaint. Harvill, 1994
Ignatieff, M. Cleverness Is All. Independent, 7/1/89., p25. Critique of today '3-minute culture' of instant gratification, something others have called' blip' culture.
Lasch, C. The Culture of Narcissism. Sphere, 1980. A study by an American historian of a tendency in modern society of people to 'turn in' on themselves. Clearly a stronger sense on 'Me' can express itself on more spending on oneself and selfish disregard of others.
McKibben. B. The Age of Missing Information. Plume, 1993.
Miller, D. Worlds Apart: Modernity Through the Prism of the Local. Routledge, 1995. Some views on the globalisation of culture and institutions.
Pietila, H. The Villages in Finland Refuse to Die. The Ecologist, 27(5), 1997: 178-181. Case study of how 'development' flattens the vitality of local culture as well local environments.
Porter, H. Trivial Pursuit. The Guardian, 1/2/96, G2, p2-3. Feature reviewing various books on the process of dumbing down.
Queenan, J. America: A Descent into the Land of Red Lobster, White Trash, The Blue Lagoon and Other Cultural Atrocities. Picador, 1998. Its title alone demands inclusion.
Ritzer, G. The McDonaldization of Society. Pine Forge Press/Sage, 1993. The standardisation and centralised control of lifestyles, epitomised by a food chain at the heart-and stomach-of much modern living.
Selbourne, D. The Principle of Duty. Sinclair-Stevenson,1994. In part, a critique of the modern habit of demanding rights but shunning responsibilities, something incompatible with the principles of interconnectedness and balance central to ecological sustainability.
Twitchell, J. Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America. Columbia UP, 1992.
Vidal, J. The Rise and Rise of Ronald McDonald, The Observer, 6/4/97, Review section, p5
Washburn, K. & J. Thornton, eds. Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip-Mining of American Culture. Norton, 1998.
The Wisdom of the 'Old Ways'
There is no need to romantise the past to appreciate that often people did find sustainable and convivial ways of organising their livelihoods. There was much ignorance and superstitition but also much understanding of the cycles of life due to the close connection between people and their environments, something destroyed when encased in technological cocoons. These vernacular ways, be it cultivation techniques, building methods, health care and many other areas of life, did not disappear simply they were inferior to the latest technological 'miracle'. Often vested economic interests and equally narrow intellects progressively undermined viable systems, substituting what turned out to be disastrous replacements. The giant tower blocks dreamed up by architects and planners are one monument to the folly of thinking that new means better. The following references provide a few instances that show the need to cultivate a more respectful attitude towards the past and far greater modesty about the accomplishments of ou own times. The wisdom they spotlight is, of course, lost once the communities that developed it are themselves destroyed.
Agarwal, A & S. Narain. Dying Wisdom: The Decline and Revival of Traditional Water Harvesting Systems in India. The Ecologist, 27(3), 1997: 112-116. The old ways can provide a more sustainable alterantive than mad megaprojects such as dams.
Fathy, H. Architecture for the Poor. Univ. Chicago Pr., 1973. Architecture based on traditional methods is shown to be more sustainable, more human-scale, cheaperand more beautiful than modern concrete blocks.
Goldsmith, E. Learning to Live with Nature: The Lessons of Traditional Irrigation. The Ecologist 28(3), 1998: 162-170.
Payn, W. Oh Happy Countryman-A Suffolk Memoir. Book Guild, 1994. There is a burgeoning market for rose-tinted nostalgia about the traditional English countryside but this memoir paints a vivid picture of the community values and practicals lost in the wake of the bulldozer and combined harvester.
Pereira, W. Tending the Earth: Traditional Sustainable in India Earthcare Books (India), 1993.
Rudofsky, B. Architecture Without Architects. Academic Publications, 1964.
Cultural Extinction
One dimension of cultural homogenisation is the bulldozing of pre-industrial societies, be they hunter-gatherers and more settled communities. Usually, this process goes hand in hand with the invasion, often funded by the World Bank, of mining, logging, HEP development, pipeline construction, highways, cattle ranching, transmigration schemes and, thus, ecological degradation. Not only are human rights being trampled upon and whole environments torn apart but global society is losing a storehouse of wisdom and skill of what rightly have called "vanishing experts". The notion of the 'noble savage' living in some idyll may be a silly one-many pre-industrial peoples wiped out whole species and engaged in some horrible social practices-yet there are also many more examples of peoples sustainably and convivially adapted to their habitats. Often they were the first people to settle there and thus co-evolved with those places. Some developed forms of democracy that outshine 'modern' institutions Their loss of cultural identity is as much a long-term death sentence as the immediate physical violence to which they are also being subjected. The issue of land rights is a complex one, not least since some tribal groups simply want a slice of the (destructive) action. All claims must be judged against their ecological sustainability. But there should be no doubt about the evils of the current onslaught against surviving 'first peoples'.
Adamson, F. Focus on the Kurds; a Divided and Endangered People. Humanitas, 1, 1990: 4-5.
Anon. Indians of the Americas. Survival International, 1992.
Bunyard. P. Guardians of the Forest: Indigenous Policies in the Columbian Amazon. The Ecologist, 19(6), 1989: 225-258.
Burger, J. The Gaia Atlas of First Peoples. Robertson McCarta, 1990.
Colchester, M. Indian Development in Amazonia: Risks and Strategies. The Ecologist, 19(6), 1989: 249-254.
Davids S. Victims of the Miracle: Development and the Indians of Brazil. Cambridge UP, 1977.
Durning, A. Guardians of the Land: Indigenous Peoples and the Health of the Planet. WorldWatch, 1992.
Mander, J. In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. Sierra, Books, 1992. Includes some excellent history as well as a comprehensive survey of the state of first peoples today, alongside an indictment of the whole machine of 'progress'.
Matthiessen, P. Indian Country. Flamingo, 1986. An angry and moving account of the on-going plight of the North American Indian peoples. See, also, his In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (Penguin, 1991) for an exposé of government repression in the Dakotas.
Morris, B. Deforestation in India and the Fate of Forest Tribes. The Ecologist, 1696)), 1986: 253-257.
Outerbridge, T. The Disappearing Chinampas of Xochimilco. The Ecologist, 17(2), 1987: 76-83. Mexican case study.
Turnbull, C. The Forest People. Chatto & Windus, 1961. Famous study of tribal groups in Congo jungle.
Young, E. Third World in the First: Development and Indigenous People. Routledge, 1995. Canadian and Australian case studies.
There are some telling histories of the fate of first peoples. See, for example:
Brown, D. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Picador, 1975. A classic story of the North American native peoples.
Debo, A. A History of the Indians of the United States. Pimlico, 1995.
Wilson, J. The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America. Pimlico, 1998.
Wright, R. Stolen Continents. Pimlico, 1993. Case studies of destroyed civilisations in the Americas.
With regard to the wisdom we can learn form some vernacular cultures, see, for examples:
Booth, A. & H. Jacobs. Ties That Bind: Native American Beliefs as a Foundation for Environmental Consciousness. Environmental Ethics, Spring, 1990:27-43.
Callicott, J. Baird. Traditional American Indian and Western European Attitudes Toward Nature. Environmental Ethics, Winter, 1982: 293-318.
Goldsmith, E. Ethnocracy: The Lesson from Africa. The Ecologist, 10(4), 1980: 134-140
Margolin, M., ed.. The Way We Lived. Heyday Books, 1981.
Miller, L., ed.. From the Heart: Voices of the American Indian. Pimlico, 1995.
Moody, R., ed.. The Indigenous Voice. (2 vols.). Zed, 1988.
Norberg-Hodge, H. Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh. Sierra Books, 1991.
Posey, D. Alternatives to Forest Destruction: Lessons from the Mebengokre Indians. The Ecologist, 19(6), 1989: 241-244.
Reichel-Domatoff, G. The Forest within; The World-View of the Tukano Amazonian Indians. Themis books, 1996.
Suzuki, D. & P. Knudtson. Wisdom of the Elders: Honoring Sacred Native Visions of Nature. Bantam, 1992.
Ecologically informed correctives to cultural traditionalism and romantic nostalgia, what has been called 'paraprimitivism', can be sampled in:
Diamond, J. The Golden Age that Never Was. Discover, 9(12), 1989: 70-79.
Haupt, L. Feather and Fossils; Hawaiian Extinctions and Modern conservation. Wild Earth, Spring, 1996:44-49. How habitat destruction and species extinction in Hawaii predated the arrival of Europeans, let alone today's hordes of tourists.
Martin, P. S. Pleistocene Overkill. Natural History, 76 (10), 1967: 32-38
Orton, D. Rethinking Environmental-First Nations Relationships. Canadian Dimension, Feb.-March,, 1995:11-15. Focus on the land rights issue, arguing that all claims need to be subjected to ecological testing.
Sarkar, S. Don't Look Back. Real World, 14 (Summer), 1994: 14.
Time Treadmill
Time provides a classic instance of the difference between nature (day and night, lunar cycles, the seasons etc..) and human constructs (calendars, timetables etc.). The following document how contemporary society, especially, in the guise of 'round-the-clock' lifestyles, is pressuring people in the way time is becoming an increasingly scarce 'resource', just like many other resources we use.
Aveni, A. .F. Empires of Time: Calendars, Clocks and Cultures. Basic Books, 1989.
Cross, G. Time and Money: The Making of Consumer Culture. Routledge, 1993. How mass production, technological innovation and advertising create a frantic work-and-spend-and-work treadmill.
Linder, S. The Harried Leisure Class. Columbia Univ. Pr., 1970. An interesting anticipation of an increasingly common phenomenon-people who perceive themselves to live in an affluent, leisure-oriented society but who constantly complain of being short of time.
Martin, E. Flexible Bodies: Health and Work in an Age of Systems. The Ecologist, 25(6), 1995: 221-226.
Rifkin, J. Time Wars. Touchstone, 1989.
Schor, J.B. The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure. Basic Books, 1992.
Whitelegg, J. Time Pollution. The Ecologist, 23(4), 1993: 132-134. A major consumer of time is the machine designed to save time, motor transport.
A Motoring Microcosm.
The private motor car epitomises modern society. No other single technology has done so much damage at such speed to the face of the Earth nor transformed the way we live. It is both a reflection and a cause of the drive towards the breakdown of communities, consumerism and the throwaway society. Its hold over modern lifestyles and values is explored in:
Flink, J. Car Culture. MIT Pr., 1975.
Rae, J. The Road & the Car in American Life. MIT Pr., 1971.
Silk, G., ed. Automobile & Culture. Abrams, 1984.
Zuckerman, W. End of the Road: The World Car Crisis and How We Can Solve It Chelsea Green, 1991
Greener Lifestyles
Although this website is primarily about collective responses to the ecological challenge, personal lifestyle choices clearly count as well. It would be hypocritical to denounce other perpetrators of waste and destruction without taking steps in one's own lifestyle to tread more lightly on the Earth. Without such changes from 'below', governmental action from 'above' is likely to be as successful as Prohibition was against alcohol consumption in the USA.
In a letter to The Ecologist (no. 26(2), 1996: 80), Tim Keating of Rainforest Relief, made the point well. Referring to a conference against globalisation, the excessive power of corporations and the destruction they cause, he noted the following. "For lunch, attendees guzzled Minute Maid orange juice (a Coca Cola product from juice concentrate and shipped from Brazil), Pepsi (a cola from West African plantations on former rainforest land, using massive amounts of chemicals, manufactured by PepsiCo, one of the worse global offenders), in aluminium cans (from Australia or Venezuela, necessitating World Bank loans for hydro dams and bauxite mines), and coffee (perhaps, also from Brazil, grown on cleared rainforest, with even more chemicals than the cola), in a disposal paper cups (from pulp clear-cut from old growth forests in Eastern Canada).
Our society is not so monolithic that enlightened choices are impossible. Most people in richer countries like the UK could afford to pay a few extra pence for, say, free-range as opposed to battery-produced eggs. Indeed, changes in their lifestyles can lead to better health, greater enjoyment, lower costs, especially in the longer term whilst reduced impacts upon the environment and less cruelty to other creatures. Such changes are a practical and realistic step forward, making a positive contribution, no matter how small, to safeguarding the future. As the saying goes, it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
Such activity also puts pressure upon both governments and businesses. No longer can they use the excuse that there is no demand amongst voters and consumers for change. Correspondingly, those politicians and entrepreneurs who have made genuine efforts to 'green' their ways receive the reinforcement they deserve.
There are, however, very real limits, under current circumstances, to the changes individuals can make to the way they live. It is not easy to give up the daily drive to work when there are no buses or other alternative means of transport available. There are also unfortunately plenty of examples of 'alternative' communities and other initiatives which have come to grief.
The 'greening' of the institutional structures that moulds so much of our living-the fiscal régime, regulatory frameworks, planning systems, schooling, the media etc.-will help to make personal lifestyle change easier, more successful and more likely. Strategies to change individuals and to change society are actually just different sides of one coin-one should reflect and encourage the other.
So typical of the discourse dominant today, few of the following refer to the most critical single lifestyle choice adults can make-to parent fewer offspring.
Button, J. How to be Green. Century, 1989.
Christensen, K. Home Ecology. Arlington, 1989.
Gold, M. Living Without Cruelty. Green Print, 1988.
Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and the Environment, Netherlands. The Best of Both Worlds: Sustainability and Quality Lifestyles in the 21st Century. Environmental Resources Limited, 1993. A fascinating Dutch government analysis of the role of individual consumers in the transition to a more sustainable society.
Newkirk, L. Save the Animals. Angus, 1991.
Rifkin, J., ed. The Green Lifestyle Handbook. Henry Holt, 1990.
Seabrook, J. Frontiers in Change: Experiments in Creating A Humane Society. RKP, 1993.
Schwarz, W. and D. Schwarz. Breaking Through: The Theory and Practice of Wholistic Living. Green Books, 1987.
Bureaucratisation and Professional Colonisation
Across society, both private and public organisations have fallen victim to the cult of management, whose priesthood speak in a weird babble and spend most of their time in one pointless meeting after another (when they are not burdening their minions with another worthless questionnaire whose main purpose is to justify their own-overpaid-managerial 'role'). The parasitic nature of this burgeoning army of managers is, however, less harmful than its arrogant presumptions and its corresponding devaluation of the experiences and skills of ordinary people, not least those who actually do the work. Perhaps Britain's BBC, under the 'leadership' of Mr John Birt, epitomises such trends at their worst.
Under such regimes, people become clients (rather than users) of professionals who, in effect, colonise aspects of human experience. The word client itself comes from the Latin for 'dependent'. We have experts on birth, childhood, youth, middle age, retirement and even death (or rather bereavement. As John McKnight says, 'the seven ages of man are replaced by the seven crises of man. The meaning of life is defined by a series of crises, and each attracts its own band of helpers and institutions'. Everything from job satisfaction to conflict resolution becomes the remit of one specialist or another. Professional organisations multiply, and admittance to them is gained by a parallel explosion in paper qualifications which certify an individual's competence in what, so often, human beings have always done reasonably successfully.
When 'service technologies' take over the field of human needs, people themselves tend to be disempowered. Traditional knowledge and the skills of uncertified practitioners become suspect. The point is not that folk wisdom contains all the answers. Rather it is that possession of a Degree in Management and Strategic Planning might be just as much a set of blinkers as other form of ignorance. At least, most traditional quacks were usually modest folk and didn't try to create whole new paper empires.
Professions assume authority, diagnosing our needs and prescribing their remedies. They set the standards by which they are to be judged. It is in their self- interest to ensure maximum public funding and minimum public accountability. The professional armies of accountants, estate agents, human resource managers, investment advisors, lawyers, management consultants, strategic planners, therapists and the like all need an increasing number of clients to 'serve' and new areas of life into which they can expand. If you are not sick, you are pre-sick and therefore need attention and check-ups. This ever-spreading 'clienthood' throughout life is a far cry from the notion of self-reliant citizenry.
Elgin, D. & R. Bushnell. The Limits To Complexity. The Futurist, Dec., 1977: 337-349
Henderson, H., 1974. The Entropy State, Planning Review 2/3: 1-4. How expansion puts excessive strains on the social fabric, whose maintenance and repair becomes progressively more expensive.
Illich, I. et al. Disabling Professions. Marion Boyars, 1977.
McKnight, J. et al. Big Brother in a Box. The New Ecologist, 5, 1978: 158-160. Another attack on professionalisation.
Zuckerman, M. 'Dr Spock: The Confidence Man' in Rosenberg, C. E., ed.. The Family in History 1975.
Ecological Perspectives On Social Inequality
Anyone concerned about sustainability must address exploitation and oppression between and within countries. Its most savage form is the desperate poverty experienced by an estimated one billion people living in what sometimes is called the 'South'. Concern about their suffering is of course found in many circles. However the ecological perspective brings a number of distinctive perceptions to the problem.
First, there is the rejection of the model of the industrialised countries as the goal for the Third World. Associated development projects are equally rejected as well as the theoretical rationale provided for current patterns of trade and aid (e.g. theories of 'take-off' and 'trickle-down'). Second is the link made between the affluence of the 'developed' world and the widespread poverty in 'developing' countries. Lastly, there is the willingness to accept the implications for lowered per capita consumption levels amongst richer sections of global so-ciety (encapsulated in the widely used slogan of 'Live more simply so that they simply might live').
Similarly, political ecology takes a stand on inequality and discrimination within countries. Point four of the platform of Deep Ecology put forward by Naess (1973) is what he calls the 'anti-class posture'. Part of the 'ethic of life' described by Birch and Cobb is to provide 'equal, and in some cases compensatory, opportunities for those sub-cultures to which these opportunities have for so long been denied' (1974, p165). They define equality as 'the maximum opportunity to develop to the full his or her talents and to promote the richest possible experience for all' as well as a 'sharing of the cost of life', each carrying the load 'proper to one's capacity and vocation' (p206). Characteristic 6 of their 'sustainable society' is 'an equable distribution of what is in scarce supply and ..a common opportunity to participate in social decisions' (p245). The underprivileged sections of society gain the least from growth-oriented development policies and suffer the worst effects of pollution, human-caused floods, landslips and other environmental 'backlashes'.
Attacks upon prejudice and discrimination based upon occupation, gender, race and physical (dis)ability are of course central to other intellectual and political traditions. The ideal world painted by Ehrlich and Harriman (1971), for example, in which each human being has an adequate diet, shelter, health care and freedom from pollution (p13) and in which everyone must be assured of the fruits of sharing success (p76), is shared by many (though it is worth citing since it is equally commonplace to accuse environmentalists like Ehrlich of elitism and, more generally, of ignoring social issues.
The distinctive feature of ecocentrism is the link made between the limits to growth in the demands placed upon environmental systems by society as a whole and the limits to the growth of differentials within society. Georgescu-Roegen (1977) notes that the human society alone seems to feature social inequalities unrelated to biological differences. Humanity's increasing 'addiction' to 'exosomatic organs' (machines etc.) created the basis for disputes over the use of those devices and the distribution of their produce. He spotlights the way that those engaged in unproductive labour have come to constitute the economically privileged classes, creating what he calls 'the abusive growth of special privileges' (as opposed to an optimal distribution of national income, assumed by economists such as Walras). The conflicts that thus generated cannot be solved by an exclusive reliance upon the price mechanism and financial transfers. Furthermore, further industrialisation is likely to sharpen, not ease, social conflict.
Porritt (1984) notes how economic growth has been used as a means of avoiding the issue of inequality. Redistribution, he argues, is 'a precondition for any transition to a stable society' (p138). Otherwise, those who are now underprivileged have no reason to support such a change since a growth-oriented society offers the promise of personal betterment, if not the actuality (Dieren and Hummelinck, 1979, especially Ch. 14). Only if everyone is making the same 'sacrifice' can there be a hope of popular support for stabilisation.
Daly (1977) makes this argument even more explicit. He argues that the 'critical institution is likely to be the minimum and maximum limits on income and the maximum limit on wealth' (p53). Johnson (in Johnson and Hardesty, eds., 1971) argues that a guaranteed minimum personal income is necessary 'to limit production and to remove the necessity of maintaining continuous economic growth' (p115) at the same time as enabling individuals to have the same opportunity to go their own way in lifestyle choices.
Last but not least is the link between discriminatory practices within society and the ways in which we value both people and the environment. It has been most forcefully made by feminist writers who claim that women and nature both have been 'objectified' and treated as something there to be tamed and exploited.
Bullard, R. Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class & Environmental Quality. Westview, 1990.
Bullard, R., eds. Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice & Communities of Colour. Sierra Books, 1994.
Burch, W. The Peregrine Falcon & the Poor: Some Sociological Interrelations. In P. Richerson & J. McEvoy, eds. Human Ecology: An Environmental Approach. Duxbury, 1976.
Georgescu-Roegen, N. Inequality, Limits and Growth from a Bioeconomic Point of View. Rev. Soc. Econ. 3, 1977: 361-375.
Sklar, H. Chaos or Community? Seeking Solutions, Not Scapegoats for Bad Economics. South End Pr., 1995. American critique of the mean-mindedness of blaming the poor for poverty.
Defenders of conventional development strategies often argue that environmentalism is élitist, trying to pull up the ladder, leaving the poor to their fate. Yet the poor not only gain least the 'fruits' of economic growth but only suffer disproportonately from the effluents of affluence. See, for example:
Ehrlich, P. & R. Harriman. How to be a Survivor: A Plan to Save Spaceship Earth. Pan, 1971. An early programe for sustainability, with a strong emphasis on equity, contrary to the claims of detractors.
Love, S. Ecology and Social Justice: Is There a Conflict. Environmental Action, Aug., 1972: 3-6
Pope, C. Growth and the Poor. Sierra Club Bulletin, 3, 1975: 7-11, 30-31.
Economics
Economics-General
To medieval people the construction of a cathedral like Notre Dame in Paris was a perfectly rational thing to do. Nowadays it would be dismissed as 'uneconomic', and this dreaded and solemn word would close the argument. Banks and government treasuries hold the whip-hand in decision-making in every sphere of life, and the ideology of economics is paramount. This framework, which dominates mainstream economic theory, is based, however, on a number of false premises: that human psychology is 'naturally' aggressive and selfish, that society as nothing more than a random conglomerate of individuals that progress is one and the same thing as an ever-expanding consumption of material goods, that efficiency means the making of more monetary profit, that technology as the midwife of prosperity and happiness, and, above all else and most dangerously, that nature is but an endless treasure chest, there for the taking.
Economic models from the Marxist to the Monetarist share many of these premises. Above all they share the same goal- greater material consumption. Both seek to set spinning an endless cycle of supply and demand. These two might be brought together by state planning or by the market economy, but the assumption is the same. Consequently economic policy has not been rooted in the realities of the biophysical world.
In recent years it is the market model which has exerciced the far greater influence. What rival purchasers are prepared to spend on a particular item may indicate how much they value it. At that level, the market mechanism is a quick and efficient tool for expressing individual preferences. Bureaucratic devices such as rationing, by contrast, tend to be cumbersome, expensive, and prone to corruption. As a basis for social decision-making, however, the virtues of buying and selling are offset by many vices. Bidding can only take place between bidders, and therefore the market only reflects the preferences of those alive today. Those with enough money can command that foodstuffs are grown to feed their pets rather than starving human beings. The needs of those yet to be born cannot be expressed in such a setting. It cannot cope.with absolute scarcities, nor can it deal with commodities upon which it is impossible to put a price, such as clean air. In reality, truly free markets have never existed for any length of time, nor ever will. The inbuilt tendency for larger economic units to drive out smaller ones creates conditions in which the rules of the market are drawn up to suit the major enterprises that dominate it. What's good for General Motors has been good for neither society nor environment.
Most recently, the failings of neo-liberal approaches-the wreckage of long established industries, the break-up of local communities and the destruction of one environment after another-have revived interest in more direct forms of government intervention in the economy, including programmes of public works, instead of abandoning everything to the vagaries of the market and the 'casino' economy. Yet economic policies based upon the management of aggregate demand in the economy can be as flawed as the 'supply-side' fixes in vogue a few year's ago.
In the 1920s and 30s, the economist Keynes, for example, proposed that the government make good deficiencies in demand in the market and thereby get the wheels of industry turning again. Yet the biggest Keynesian experiment, President Roosevelt's New Deal in pre-war America, did not deliver sustained economic recovery. The American economy dipped back into a slump in 1937 and only recovered due to the rearmament programme as war approached. (Weapons production, abetted by huge public subsidy to the leading corporations, did not produce the problems of saturated markets resulting from other forms of 'pump-priming') The New Deal's public works dealt massive blows to America's environment-its flagship, the Tennessee Valley Authority, for example, devastated local ecosystems and any gains, for example, in flood control, proved to be temporary.
There is a vital role for public investment but not on the basis of indiscriminate expansion of demand in the economy. By putting more pressure upon ecological systems, continual Keynesian pump-priming would dry out the well of real wealth creation. Contrary to Keynes, the real crisis is not one of underconsumption, but of overconsumption. Like all 'grey' economists from Marx to Milton Friedman, Keynes did not understand that the human economy merely transforms what is made available by ecological system, inevitably creating waste by-products in the process. Not only do ecological systems provide the means of production, they also furnish the conditions for production-all those 'life-support' services which make the Earth habitable. They are not endlessly malleable nor are they replicable.
There are very real limits to human borrowings from ecological systems and to their assimilation of our wastes. These limits might be summed up as the three Es - Earth (finite amount of sheer physical space), Entropy (inevitable losses in any conversion of energy and matter) and Ecology (the checks and balances between different parts of ecosystems). Resource depletion, ecological degradation and pollution are the direct side-effects of economic activity: the greater its scale, the greater the recession of the Earth's life-support systems.
The two industries used as barometers of economic performance-car manufacture and the construction industry-illustrate the ecological unrealities of growth-oriented policies. More vehicles mean more pollution and more land lost to road and associated development. Each year, for example, an area of countryside equivalent to the land occupied by Norwich, Exeter and Southampton is buried under tarmac and concrete. Yet the government's 1992 budget halved new car tax to boost sales and the Opposition's response to the DAF Leyland closure was to demand more aid to keep the lorries rolling out.
Fiscal and tax changes might just squeeze out another surge in economic output. It would not lead to significant falls in unemployment since employers would invest in labour-saving technologies. Hoover's transfer of work from France to Scotland virtually halved the original workforce. Such restructuing is being accompained by a greater use of casual (and therefore dispensable) labour. In supposedly advanced areas like Silicon Valley, 33% of workers are now temporary staff and lacking the status and security of full-time employees. We cannot grow our way out of the crisis of un- and under-employment.
Furthermore, in a finite and interconnected world, the strategy of increased international competitiveness is one of mutually assured destruction. The Tory strategy for the British economy, one which new Labour seems to be following, is one of industrial scavenging: grabbing what it can from transnational corporations like Toyota. In the process, workers' wages, benefits and rights are lowered below those of rival host countries. The profits made by such firms are still repatriated, while 'screwdriver' economies, assembling other people's products and ideas, are less secure than self-reliant ones. This game is really one of beggar myself to beggar my neighbour. By supporting further integration into the world market, Labour and America's Democrats are little better than that of the Tories and the Republicans. Even for the 'winners' in the race for economic growth, the fruits turned out to be not as enjoyable as expected. Surveys show that economic growth does not leave people any happier.
Boulding, K. The Economics of the Coming Spaceship. In Jarret, H., ed. Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy. John Hopkins UP, 1966. Pioneering critique of smash & grab 'cowboy economics'.
Christenson, P. Historical Roots for Ecological Economics: Biophysical Versus Allocative Approaches. Ecological Economics, 11:, 1989 17-36
Cleveland, C., et al. Energy & the US Economy: A Biophysical Perspective. Science, 225, 1984: 890-897
Constanza, R., ed. Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability. Columbia UP, 1991. A broad-ranging collection, uniting many of the big name writers and researchers in the field.
Daly, H. Growth Economics and the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness. American Behav. Scientist, 24/1, 1980: 79-105
Daly, H. The Economic Growth Debate: What Some Economists Have Learned But Many Have Not. Jnl. Environ, Econs and Management, 14, 1985: 323-336
Daly, H. & J. Cobb For the Common Good. Green Print, 1990. More a collection of essays and sometimes a bit obtuse in style but nevertheless a key book.
Daly, H. & K. Townsend. Economics, Ecology, Ethics. MIT Pr., 1993. Excellent collection, with some older but far from dated articles, attacking economic growthmania and putting the steady-state alternative.
Daly, H. & A. Umana, eds. Energy, Economics & Environment. Westview, 1980.
Dieren, W. van & Hummelinck. Natures Price: The Economics of Mother Earth. Marion Boyars, 1979. A useful Dutch study, the final chapter of which paints an interesting picture of a sustainable society.
Ekins, P. The Environmental Sustainability of Economic Processes: A Framework for Analysis. Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge, Discussion Paper 1, 1992.
Engler, A. Apostles of Greed: Capitalism & the Myth of the Individual in the Market. 1995.
Georgescu-Roegen, N., 1979. Methods in Economic Science. Jnl of Economic Issues, XIII 2, 1979: 317-328. His other writings are listed in the general section of the guide under Limits To Growth
Goodland, R. & C. Ledec. Neoclassical Economics & Sustainable Development. Ecological Modelling, 28, 1987: 19-46.
Gorz, A. Critique of Economic Reason. Verso, 1989. A broadside from one of the few neo-Marxists who seems to have taken on board many ecological perspectives.
Hall, C.A.S. et al. Energy & Resource Quality: The Ecology of the Economic Process. Wiley, 1986.
Hall, C.A.S. Sanctioning Resource Depletion: Economic Development and Neo-Classical Economics. The Ecologist, 20/3, 1990: 99-104
Hamilton, C. The Mystic Economist. 1994. Critique of the failure of conventional economics to integrate ethical concerns.
Henderson, H. Paradigms in Progress: Life Beyond Economics. Knowledge Systems, 1991.
Lux, K. Adam Smith's Mistake. Shambhala, 1990.
Manser, R. Going West: Market Reform and Environment in Eastern Europe. The Ecologist, 24(1), 1994: 27-32.
Manes, C. Free Marketeers Cross Swords with Traditional Environmentalists. Wild Earth, Spring, 1995: 8-10. Critique of the notion, sometimes called the 'new resource economics', that a free market and private property rights are the best tools for conservation.
Meadows, D. Equity, The Free Market and the Sustainable State. In D. Meadows, ed., Alternatives to Growth 1, Ballinger, 1976.
Mishan, E.J. Economic Myths and the Mythology of Economics Wheatsheaf, 1986.
Mishan E.J. Economic and Political Obstacles to Sanity. Nat. West Bank Quarterly Rev., May, 1990: 25-42
Mishan, E.J. The Costs of Economic Growth. OUP, 1993. A new edition of a classic which combined an environmental and social critique of pro-growth economic policy.
Norgaard, R.B. Economic Indicators of Resource Scarcity: A Critical Scarcity. Jnl Environmental Economics & Management, 19, 1990: 19-25
Paepke, O. The Evolution of Progress: The End of Economic Growth and the Beginning of Human Transformation. Random House, 1993.
Plant, C., and Plant, J., eds. Green Business: Hope or Hoax. New Society Publishers, 1990.
Robertson, J. Future Wealth: New Economics for the Twenty First Century. Cassell, 1990.
Sagoff, M. The Economy of the Earth. CUP, 1988. A wide-ranging critique of economic thinking, especially of the dangers of using 'economic efficiency' as some sort of objective benchmark of goodness.
Schumacher, F. Small is Beautiful .Abacus, 1973.
Singh, N. Economics and the Crisis of Ecology. OUP, 1978.
See under Ideas for more references on economic theory per se.
Economics: Government Spending Patterns, Exploitation of Public Lands & Ecological Sustainability
Dunkiel, B. How Government Tax Subsidies Destroy Habitat. Wild Earth, Summer, 1997: 69-71
Hilliard, T., et al. Golden Patents, Empty Pockets. Mineral Policy Centre (Wash., DC). How mining, once of most destructive human activities, has been subsidised and otherwise feather-bedded in the USA.
Jacobs, L. Waste of the West: Public Lands Ranching. Jacobs, 1992.
McGrory-Klyza, C. Who Controls Public Lands? Mining , Forestry, and Grazing Policies, 1870-1990. Univ. North Carolina Pr., 1996.
Myers, N. With J. Kent. Perverse Subsidies& Taxes Undercutting Our Economies and Environments. IISD/Greenleaf Publishing, 1998.
Nader, R. It's time To end Corporate Welfare. Earth Island, Fall, 1996: 36-37..
Roodman, D. Public Money & Human Purpose Worldwatch, 8(5), 1995: 10-19. How taxes and subsidies have been used to underwrite ecological destruction.
Zepezauer, M & A. Naiman. Take the Rich Off Welfare. Odonian Pr., 1997. How rich individuals and corporations are subsidised in their wasteful and destructive activities., with American military waste and fraud costing $172 billion per annum.
Economics: Market 'Reform', Deregulation and and Privatisation
Anon. The Privatisation Network: The Multinationals Bid for Public Services. The Public Services Privatisation Research Unit (London), 1996.
Bowers, J. Water Privatisation & the Environment. Economic Review, 8(3), 1991: 9-14.
Collins, J. & J. Lear. Chile's Free-Market Miracle: A Second Look. Food First Books (USA), 1995. Chile was a laboratory for 'unlocking the shackles of the state' and 'liberating the energy of free enterprise'-with disastrous results.
Edmonds, R. Patterns of China's Lost Harmony: A Survey of the Country's Environental Degradation and Protection. Routledge, 1994. China is the biggest laboratory for market-led 'reform' and evidence of this grave costs.
Elliot, L. & M. Atkinson. Picking up the Tab for Past Policy Blunders. The Guardian, 13/3/98: 17. 'Analysis feautre which documents, inter alia, the costs to the public of privatisation.
Gordon, S. Down The Drain: Water, Pollution & Privatisation. Optima, 1989.
Hildyard, N. Public risk, Private Profit: The World Bank and he Private Sector. The Ecologist, 26(4), 1996: 176-178. Aid is now being privatised and the process will aid the already rich.
Martin, B. From the Many to the Few: Privatisation and Globalisation. The Ecologist, 26(4), 1996: 145-154.
Manser, R. Going West: Market Reform and Environment in Eastern Europe. The Ecologist, 24(1), 1994: 27-32.
Nagiecki, J. Bread and Freedom: Agriculture in Poland. The Ecologist, 26(1), 1996; 13-18. Like former-Comunist countries, Poland is undergoing economic 'liberation', but it is not taking her down the road to sustainability.
Schofield, R. & J. Shaoul. Regulating the Water Industry: Swimming Against the Tide or Going through the Motions. The Ecologist, 27(1), 1997: 6-13.
Smith, R. Getting Rich is Glorious. The Ecologist, 25(1), 1995: 14-15. More evidence of market-driven destruction in China
Surrey, J., ed. The British Electricity Experiment: Privatisation, The Record, The Issues, the Lessons. Earthscan, 1996
Desperately Seeking Investment
One of the mantra of modern economics, worshipped by most politicians, is that economic well-being depends upon the attraction of investment from outside. As a result, local councils, regional organisations and entire countries often end up fighting each other, trying to out bribe foreign companies to open plants in their localities. It is a game of beggar myself to beggar my neighbour. As a result the public is paying to import foreign industry which, once in operation, repatriates its profits abroad. Comparatively few jobs are created per pound spent. Planning rules and other 'constraints' are whittled away, often under the banner of 'enterprise zones'. Often working conditions and workers' rights are sacrificed. Jobs on the glossy 'business parks' and 'technology centres' frequently involve long hours, irregular shifts, short-term contracts, and intensive work rates (all of which sometimes go under the name of 'flexibility'). Pay rates for most people are seldom better than in more traditional workplaces. In poorer countries, conditions are usually far, far worse. Meanwhile with even greater frequency local environments are devastated. At the very least, the newcomers are usually allowed to gouge out greenfield sites while the in many countries controls over pollution and other forms of despoliation are so relaxed that far greater ruin is visited on local ecosystems. Such industrial plants and offices are but outposts of organisations based far away. Not surprisingly they are nearly always the first to be cut in any reorganisation or at the first sign of a downturn. But when it is easy to come, it is also easier to go. Most references throughout the bibliographies contain information but below are a few case studies.
Kopinak, K. Desert Capitalism. Univ. Arizona Pr., 1996. The realities of the assembly plants that have set up along the northern Mexico border.
Massinga, A. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Development Dilemmas in Mozambique. The Ecologist, 26(2), 1996 : 73-75.
Newell, J. & E. Wilson. The Russian Far East: Foreign Direct Investment and Destruction. The Ecologist, 26(2), 1996 : 68-72.
National Income, Discounting, Cost-Benefit Analysis, & Environmental Valuation
Adams, J. Cost Benefit Analysis: The Problem, not the Cure. The Ecologist, 26(1), 1996 : 2-4.
Baran, M. S. Cost-Benefit Analysis: An Inadequate Basis for Health, Safety and Environmental Regulatory Decision making. Ecology Law Quarterly, 8, 1980.
Braithwaite, J. The Limits of Economism in Controlling Harmful Corporate Conduct. Law and Society Review, 16/3, 1981-82.
Cobb,C. & J. Cobb. The Green National Product: a Proposed Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare. Univ. Pr. America, 1994
Hueting, R. Correcting National Income for Environmental Losses: Towards a Practical Solution. In Y. Ahmad, S. El Serafy & E. Lutz, eds., Environmental Accounting for Sustainable Development. World Bank, 1989.
Krabbe, J.J., & W.J. Heijman eds. National Income and Nature: Externalities, Growth, and Steady State. Kluwer, 1992.
Lohmann, L. Who Defends Biological Diversity? Conservation Strategies and the Case of Thailand. The Ecologist, 21(10, 1991: 5-13. Argues that putting a price on biodiversity, leaving its conservation to market forces, is a recipe for destruction.
Mulberg, J. Economics & the Impossibility of Environmental Evaluation. Univ. of Bath, 1992.
O'Neill, J. Cost-Benefit Analysis, Rationality and the Plurality of Values. The Ecologist, 26(3), 1996: 98-103.
Price, C. Time, Discounting and Value. Blackwell, 1993.
Rolston, H. Valuing Wildlands. Environmental Ethics, 7, 1985: 23-48. Argues that moral choices cannot be replaced by economic ones
Roodman, D. Public Money & Human Purpose Worldwatch, 8(5), 1995: 10-19. How taxes and subsidies have been used to underwrite ecological destruction.
Sagoff, M. Some Problems with Environmental Economics. Environmental Ethics, 10, 1988: 55-74
Sagoff, M. The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law & the Environment. CUP, 1988. This important general work makes many references to cost-benefit analysis and other techniques, indicting them as evasions of moral and political choices.
Sagoff. M. At the Shrine of Our Lady Fatima or Why Political Questions are not all Economic' In T. Regan, ed. Earthbound. Temple Univ.Pr., 1984
Stirling, A. Environmental Valuation: How Much is the Emperor Wearing? The Ecologist, 23(3), 1993: 97-103
Banking System
Anon. Alternatives to Conventional banking or Living Without Usury. Ethical Consumer, Nov./Dec., 1989: 20-23.
Mayo, E. ed. Bankwatch UK: The Social and Environmental Record of the UK Banks. New Economics Foundation, 1994.
See also
Hill, .J, et al. Banking on the Future. Green Allianc (London)e, 1997. Very soft-centred and shalow environmental perspective but raises interesting points
Insurance Industry
Flavin, C. Storm Warnings. Worldwatch, 7(6), 1994: 10-20. Climatic troubles ahead for insurance industry.
Accountancy
Bebbington, K. & R. Gray. Accounting, Environment & Sustainability. Business & the Environment, Summer, 1993: 1-11.
Gray, R. Accounting and Economics: The Psychopathic Siblings-A Review Essay. British Accounting Review, 22, 1990: 373-388
Gray, R. Accounting and Environmentalism. Accounting Organisations and Society, 17/5, 1992: 399-426
Gray, R. et al. Accounting for the Environment. Paul Chapman, 1993.
Gray, R. The Greening of Accountancy. ACCA, 1990
Gray, R., et al. Accountability, Corporate Social Reporting and the External Social Audits. Advances in Public Interest Accounting, 4, 1991: 1-21
Harte, G., et al. Ethical Investment and the Corporate Reporting Function. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 2/3, 1991: 227-254
Hines, R.D. Accounting for Nature. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 4/3, 1991: 27-29
Krabbe, J.J., & W.J. Heijman, eds. National Income and Nature: Externalities, Growth, and Steady State. Kluwer, 1992.
Mathews M. Socially Responsible Accounting. Chapman & Hall, 1993.
Maunders, K.T., & R. Burritt. Accounting and Ecological Crisis. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 4/3, 1991.
Puxty, A.G. Social Accountability and Universal Pragmatics. Advances in Public Interest Accounting, 4, 1991: 35-46
Puxty, A.G. Social Accounting as Immanent Legitimation: a Critique of a Technist Ideology. Advances in Public Interest Accounting, 1, 1986: 95-112
Tinker, A.M, et al. Corporate Social Reporting; Falling Down the Hole in the Middle of the Road. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 4/1, 1991; 28-542.11.
Economics: Globalisation of Economy-General
Cruttwell, P. History Out of Control: Confronting Global Anarchy. Green Books, 1995.
Gray, J. False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Captalism. Granta, 1998. Interesting critique from an Oxford academic who has travelled the road from the neo-liberal Right to a much more ecologically informed position.
Greider, W. One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism. Simon and Shuster, 1997.
Hildyard, N., et al. Who Competes: Changing Landscapes of Corporate Control. The Ecologist, 26(4), 1994: 125-144.
Karliner, J. The Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in the Age of Globalization. Sierra Books, 1997.
Mander, J. And E. Goldsmith, eds. The Case Against the Global Economy. Sierra Book, 1996.
Hildyard, N., et al/ Who Competes: Changing Landscapes of Corporate Control. The Ecologist, 26(4), 1994: 125-144.
Economics: Transnational Corporations
Barnet, R. & R. Muller. Global Reach. Simon & Schuster, 1974 A dated but still useful study of the malign power of the transnational corporation.
Barnet, R. & J. Cavanagh. Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order. Simon and Shuster, 1993.
Finger, M. & J. Kilcoyne. Why Transnational Organisations are Organising to 'Save the Environment'. The Ecologist, 27(4), 1997: 136-137. With friends like these
Keen, B. Invisible Giant: Cargill & Transnational Strategies. 1995. Study of the world's largest private corporation.
Korten, D. When Corporations Rule the World. Kumarian Pr., 1995.
Moody, R. Mining the Would: The Global Reach of Rio Tinto Zinc. The Ecologist, 26(2), 1996: 46-52.
Sexton, S. Transnational Corporations and Food. The Ecologist, 26(6), 1996: 256-258. A menu of greedy corporations hogging control of the world food supply.
Economics: World Bank, International Monetary fund & 'Structural Adjustment' programmes
Bello, W. & S. Cunningham. Dark Victory: The Global Impact of Structural Adjustment. The Ecologist, 24(3), 1994: 87-93.
Chossudovsky, M. The Globalisation of Poverty: impacts of the International Monetary fund and World Bank Reforms. Zed, 1997.
Duncan, C. The World Bank's Greenwash Amsterdam: Greenpeace International, 1993
French, H. The World Bank: Now Fifty, But How Fit? Worldwatch, 7(4), 1994: 11-18.
Goldsmith, E. Open Letter to the President of the World Bank. The Ecologist, 15 (1/2), 1985: 4-8
Hansen-Kuhn, K. Sapping the Economy: Structural Adjustment in Costa Rica. The Ecologist, 23(5), 1993: 179-184. Impoverishment and environmental destruction courtesy of the World Bank and IMF.
Mikesell, R. & L. Williams. International Banks & the Environment. Sierra Books, 1992.
Payne, C. Lent and Lost: Foreign Credit & Third World Development. Zed, 1991. The disasters caused by international loan system
Reed, D., ed. Structural Adjustment and the Environment. Earthscan, 1993.
Rich, B. Multilateral Development Banks: Their Role in Destroying the Global Environment. The Ecologist, 15(1/2), 1985: 56-68.
Rich, B. The Multidevelopment Banks, Environmental Policy & the United States. Ecology Law Review 12, 1985: 681-746
Rich, B. The Emperor's New Clothes. World Policy Journal, Spring, 1990. Argues that the pattern of World Bank loans serves interests of its own staff and their career advancement.
Rich, B. The Cuckoo in the Nest: 50 Years of Political Meddling by the World Bank. The Ecologist, 24(1), 1994: 8-13.
Shiva, V. Forest Myths and the World Bank. The Ecologist, 17 (4/5), 1987: 142-149.
Wilk, A. & N. Hildyard. Evicted! The World Bank and Forced Settlement. The Ecologist, 24(6), 1994: 225-229. Today, millions of people are not being 'pulled' by greener grass on the other side of the hill but forcibly pushed out, often with aid from the coffers of the World Bank.
Economics: 'Free Trade', GATT, WTO, NAFTA & MAI
GATT=General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; WTO=World Trade Organisation; NAFTA= North American Free Trade Agreement; MAI=Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
Today's global economy, at the heart of which is the framework of GATT, is revising the rules of economic activity for decades to come. GATT's objective is to increase world trade by breaking down "restrictions", putting nations with stricter environmental standards at a commercial disadvantage. The GATT environment commission was reactivated in 1991, but its mandate is to investigate the impact of environmental policies and treaties on trade, not the other way around. Both development and environmental policies run the risk of being declared illegal by GATT: the GATT Director General has stated that GATT could challenge international environmental accords as well as stricter national rules.
GATT could have chosen to provide the authority for setting stringent import standards against goods produced at the expense of health, safety and the environment, declaring the externalisation of such costs to be a hidden trade subsidy. Instead it has chosen to "limit and localise laws for the protection of people and universalise laws for the protection of profits", to quote the Indian ecologist Vandana Shiva.
GATT is incompatible with the precautionary principle called for in the Bergen Ministerial Declaration, for it only permits trade restrictions on substances which have already been scientifically proven harmful. Who decides? The Codex Committee which GATT wants to regulate the trade in food has a large membership from multinational food corporations. Codex has set maximum residue levels for pesticides like DDT in fruits and vegetables which are up o 50 (!) limes higher than present US norms.
The nature of the World trade Organisation can be judged from its draft plans 9referring to a multilateral trade organisation, MTO). According to the draft final text the MTO "shall enjoy in the territories of each of the Members such legal capacity, privileges and immunities as may be necessary for the exercise of it functions". Member states are required to "take all necessary steps, where changes to domestic laws will be required to implement the provisions ... to ensure conformity of their laws to these agreements". The stage is set for a global environmental deregulation and standards-lowering competition to attract capital in a world order planned by transnational corporations.
Those concerned with the environmental crisis have preferred to avoid the institutional issue, hoping that existing institutions could be pressured to perform tasks diametrically opposed to those for which they were created. A recent OECD paper pointed to the difficulties of promoting eco-taxes in an organisation set up to persuade members that taxes should not be used to change social behaviour. Those who have been trained to believe that ecology is just a subdiscipline of economics are hardly suitable guides into a world order where the economy has to be seen-if we are to survive-as a subset of the global ecosystem. "Lacking an under standing of the carrying capacity of ecological systems, economic planners are unable to relate demand levels to the health of the natural world" (Worldwatch Institute).
Indeed World Bank chief economist Lawrence Summers-who has described the Third World as "vastly under-polluted"-still believes that "There are no ... limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind any time in the foreseeable future ... The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit is a profound error." (The Guardian, 22.5.92).
Anon. Cakes & Caviar? GATT & Third World Agriculture. The Ecologist, 23(9), 1993: 219-222.
Arden-Clarke, C. GATT, Environmental Protection & Sustainable Development. WWFN (Switzerland), 1991.
Avery, N., et a. Codex Alimentarious: Who Is Allowed In? Who Is Left Out? The Ecologist, 23(3), 1993: 110-.112. The strings to GATT and their price.
Clunies-Ross, T. European Agriculture & the Uruguay Round. The Ecologist, 20(6), 1990: 221-222.
Coote, B. NAFTA: Poverty & Free Trade in Mexico. 1995,
Culbertson, J. US Free Trade with Mexico: Progress or Self Destruction? Social Contract, Fall, 1991: 7-11.
Daly, H. & R. Goodland. An Ecological-Economic Assessment of Deregulation of International Commerce Under GATT, Part.1. Population & Environment, 15(5), 1994. (Part 2 in next issue, 15(6), 1994: 477-503)
Donahoe, T. The Case Againat a North American Free Trade Agreement. Columbia Jnl of World Business, 2692), 1991: 92-96.
Editors. Cakes and Caviar? GATT and Third World Agriculture. The Ecologist, 23(6), 1993: 219-222.
Ekins, P. Trading Of the Future. New Economics Foundation, 1995.
Goldsmith, J. Global Free Trade & GATT. Undated booklet, extracted from Goldsmith's book 'Le Piege'.
Hoedeman, O. et al. MAIgalomania: The Corporate Agenda. The Ecologist 28 (3), 1998: 154-161. The madness of a global investment free-for-all.
Kohr, M.K. The Uruguay Round & the Third World. The Ecologist, 20(6), 1990: 208-213.
Morris, D. Free Trade. The Ecologist, 20/5, 1990: 190-195.
Nader, R. et al. The Case Against Free Trade: GATT, NAFTA & the Globalisation of Corporate Power. 1993.
Retallack, S. The WTO's Record So Far-Corporation: 3 Humanity and the Environment: 0. The Ecologist, 27(4), 1997: 136-137.
Watkins, K. Free Trade and Farm Fallacieis: From the Uruguay Round to the World Food Summit. The Ecologist, 26(6), 1996: 244-255.
The Asian 'Miracles' and the Programme of Easternisation
Politicians like Britain's Mr tony Blair wax lyrical about the achievements of the east Asian 'tiger economies. They see them as a model for their own countries. This is quack medicine indeed, far worse than the alleged ills it is supposed to cure.
Bello, W. & S. Rosenfield. Dragons in Distress. Penguin, 1992. Critical look at the so-called tiger economies of the Far East, countries whom, as the UK Conservative and Labour Party leaders both were urging, should be copied to build 'Enterprise Britain'.
Bello, W. The Rise and Fall of South-East Asia's Economy. The Ecologist, 28(1), 1998: 9-17.
Debt and Trade-Ecologically Appropriate Alternatives
Ekins, P. Trade and Self-Reliance. The Ecologist, 19 /5, 1990: 186-190
Lang, T., & C. Hines. The New Protectionism: Protecting The Future against Free Trade. Earthscan, 1993.
Lang, T., & C. Hines. The New Protectionism: Protecting The Future against Free Trade. Earthscan, 1993.
Patterson, A. Debt for Nature Swaps & the Need for Alternatives. Environment, 32(10), 1990: 4-13, 31-32.
Raghavan, C. Recolonisation: GATT in its Historical Context. The Ecologist, 20(6), 1990: 205-207.
Rainforest Action Network. How Free Trade will Affect Rainforests. R.A.N. (San Francisco), 1991.
Ritchie, M. Free Trade versus Sustainable Agriculture: The Implications of NAFTA. The Ecologist, 22(5), 1992: 221-227. Critique of impacts of North American free trade agreement.
Shrybman, S. International Trade & the Environment: An Environmental Assessment of GATT. The Ecologist, 20(1), 1990: 30-34.
Wallach, L. & R. Naiman. NAFTA: Four & a Half Years Later-Have the Promised Benefits Materialised. The Ecologist 28 (3), 1998: 171-176.
Toward an Ecological Economics
In an ecological economy, stability, not growth, is the goal, based on a sustainable use of local resources. There would be expansion in some areas but it would be made possible by decreases elsewhere so that, overall, the human economy remained in general equilibrium with ecological rhythms, tolerances and capacities.
Such an economic system would involve the minimisation of inputs, and maximised reuse, repair and recycling of outputs in the economy. The primary focus of taxation therefore would be at input stage of the economy, not upon its outputs. It should be moved from human labour and on to things. (Pollution charge are a tool of much more limited value applied to the wrong end of the production/consumption process) To take one small but significant example, VAT on building repairs would be scrapped since it hinders the 'recycling' of buildings which in turn is a very labour-intensive activity and therefore a major means of reducing local unemployment.
Political decisions are necessary to set the limits in which market mechanisms can operate. It is not a question of state planning or a free market, but of creating an ecological frame work to guide the overall economy. Within this framework what matters is what is most appropriate-public or private pro vision, individual or collective enterprise. Water supply, for example, is best kept in public hands, because its provision is essential to life; the supply of shirts, on the other hand, is better left to private initiative and creativity.
Far from seeking global integration, an ecologically guided economy would mean a comparative disengagement to protect ourselves from the anarchy and instability now endemic in the world market. Such a programme is often attacked as 'autarchy' and 'siege economics yet it really boils down to self-defence. Trade would become something to be done only when necessary and to mutual benefit, rather than regarded as an intrinsically good thing to be maximised as far as possible.
A programme for economic stability would include:
governmental powers to control, as necessary, foreign trade, including the use of 'green tariffs'
increased public expenditure to harness, protect and, in many cases, restore the productivity of our soils, forests, and waters as well as to switch to renewable sources of energy
maximum use of local and national government purchasing power to facilitate the switch to local sources of supply and greater self-reliance
legislation to bring company structures into harmony with the needs of local communities and environments, including a breaking of the stranglehold of the big banks and systems of interest-charging that prohibit the kind of long-term projects needed to build a sustainable economy.
Some of the necessary measures have been sketched out already (see, for example, A Green Budget by David Kemball-Cook et al) while others require more work. Particularly important will be 'industrial conversion' schemes for industries like car manufacture. The market alone cannot do this in an orderly or compassionate way; only collective planning can achieve this goal. Similarly we need to begin to sever the link between economic livelihood and formal employment by the phased introduction of universal basic income programmes. All taxes and public subsidies would be reviewed to reward those activities and businesses that help to take us towards a more sustainable way of living.
For all her problems Britain still remains a comparatively wealthy country so it is primarily a question of the political will to mobilise those resources now in the hands of super-rich individuals and institutions. A country that can 'afford' follies such as the mad proposal for a 14-lane M25 can pay for what needs to be done to make herself a truly 'green and pleasant land'. It is also important to note that programmes for resource conservation and recycling are inherently labour-intensive and therefore job-creating on a sustainable basis to an extent that no other policies can rival. Similarly, green work such as the manufacture of offshore wind turbine platforms can provide the means to convert decaying industries such as the shipyards to productive use.
However, the most fundamental change required is at a conceptual level, as reflected in the growing work on new yardsticks of well-being. Only if we give up the illusion of ever-growing Great Britain Limited will we find the door to an economy built to last. The economic de-linking and other policies outlined above will be far from easy but, on a sinking ship, the only option is to search for the lifeboat.
Backstrand, G. and L Ingelstam. Should We Put Limits on Consumption? The Futurist, June, XI, 1977: 157-162.
Boulding, K. Towards a New Economics: Ecology & Distribution. Elgar, 1992.
Constanza, R. & H. Daly. Toward an Ecological Economics. Ecological Modelling, 38, 1987: 1-7
Daly, H. Steady-State Economics. Earthscan, 1992 New edition of a true classic.
Daly, H. Allocation, Distribution & Scale: Towards an Economics that is Efficient, Just & Sustainable. Ecol. Econs., 6, 1992: 185-193.
Daly, H, ed. Economics, Ecology, Ethics. Freeman, 1980
Daly, H. & Umana, A., eds. Energy, Economics & Environment. Westview, 1980.
Dauncey, G. After the Crash. Green Print, 1988
Ekins, P., ed. The Living Economy. RKP, 1986. Collection of papers on the new economics, though ecological economics seems to blur into a turquoise Keynesianism.
Hamrin, R.D. Renewable Resource Economy. Praeger, 1983. An excellent primer on 'bioeconomics'.
Hueting, R. New Scarcity & Economic Growth: More Welfare Through Less Production? North-Holland, 1980.
Hueting, R. An Economic Scenario that Gives Top Priority to Saving the Environment. Ecological Modelling, 38, 1987: 123-140
Martinez-Allier, J. Ecological Economics. Blackwell, 1987. Historical study of some past economists who were more conscious of the 'eco' of economics than their contemporaries.
Robertson, J. Future Wealth: The New Economics for the 21st Century. Cassell, 1990.
Robertson, J. Transforming Economic Life. Green Books, 1998. A succinct survey.
New Economic Indicators
Anderson, V. Alternative Economic Indicators. Routledge, 1991.
Anon. Green Gauge 96': Indicators for the UK Environment. WWF-UK and other UK organisations, 1996
Anon. Signals for Success: a Users' Guide to Indicators. WWF-UK, 1997.
MacGillivray, A. & S. Zadek. Accounting for Change. New Economics Foundation, 1995.
Possible Ecologically Guided Economic Measures, including taxation.
Anon. Distributional Effects of Eco-taxation. WWF_UK, 1996.
Barker, T. Taxing Pollution instead of Employment: Greenhouse Gas Abatement through Fiscal Policy. Department of Applied Economics, University of Cambridge, Discussion Paper 9, 1994.
FoE. Beyond Rhetoric: an Economic Framework for Environmental Policy. FoE, 1989.
FoE. Green Dividends: Why the Chancellor Should Invest in Ecotax Reform. Foe (London), 1996.
Harrison, F, ed. The Losses of Nations; Deadweight Politics versus Public rent Dividends. Othila Pr., 1998. The Case for the society as a whole should reap the benefit from increases in site value due to public infrastructure investment and other such factors, other than the site oowner's own efforts.
Kemball-Cook, D., et al. The Green Budget. Green Print, 1991.
O'Riordan, T., ed.. Ecotaxation. Earthscan, 1997.
Weizsåcker, E von, & Jesinghaus. Ecological Tax Reform. Zed, 1992.
Employment
Barbier, E. Earthworks: Environmental Approaches to Employment Creation. FoE, 1981.
Brandt, B. Whole Life Economics. New Society Publishers, 1995. Much, perhaps most, real work is unpaid and unvalued, especially that done in the home, without which no society can be sustained. This book looks at ways to revalue all those vital activities performed outside the formal economy of employment.
Goldsmith, E. Work! Work! Work!. Real World, 9, 1994: 4-5. The destruction of jobs by 'development'.
Grossman, R. & R. Kazis. Fear at Work: Job Blackmail, Labour and the Environment. New Society, 1991. How fear of unemployment is used to win worker support for environmentally destructive industries.
Irvine, S. Active Service. Real World, 11, 1995:9. Critique of notion of salivation via a service economy.
Jacobs, M. Green Jobs The Employment Implications of Environmental Policy. Centre for the Study of Environmental Change, Lancaster University/WWF-UK, 1994.
Jenkins, T. & D. McLaren. Working Future? Jobs & the Environment. FoE, 1994.
Kazis, R. & R. Grossman. Environmental Protection: Job-Taker or Job-Maker? Environment, 24(9), 1982:
Renner, M. Jobs in a Sustainable Economy. Worldwatch Institute, 1991.
Waring, M. If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics. Harper & Row, 1988. Alongside the visible and usually environmentally destructive formal economy there is the comparatively invisible informal economy, in which a lot of the labour unfairly falls on female shoulders. Yet it could be the basis of more sustainable and fulfilling way of living.
Currency and Investment Control-Alternatives
Alperson, M. et al. The Better World Investment Guide. Council for Economic Priorities (USA), 1991.
Bramble, B. The Debt Crisis: The Opportunities. The Ecologist, 17(4/5), 1987: 192-199. Looks at debts-for-nature' swaps.
Cahn, E. & J. Rowe. Time Dollars. Rodale Pr., 1992. An alternative to community- and environment-destroying ways of organising money.
French, H. Investing in the Future: Harnessing Private Capital Flows for Enviromentally sustainable Development. WorldWatch, 1998.
Henderson, H. & R. Theobold. Money vs. Wealth: The Need for New Economic Tools. The Futurist, 22(2), 1988: 34-35.
Kennedy, M. Interest and Inflation Free Money. New Society Publishers, 1995.
Meeker-Lowry, S. Economics as if the Earth Mattered: A Catalyst Guide to Socially Conscious Investing. New Society, 1988.
Meeker-Lowry, S. Invested in the Common Good. 1995.
Mikesell, R. & L. Williams. International Banks & the Environment. Sierra, 1992.
Walker, P. & E. Goldsmith. A Currency for Every Community. The Ecologist, 28(4), 1998: 216-221.
Weston, D. Green Economics-the Community Use of Currency. Paper to the Other Economic Summit, London, 1985. A look at non-monetary local exchange systems and other tools for more sustainable communities.
Land Ownership
Holiday, J.C. Land at the Centre. Shepheard-Walwyn, 1986
Norton-Taylor, R. Whose Land is it Anyway: How Urban Greed Exploits the Land. Turnstone Pr., 1982. The distorting and unsustainable impacts of land ownership concentration and inadequate planning systems in the Britain.
Shoard, M. This Land is Our Land. Paladin, 1987.
Greener Businesses
The overall perspective of this Website is that ecological sustainability depends upon a root and branch change not just in specific technologies and regulations but also in the institutional framework of society, lifestyles and, most important of all, our values and goals. More specifically, there is little long-term point in making specific activities in business and commerce more environmentally friendlier if the entire business or industry and the lifestyles it services are ecologically unsustainable. There is a limit to, say, the number of cars that the earth can sustain and, in turn, to what can be achieved by better environmental management by car manufacturers and garage owners.
However, in the short term, there is a great deal can be done to improve the environmental performances of individual businesses and other organisations. In many areas, there is needless resource consumption and careless disposal of wastes, not only damaging the environment but also wasting money, increasing possible liabilities and, more generally, generating a poorer public image.
The following refer to what elsewhere has called reformist or shallow environmentalism-business-as-usual with a greenish tinge. Yet it is clearly better to have businesses that make even limited environmental improvements to their activities than ones which make no effort at all. Even though they are subject to the same market and regulatory forces, different businesses do exhibit widely varying environmental track records. Such variations owe much to the personnel making key decisions and to the overall culture of a given business.
Adams, R., et al. Changing Corporate Values: a Guide to Social and Environmental Policy and Practice in Britain's Top Companies. New Consumer, 1991.
Bennett, S.J. Ecopreneuring: The Complete Guide to Small Business Opportunities from the Environmental Revolution. Wiley, 1991.
Body Shop. The Green Book. Body Shop, 1993. Review of its activities by leading 'green' firm
Bragg, S. et al. Improving Environmental Performance: A Guide to a Proven and Effective Approach. Stanley Thornes, 1994.
Cannon, T. Corporate Responsibility: A Textbook on Business Ethics, Governance, Environment: Roles & Responsibilities. Pitman, 1994.
Carley, M. & I. Christie. Innovative Management for Sustainable Development. In Part 1V of their Managing Sustainable development. Earthscan, 1992. Some interesting ideas and case studies, though rooted in a reformed growth model.
Choucri, N. The Global Environment & Multinational Corporations. Technology Review, April, 1991: 52-59. Argues that responsiveness to changing values and norms will decide which businesses prosper and which go under.
Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies. The 1990 CERES Guide to the Valdez Principles. CERES, 1990.
Conn, E. The Ecological Organisation: New Perspective. Management Education and Development, 22/3, 1991: 227-233
Council on Economic Priorities. The Better World Investment Guide. Prentice-Hall, 1991.
Forrester, S. Business & Environmental Groups-A Natural Partnership? Directory of Social Change, 1990.
Gilbert, M. Achieving Environmental Management Standards: A Step-by-Step Guide to BS 7750. Pitman, 1993.
Handy, C. The Future of Work. Blackwell, 1985
Hardin, H. Industrial Ecology: An Environmental Agenda for Industry. Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1992: 4-19. Hardin is representative of the cutting edge of big business thinking on green issues in North America.
Hemming, C. Business Success from Seizing the Environmental Initiative. Stanley Thornes, 1994. Case studies in fields such as waste management, byproduct utilisation and cleaner technologies
Hutchinson, C. Business and the Environmental Challenge: A Guide for Managers. Conservation Trust, 1991.
Koechlin D. & K. Müller. Green Business Opportunities. Pitman, 1992.
Ledgerwood, G., et al. The Environmental Audit and Business Strategy: A Total Quality Approach. Pitman, 1992.
Phillips, M. and G. Alexander. A New Way To Do Business. In M. Money, ed. Health and Community Green Books, 1993: 52-60
Post, J. Managing as if the Earth Mattered. Business Horizons, July/Aug., 1991: 32-38.
Robertson, J. Future Work. Temple Smith, 1985.
Rothery, B. BS 7750. Gower, 1993.
Schmidheiny, S. Changing Course: A Global Business Perspective on Development and the Environment. MIT Pr., 1992.
Stead, E., & J. G. Stead. Management for a Small Planet: Strategic Decision Making and the Environment Sage, 1992. Argues for long-term greener business planning which takes into account environmental constraints and opportunities
Taylor, B. Environmental Management Handbook. Pitman, 1994.
Vaitilingham, R., ed. Industrial Initiatives for Environmental Conservation. Pitman, 1993.
Welford, R. and A. Gouldson,. Environmental Management and Business Strategy. Pitman, 1993.
Welford, R. ed. Cases in Environmental Management and Business Strategy. Pitman, 1994.
Wheatley, M. Green Business: Making It Work For Your Company. Pitman, 1993.
Woodruff, D., et al. The Greening of Detroit. Business Week, April 8, 1991: 54-60
Purchasing Policy
Anon. The Green Office Handbook. Environment Pr., 1994(?). A manual and source book. In case of difficulty in locating it, the ISBN is 0 9519996 7 3.
Anon. British Telecom: Putting Greener Purchasing on a Systematic Footing. ENDS Report, May 208: 22-24, 1992.
Anon. Scott Ltd: Cleaning Up The Paper Chain. ENDS Report, 214: 16-19, 1992 A look at how one company assessed its suppliers
Battersby, S and J. Barwise. The Greening of Local Government Purchasing Policies Environmental Policy Unit, University of Surrey, n.d.
Business in the Environment. Buying into the Environment: Guidelines for Integrating the Environment into Purchasing and Supply Business in the Environment, n.d. A government sponsored look at greener purchasing by companies in a glossy ring binder. Some useful case studies.
Colcutt, R. Buying A Better Future. Oxfordshire County Council, n.d.
Gore I and S. Lansdell. Environmental and Social Issues in Your International Supply Chain. Out of Sight, Out of Mind?, Greener Management International, Jan.,1993: 80-84
Local Government Management Board. Environmental Practice in Local Government. LGMB, n.d. There is a section on purchasing with case studies
Specific Business Activities: Retailing
Enormous chain stores now not only dominate retail sales but also exercice firm control over their suppliers, particularly of foodstuffs. In less than 7 years the number of superstores in Britain has doubled from 750 to 1,500 with more than 700 of these occupying out-of-town sites. Small shops have been driven to the wall. Britain is no longer a 'nation of shop keepers'. Similar trends are at work across most countries. In France, for example, local cafés are disappearing just like corner shops.
Big centres include Thurrock Lakeside, Sheffield's Meadowhall, Dudley's Merry Hill and the Gateshead Metro Centre. On e of the biggest is the 1.2 million sq. feet shopping mall at Milton Keynes, with nearly 200 shops, estate agents, and banks. It is a temple not just to consumerism but also the private motor car, with 12,000 free parking spaces.
One of the major impacts of the increase in out-of-town retail space has been the demise of our town centres. Today fewer than one third of the independent grocers that existed 30 years ago are still trading and many town centre bakers, butchers, hardware stores and many others are having to shut up shop. As town centres and corner shops decay, some sections of society are hit worse than others, not least the elderly and those without a car. Meanwhile, on the edge of towns, vast tracts of green belt and open countryside are swallowed up to be replaced by acres of featureless retail warehouses and sprawling car parks.
And what of the 15,000 different food lines on offer at these superstores? Strawberries in the middle of winter, all the way from Zimbabwe, raspberries from Chile and green beans from Kenya, not to mention exotics such as papaws, rambutans and physalis, are just some of the goods to tempt the superstore shopper-if they can afford them.
Gone are the days of buying locally produced, seasonal foods. Supermarket standardisation has been a driving force in the elimination of traditional varieties of animal, fruit and vegetable produce. The environmental as well as the economic costs of this trend are enormous. The dominance of foreign produce in the British economy is graphically illustrated by an annual food and drink trade deficit of £6.8 billion. While we continue to import garlic, asparagus and a host of other vegetables, the government pay farmers to set-aside their land.
Food processing increases the number of links in the chain between the producer and the consumer and each link adds 'food miles' and extra environmental cost. Instead of bacon from locally reared pigs which has been cured locally, shoppers today are offered imported Danish bacon which has been cured in one part of Britain before being transported to another part to be sliced and packed. Produce is distributed largely from a few centralised and lorry-serviced distribution centres. The chains have long supported increases in the permitted size of lorries, leading to more juggernaut vehicles on the road and pressure for bigger roads to take them.
The use of fertilisers and pesticides add a further environmental cost to food production, especially in countries where their use is not tightly controlled. Most other goods on sale in the superstores, from clothing to DIY, clock up massive amounts of environmental damage in their production, use and disposal. A few firms like B&Q have tried to make some 'green' changes to their product lines but most businesses use the defence of 'consumer choice' to justify the continued sale of environmentally damaging and socially exploitative produce.
The increasingly long distances between producer and final consumer have increased the amount of packaging used as well as, in the case of foodstuffs, the use of chemical preservatives and energy-intensive refrigeration. Supermarket chains have opposed consistently measures to reduce packaging and increase the use of returnable containers. Other changes in the retail industry are having equally bad effects. Since many of the new hyperstores are sited in suburban and out-of-town malls, to which most shoppers drive, the total impact in terms of greenhouse gases as well as additions to the acid rain burden and other pollution is greater than before. Extended opening hours also increase the environmental cost (through extra heating and lighting)
In March, 1994, Britain's government announced new planning guidelines designed to curb out-of-town supermarkets, shopping malls and warehouse development. Such moves may well have come too late, however, to save our town centres and are likely to do little to change the damaging consumer habits promoted by the superstore culture.
Dadd, D., & A. Carothers. A Bill of Goods? Green Consuming in Perspective. Greenpeace Magazine, May/June, 1990: 8-12
Irvine, S. The Limits of Green Consumerism. FoE, 1989.
Lang, T. & H. Raven. From Market to Hypermarket: Food Retailing in Britain. The Ecologist, 24(4), 1994: 124-129
Mander, K. & A. Boston. Wal-Mart Worldwide: The Making of a Global Retailer. The Ecologist, 25(6), 1995: 232-237.
Warwick, H. Stacking the Odds: Behind the Shopping Revolution. Real World, 8, 1994: 8. A critical look at the environmental impact of current retail trends
Wheeler, D. Why Retailers Should Take Responsibility for Post-Consumer Waste. Greener Management International, 9, 1995: 62-72.2
Consumer Protection
'Consumer sovereignty' is one of the hallowed shrines of main stream economic theory. 'Shopping around' will, we are told, avoid the bad aspects of the market economy. Human needs are equated with the purchase of commodities, and all we have to do is rationally to select those which best match our needs. Happi ness is ours for the buying. The reality is different. With the volume and rapidly chang ing range of products on the market, many with specifications comprehensible only to the expert, an individual's judgment is inadequate. Even experts do not know the potential conse quences of many of the complex chemical substances in some of today's manufactured goods. Even with all the relevant infor mation, consumer choice can be a time-consuming process, and when the right product is identified, the price may be beyond the consumer's means. We need a collective rather than a private approach, in which society sets appropriate parameters for the quantity and quality of goods and services available.
Contemporary consumer movements reflect the values of the individual as maximizing consumer, rather than as co-operating citizen. Magazines and television reports discuss which of several items is the 'best buy'. No mention is made of the resources used up in their manufacture, the boredom and health hazards of their production lines, reusability or recyclability, nor pollution. They seldom ask whether the items are necessary, or whose interests and priorities they serve. Electric salad shakers are, in the consumer test lab, as worthy a use of natural resources and human creativity as anything else. The constant priority is more consumer choice from an ever-increasing number of products to sell. Consumer organizations have made constructive suggestions for improving the legislation about the description and sale of goods. What they seem unable to comprehend is how little this has to do with real self-determination and self-reliance, concepts alien to the whole consumerist ethic.
Lilliston, B. & R. Cummins. Organic Vs. 'Organic': The Corruption of a Label The Ecologist, 28(4), 1998: 195-200. American bureaucrats misleading the public in the interests of agribusiness.
West, K. Ecolabels: The Industrialisation of Environmental Standards. The Ecologist, 25(1), 1995: 16-20.
Specific Business Activities: Advertising and Public Relations
Linking mass production and mass consumption is the advertising industry. It bombards us daily with messages about every area of life. The public images of leading politicans are as carefully managed as those of toilet cleansers, and are often as accurate. Relatively minor among the costs of advertising are the direct financial ones, many of them passed straight on to the public. More serious is the imbalance in access to the 'means of per suasion'. The management of public opinion and consumer spending is monopolized by and for those with the most money: just compare the resources devoted to the sale of cigarettes with those deployed to discourage smoking. It becomes more dangerous when the communication is not about actual facts and figures, but the subtle weaving of seductive images around a product or an institution.
The dynamics of advertising add to the social and ecological disruptions from mass industrialism, and not just because they exploit our hopes and fears by harnessing them to the purchase of a particular commodity. Advertising delivers well-tutored consumers to the shop counter. Modern ideas about marketing developed hand in hand with the growth of mass-production. Both depend on discouraging self-reliance on one's own resources and judgment. Marketing people study human psychology to identify feelings that can be converted to needs, which can in turn be commercialized. Drug companies might compete to sell you a headache cure, but are united in working to ensure you do not find a non-drug solution.
Advertising dangles new (or repackaged) products before the consumers' eyes, promising satisfaction. Then the story starts again as newer goods and services come on line. Who we are and what we own become blurred in a world of style, fashion and image. Advertising sells best when appealing to individuals to look after themselves and their immediate family. That is, it maximizes self-concern at the expense of social cohesion. While causing individual insecurity, mass advertising also promotes external insecurity, in the ecolo~y. Notions such as durability, reduced or shared consumption, or substituting non material pleasures for the use of objects, conflict with the requirements of mass marketing.
Advertising is tied to an expanding economy, the one thing that we, living on a finite planet, must avoid. The message of advertising is always more consumption. It disfigures landscapes and townscapes. It encourages waste, from unnecessary model changes to gimmicks which supposedly differentiate identical products. Its bottom line can only be environmental destruction. This in turn can become a marketing opportunity, as the consequent scarcity of open space, wildlife or clean streams is turned into a chance to market what still survives, or to sell technological 'substitutes'.
An increasing number of firms have been projecting a greener image around themselves and their products. Often labels proclaim that the produce is 'dolphin-friendly' (tuna), derived from sustainable managed forests (paper goods) or CFC-free. Sometimes ridiculous claims have been made, for example that cars using unleaded petrol 'protect the ozone layer'. On other occasions, the language used gives an impression somewhat different from reality-'farm-fresh eggs' does not conjure up images of hens squeezed into rows of cages. Most subtle is the weaving of attractive imagery around a firm or activity-British Nuclear Fuels at Sellafield is perhaps the best example of the use of photographs and film of clean high tech. control rooms in buildings set amongst the Lakeland Fells.
Many high quality products seem to sell themselves, often by word-of-mouth recommendation. Restricting mass marketing will benefit reputable manufacturers, consumers and the environment alike. There need to be three types of control. The first is quantitative, reducing the volume of marketing by ending large-scale advertising as a legitimate expense, and by progres sively taxing all expenditure on sales promotion above a minimum level. This recognizes that some advertising is concerned with information, and is therefore not necessarily undesirable. The second problem is the techniques of persuasion, and the imagery and language of advertisements. The present regulation system lacks both independence and teeth. We need to find a more comprehensive set of standards and means of enforce ment. Following the example of cigarette advertisements, one idea would be to require full information in publicity and packaging - for example pollution warnings on phosphate washing powders.
How, though, can we lay down precise standards for mean ings in messages? Some products pose special threats to people or the environment. Here all forms of advertising, including sponsorship, would be immediately prohibited. This would cover cars, airlines, energy supply, drugs, and meat products. For the first three, the reason is the resource depletion, environmental pollution and safety hazards from their manufacture and use. High levels of meat consumption, for example, waste food resources, and cause environmental damage, cruelties and health hazards. Yet, on the same TV channels, within a few minutes of each other, we see news of famine and advertisements trying to persuade us to eat more meat products. Such advertisements should be banned. Exemptions could be allowed to announce cleaner, safer or more frugal specifications. The advertising of energy-saving techniques, for example, would be encouraged.
The consequences of promoting drug consumption among the general public is well known. The problem of the army of pharmaceutical sales reps, with free samples and promotional items aimed at medical practitioners, is more complicated. A special unit of an Office of Technology Assessment to deal with new medicines might be the proper channel to communicate appropriate innovations to the medical world at large. We have not yet mentioned advertising aimed at children. The problem is not so much the products themselves as the nature of the audience. Programmes are used as vehicles to push some new toy, while many advertisements promoting sugar seem designed to create jobs for dentists. Packaging and free gifts with food items such as breakfast cereals pervert nutritional sense, and make the responsible parent's job harder. Similar controls need to be applied in those areas.
Mander, J. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Advertising. In Rotzoll, K., ed. Advertising and the Public. Univ.Illinois Pr., 1980.
Stauber, J. & S. Rampton. Toxic Sludge is Good for You!: Lies, Damn Lies & the Public Relations Industry. Common Courage Pr.,1995.
See also the excellent magazine Adbusters produced by the Media Foundation of Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Housing
In housing, the key issues are (i) the right kind of buildings in the right places; and (ii) the provision of the means whereby people can afford to live in them. These two issues raise a variety of questions about homelessness, slum districts and shanty towns, rent exploitation, crippling mortgage repayments, empty dwellings, houses in disrepair, building standards, optimum living space and suburban sprawl. Housing cannot be separated from a consideration of population, family structure, land ownership and planning.
Obviously population growth is a major influence on the provision of shelter, even of a basic kind. If there are homeless people now, in many countries there will be more tomorrow. Lack of livelihood forces people towards already congested centres, compounding the problems. The plight of those living on the streets of Calcutta is echoed by those under the railway arches of London.
Except in a few experimental initiatives, housing has barely begun to be understood as part of a socio-ecological system. The approach to house-building is short-life and resource-intensive, geared to growth-oriented economics. Without curbs on this kind of building, the difficulties in the future will increase. The home building of the '50s and '60s often created instant slums, which have had to be either demolished or expensively refurbished. As Fraser and Sutcliffe comment, 'having demolished slums which stood for a century, we constructed homes which lasted a decade'. The social utopia their designers promised failed to materialise, unlike the profits of those who built them. Conventional critics of the failings of the private sector usually see the housing problem in terms of more units-hence the rhetoric of crash programmes of house-building. Unfortunately such large-scale plans usually fail to respect local people or local environments, with disastrous results.
Bad buildings are not the only failing in contemporary housing. The problems of mass public housing have been compounded by bureaucratic strangulation; an outstanding example of this has been the arbitrary use of building standards as a means of clearing whole communities, against the wishes of the inhabitants. Their preference to stay where they were and have public money spent on renovations, rather than on estates and tower blocks, is now generally accepted by those who once dismissed it.
The private sector causes its own problems. The property market has often produced inflated prices at one end of the country, while identical houses in other areas sell for far less. In time this can only tear the social fabric further apart. The roots of these distortions partly lie in the centripetal forces of our economic and political system, which draw decision-making, job and career opportunities, the arts and other aspects of life from the peripheral regions to the centre. Part of the housing solution must lie in general decentralisation and far greater regional self-reliance. Inflated house prices cannot be separated from the high cost of land. Land ownership brings the right to sell, which fuels the fires of speculation-to the detriment of the overall community. We need to dampen this process, with land value tax schemes one way forward..
Buildings them selves are another matter. Private ownership, whether by individuals or associations, is a major bulwark protecting the citizen against the abuse of state power. Also, the dividends of pride in appearance and maintenance accrue to all. There will always be those who either want or need accommodation to rent rather than to buy. What matters is a rich diversity of choice within localities, providing of course that they are designed and constructed to proper standards of conservation. There is such pressure to fulfil immediate needs that to advocate a policy of high-quality, long-life and energy-efficient building, which would mean high initial cost, is to fly in the face of present philosophy. We cannot afford the 'luxury', it claims, of such a policy. But to do otherwise is merely to repeat the mistakes that now disfigure our towns and cities. Minimal standards in materials, cost-cutting and a naive faith in the latest technology represent a false economy.
Homes are of course to be lived in: they are not just machines for living, profligately or frugally. With a holistic approach, standards for the design and construction of tomorrow's housing can satisfy all these needs. Existing housing presents a massive challenge since so much of it was based, in its design and location, on the assumption of cheap energy. We need an extended programme of ecological upgrading. It may take many decades, but the optimum conversion or recycling of the present stock will bring direct benefits and many desirable spin-offs, not least in work creation. Wherever possible primary consideration must be given to refurbishment and renewal rather than clearance and rebuilding. Developments that go beyond renovation and infill in built-up areas would be given planning permission only as a last resort. If society were really concerned about housing shortages, it would start with compulsory purchases of office and other such space, converting to more urgent human needs whilst sparing green spaces from destruction.
Of course, trends such as family breakdown and the rise in single households need to be addressed, otherwise unsustainable demand for new units will continue to be stoked up. Whatever happens, the Earth must come first. Just because someone feels the need to split up from their partner and move to new housing out 'in the sticks' does not create the right to have such wants satisfied by planning and housing policy. Accommodating such demands can only encourage further community disintegration and environmental degradation
Conserver building policies would demand the highest craft skills. It is the cost of these skills that in part fuelled the switch to industrialised techniques. Since a conserver economy would make resources more expensive than labour, there would be greater scope for human skills. Training would have to be overhauled to incorporate the best of skills, traditional and modern. If humankind is going to solve the problems it faces over the coming decades, then it must make use of both old and those new technologies that do not conflict with ecological principles.
We must acknowledge that, in a transitional period at least, such a housing policy could incur a greater initial costs, though these would be offset by low running costs and long life. However people choose to pay for their housing, it is vitally important that those on low incomes are aided. Just as we need mixed communities of varied houses, where single-person flats, sheltered accommodation for the elderly and family homes are grouped together, so we also need a range of funding arrangements which take account of the new greening of architecture. These options must be such that they allow people of all incomes and status to be accommodated without fear of harassment or financial distress.
Alexander, C. The Production of Houses. OUP, 1985.
Broome, J. & B. Richardson. The Self-Build Book. Green Books, 1991.
CPRE. Our Common Home. CPRE, 1993. A look at the pressure for new housing and the limited environmental capacity of areas like SE England.
CPRE. Home Truths. CPRE, 1990. Linking the provision of affordable housing with environmental protection.
CPRE. A Place in the Country. CPRE, 1990. The use and abuse of planning controls over new building in the countryside.
Day, C. Building with Heart. Green Books, 1990. Advocates community based, self-built schemes
Ospina, J. Housing Ourselves. Hilary Shipman, 1987. Study of ways in which we can help ourselves through self-build schemes to reduce housing problems, with British and Third World examples.
See also sections on Architecture and Building Design under heading of Technology
Health and Health Care-General
Physical and mental well-being is the basic measure of the true wealth of a people. Good living and good health tend to march hand in hand. An ecological perspective on health is holistic-well-being is perceived as the product of a dynamic interaction between individuals and their social, biological and physical context. However, the production systems and lifestyles of modern industrial society systematically threaten human health, undermining the undoubted achievements of modern medicine. This happens directly, for example via pollution, and indirectly, as a result, for instance, of the side-effects triggered by human-induced climatic change and other forms of environmental dysfunctioning.
It helps to put all the above issues in a broader context, tracing changes in the human health-environment interaction down the ages. Such an approach can shed new light on the claims made for modern medicine in particular and increased affluence in general. It may also suggest alternative ways in which human health might better be served. There is a very real danger in our technological age that we look back with condescension at the allegedly short and brutish lives of our ancestors and fail to see some positive lessons that they-and people in other cultures today-might teach us.
Some interesting points emerge. For example, in 1871, the life expectancy of a newly-born child was not much different from that of the days of Elizabeth 1. The period in which the lives of ordinary people began to improve was the latter decades of the 19th century, a time when economic growth was levelling off. The reason was partly that the bargaining power of poorer people improved, enabling them to take a bigger slice of the national cake. Extensions to the franchise also led to social reforms concerning working conditions and municipal improvements such as better sanitation (i.e. responses to the damage done by economic growth).
Access to cheaper food also helped a great deal (e.g. end of Corn Law monopoly and the import of food from South America and Australasia). The redistribution of economic and political power was decisive in improving the health of the ordinary person. Despite such gains, only 33% of young men examined for military service in 1917 were in satisfactory shape. In any case, those improvements were made sometimes at the expense of people in the colonial lands and at the expense of the future since the resource base was a non-renewable and heavily polluting one.
A broader spotlight might reveal that there have been many instances of peoples who have not gone through industrialisation nor experienced high levels of per capita consumption but who have enjoyed long lives which have been free from many of what rightly have called the 'diseases of civilisation'. Physiologically (and psychologically?) we are still Stone Age people, even though we live and work in what are virtually electronic cages, travelling from one to the other in powered boxes made from metal and plastic. We might prefer to believe that our minds and bodies can cope with the transition without problems but whether they have done so is another question.
For most people, the best 'treatment' would be a change in their life circumstances. As The Black Report on Britain's health care system showed, for example, all of the health problems noted above are intensified by poverty. The poor suffer the worst pollution; they inhabit the dampest and most overcrowded housing; eat the worst food; receive the most run-down medical and welfare facilities; and generally have life styles which produce unacceptable inequalities in patterns of illness and mortality.
It might be noted, however, that the significance of inequality as a health factor can be exaggerated. There are plenty of incidences of countries (for example, along the north Mediterranean) where inequality is more marked than in the UK but where life expectancy is longer (the reason is often that the diet across all classes is a healthier one). In Maoist China, too, where there were active steps towards a more egalitarian society and where general prosperity rose, marked regional differences in cancer persisted, again perhaps due to dietary habits and broader environmental factors.
Our attitude to health reflects the failings of our culture. Sick animals tend to withdraw and recuperate, yet many adults demand to keep going at full speed, taking whatever pills suppress the warnings from their bodies. They expect perfect health; few civilisations have been so unwilling to integrate illness, ageing and death into the flow of life. The cult of youth that seems to obsess Western culture reflects this lop-sided view. It refuses to accept the inevitability of ageing and death, which, when it comes, is all the more painful. In the meantime, it creates a demand for any machine or drug that can maintain the illusion of permanent youth. Even 'alternative' medicine sometimes betrays an obsession with medication, pandering to what Dr Lewis Thomas has called 'healthy hypochondriacs'.
The 'culture' of industrial society has tended both to reflect and to emphasise 'masculine' values. This too has had serious consequences for health and safety. Regulations, health and safety warnings and education campaigns are often flouted by those who feel a need to demonstrate their virility and fearlessness, even to their own and other people's cost. More systematically, one half of the population, women, have had their special needs, it is argued by some writers, ignored by male-dominated bureaucracies.
The media clearly contribute significantly to such perceptions. They have been used on many occasions for health promotion campaigns, though, often, these have been a failure, not least since individuals often find it difficult to make the advocated changes if society itself is not providing the necessary support. At the same time, other media products are bombarding their consumers with quite contradictory messages which extol greater consumption and fast lane living. Some media reportage also encourages the one-sided focus on hi-tech. medicare, singing the praises of exotic techniques, disregarding their side-effects and costs.
Audy, J. R. Measurement and Diagnosis of Health. in P. Shepard & D. McKinley, eds., Environ/Mental. Houghton Mifflin, 1971.
Boyden, S. Evolution and Health. The Ecologist, 3 (8), 1973: 304-309. Important historical analysis, putting health in its ecological context..
Boyden, S. The Need for an Holistic Approach to Human Health and Well-Being. In Stanley, N. F. & R. A. Joske, eds. Changing Disease Patterns and Human Behaviour. Academic Pr, 1980
Boyden, S. Western Civilisation in Biological Perspective: Patterns in Bio-History. OUP, 1987.
Douthwaite, R. The Growth Illusion. Green Books, 1992. Chapter 7, 'Growth and National Health', provide detailed evidence that the pursuit of economic growth is bad for our health and is not yielding the health dividends the advocates of economic expansionism proclaim.
Diesendorf, M. & B. Furness, eds. The Impact of Environment & Lifestyle on Human Health. Society for Social Responsibility in Science (Canberra), 1977.
Dubos, R. Mirage of Health: Utopias, Progress and Biological Change. Harpers & Row, 1959.
Dubos, R. Man Adapting. Yale U.P., 1965. Seminal overview of human adaptability and pseudo-adaptations.
Glendinning, C. My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilisation. Shambhala, 1994. Broad critique of modern living and its consequences for well-being by an American authoress who has spent much time living with tribal peoples in the south-west USA.
Goldsmith, E. The Great U-Turn. Green Books, 1988. Especially Chapter 4, 'The Ecology of Health'.
Goldsmith, E. Where Does It Hurt. Real World, 5, 1993: 14-15. Argues that arguments about the organisation and funding of health care miss the fundamental point about health and threats to it.
Jacobs, K. et al. Disease & the Ecological Perspective. The Ecologist, 6/2, 1976: 40-45.
McNeil, W. Plagues & People. Doubleday, 1976. The interaction between environment, human history and epidemics analysed.
Samuals, M. & H. Bennett. Well Body, Well Earth. Sierra Books, 1983.
Vogel, V. Indian Health and Disease. The Ecologist, 5/7, 1975:254-258. Study of the state of well-being of American first nations before the European invasion.
Wiesner, D. Your Health, Our World. Prism, 1992.
World Health Organisation. Our Planet, Our Health. WHO, 1992.
Zolotas, X. Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare. Bank of Greece, 1981. Includes evidence about the deleterious effect of more production and consumption on well-being
Critiques Of Medical Theory And Health Care Policy
A significant health hazard today is the theory and practice of medical care itself. Professional medicine has been dominated by a perception of ill people as broken-down machinery, thought of not in terms of whole beings but as functioning parts. Investment has focused on greater specialisation in surgery and drugs, to patch up the body when it breaks down. Resources are concentrated on the search for ever more sophisticated repair kits. Mainstream medical treatment today frequently involves violent intrusion upon mind and body. The success of many of these intrusions can be questioned in terms of their lasting benefits and side effects. The more spectacular feats of surgery are highly expensive and require equally costly support systems, sometimes draining the rest of health-care provision of the resources it needs.
The mass production lines of industry are reflected in the centralisation of health treatment in enormous institutions. Today the system's 'stars' perform surgical feats of undoubted wonder, but which benefit only a handful of people, while programmes that could benefit millions are starved of funds. Few would deny the real progress in fields such as emergency care and the treatment of infectious disease (though some of these success stories may be undermined by the loss of potential pharmaceutical materials as biodiversity dwindles).
Yet, overall, modern health care systems may be generating as many problems as they solve. Overpopulation is just one example of a failure to judge medical innovation in terms of the moral, social and ecological consequences. Tireless effort is also being devoted to overcoming infertility, and prolonging the lives of the terminally ill or the mentally and physically incapacitated among our aged. The sanctity of life has become a device to avoid the fundamental issue of the quality of living. There are certainly no easy answers, but the refusal to make difficult choices is itself a choice that is storing up greater trouble for future generations.
Like industrial society as a whole, 'mechanistic medicine' is becoming a victim of diminishing returns and increasingly negative side effects. Addiction is not the only consequence of excessive reliance on drugs. Many people are in hospital because of the harmful effects of previous treatments (in America, a figure of 10% has been suggested). The excessive size of our hospitals may work against the excellent care and attention given by medical staff within them. Kirkpatrick Sale's Human Scale (p274-275) cites evidence to suggest that the optimum scale for general health care institutions might be units of 100-200 beds, most efficiently used and sustained with surrounding populations of 30,000-60,000 people
Health care has become a vast repair industry with an army of employees busy with expensive equipment and techniques. Its rising cost alone is forcing a fundamental re-examination of health policy. Past expectations that the provision of health care would become cheaper as society's health improved have been dashed. Without more general changes in society, more spending on health care is rather like increasing the number of 'MASH' units near battlegrounds: good for patching up wounded soldiers, only to return them to the front.
Given the land, energy and other resources the health care system consumes, it is not surprising that it is responsible for a large and varied pattern of environmental damage. Roughly 30% of Britain's health service budget goes on goods and services, each item of which comes with an environmental price tag and therefore a potential health cost too. Hospital waste incinerators illustrate the specific environmental and health hazards posed by the way health care is delivered. Hospital suppliers, not least the pharmaceutical industry, generate their own environmental impacts.
But the problems do not stop at death's door. Crematoria poses their own pollution problems while graveyards consume large amounts of land (though sometimes they provide refuges for plants and animals such is the intensity of land use elsewhere). Comment should be superfluous when it comes to the ecological insanity of burning tropical hardwoods in the shape of coffins.
Debates over how much to spend on health services ultimately miss the basic point. Particularly misleading are comparisons of the Gross National Product spent on health care. This is partly because GNP counts as gains things that really are losses (e.g. GNP increases with every car crash). Even if GNP is taken at face value, there are many countries which spend proportionally less on their health services than, say, Britain, but whose citizens are healthier (usually, the reason is a dietary one). Specific shortages apart, it seems unlikely that an expansion in health care services would bring a commensurate increase in general well-being.
Armelagos, G., & P. Katz. Technology, Health and Disease in America. The Ecologist, 7 (7), 1977: 304-317
Cairns, J. Treatment of Disease and the War Against Cancer. Scientific American, 253, 1985: 51-59
Capra, F. The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture. Flamingo, 1983. Broad critique of mechanistic and reductionist thinking, with strong discussion of its limits in the field of medicine and health care, plus discussion of more holistic approaches.
Coleman, V. The Health Scandal: Your Health in Crisis. Sidgwick and Jackson, 1988. No holds barred blast against the medical establishment, arguing that its perceptions and practices are very much part of the problem.
Ehrenreich, B., & D. English. For Her Own Good: 150 Years of Medical Advice to Women. Pluto, 1979. An interesting feminist critique which obviously is linked to more holistic approaches.
Hall, R. H. The Medical-Industrial Complex. The Ecologist, 28(2), 1998: 62-68.
Illich, I. Limits to Medicine. Penguin, 1977. Perhaps the classic critique of the institutionalisation and professionalisation of health care, especially of 'high-tech.' approaches for creating more problems than they solve.
Knowles, J., ed. Doing Better and Feeling Worse: Health in the United States. Norton, 1977.
Lawson, R. A Serious Complaint. Real World, 2, 1992: 12-13. Critique of former Conservative government's health policy in Britain by doctor and former Green Party spokesperson.
McKeown, T. Medicine in Modern Society. Allen & Unwin, 1965. An old study which demonstrated the importance of environmental factors, including nutrition, in any programme for improved well-being.
McKnight, J. Demedicalisation and the Possibilities of Health (Paper to the Other Economic Summit, London, 1985) Another critique of medical professionalisation and the dependencies it creates.
McKnight, J. The Politics of Medicine. The New Ecologist, July/August, 4, 1978: 112-114
Melville., A., & C. Johnson, C., 1982. Cured to Death. Secker & Warburg.
Powles, J. On The Limitations of Modern Medicine. Science, Medicine and Man, 1, 1973:1-30.
Powles, J. Have Health Services Reduced Mortality?, The Ecologist, 7 (8), 1977: 303-310. Provocatively poses a 64 thousand dollar question.
Specific critiques of medical drug abuse and the drug corporations
Chowka, P. The Organised Drugging of America. The Ecologist, 9, (4/5), 1979: 155-160. Attack on the unhealthy links between 'medibusiness' and drug corporations.
Medawar, C. Power and Dependence: Social Audit on the Safety of Medicines. Social Audit Ltd, 1992. Critical assessment of drug-based treatments, with very interesting case studies.
Sunday Times Insight Team. Suffer the Children. Andre Deutsch, 1979. The Thalidomide story.
Specific Health Threats from Industrialism
Today's society faces an unprecedented range of pollutants against which evolution has equipped us with few defences. Around the world, environmental systems have been contaminated with an amazing variety and volume of air emissions, pesticides, synthetic fertilisers, raw sewage, radiation, noise, toxic trace metals and many other hazardous substances. Hospitals themselves are the source of a dangerous and growing waste disposal problems. Recombinant genetic engineering and germ warfare research may bring dangers that dwarf those of 'old-fashioned' pollution. Overpopulation and overcrowding create environments ideal for epidemics. Trade liberalisation and the removal of borders may open doors to the movement of disease and infestation. Mass transport systems have similar effects.
Furthermore, 'disaster movies' such as The Towering Inferno accurately reflect the dangers inherent in many structures around us. This is particularly true of modern transport systems whose scale and speed can be spectacularly lethal, both directly through accidents and indirectly through pollution. Buildings and open spaces are often planned as if walking itself were some kind of disease. While back-breaking work has its hazards, there is surely something wrong when resources are devoted to taking the effort out of switching TV channels or cleaning our teeth. Surface appearance, fads and gimmicks have become more important than our physiological needs in the design of artefacts we use daily. Seating and bedding, for example, often seem designed for some alien species with a different skeletal frame from mere humans. Environmental abuse produces backlashes against our own well-being, ranging from minor complaints to terminal cancer.
A microcosm of environmental hazards is the workplace, where accidents and work-related illness take a heavy toll. The problems caused by strikes are quite trivial in comparison, yet preoccupy public attention. Official figures underestimate the death, maiming, mental stress and general physical debilitation that result from the drive for greater and faster production, from the use of dangerous materials and unsafe processes or simply from too much repetition of the same activity. Legislation tends to be reactive and piecemeal. Adequate enforcement is also undermined by understaffed inspectorates. Furthermore, increasing economic competition on the world market is driving organisations to cut corners on safety standards and to cover up defects in products being marketed.
Ashford, N. & C. Miller. Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1991.
Barnaby, F., ed. The Gaia Peace Atlas. Pan, 1988. Comprehensive overview of the many threats to well-being posed by war and preparations for war.
Beck, U. Risk Society. Sage, 1992. How global industrialism depends on the taking of inherently dangerous risks.
Bloom, S, et al, eds. Hidden Casualties: Environmental, Health and Political Consequences of the Persian Gulf War. Earthscan, 1994.
Brodeur, P. Currents of Death. Simon & Shuster, 1989. Investigation of radiation risks from sources such as power cables and computer terminals.
Brodeur, P. The Zapping of America. Norton, 1978. Alleges a cover-up of the risks from microwave radiation.
Brown, M. Laying Waste: The Poisoning of America. Pantheon, 1980. Includes the story of the Love Canal waste dump disaster.
Bryce-Smith D. & R. Stephens. Lead or Health? London: Conservation Society, 1980.
Cassel, J. Health Consequences of Population Density & Crowding. In R. Revelle, ed. Rapid Population Growth: Consequences and Policy Implications. John Hopkins Pr., 1971.
Chivian, E., et al, eds. Critical Condition: Human Health and the Environment. MIT Pr., 1993. Good comprehensive overview, ranging from industrial pollution to militarism.
Connett, P. & E. Connett. Municipal Waste Incinerators: Wrong Question, Wrong Answer. The Ecologist, 24(1), 1994: 14-20 Demonstrates, amongst other things, the serious health hazards of waste incineration.
Cook, J. & C. Kaufman. Portrait of a Poison: The 2,4,5-T Story. Pluto, 1982.
Dalton, A. Asbestos: Killer Dust. BSSRS (London), 1979.
Davis, R. Death on the Streets: Cars and the Mythology of Road Safety. Leading Edge, 1993.
Dinham, B., ed. The Pesticide Hazard: A Global Health and Environmental Audit. Zed, 1993.
Downing, D. Day Light Robbery. Arrow Books, 1988. Though ozone layer depletion is causing concern about exposure to sunlight, life in the artificially lit caves of modern buildings is also a problem.
Eckholm, E. The Picture of Health. Norton, 1977. An older study but still good at underlining the importance of understanding health in terms of interactions with social, biological and physical contexts, not least the corrosive impact of the grinding poverty experienced by the enormous global 'underclass'.
Forster, H. Health, Disease and the Environment. Belhaven, 1991.
FoE. Prescription for Change: Health & the Environment. FoE, 1995.
Guminska, M. Air Pollution and Health Consequences in Poland. In Parkin, S., ed. Green Light on Europe. Heretic Books, 1991. Case study of the effects of rapid industrialisation.
Hall, Ross Hulme. Health and the Global Environment. Blackwell, 1990.
Harte, J. et al. Toxics A-Z: A Guide to Everyday Pollution Hazards. Univ. Los Angeles Pr., 1992.
Jones, R. R. & T. Wigley, eds. Ozone Depletion: Health & Environmental Consequences. Wiley, 1989.
Lappé, M. Chemical Deception: The Toxic Threat to Public Health. Sierra Books, 1991.
Lappé, M. Breakout:The Evolving Threat of Drug-Resistant Disease. Sierra Books, n.d.
Lewith, G. & J. Kenyon. Clinical Ecology. Thorsons, 1985. Overview of environmental threats to well-being.
Mansfield, P. & J. Munro. Chemical Children. Century, 1987.
Martin, E. Flexible Bodies: Health & Work in the Age of Systems. The Ecologist, 25(6). The Ecologist, 25(6), 1995: 221-226. The costs of the 'flexibility' now increasingly being sought in the workplace.
McMichael, A.J. Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species. CUP, 1992. How global warming, ozone depletion etc may affect human health.
Medvedev, Z. The Legacy of Chernobyl. Blackwell, 1990.
Misch, A. Assessing Environmental Health Risks. In Brown, L.R., et al, eds., State of the World 1994. Norton, 1994.
Ott, J. Health, Radiation & You. Devin-Adair, 1985.
Panati, C. & M. Hudson. The Silent Intruder: Surviving the Radiation Age. Pan Books, 1982.
Postel, S. Altering the Earth's Chemistry: Assessing the Risk. Worldwatch Institute, 1986.
Samaras, T. The Truth about Your Height. Tecolote Pr., !997(?). Not only is the world suffering from the cancer of human overpopulation, people are getting bigger but that is bad news for both their health and the environment since bigger bodies demand more resources.
Sexton, S. The Reproductive Hazards of Industrial Chemicals. The Ecologist, 23(6), 1993: 212-218.
Smith, C. & S. Best. Electromagnetic Man: Health & Hazard in the Electrical Environment. Dent, 1989.
Travis, C. & E. Etnier, eds. Health Risks of Energy Technologies. Westview, 1983.
Travis, C. & S. Hester. Global Chemical Pollution. Environmental Science and Technology, 25 (5), 1991: 814-819.
Tucker, A. The Toxic Metals. Pan, 1972. An older and now out of print work but worth digging out for its overview of human use of heavy metals, including a study of the Minimata mercury disaster.
Watanuki, R. Mercury and Kepone: Two Killers on Two Continents. Alternatives, Winter, 1978: 4-23.
Watson, A. Britain's Toxic Legacy: The Silence over Contaminated Land. The Ecologist, 23(5), 1993: 174-184.
See also:
Blaikie, P., et al. At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability and Disasters. Routledge, 1994.
British Medical Association. Hazardous Waste and Economic Health. OUP, 1991.
Godlee, Fiona, and Walker, Alison, eds. Health and the Environment. BMJ, 1992A strong collection of articles from back issues of the British Medical Journal.
Morgan, D. The BMA Guide to Pesticides, Chemicals and Health. Arnold, 1992.
Rose, J., ed. Human Stress and the Environment: Health Aspects. Gordon & Breach, 1994.
Smith, K. Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster. Routledge, 1991.
'Natural' Disasters and Technological 'Accidents'
The casualty toll from 'natural' disasters also is often a consequence of human disruptions of ecosystems. Avalanches, floods, forest fires, droughts and even Earth tremors can all result from deforestation and other forms of environmental degradation (some earthquakes, for example, may be linked to the pressure loads created by large-scale impoundment of water behind dams). The combination of population pressure, unequal land ownership systems and bad planning often lead to the settlement of inherently dangerous places (e.g. river flood plains, very low-lying coastal areas, and fault lines)
'Technofixes' for such problems-flood control in river basins and sea walls along shorelines etc.-tend, in the long run, to make such hazards worse, and exact a higher price by encouraging oversettlement of inherently unsafe areas. True natural disasters often have catastrophic effects because of negligence or inactivity by the authorities. This is particularly true in poorer countries, where the victims of occurrences such as volcano eruptions are often poor peasant families in more remote rural areas.
Brod, C. Technostress. Addison Wesley, 1984. A critique of the tedium and strain of modern living, not least in the wake of computerisation.
Glenndinning, C. When Technology Wounds. Morrow, 1990. Study of the casualties of inappropriate technological development.
Perrow, C. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. Basic Books, 1985.
Siegel, L. & J. Markoff. The High Cost of High Tech. Harper & Row, 1985.
Weir, D. The Bhopal Syndrome. Earthscan, 1988.
Wijkman, A. & L. Timberlake. Natural Disasters: Acts of God or Acts of Man? Earthscan, 1984.
New & Resurgent Old Diseases
See below for separate section on Cancer
Garrett, L. The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994.
Harvard Working Group. New and Resurgent Diseases: The Failure of Attempted Eradication. The Ecologist, 25(1), 1995: 21-26.
Inglis, B. The Diseases of Civilisation. Houghton and Stoughton, 1981.
Kingman, S. Malaria Runs Riot on Brazil's Wild Frontier, New Scientist, Aug. 12, 1989: 24-25
Platt, A. Why Don't We Stop Tuberculosis. WorldWatch, July/Aug., 1994. Once thought conquered, TB is now the biggest killer amongst infectious diseases, partly due to the emergence of drug-resistant strains, though comparatively cheap and simply public health programmes could defuse the threat
Platt, A. The Resurgence of Infectious Diseases. WorldWatch, 8(4), 1995: 26-32.
Purdey, M. Anecdote and Orthodoxy: Degenerative Nervous Diseases and Chemical Pollution. The Ecologist, 24 (3), 1994: 100-105. Looks at the environmental roots of disorders like Parkinson's Disease and Motor Neurone Disease, arguing that conventional thinking is ignoring the threat from chemical pollution..
The Cancer Epidemic
Bunyard, P. & G. Searly. The Effects of Low-Dose Radiation. The Ecologist, 16(4/5/), 1986: 171-181. Includes critique of the Black Report on radiation risks around Sellafield nuclear facilities.
Busby, C. Cancer & Risk-Free Radiation. The Ecologist, 28(2), 1993: 54-56.
Epstein, S. The Politics of Cancer. Sierra, 1978. A critique of conventional approaches to the problem of cancer and firmly locating its roots in the environment, including the chemicals now in common usage in the workplace and at home.
Epstein, S. Losing the War Against Cancer: Who's to Blame and What to do about it. The Ecologist, 17(2), 1987: 91-101.
Epstein, S. Corporate Crime: Can We Trust Industry-Derived Safety Studies. The Ecologist, 19 (1), 1989: 23-30.
Epstein, S. Profiting from Cancer: Vested Interests & the Cancer Epidemic. The Ecologist, 22(5), 1992: 233-240.
Epstein, S. Breast Cancer and the Environment. The Ecologist, 23(5), 1993:192-193.
Epstein, S., et al. The Breast Prevention Programme. Macmillan (USA), 1997. A critique of the 'cancer establishment', with a focus on what is the top killer of women aged 35-54 in the USA and something whose incidence has leapt from a 1 in 14 risk in 1971 to 1 in 8.
Epstein, S. Winning the War Against Cancer?Are They Even Fighting It?. The Ecologist, 28(2), 1998: 69-80.
Goldsmith, Z.Cancer: a disease of Industrialisation. The Ecologist, 28(2), 1998: 93-99.
Last, W. The Diversity and Effectiveness of Natural Cancer Cures. The Ecologist, 28(2), 1998: 117-121.
Mansfield, P. From Reductionism to Holism in Our understanding and Treatment of Cancer. The Ecologist, 28(2), 1998: 113-116.
Walker, M. Sir Richard Doll: A Questionable Pillar of the Cancer Establishment. The Ecologist, 28(2), 1998: 82-92.
Read, C. Preventing Breast Cancer: The Politics of an Epidemic. Pandora, 1995.
White, A. Children, Pesticides and Cancer. The Ecologist, 28(2), 1998: 100-105.
Indoor Health Hazards
The average home today is a veritable chemical cornucopia. Householders deluge sinks, toilets, furniture, furnishings, plants, clothes and bodies with a cocktail of hazardous substances. Inflammable artificial materials also fill many homes-devastating house fires are only the most visible sign of their risks. The outgassing of formaldehyde from modern furniture and fittings, for example, can create a serious health problem. Damp, draughty and cold living conditions are another well-known environmental source of many health problems.
Zamm, A. et al. Why Your House May Endanger Your Health. Simon & Shuster, 1980.
See also;
Samet, J. & J. Spengler, eds. Indoor Air Pollution. John Hopkins Univ. Pr., 1991.
Specific Hazards Relating To Food & Drinking Water
Along with the hazards of our physical environment are the hazards of what we eat and drink. Industrialised food production in particular causes problems, both by what it removes from and what it introduces into our diet, as well as by the excess of consumption that it encourages. The price of poor (though not necessarily cheap) diets ranges from vague aches and pains to major killers such as cancer and heart disease. Their incidence has risen far more rapidly than increases in average lifespan, contradicting the claim that they are the consequence of more people living longer. Many ailments now taken for granted are virtually unknown in people with diets different to those of the industrialised world.
The food production and distribution system works against good health in many ways. Residues from pesticides and from hormones and antibiotics administered to 'battery' animals find their way into foodstuffs, so that nutritional quality and safety are put at risk as the intensity of production increases (the cruelty to livestock being another concern). Agrochemicals and many other sources of pollution often have their most dangerous effect due to bioaccumulation (or magnification), with the progressive concentration of poisons along a food chain. The greatest danger is to those creatures at the end of the chain, including, of course, humans.
Chemical processes are increasingly necessary to retard natural ripening and 'protect' food as it travels its increasingly long journeys, yet some of these agents have been implicated as primary health hazards. Cheap but nutritionally damaging ingredients such as saturated fats, salt and sugar are exploited as basic raw materials, their blandness disguised by artificial colours, flavours and texture improvers. Mass production demands mass consumption, so new ways are sought to persuade consumers to eat more. Thus, highly refined foods keep our stomachs hungry for more, while advertising tempts us with novel snacks between meals.
Bad diets also reflect the way work is organised in industrial society. Economic circumstances have forced more and more couples to go out to work, often travelling long distances. Time for proper food preparation and digestion is correspondingly cut. Government policy on agricultural subsidies, regulations concerning food ingredients and labelling, and planning controls over retail outlets have tended to permit, if not actively promote, what is unhealthy- from subsidising dairy produce to opening the doors to food irradiation. In volume terms at least, the 'industrial diet' is like a daily feast compared to that of proceeding generations, or to what is consumed by the many millions of very poor people in the world today. The modern diet has evolved in a period when technology has been replacing human effort which otherwise would burn up excess calories.
Bosch, R. van den. The Pesticide Conspiracy. Prism, 1980. The lurid title not withstanding, a rigorous critique of the pesticide industry.
Cone R. & E. Martin. Corporeal Flows: The Immune System, Global Economies of Food and Implications for Health. The Ecologist, 27(3), 1997: 107-11. The human health impact of the global food industry compound its ecological ones.
Conway, G. & J. Pretty. Unwelcome Harvest. Earthscan, 1991. Especially Chapters 3 ('Pesticides & Health') and 5 ('Fertilisers & Health')
Craig, F. & P. Craig. Britain's Poisoned Water. Penguin, 1989. Denunciation of British drinking water quality.
Diesendorf, M. Have the Benefits of Water Fluoridation Been Overestimated? International Clinical Nutrition Review, 10 (2), 1990: 292-303.
Dudley, N. Nitrates: The Threat to Food & Water. Green Print, 1990.
Lacey, R. Safe Shopping, Safe Cooking, Safe Eating. Penguin, 1989. Critique of intensive farming and food processing, which covers issues such as salmonella and listeria, whilst anticipating more recent concerns about 'mad cow disease'.
London Food Commission. Food Adulteration & How To Beat It. Unwin Hyman, 1988. Covers many issues such as pesticide residues, additives and irradiation.
Robbins, C. Poisoned Harvest: A Consumer's Guide to Pesticide Use and Abuse. Gollancz, 1991.
Shaoul, J. Mad Cow Disease. The Ecologist, 27(5), 1997: 182-187. Includes expose of government-industry cover-up.
Walker, C. & G. Cannon. The Food Scandal: What's Wrong With The British Diet and How To Put It Right. Century, 1984. Draws upon ' The James Report' from the National Advisory Committee on Nutrition Education in 1981, whose subsequent fate is itself a revealing story.
Webb, T. & T. Lang. Food Irradiation: The Facts. Thorsons, 1987.
Yudkin, J. Pure, White & Deadly. Penguin, 1988. The low-down on excessive food refining.
The Health Problems Of Poorer Countries
Agarwal, A., et al. Water, Sanitation-for All? Earthscan, 1981.
Desowitz, R. The Malaria Capers: Tales of Parasites and People, Research and Reality. Norton, 1991.
Hardoy, J., et al, eds. The Poor Die Young: Housing and Health in Third World Cities. Earthscan, 1990.
Mosley, H. & P. Cowley. The Challenge Of World Health. Population Bulletin, 46 (4), 1991: 1-39.
Ecological Perspectives on Mental Health & Drug Abuse
Industrial growth society encourages, indeed demands, high speed, 'round the clock' lifestyles which are creating unrelenting stress. For all the material wealth inside the global ghettos of affluence, high levels of anxiety, restlessness and general discontent are commonplace due to, for example, job insecurity, promotion, debts, 'keeping up with the Joneses', dissatisfaction when our possessions become outdated or need expensive repair, and the loneliness and oppressiveness of our built environments. These concerns erode the stability of family relationships, and undermine personal stability, calm and contentment. The way we organise work underlies many social sources of illness as it does environmental ones. Some jobs simply place too many demands on people, precipitating nervous breakdowns and other signs of excessive stress. The American magazine Fortune, for example, recently featured an article on the high level of physical and mental disorder amongst corporate executives, one symptom of which, it reported, was the incidence of 'top people' breaking down mid-meeting, unable even to complete the sentence they were speaking.
Perhaps because of the pressures of modern living, a cocktail of addictions claim large segments of society. It must be stressed that notorious drug threats like heroin addiction are quite insignificant compared to alcohol, tobacco and tranquilliser abuse. To these disorders may be linked many other addictions, compulsive behaviour patterns and general flights-from-reality, not least slimming obsessions and retreats into the fantasy worlds of television and computer screens. Often, people might 'feel good' but whether they actually are well is another matter.
Drug abuse might appear a purely self-inflicted wound, yet it may reflect the depths of alienation in contemporary society. Different cultures have, of course, been using drugs for centuries, and no one is compelled to take them. But what has changed is the power of those who manufacture them, and the intensity with which they are sold. These vested interests have sought to deny evidence of the ill health they cause, and to block legislation that might restrict the harm they cause to public well-being. The brewers, the cigarette manufacturers and the pharmaceutical corporations find powerful allies in those whose jobs and addictions depend on them. Faced with such opposition, governments have preferred to count the revenues they receive from what amounts to an organised drugging of society.
However it is organised and regardless of its human impacts, drug addiction has significant environmental impacts. Drug cultivation and preparation has long contributed to deforestation (forest clearance for cropland and for fuel, e.g. for tobacco curing). Land used for such purposes is land that is not being used for food production, even though, in some cases, there may be serious local shortages.
Contemporary technological developments are making people mere adjuncts to machines, numbing their minds with boring routine. Unemployment brings its own, well-documented worries, and there are many other ways in which individuals are made to feel outsiders, unwanted and undervalued. It is hardly surprising that many seek escape in drugs, and, for some, only suicide seems to offer relief. Many of these problems can be found in that great economic 'success' story, Japan, where the casualty rate apparently includes school children killing themselves simply because they failed to get good grades.
Barker, R. Wanted an Eco-Behavioural Science, in Willems E. and H. Rausch, eds., Naturalistic Viewpoints in Psychological Research Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1969.
Bateson, G. Steps to an Ecology of the Mind. Ballantine, 1972.
Baumeister, R. How Self Becomes A Problem. Jnl Personality & Social Psychology. 52 (1), 1987: 163-176. Historical overview of how individualism came to be a dominant framework in psychological thinking.
Berman, M. The Reenchantment of the World. Cornell, 1981.
Berman, M. Coming to Our Sense: Body & Spirit in the Hidden History of the West. Bantam, 1989.
Evernden, N. Seeing & Being Seen. Soundings, LXVIII (1), 1985: 72-87 Looks at the problem of we see things, particularly regarding the blinkers between individuals and their environment.
Glendinning, C. When Technology Wounds Morrow, 1990. How technology can hurt our psyche as well as our physical well-being.
Kellert, S. & E.O. Wilson, eds. The Biophilia Hypothesis. Island, 1993. The hypothesis suggests that evolution has 'programmed' humans to need nature-harm can only result when they are separated from other species and wild spaces. The argument is discussed from several perspectives, many of them psychological.
Kleese, D. Towards an Ecological Epistemology for Psychology. The Trumpeter, 6(4), 1989: 137-143.
Meeker, J. The Comedy of Survival . Guild of Tutors Pr., 1980.
Naess, A. Self-Realisation: an Ecological Approach to Being in the World. The Trumpeter, 4(3), 1987: 35-42. Thoughts from leading voice of 'deep ecology'.
Ornstein, R. & P. Ehrlich. New World, New Mind. Methuen, 1989. A critical look at human mental faculties and whether they serve long-term sustainability.
Perry. R.W. Environmental Hazards and Psychopathology: Linking Natural Disasters with Mental Health. Environmental Management, 7(6), 1993: 543-541.
Roszak T. The Voice of the Earth Transworld, 1993. The dangers to human well-being of becoming isolated from the rest of nature, a theme also discussed by Shepard below.
Sampson, E. Justice and the Critique of Pure Psychology. Plenum, 1983. Exploration of the dangers of isolating the understanding of individuals from contexts and relationships, key ecological concepts.
Shepard, P. Nature and Madness. Sierra, 1982. An exploration of the 'derangement' resulting from human alienation from the environment. Shepard argues that this explains the phenomenon of the child-adult and the failure to 'grow up' into a maturity that takes full responsibility for our actions.
Williams, S. Environment and Mental Health. Wiley, 1994.
Wilson, E.O. Biophilia Harvard, 1984. Claims that there is a psychological and spiritual need to conserve biodiversity, not just a material one.
Towards A Healthier Society
The World Health Organisation, amongst others, has argued that health should be perceived not just as the absence of illness but rather as all-round well being. This definition puts the focus upon qualities such as resilience against blows, the capacity to cope, and the ability to realise individual potential. It follows, then, that the emphasis in health should be a preventative one. It would seek to correct those personal actions, institutions or technologies which produce disease-creating imbalances or bring undue risk of harmful accidents.
The importance of preventative health care policies was shown by the improvements in public health achieved in Victorian and Edwardian times. It was not medical technology per se that brought about these achievements but changes in social conditions, especially in the standards of food, housing, water supply, sewage control and, significantly, the decline in the birth-rate. Today, smear testing for cancer of the cervix has shown what can be achieved by an emphasis on primary care. Public education campaigns in Norway have led to dramatic successes in the reduction of heart disease, tooth decay and some cancers.
Pollution reduction and general environmental protection are primary tools for better standards of health. More rigorous technological assessment procedures could make health and safety considerations central to the licensing of any new technology, process or product. Instead of seeking illusory fail-safe systems, it might be more realistic to start from the premise of 'failure-tolerance'. Safe and speedy evacuation, for example, would become a fundamental requirement of both design and operation, be it of an aeroplane or a leisure centre.
Obvious areas for action include the phasing out of hazardous chemicals. In building design and management, natural lighting, draught elimination, and better ventilation are similarly important. In cases such as inspection and regulatory bodies, the urgent need is simply for more staff. Other environmental policies such as a switch to the soft energy path and a reduction in the volume of traffic would pay big health dividends. So too would population stabilisation and reduction as well as the relief of urban congestion through the revival of rural communities.
The pressures of consumerism and work-related stresses might be partially defused by the transition to a 'steady-state' economy (see the Economics section of the Guide) and by a great reduction in the volume of advertising. Freedom of information legislation would reveal hazards now kept from public view. Often, however, it will take many years to rectify the short-sightedness of the past, e.g. dangerous materials used in home furniture.
The education system is still an under-used tool for improving both awareness of hazards and a deeper sense of personal responsibility. General fitness provides an illustration. It depends just as much on the ability to relax as on the capacity for strenuous effort but most emphasis is placed on the latter, with comparative neglect of that other dimension. There is sometimes an excessive stress on the provision of high-tech sports halls at the expense of cheaper but just as beneficial activities such as hiking and rambling. There is still room for improvements in sex education, not least with regards to issues as gender equality and personal responsibilities regarding overpopulation.
A healthy diet could be directly promoted by government. This is what happened in Britain during the Second World War, when, despite the circumstances, the public seems to have been healthier in many respects than before or since. We would not, of course, want to recreate the circumstances and forced austerity of that period, but there seems to be positive role for tighter standards and more rigorous enforcement than is currently the case. The fact that it has been necessary in recent years to withdraw several food additives emphasises the need to require producers to demonstrate that innovations are harmless before they are introduced.
Agricultural policy tools such as subsidies could be used to discourage the current emphasis on meat and dairy produce. Food regulations and labelling requirements provide other mechanisms for transforming our diet in healthier directions. The German 'purity' laws on alcoholic products provides one model of how ingredients and processes of food manufacture can be regulated. Decentralisation and the promotion of 'human-scale' institutions might better encourage a greater sense of control over the forces that affect our lives. Policies to revive the extended family and local community as the basic building blocks of social life could also increase individual well-being, not least by reducing loneliness and dependence on institutional care.
There is a whole area of debate concerning local communities and the way health can be promoted at that level. Many communities rue the loss of their small local hospitals, which often have been replaced by over-large and centralised facilities. Gains in specialist staff and equipment might be offset by a loss of accessibility and identity for patients and relatives alike, as well as by increased bureaucratic overheads.
There are encouraging precedents for what community-based action can achieve. The Chinese system of 'barefoot doctors', for example, has shown that it is possible to demystify medicine and guide the community in health matters. In the 1930s, the British Pioneer Health Centre (the so-called Peckham Experiment) demonstrated the value of empowering local people to help themselves.
It must be noted, however, that in society where technological and economic forces are undermining community and family life (see the section on Economics, especially trade and GATT, for example), the widely evoked notion of 'community care' can be a fraudulent one and will have little value unless action is taken to build, at local level, strong and self-reliant communities and economies.
Allen, P. Off the Rocking Horse: How Local Councils Can Promote Your Health and Environment. Green Print, 1992. Study of health promotion strategies at a local level.
Ashby, ed. Healthy Cities. OU Pr., 1992. Based on the WHO Healthy Cities project.
Birkin, M. & B. Price. C is for Chemicals: Chemical Hazards & How to Avoid Them. Green Print, 1989.
Bower, J. The Healthy House. Lyle Stuart, 1988.
Bricklin, M. The Practical Encyclopaedia of Natural Healing. Rodale Pr., 1983.
Bunyard, P. Health Guide for the Nuclear Age. Papermac, 1988.
Cannon, G. & F. Lawrence. Additives: Your Complete Survival Guide. Century, 1986.
Chandler, W. Banishing Tobacco. Worldwatch Institute, 1986.
Cohen, D. Promoting the Health of the Nation. New Scientist, 13 Maty, 1989: 50-55. Reports some successful preventative health care campaigns, including ones in Karelia and Wales.
Cohen, G. & J. O'Connor. Fighting Toxics: A Manual for Protecting Family, Community and Workplace. Island Pr., 1990.
Coogan, P. & T. Greene. Environment and Health: How to Investigate Community Health Problems. JSI Centre for Environmental Health Studies, 1992. Boston-based study.
Curwell, S., ed. Buildings and Health. RIBA, 1990.
Dadd, D. Nontoxic, Natural and Earthwise. Tarcher, 1990.
Dadd, D. The Nontoxic Home. Tarcher, 1986.
Dossey, L. Beyond Illness: Discovering the Experience of Health. Shambhala, 1982.
Dossey, L. Space, Time and Medicine. Shambala, 1982.
Draper, P. Health Through Public Policy: The Greening of Public Health. Green Print, 1991.
Fulder, S. The Handbook of Complementary Medicine. Coronet, 1984.
Halliday, M., ed. Our City, Our Health. Healthy Sheffield Planning Team, 1991. An example of a strategy for improving health in a large industrial city.
Harrison, S., 1987. New Approaches to Cancer. Century, 1987.
Hastings, A. et al, eds. Health for the Whole Person. Westview Pr., 1980.
Jones, A. Alternative Medicine-Alternative Society. The Ecologist, 14 (4), 1984: 156-160
Kidel, M. The Challenge of Illness. Resurgence, 108, Jan/Feb., 1985: 37-40. Emphasises the importance of coming to terms with the realities of illness and death, giving up the pursuit of permanent perfect health.
LaFond, A. Sustaining Primary Health Care. Earthscan, 1994. Emphasis on Third World, using experiences of Save The Children.
Last, W. The Diversity and Effectiveness of Natural Cancer Cures. The Ecologist, 28(2), 1998: 117-121.
Leshan, L. Holistic Health. Turnstone, 1984.
Macdonald, J. Primary Health Care: Medicine in its Place. Earthscan, 1992.
Macy, M., ed. Healing the World-And Me. Knowledge Systems, 1994.
Mansfield, P. The Good Health Handbook: Help Yourself Get Better. Grafton Books, 1988.
Mattson, P. Holistic Health in Perspective. Mayfield, 1982.
Murray, M. & J. Pizzorno. The Encyclopaedia of Natural Medicine. Optima, 1990.
Odent, M. Primal Health. Century, 1986.
Pearse, I. & L. Crocker. The Peckham Experiment, A Study in the Living Structure of Society. Scottish Academic Pr., 1985 (first published 1943). The story of a pioneering community health project operated during the 30s & 40s in south London.
Pelletier, K. Holistic Medicine. Dell, 1980.
Pietroni, P. The Greening of Medicine. Gollancz, 1991
Postel, S. Defusing the Toxics Threat: Controlling Pesticides and Industrial Waste. Worldwatch Institute, 1987.
Venolia, C. Healing Environments: Your Guide To Indoor Well-Being. Celestial Arts, 1988.
Weiner, M. Maximum Immunity. Gateway Books, 1986.
World Health Organisation. Supportive Environments for Health. WHO, 1992.
Making Your Home Healthier
Hunter, L. The Healthy House: An Attic-to-Basement Guide to Toxin-Free Living. Rodale Pr., 1989.
Kruger, A. H is for EcoHome: An A-Z Guide to a Healthy, Planet-Friendly Household. Gaia Books, 1991.
Ecological Medical Ethics
Like all technical innovation, medical innovations in a more sustainable society would be subject to social control. Innovators might be expected to demonstrate that proposed developments-new drugs and surgical techniques, for example-real and lasting benefits in the broad social sense. Current and envisaged interference with human fertility and genetic make-up might be indicted as the height of irresponsibility and, accordingly, be banned. Finally, society must learn to acknowledge openly the inevitability of death, as many traditional societies have done. Heroic surgery under the banner of the Hippocratic Oath must be balanced against the individual's right to die with dignity, care and comfort.
Amongst the general public too, there is a widespread belief that immediate treatment of any ailment, including self-inflicted ones, with the biggest and best techniques, is an inviolable right that only the terminally callous could deny. Whether this is an appropriate attitude for the emerging age of ecological scarcity is, then, another critical question. Certain forms of plastic surgery, for example, might be seen as a self-indulgent waste of scarce resources. The more general problem can be seen by the simple projection of current rates of growth in spending on health care in many industrialised countries. By the last quarter of the coming century they would be spending the entire national product on health if such trends were to continue-an economically and ecologically unhealthy strategy!
Hardin, G. Filters Against Folly, especially 'The Medical Commons', p 122-127. Penguin, 1986. Hardin, a biologist, has written widely on issues such as abortion and heroic surgery. See also the following works by Hardin: Exploring New Ethics for Survival.(Viking Pr., 1972), Limits to Altruism: An Ecologists View of Survival (Indiana Univ. Pr., 1977) and Naked Emperors, Essays of a Taboo Stalker (Kaufmann, 1982).
Kimbrell, A. The Human Body Shop: The Engineering and Marketing of Life. Harper, 1994. A general but thorough critique of biotechnology, with strong emphasis on bioethics.
Potter, V. R. Global Bioethics: Building on the Leopold Legacy. Michigan State Univ. Pr., 1988. It develops an approach guided by Aldo Leopold's famous Land Ethic to the many tricky moral questions in medical science and practice .
Rowe, S. Pro-World Choice. Real World, 5, 1993: 13. Argues an ecological case for birth control, including abortion.
Greener Hospitals
Issues relating to the greening of hospitals and similar establishments in the more physical sense are often similar to those found in other sectors and in the home. See, for example, the sections in the Guide on buildings, general energy conservation, landscape and grounds maintenance, purchasing, and waste disposal. There does not seem to be any single work that provides a comprehensive coverage of these matters as they relate to health care establishments. There are, however, some interesting projects and studies which provide some guidance. For example, the new hospital at Ashington in N.E. England has been widely praised for its achievements in energy saving and general design. Many hospices too provide examples of buildings that provide patients with peaceful and dignified surroundings in an environmentally more harmonious way. The Royal Society for Nature Conservation in the UK has produced a report and a project pack on Hospital Wildlife Gardens, which serve both patients' needs and those of biodiversity.
Hodgkinson, S. & E. Ison. Green Power. Health Service Jnl, 24 Oct., 1991: 20-21. Brief overview of environmental auditing for health authorities and hospital managers.
Montague, A. The Green Ward Effect. The Guardian, Oct. 19, 1990 (page number missing). Report on greener hospital design as reflected by St Mary's Hospital on the Isle of Wight. (Also reported in The Sunday Times, 5 Aug., 190, section 3. p4.)
On energy-saving techniques in hospitals and similar establishments, see:
Energy Efficiency Office. Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Health Care. EEO, regularly updated.
For an informative study of medical waste, its reduction and safer disposal, see:
Waste Reduction Commission. Shared Responsibilities: A British Columbia Biomedical Waste Action Plan. Vancouver: Waste Reduction Commission (Commissioner: Dorothy Caddell), 1994.
Welfare and Social Care Policy
Traditional thinking about social care policy is dominated by works following in the footsteps of the sociological 'greats' like Marx and Mannheim. More practically, debate about issues such as 'community care' and the welfare state as a whole have been shaped by the contending forces of collectivism and public provision versus individualism and privatisation. There is, as yet, no extensive canon of material from a distinctly ecological perspective. The green movement does comment on social care issues but it tends to draw more upon 'small is beautiful' perspectives. Often it shades into more traditional left-wing approaches, with a proliferating list of personal entitlements to be met by public services. Sometimes they fuse in what has been called, accurately or not, 'political correctness'.
Modern social security was undoubtedly a great step forward after the evils of the poor house, but it was founded on false assumptions about economic growth and employment. Government priming of the economy would, it was believed, make unemployment something that was marginal and temporary, and the benefits system was designed accordingly. The more the queues of the long-term unemployed have lengthened, the more the system's shortcomings have become evident. Not even so-called full employment solved the problems of insecurity and poverty, but recent changes in work patterns have exposed gaping holes in the social security net. The net itself requires an enormous and expensive bureaucracy to administer the mass of rules which dictate who gets what and when. Claimants are treated not as citizens receiving what is theirs by right, but as supplicants for state handouts. There are doubtless some 'scroungers' who abuse the system. Far more people, however, are simply not getting money to which they are entitled because of the hurdles built into the system. Charity-style handouts for the needy contrast with the virtual free-for-all at the other end of the social spectrum, where the rich can employ expense accounts and tax evasion to make themselves richer. The fiddlers on the roof of society cost us far more than any petty fraud below stairs.
One alternative is to clear aside the morass of handouts and clawbacks. It would abolish all existing welfare benefits, tax allowances, and grants. Every citizen would receive instead a basic income sufficient for their essential needs. It would be protected by indexation, to compensate for productivity changes and inflation. It would be given to everyone, in or out of paid employment and regardless of household structure. There would simply be a unified payment, one rate for adults and one for the first two children. The more that such a system is complicated by additional benefits and associated regulations, the more its efficiency and fairness is compromised.
The rationalization of the way in which society supports its citizens would be matched by changes in how citizens contribute financially to society. Employers' and employees' national insurance contributions would be abolished, with taxs levied on a progressive basis upon all sources and types of income, from paid work to capital transfer. Costs to both society and the individual could be reduced by such schemes. Administrative overheads would be cut drastically, because unconditional payment would be made to everyone. There would be less need for costly and powerful bureaucracies and government departments. Controls over minimum wages and maximum numbers of working years could be abolished.
The cruel anomalies of the 'poverty trap' would disappear since the new system no longer would penalise those who take on a low-waged job by deducting money in the form of lost benefits. Individuals would always gain from any paid work they could find. The 'spendthrift trap' would also go, since savings would no longer be penalised by loss of eligibility for grants and allowances. The 'idleness trap' would end, since the basic income would continue to be paid to people who want to do voluntary work, study, or launch a small business. The 'cohabitation trap' and other forms of prying into people's private lives would cease because the scheme makes no distinctions about the way in which individuals organize their personal relationships. The 'discrimination trap' by which women, especially married women, are sometimes treated by the system as appendages to men, would end, since the scheme would guarantee economic independence for women. In general, the stigma attached to unemployment and welfare handouts would break down, since everyone would start from the same equal footing. 'Signing on' would be ended. Those whose work is caring for children, caring for the sick and elderly, or looking after the home, would be fully recognized and rewarded. One married partner might go out to a paid job while the other worked in the home, yet both would be 'breadwinners'. The basic income scheme might turn a chaotic system into one that is fair and efficient. Low-income families would gain the most. Though there are as many definitions of a 'good' standard of living as there are people, most would still want extra money from paid work, and society would still need their labour.
There are, however, other matters which few welfare reformers address. Welfare expenditure consumes some 33% of Gross National Product and, despite the weaknesses of that measure, it gives some indication of the level of environmental impact from welfare provision. It is silly to blame all enviromental problems on industry since social service offices, hostels and the like are all consumers of the products rolling off the production lines. To take a simple example, many health visitors and social workers travel by car yet, compared to the business sector, little, if any, auditing seems to have been done on this and the many other ways in which social care services deplete resources and increase environmental degradation and pollution. Facilities and services from day centres to residential homes occupy physical space-which is therefore not available for something else-and run on large inputs of energy as well as a multitude of other resources. Though, of course, the fiscal costs of such provision causes great controversy debate, little attention has been paid to the associated environmental impacts.
At the same time, unsustainable pressure upon environmental systems is something of a boomerang, exacerbating social problems. Population growth, for example, not only squeezes the environment but also generates increasingly unsustainable social effects, from overcrowding to increased demands on services. Pollution too directly takes its toll of human well-being. The welfare state could be seen, in part, as a repair kit for casualties of consumerism, including both those who are racing too fast in the rat race as well as those who feel excluded from it.
Yet healthy environments can be a source of increasing human fulfilment and well-being. It is interesting that many sanatoria are located in comparatively clean and uncrowded environments while changes to a 'greener' diets have been widely advocated as a possible cure for many behavioural problems. Similarly there is a long tradition of outdoor pursuits being used to encourage delinquents and others to develop greater self-respect and self-discipline. More generally, an ecological approach demands a balance between rights and responsibilities, with a limit to how many services can be provided, regardless of the way they are delivered. In turn, the emphasis upon ecological sustainability leads to an emphasis on much more self-reliant and smaller communities, in which needs would be increasingly satisfied from local resources. Greater emphasis would be placed upon quality of life and communal well-being, rather than physical consumption and individualism.
It might be noted that a shift to sustainable systems would require much greater inputs of human labour compared to energy-guzzling technologies. This would be a huge job creation programme in the more traditional sense and, as such, reduce many of the social ills associated with large-scale unemployment. However, such a vision cannot be compatible with dreams of an idyllic 'leisure' society where robots cater for our every whim. Last but not least, the limits-to-growth model advises caution about overlarge and distant organisations which become unresponsive to the needs they were intended to serve, creating instead ideal niches for all kinds of careerists and time-servers.
Ferris, J. Ecological versus Rationality: Can There Be Green Social Policies? In A. Dobson & P. Lucardie, eds., The Politics of Nature, Routledge, 1993.
George, V. & P. Wilding. Greenism. Chapter 7 of their Welfare and Ideology, Harvester & Wheatsheaf, 1994.
Henderson, H. The Entropy State, Planning Review 2/3, 1974: 1-4 How expansion puts excessive strains on the social fabric, whose maintenance and repair becomes progressively more expensive-the ecological perspective on the widely discussed crisis in the modern welfare state.
Manning, N. Social Policy Review 1990-91. Longman, 1991. This volume contains two articles which explore relevant green perspectives, though with more emphasis on the empowerment & participation dimension rather than a deeper ecological one- Green Politics and the Future of Welfare, (Ferris) and The Greening of Social Policy (Greening).
Education
The present education system reflects the structures and practices of industrialism-hierarchy, competition, specialisation, segregation and compartmentalisation. For many it provides a dissatisfying experience, a conveyor belt to patterns of employment fast receding into history, never to return. Classroom violence and vandalism on the one hand, and staff unrest and nervous breakdowns on the other, are obvious signs of a deep malaise. Classroom and play ground sometimes breed brutalization rather than enlightenment. Actual teaching is only one of many roles that teachers are now expected to perform, often the main one being crowd control.
Defenders of modern schooling often point to the rising number of exam passes. Even if this is true, what really matters is that the 'output' of schooling should be measured against the 'input'. Whether we judge by social behaviour, general knowledge, aesthetic and moral awareness or specific skills, the end result of so many years of compulsory schooling constitutes a poor rate the physical resources, time, money and effort it has consumed.
The institutions of further and higher education have different problems from the inner city comprehensive schools. But they too are suffering from a fundamental crisis of character and purpose that goes deeper than issues such as funding levels and student grants. It is little progress to boost student numbers if they are simply learning more and more about less and less, in areas and ways irrelevant to environmental and social problems. The very currency of the certificates that lie at the end of the educational paper chase is devalued, as more and more people possess them. 'Credentialism' has become an accelerating treadmill. Furthermore, the functions of teaching and research have become badly confused. Students can appear a nuisance to academics, who are vying with each other to produce their research papers-more for career self-interest than to stimulate debate.
Many initiatives outside the compulsory system receive inadequate attention. Playgroups, youth clubs, voluntary bodies and adult education can offer very rewarding experiences for their consumers. Yet too often they are separate from and inferior to the formal system, in status and funding.
Simply throwing more money at such problem is not the answer; we have being doing that for decades. Of course there are schools that need building work done and better resources but the problem goes deeper than this. Plenty of educational institutions that are replete with all kinds of facilities achieve far less than much humbler and smaller places-including many village schools at risk of being closed. The education budget cannot keep on growing overall, and the knee jerk politics of 'no cuts' must not be allowed to get in the way of more fundamental reassessments.
Educational technofixes have offered a solution. First it was audio-visual aids, now it is the computer. These have their specific uses, but their contribution to the development of a fully-rounded individual is very limited. Indeed, in some ways the urge to introduce computing into all corners of the curriculum is likely to be downright harmful. The vital socialisation of children, teaching them to work together, listen, be constructively self-assertive and so on, is unlikely to be encouraged if more and more time is spent in front of computer screens. Nor is individual creativity enhanced by working with computer programmes where all the key parameters are already decided. Worse, computerised number-crunching can suggest that life and the various disciplines through which we learn about it are reduced to what can be quantified. Qualities such as intuition, sensitivity and compassion, and a capacity to understand things as a whole and not just as a sum of parts, have no place in binary logic. The computer zombie is as much a threat to the society of the future as the uneducated lout.
Institutional rearrangements within an unchanged framework are also unlikely to improve matters. It does not help to introduce a standardised curriculum based on what has already failed. Young people are not going to respond any better to subjects which they now spurn merely because central government says that they must study them. More testing will increase the meaningless cycle of preparation for the next test.
Worse is the policy of reducing education to a matter of training. Real training, however, takes place not in fake simulations and superficial visits to workplaces, but over a period of time alongside someone already skilled in a craft or profession. Though the old apprenticeship system may have been overlong and exploitative, it was founded upon a sound principle of transferring skills from one generation to the next. Reviving the best of that tradition is an urgent need. Some skills have been outdated by technological change, yet in many fields such as working with brick and wood, age-old skills are still at a premium. Moreover, in an ecological society that fosters repair and reuse, demand will increase. Automated systems cannot substitute for the human ingenuity and flexibility demanded in such work.
Sadly the bias of the formal education system has been to equate manual work with menial work. Few initiatives for youth training address such problems. Education is often seen as the acquisition of a set of marketable skills. We do need those skills, but human potential is only fully realised, both for the individual and for society, through a much broader range of experiences and understanding. There is no formal apprenticeship, for example, in wisdom or compassion. To base what is taught on a series of skills that can be measured and quantified debases what education should provide. Many human qualities and abilities cannot be confined within the framework of assessment. A narrowing of education to what is specifically 'useful' for today's economy and technology is inadequate. We must recognise the reality of change, and help young people to develop the ability to cope with it. This is far more likely to result from a broad range of educational experiences which enhance imagination, flexibility and vision.
Some people want more private education, which would inevitably relegate the state system to a second-class service for those unable to pay. That the pupils of private schools often prosper in life reflects not on the kind of education provided, but on the social background and connections in which the private system is rooted. The personalities and limited horizons of some ex private school children suggests that they may be victims rather than beneficiaries of privilege. To increase social segregation in education is quite unacceptable.
We have still not learned the lesson of the programme of closures and amalgamations which produced the mega-schools and colleges of today. The reasons why bigness is a blight in education have been well documented, as have the advantages of smaller institutions. We have created institutions whose managers require more effort and more resources than the teaching job they are meant to perform, and where individuals matter less and less.
Some critics of modern education seem so influenced by its failings that they advocate throwing the baby out with the bath water, by getting rid of all elements of compulsion. Instead of a planned public system, they envisage a web of associations and exchanges through which individuals would pursue their own education. We should value the realisation that people learn in many ways and from many sources, yet recognise that on the whole such changes would be socially retrogressive. No change takes place in a social vacuum. To demolish existing structures would only widen social inequalities. Those who value education and have the funds available would ensure that their offspring did not suffer, while the children of less motivated or less well-off parents would fall even further behind. Deschooling would also be to throw away existing resources. Proper balance means a combination of freedom of choice and a degree of compulsion. It is a necessary part of life that we sometimes have to grit our teeth and work, rejecting our inclination to do things that might seem more instantly enjoyable or rewarding. Deschooling reflects the 'do your own thing' mentality which too often pays attention to self but not to society.
The trouble with putting all the blame on what deschoolers call 'compulsory miseducation' is that it confuses symptoms with root causes. Problems in schooling are a reflection of problems in society; schools cannot be held responsible for inadequate parenting, devalued family life, the effect of changed ways of earning (or not earning) a living, or social inequality. Similarly, technological developments such as TV and home video seem to be lowering the boredom threshold and undermining the concentration of many children. Schools are victims rather than agents of such changes.
Deschoolers tend to underestimate what a reformed school system, in a reformed society, could achieve. On the other hand, mainstream educational reformers often overestimate what even the best system could attain. 'Limits to growth' apply to educational processes as much as to anything else. The more institutionalised these processes become, the more the law of diminishing returns sets in. We must ask just what we want our children to know and value after so many hours in the classroom and laboratory. We might begin to make real progress if we were to expect less in terms of quantity from education, and more in quality. If our children were not compelled to spend so much time in formal schooling, and were able to study fewer compulsory subjects, of a different form and content, this reduced goal would lead to a better real education.
Education is a key challenge in our current predicament. How can we socialise citizens, so they learn values and lead lifestyles appropriate to sustainability and conviviality, both between people and between people and planet? That question must be answered if we are to meet the classical notion of education as being the full development of the potential within an individual. The theory and practice of conservation should therefore inform all parts of the new curriculum. So too should the need to produce citizens aware of their rights and responsibilities, capable of full participation in the open and democratic structures of a conserver society.
Barlow, M. & H-J. Robertson. The Americanisation of Canadian Education. The Ecologist, 27(4), 1997: 143-146. Cultural homogenisation and attendant dumbing down courtesy of the classroom, a process at work in many countries. How many teachers use CD ROM full of American instead of locally appropriate material, for example?
Bowers, C. A.. Education, Cultural Myths and the Ecological Crisis. SUNY Press, 1993. A first-class and broad-ranging critique, which in part shows that most educational reform has still been trapped in the worldview that is destroying the world.
Bowers, C. A. Critical Essays on Education, Modernity and the Recovery of the Ecological Imperative. Teachers College Pr., 1993.
Cajete, Gregory. Look at the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education. Publisher unknown, 1994. Indigenous peoples have often been praised for their knowledge of plants and animals in their environment. Dr Cajete, a Tewa Indian, shows what we can learn from them in terms of educational goals and practices, ones which will help people to relate sustainably to where we live.
Caldwell, L. Environmental Studies: Discipline or Metadiscipline. Environmental Professional, 1983: 247-259
Clark, Mary E. Ariadne's Thread: The Search for New Modes of Thinking. St. Martin's Pr., 1989.
Education Network for Environment & Development. Environmental Education and Teacher Education-Preparing for Change and Participation. University of Sussex Occasional Paper 3
Ehrlich, P. Environmental Disruption and the Implications for the Social Sciences. Soc. Sci. Q. 62, 1981: 7-22. A critical look from leading ecologist at what the social sciences teach-and fail to teach.
Fien, J. Education for the Environment: Critical Curriculum Theorising & Environmental Education. Deakin Univ. Pr., 1993.
Fien, J., and Trainer, T., eds. Environmental Education and Sustainable Development: Pathways to Sustainability. Griffith/Deakin Universities, 1993. Insights from Australia, the home of much good thinking, contrary to stereotypes of the country.
Fien, J. Teaching for a Sustainable World: the Environmental & Development Education Project for Teacher Education. Environmental Education Research, 1(1), 1995: 21-33. Review of teacher education project in Australia.
Greig, S., et al. Earthrights: Education as if the Planet Really Mattered. Kogan Page/WWF, 1987.
McGinnis, K. & Oehlberg, B. Starting Out Right: Nurturing Young Children as Peacemakers. Meyer-Stone Books. We live in a violent world, with war the prime agent of environmental destruction e.g. in the Gulf and Vietnam and personal aggression the source of so much individual suffering. This reality makes such books particularly important.
McIntosh, Alastair et al. Environmental Education for Adaptation Centre for Human Ecology. University of Edinburgh, 1991.
Martin, Peter. First Steps to Sustainability.
WWF, 1990. An illustrated booklet looking at environmental education and the solution of environmental problems.
Martin, Peter. Past Imperfect, Future Perfect: Education, the Environment & Sustainable Development. WWF., 1993.
Further thoughts from the WWF's principal education officer on education and the environment.
Milbrath, L. Envisioning A Sustainable Learning Our Way Out. SUNY Pr., 1989. A general study of the human predicament but very useful as an outline of the understanding and values that a greener education system would be developing in learners.
North, R. Schools of Tomorrow. Green Books, 1987. The importance of the 'human scale' in educational structures.
Orr, David. The Liberal Arts, the Campus and the Biosphere. Harvard Educational Review, 60 2, 1990: 205-216
Orr, David. What Is Education For?, In Context, 27, 1991: 52-55
Orr, David. Ecoliteracy , Education and the Transition to a Post-modern World SUNY Press, 1992. The best analysis of the changes necessary in the educational curriculum if it is to serve the construction and maintenance of a sustainable society.
Orr, D. Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment & the Human Prospect. Island Pr., 1994.
Robottom, I., ed. Environmental Education: Practice and Possibility. Deakin Univ. Pr., 1987.
Seed, J., et al. Thinking Like a Mountain. Heretic Books, 1988. Includes suggestions on how to run workshops that allow participants to get in touch with Nature.
Sessions, G. Ecophilosophy, Utopias and Education. J. Environ. Education, 115/1, 1983:27-42. An exploration of the deeper vision necessary to link education to the development of a sustainable society, at the centre of which is the notion of intrinsic value in all forms of life.
Sterling, Stephen. Towards an Ecological Worldview. In J. Engel, & J. Engel. Ethics of Environment and Development. Belhaven Press, 1990. A strong presentation of the conceptual foundations necessary for a really worthwhile education from a leading environmental education practitioner.
Sterling, Stephen. Good Earth-Keeping: Education, Training and Awareness for A Sustainable Future. UNEP-UK, 1992.
Sterling, Stephen. Coming of Age: A Short History of Environmental Education. National Association for Environmental Education, 1992.
Swan, J. Nature as Teacher and Healer. Random House, 1992.
Trainer, T. Towards an Ecological Philosophy of Education. Discourse, 10/2:, 1990 93-116.
Wilshire, Bruce. The Moral Collapse of the University: Professionalism, Purity and Alienation. SUNY Pr., 1990.
Classroom Practice And Curriculum Development
Agyeman, Julian. People, Plants & Places. Southgate Publishers, 1994. Special emphasis on inner-city schools and possibilities afforded by studying and growing plants.
Ashton, E. Celebrating Our Environment. Southgate Publishers, 1994. Ideas for assemblies.
Baczala, Krysia. Environmental Audits: Towards A School Policy for Environmental Education. National Association for Environmental Education, n.d. (1992?)
Bigger, S.. Bright Sparks: Beginning Primary Environmental Education. WWF, forthcoming.
Business and Technology Education Council. BTEC Environmental Initiative. BTEC, 1993.
Cade, A., ed. Policies for Environmental Education and Training. English Nature, 1991.
Capone, L. Magna Cum Environmentalist: The Environmental Imperative in Higher Education, E Magazine, 2(2), 1991: 37-41
Cohen, M. Connecting with Nature: Creating Moments That Let Earth Teach. World Peace University, 1989.
Committee of Directors of Polytechnics. Greening the Curriculum. CDP Working Document, 1991.
Conservation Volunteers Northern Ireland. Practical Conservation: Advice for Teachers. CVNI, 1993. Creating conservation areas in school grounds and elsewhere.
Cornell, Joseph. Listening to Nature. Exley, 1987
Cornell, Joseph. Sharing Nature with Children. Exley, 1987. An excellent guide to the creation of experiences through which young people can learn and develop.
Cortese, A., & S. Creighton. The Greening of American Universities Jnl Assoc. Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, 33(2), 1991: 24-29.
Court, L. Groundrules: A Practical Guide to Planning Site Projects Using the School Development Plan. Community Design, 1994.
Curriculum Council for Wales. Environmental Education: A Framework for a Cross-Curricula Theme. CCW, Advisory Paper 17, 1991.
Eagan, D.J., and Orr, D., eds. The Campus and Environmental Responsibility. Jossey-Bass, 1992. Mainly concentrates on greener institutional practices like recycling and energy efficiency but clearly the initiatives described could be linked to learning experiences and assignment work.
Education for Sustainability Forum. The Role of Education for Sustainability I.I.E.D., 1993. A general statement.
Edwards, P. and Watts, M. Making the Difference: Environmental Problem Solving Through School Science, Design and Technology. WWF, 1993.
Elcombe, D.M. Environmental Education: The Vital Link. RSPB, 1991.
Greig, S., et al.. Greenprints for Changing Schools. Kogan Page, 1991.
Hebbutt, D. Ordering the Elements: The Management of Environmental Education Across the Curriculum. WWF, 1992.
Hicks, D. Educating for the Future: a Practical Classroom Guide. WWF, 1993.
Hicks, D., ed. Preparing for the Future: Notes and Queries for Concerned Educators. WWF, forthcoming.
HMI. Environmental Education in Further Education 1991-1992. Department for Education, 1992.
Institute of Environmental Sciences. Environmental Education Across the Further and Higher Education Sector: A Position Paper. I.E.S., n.d.
Irvine, S. & H. Manns. Towards a Greener Curriculum. Univ. Northumbria, 1994.
Khan, Shirley Ali. Colleges Going Green. FEU, 1992. Plenty of practical examples, though more on the institutional rather than curricula side.
LaChappelle, Dolores. Earth Festivals. Way of the Mountain Center, n.d. A guide to celebrations and rituals which can help children appreciate the Earth's seasons and other cycles ($23, from Way of the Mountain Center, see below)
Lucas, B. & A. Mountfield. Fund-raising for School Grounds. Southgate Publishers, 1995. How to raise money for school grounds projects.
Masheder, M. Windows to Nature. WWF, 1990.
Mayes, P. Teaching Children Through the Environment. Hodder and Stoughton, 1985.
National Curriculum Council. Curriculum Guidance 7: Environmental Education. NCC, 1990.
Naybour, S. So It's Our World. WWF, 1992. A Resource pack for governors on environmental education.
Pike, G, and D. Selby. Greening the Staffroom: A Staff Development File in Environmental Education. WWF, 1993.
Randle, D. Teaching Green. Green Print, 1989.
RSPB. Environmental Games Guide. RSPB Youth Unit, 1994.
Sterling S., and G. Cooper. In Touch: Environmental Education for Europe. WWF, 1992. Different approaches and practices.
Student Environmental Action Coalition. The Student Environmental Action Guide. EarthWorks Press, 1991.
Thomas, H. Green Links: An Active Learning Resource for 8-12 year olds. Kent Trust for Nature Conservation, 1994.
Toyne, P., et al. Environmental Responsibility: an Agenda for Further and Higher Education. Dept for Education, 1993. The government's own 'expert' committee, though the implementation of its recommendations seems to be left to the 'voluntary approach'.
Watson, Tom,. Recycling Goes to College, Resource Recycling, 10(4), 1990: 76-81. American examples.
WWF. Let's Reach Out: Ideas for Environmental Education In-Service in Schools. WWF, 1995 Two handbooks one primary, the other secondary level.
WWF. Thinking Futures: environmental education and the Provision of Pre-Service Teacher Education. WWF, 1995.
WWF/CEE. Planning and Evaluation of Environmental Education. WWF, 1993.
An increasing number of educational institutions are beginning to audit their environmental impact and develop environmentally friendlier policies. Perhaps the most comprehensive and documented work is that done at the University of Central Lancashire. A more accessible example but from North America was the project done by the University of California at Los Angeles:
Environmental Study Group. Campus Environmental Audit: A Student Guide to Campus Environmental Change.
Museums and Libraries
Levidow, L. Domesticating Biotechnology: How London's Science Museum has Framed the Controversy. The Ecologist, 28(3), 1998: 143-145. How sponsorship is distorting museum exhibition, with a focus on biotechnology but also looking at energy and food examples.
Mass Communication and Society
See the bibliography on Technology for references on the mass media, their nature and impact.
Leisure, Sport & Tourism
The goal of sport, leisure and tourist development is that of development in general: more people making more use of more environments aided by more infrastructure ranging from ski lifts to marinas. The 'modernisation' perspective of conventional development regards all these supposedly re-creational as but another route to those twin altars of greater trade and economic growth. Although some of its problems are not denied, the mainstream perspective is that it is an inherently beneficial activity speeding up the equally desirable diffusion of capital and new ideas. It develops a specialist niche in the national, indeed global, division of labour for those areas whose natural resources, although pleasing to the eye, are otherwise not being harnessed to the economic development machine.
The 'growth-or-death' model of development can be seen at work in the British tourist industry, perhaps its icon being Scotland's Aviemore complex. Symptomatic of the development perspective is the Northumbria Tourist Board's description of the local coastline and uplands as 'England's best-kept Secret' which, according to its objectives it wants to open to everyone by increasing the number of visitors and extending the season in which they come. The Cumbrian Tourist Board's 'A Vision For Cumbria' has similar objectives. Twelve are listed, nine of which are about promoting more tourism or gaining more income from it, even though the area was already on the receiving end of some 4 million tourist trips in 1988 and 13.9 million 'tourist nights' were spent there.
The tourist industry per se is not alone in promoting these developments. According to the figures on the work of the Highlands and Islands Development Board, support for tourism was significantly greater than that provided for land improvement. Perhaps not surprisingly, the HIDB was a supporter of the proposed Lurchers Gully ski development in the Cairngorms. Proponents of 'integrated rural development' also see a more controlled and carefully planned expansion of sport and leisure facilities as part of the way forward, making a multiple use of resources (e.g. a Forestry Commission plantation or a reservoir) otherwise devoted to narrower purposes.
Tourism is also seen as a means of supplementing and diversifying the incomes of local farmers and other rural inhabitants (e.g. conversion of surplus farm buildings to tourist usage). The Countryside Commission, in particular, has been active in this field through its Recreation 2000 policy review process. Despite specific problems it might bring, such development is perceived as generally a good thing. The Countryside Commission paper 'What Future For the Uplands (CCP 149) reflects this assumed link, stressing that more but better organised recreation would be good for both rural communities and the environment itself. Some conservationists echo this perception. For example, the countryside campaigner and writer Marion Shoard portrays rural recreation as the key to the 'survival' of the countryside (see her essay in MacEwan, ed. Future Landscapes. Chatto and Whindus, 1976).
However such notions of recreation simply illustrate the unsustainable and self-cancelling effects of the growth oriented development model.. Tourism has been righly attacked as 'blight seeing' and as 'that process in which people seek out unspoilt places and spoil them'. Travel itself is a major resource-depleter and polluter. At subsequent destinations, impacts include congestion, litter, noise and water pollution, the disturbance of wildlife and habitat destruction, scenic degradation and a destabilising of local economies and cultural systems.
Customs and traditions are disrupted; locals are reduced to the status of a servant class dependent upon the income of outsiders. The work is often seasonal and low paid. Many people working in the hotel industry, for example, earn less than the Supplementary Benefit Level. There are inherent problems in generating income for locals by charging visitors (other than for, say, the provision of bed and breakfast by a farmer). The local economy that has developed a major tourist industry can become unsustainably vulnerable to changes in fashion, travel costs and the state of the economy in countries or regions from which tourists come. In some areas, tourism has become a monoculture equivalent to more well-known ones in farming and forestry with all the vulnerabilities of 'putting eggs in one basket'. Externally owned developments also export profits outside the tourist area and the luring of visitors may itself absorb many funds.
Recreation and tourism may generate money for a locality but they are not generators of wealth in the sense of the physical creation of foodstuffs, fibres, and timber. Indeed the monies spent at tastefully developed and 'environment-friendly' recreational facilities at locations such as a dam or a Forest visitors' centre might well have been earned in industries decidedly 'environment-unfriendly', whose externalities include the acid rain now damaging the productivity of many forests and lakes.
Apart from the effects on host communities and environments, it seems to be an increasingly unfulfilling and stressful experience for tourists themselves. Bernard Lane of Bristol University's Rural Tourism Project once compared the pre-processed menu of mass tourism to junk food. Or, as Hamele once put it, the 'question is not whether it is possible for us to go anywhere we like but whether there is actually any point in going at all'.
Though past growth in recreational activity and tourism seems to have levelled off compared to previous estimates, actual or proposed developments pose grave threats to many specific environments around the world. The problems of 'honey pot' areas such as England's Lake District or America's National Parks, are well known but new areas are also at risk. In the British countryside, for example, several developers are proposing all-year leisure villages and time-share complexes on the lines of the Lake District's Langdale complex.
In the 'developing world', tourism is expanding fast. One example is Goa where not only local environments are being destroyed but also local people such as fishing communities are being pushed out to make way for tourists. In many such developments, there is a cruel contrast between the sheer luxury inside the walls of tourist complexes and the harsh poverty outside. Perhaps the most degenerate form of this development is the 'brothel tourism' now common in south east Asia. The description of tourism as 'whorism' is not just figurative speech.
It would appear, then, that the tourist 'option' remains decidedly part of the problem, not the answer.
Centre for the Study of Environmental Change. Leisure Landscapes-Leisure, Culture and the English Countryside: Challenges and Conflicts. CPRE, 1994. Major report plus 14 background papers which, unlike many studies, recognising the incompatibilities between the expansion of the leisure industry and the conservation of the environment as well as the limits to what can be achieved by better 'leisure management'.
CPRE. Sport & Recreation. CPRE, 1993. Looks at sport and recreation, focusing particularly on the spectre of leisure complexes eating into the urban green belt and countryside.
CPRE. Tourism. CPRE, 1992. CPRE response to government planning policy regarding tourism.
CPRE. Tourism Towards the Year 2000. CPRE, 1993. CPRE response to the English Tourist Board's strategy.
Dustin, D. & L. McAvoy. Hardining National Parks. Environmental Ethics, 2, 1980: 39-44. Using Hardin's tragedy of the commons thesis, the authors look at how open access slowly but surely eats away at protected areas, with case study of tourist pressures on Yosemite National Park.
Gardner, J. & J. Marsh. Recreation in Consumer and Conserver Societies. Alternatives 7, 1978: 25-29.
Harrington, M. To the Disney Station. Harpers, Jan., 1979: 35-44.
Jackle, J. The Tourist: Travels in 20th Century America. Univ. Nebraska Pr., 1985.
Krippendorf, J. The Holiday Makers. Heinemann, 1987. A comprehensive study that argues that mass tourism is a serpent chasing its own tail.
McCannell, D. The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. Schocken, 1976. Study of North American leisure culture
Pleumarom, A. The Political Economy of Tourist. The Ecologist, 244:, 1994 :142-148. Critique of tourism as agent of destructive patterns of development, which 'ecotourism' also fails to address.
Schickel, R. The Disney Version. Simon & Schuster, 1968.
Sterling, J. The World According to Disney. Earth Island, Summer, 1994: 32-33. Its theme parks and movies may be phoney but its environmental desturctiveness and culture-blighting are all too real.
Whelan, T., ed. Nature Tourism: Managing for the Environment. Island Pr., 1991.
Winter, M. Farm-based Tourism & the Conservation of the Uplands. Ecos, 5(3), 1984: 10-15.
Young, G. Tourism: Blessing or Blight. Penguin, 1973. An earlier and forceful critique of 'blight-seeing'.
'Ecotourism' and Reforms to the Tourist Industry
Boo, E. Eco-Tourism: The Potentials and Pitfalls. World Wildlife Fund, USA, 1990.
Eber, S., ed. Beyond the Green Horizon. Tourism Concern, 1992. Includes case studies of how the tourist industry could improve its environmental performance
Greening of Specific Tourist and Leisure Facilities
Energy Efficiency Office. Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Libraries, Museums, Art Galleries & Churches. Dept of Environment, 1991.
Energy Efficiency Office. Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Sports Centres. Dept of Environment, 1991.
Energy Efficiency Office. Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Catering Establishments. Dept of Environment, 1991
Fletcher, K. Striving for Excellence: Communicating Environmental Quality in the Hotel Industry. International Hotels Environmental Initiative, 1995. A series of case studies from an organisation that is part of the Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum.
International Hotels Environmental Initiative. Environmental Management For Hotels. Butterworth Heinemann, 1993.
International Hotels Environmental Initiative. Green Innovations. IHEI, 1995. A global directory of green initiatives in the hotel industry
Knight, R. & K. Gutzwiller, eds. Wildlife & Recreationists: Coexistence Through Management & Research. Island Pr., 1994.
Specific Sports & Leisure Pursuits
Chamberlain, S. Golf Endangers Hawaiian Ecology and Culture. Earth Island, Summer, 1995: 21.
Howarth, D, ed. Golf Courses-Friend or Foe for the Countryside. BANC, 1993.
Morgan,K. Jet Skis Hit Bumpy Water. Earth Island, Fall, 1997: 9.
Pearce, F. How Green is Your Golf? New Scientist, 25/9/93: 30-35.
Platt, A. The Trouble with Golf. Worldwatch, 7(3), 1994: 27-32.
Pleumarom, A. Course and Effect: Golf Tourism in Thailand. The Ecologist, 22(3), May/June, 1992: 104-110.
Sexton, S. & P. Chatterjee. Fairway to Heaven? The Guardian, 17/9/93, Environment section: 14/15Silver, S. Wreckreation:Motorizing the Public Lands Wild Earth, Spring, 1998: 56-57.
Simons, P. Apres Ski, le Deluge. New Scientist, 14/1/88: 49-52. A hard look at the impact of ski developments, mainly with reference to the Alps.
Wilshire, H. The Wheeled Locusts. Wild Earth, Spring, 1992: 27-31. The costs of off-road vehicles, an increasing feature of modern 'leisure'.
Legal System
The environment has been neglected in jurisprudence as much as it has in economic theory and policy-making. It is something that is simply 'there', waiting to be used or abused depending, for most of history, on the wishes of the owner of particular properties. Even in 1990, one leading textbook on international law had no reference to 'environment' in the index. However it is a fast changing scene with an explosion in environmental legislation, not least in the EU whose directives have been setting much of the pace.
Legal systems which draw heavily on precedent pose particular problems since the past-when the environment seemed to many an unlimited, invulnerable and, sometimes, even a valueless resource-provides no sustainable guide to wise judgements in the future. Statute law may be similarly handicapped if, as usually the case, it rests on the same cornucopian assumptions and has been blind to not just the economic but also the moral issues such as those associated with biodiversity.
Systems based proprietary rights, for example, can undermine the right of redress for those who do not own property. Nor can they deal adequately in cases where there is no one owner-wild flora and fauna or transboundary environmental problems such as air pollution, for example. Requirements of 'foreseeability' and 'certainty' cause further problems. Furthermore, adversarial systems between prosecution and defence and an emphasis on hard evidence are unsuited to environmental decision-making where absolute proof is particularly elusive and blame hard to attach. In the latter case, the rise of the 'faceless' corporation has made the problem of culpability even harder in cases of pollution and other forms of environmental damage.
It should be noted that the legal system is a veracious resource consumer in its own right. It has been estimated, for example, that if all of America's 600,000 lawyers were to switch to use of paper with 50% recycled content, more than 5 million trees, 1.2 billion kW hours of energy, over 2 billion gallons of paper & nearly 1 million cubic yards of landfill would be saved each year!
Ball, S., & S. Bell. Environmental Law: The Law and Policy Relating to the Protection of the Environment. Blackstone, 1991. General overview of the issues and specific fields.
Bilderbeek, A. & Buitenan, A., eds. Biodiversity and International Law: The Effectiveness of International Environmental Law. IOS Pr., 1992
Birnie, P. Legal Measures for the Conservation of Marine Mammals. IUCN, 1992.
Birnie, P. & A. Boyle. International Law & the Environment. Clarendon Pr., 1992.
Caldwell, L. International Environmental Policy & Law. Duke Univ.Pr., 1980
Caldwell, L. & K. Schrader-Frechette. Policy for Land: Law & Ethics. Rowman & Littlefield, 1994. American focus
Klemm, C. de. Biological Diversity, Conservation and the Law: Legal Mechanisms for Conserving Species and Ecosystems. IUCN, 1993. International emphasis, with analysis of tools for conservation of individual species and habitats.
Lomas, O., & J. McEldowney. Frontiers of Environmental Law. Chancery Law, 1991. Study of recent initiatives, particularly with reference to the EU.
Murdie, A. Environmental Law and Citizen Action Earthscan 1993. Unlike most references in this section, this book concentrates on what individuals can do
Sands, P., ed. Chernobyl: Law and Communication. Grotius, 1988.
Sands, P., ed. The Effectiveness of International Environmental Agreements. Grotius, 1992. Exploration of existing international agreements and the extent to which they are succeeding
Shuck, P. Agent Orange on Trial: Toxic Disasters & the Courts. Harvard UP, 1987.
Simmons, P., & J. Cowell. Civil Liability & Policies for Clean Production: Development in Europe. Centre for the Study of Environmental Change, Lancaster University, Working Paper 92.4, 1992.
Tietenberg, T., ed. Innovations in Environmental Policy. Elgar, 1992. Focus on EU legal initiatives.
Weiss, E.B., ed. Environmental Change and International Law: New Challenges and Dimensions. UN, 1992.
Yeagar, P. Limits of Law: Public Regulation of Private Pollution. CUP, 1991. Look at successes and failures of American environmental protection regulations and their enforcement.
See also:
Garbutt, J. Environmental Law: a Practical Handbook. Chancery Law, 1992.
Garbutt, J. Waste Management Law: A Practical Handbook. Wiley, 1992.
Garner, J. & B. Jones. Countryside Law. Shaw & Sons, 1993.
Howarth, W. Water Pollution Law. Shaw & Sons, 1988. Up-dates on more recent legislation available
Kramer, L. European Environmental Law. Casebook. Sweet & Maxwell, 1993.
Lyster, S. International Wildlife Law. Grotius, 1985.
National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection. The NSCA Pollution Handbook. NSCA, 1991.
Osmancyzk, E.J. Encyclopaedia of the UN & International Agreements. Taylor and Francis, 1991.
Ruster, B. & Simma, B., series. International Protection of the Environment. Multi-volume set covering treaties and related documents.
Ward, K. & J. Duffield. Natural Resource Damages: Law & Economics. Wiley, 1992.
Use of the Law Against Sustainability Campaigners and Campaigns
Fairlie, S. SLAPPS Come to Britain. The Ecologist, 23(5), 1993: 165. Strategic lawsuits against public participation, i.e. protest.
Lillieston, B. & R. Cummins. Food Slander Laws in the US: The Criminalisation of Dissent. The Ecologist, 2796), 1997: 216-220. Attack on the 'food disparagement' laws used to protect junk food.
Vidal, J. McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial. Macmillan, 1997. How the gross McDonalds tried to dump on its critics.
Ecological Legal Reform
Brown, E.B. In Fairness to Future Generations: International Law, Common Patrimony, & Intergenerational Equity. United Nations University & Transnational Publishers, 1989.
Caldwell, L.K. A Constitutional Law for the Environment. Environment, 10, 1989:6-11 & 25-28. A critique of the failings of the American National Environment Protection Act and discussion of the need to enshrine environmental protection in the American constitution.
Freyfogle, E. Justice & the Earth: Images for Our Planetary Survival. Free Pr., 1993.
Freyfogle, E. Land Ownership, Private and Wild: a Proposed Strategy. Wild Earth, Winter 1995/96: 71-77.
Hawke, N. A Legal Basis for Sustainable Development. In Smith, Denis, ed., Business & the Environment: Implications of the New Environmentalism. Chapman, 1993
Hoban, T. & R. Brooks. Green Justice: The Environment & the Courts. Westview Pr., 1987. American study.
Leeman, C. Bringing Environmental Policy Home. Environmental Forum, 5(4), 1988: 19-22. Use of law to influence individual behaviour.
Nimitz, M. & G.M. Caine. Crimes Against Nature. Amicus Jnl, Summer, 1991: 8-10. The importance of international conventions, especially during periods of intensifying competition for resources.
Sands, P., ed. Greening International Law. Earthscan, 1993.
Sagoff, M. Ethics & Economics in Environmental Law. In T. Regan, ed., Earthbound. Random House, 1984.
Sagoff, M. Ethics, Ecology & the Environment: Integrating Science & Law. Tennessee Law Review, 56, 1988: 77-229
Stone, C. Should Trees Have Standing? Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects. Avon, 1975. Ground-breaking exploration of how humans might give the rest of nature rights against abuse by humans.
Stone, C. The Gnat is Older than Man: Global Environmental and Human Agenda. Princeton Univ. Press, 1993. A very useful collection of articles from this leading thinker on environmental issues, particularly from a legal perspective. He looks at the problems posed by the 'common property' and transboundary nature of many environmental problems, discussing various remedies. His analysis is firmly grounded in an ethical and spiritual standpoint.
Wenz, Peter S. Environmental Justice. SUNY Pr., 1988. Exploration of issues surrounding distributive justice concerning costs and benefits in human exploitation of the environment, including property rights.
The difficulties of establishing legal proof are a critical issue for future environmental law initiatives. Discussion of the problem can be found in:
Cohen, J. The Probable and the Provable. OUP, 1977.
Governance
Government action at all levels, local, national, and international will be critical. In the construction of a sustainable society. The choice between a 'top-down' versus bottom-up' approach is a false dichotomy. Changes in public consciousness and behaviour are not an alternative to government action but part of a dialectical process, in which one side both reflects and encourages the other.
The very least any government can do is to send signals to both business enterprises and the public at large. Governments could set new goals, not the least by the replacement of that most misleading of indicators, Gross National Product, with yardsticks that reflect the real wealth of nation-human health and fulfilment of essential needs in the context of healthy ecosystems in which the diversity of other Earth dependants also flourishes.
The next role for a reforming government would be put its own house in greener order. Government activities are by themselves huge consumers of land, energy and all kinds of raw materials from paper to plastic cups. Governments are also considerable economic players, spending billions of pounds each year. The restructuring of procurement policies around sustainability criteria would act as a massive stimulus to suppliers of environmentally friendlier goods and services. It would help in passing to ameliorate the boom/slump cycle which currently afflicts recycling enterprises.
Another critical area is the reorganisation of government structures and routines. Neither departmental organisation nor the geography of national and local government boundaries pay sufficient attention to the geological, hydrological or biological patterns that sustain human activities. The most obvious examples are the straight lines plotted across maps to divide one political zone from another, regardless of biophysical and cultural contours. Similarly, government departments split what are deeply interrelated policy areas into political fragments, each with their own agenda and often at cross purposes.
There are two other vital areas for action if governments are to contribute, rather than detract, from the construction of a more sustainable society. There is a curtain of secrecy which shrouds decision-making and which keeps vital information from the public, not least concerning what we eat and drink. In the case of nuclear power, for example, much of the data used by critics of the industry in the UK has had to be accessed via the USA where a more liberal attitude still prevails. Governments could and should be much more open about their activities as well as require manufacturers and others to do the same about their operations and products. California's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act provides one useful precedent. The Ecolabelling scheme provides another, albeit very small, step in the right direction. (The fact that one of the first such labels to be awarded was to that symbol of consumerist excess, the dishwasher, illustrates one limit of what, in any case, is merely a voluntary initiative)
Linked to government secrecy is the hand in glove relationship between, on the one hand, various vested interests and, on the other, government departments and quangoes. It explains the persistent unwillingness to halt wasteful, polluting and other unsustainable activities as well as to demand unreasonable degrees of proof of guilt before any action is taken. Even when action is unavoidable, it often amounts to little more than a gentle slap on the wrists. The recent scares, for example, about both BSE and the dangers from certain synthetic fertilisers spotlighted the unhealthily cosy relationship between the agrochemical industry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. There are many other examples, perhaps most lethally the tentacles linking arms manufacturers and traders with the Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and the Department of Trade and Industry.
Clearly, it is difficult for any administration to tear itself free from such entanglements yet it is possible to choose between an enthusiastic embrace of them and the establishment of a more proper distance. The same applies to other government roles. The reorganisation of the water industry and creation of the National Rivers Authority provides an example of the way in which a healthier division between the regulators and the regulated can be created, even if here too there has been another instance of business interests being allowed by government to convert public assets into huge private profits.
Opening The Door To Sustainability
The biggest scope for government action is provided by its fiscal and legislative powers. Use of these weapons can discourage ecologically undesirable activities and lifestyles whilst encouraging greener alternatives. In most situations there will never be one policy but a mixture, including direct taxation, incentives, regulation, exhortation and especially education. The following are suggested as a possible core programme:
promotion of population stabilisation, including tax and welfare incentives for those parenting not more than two children as well as the provision of a rounded sex education and free contraception; support for corresponding international projects. All other causes will be lost if the tide of human numbers is not halted and reversed.
taxation of energy and raw materials (including water metering) to promote an economy based on minimised inputs and maximised recycling of outputs; corresponding decreases in rate of personal taxation (which, otherwise, will be strictly progressive); 'turnover tax' system to discourage excessively large business enterprises; upper limits on personal wealth and similar limits on land and company holdings; use of 'green' tariffs to regulate and reduce foreign trade; opposition to GATT & Uruguay Round liberalisation; reform of currency, banking and other financial services plus accountancy procedures in line with ecosustainability;
regulations setting ecological standards and codes of conduct for processes, products and consumer/employee relationships; a policy of 'guilty until proven innocent' regarding proposed innovations; requirement of annual and published environmental and social audits of an institution's activities; public process of assessing and controlling scientific and technological innovation;
ecological land use zoning, including the setting aside of sufficient land for non-human life forms; taxation of windfall profits from land ownership; freeze on current road, airport, 'retail park', leisure complex developments etc.; much tighter building regulations, setting, for example, high standards of energy- and water-efficiency; restriction of future building developments on already degraded sites, especially within 'inner city' zones; statutory protection of remaining wetlands, old-growth woodland and other wilderness or comparatively species-rich areas; public funding for the rehabilitation of degraded ecosystems;
retirement of Third World debts and cancellation of aid for many so-called 'development' projects, especially export-oriented schemes, large dams, ranching etc.; ecologically tied aid for family planning, clean water, and other health promotion measures;
in foreign and defence policy, a switch to 'non-aggressive defence'; renunciation of nuclear and CBW weaponry; withdrawal from alliances incompatible with those principles; support for democratic reform of UN & global action against dictators and others who threaten general peace and security;
emphasis of health expenditure on preventative/public health programmes, rather than curative and high-tech. invasive treatments;
switch in public funding of research towards greener projects eg photovoltaics and reed bed technology
severe restrictions on the content, techniques and frequency of advertising as part of a drive to dismantle consumerist culture
programme of public investment to facilitate the above, including programmes of industrial conversion (e.g. of shipyards to the production of offshore wind turbine platforms) as well as conversions of farming and forestry on ecological lines;
'bioregional' and localised structures for governance; a shift from traditional property rights (including those claimed by nations as well as individuals) to new ones conditional upon the meeting of ecological standards; revisions to the legal system to redress the balance which, at present, protects those who damage the environment, mistreat other life forms or threaten directly human health and safety; 'legal standing' for non-human life forms; emphasis on producer liability and a severe increase in penalties for 'crimes against the biosphere'.
education, not just about, but education through and for the environment: the values, knowledge and practical skills to lead 'conserver' lifestyles; 'ecoliteracy' to be treated as important as literacy & numeracy; in the curriculum at all levels. The more successful this work, the less need there will be for measures like those above.
In case this list is thought rather fanciful, it should be stressed that, in many cases, there are already examples of such initiatives in different parts of the world. The problem is the piecemeal nature of existing measures, which are not only too modest but also doomed to be cancelled out by the commitment to the further expansion of human society. Yet the existence of these innovations gives lie to the frequent excuse that there is no alternative.
For instance, it is frequently argued in support of 'market-based' measures that regulations are by contrast cumbersome and heavy-handed. Yet the famous purity laws in the German brewing industry have worked well for five centuries, demonstrating that business enterprise and public protection can be harmonised. Such a system could be generalised across a whole range of goods and services, from requirements to use recycled ingredients to the phasing out of, say, suspect chemicals or wood from unsustainable sources. There are a growing number of buildings such as the new Ecover factory in Belgium (complete with meadow roof!) which embody the fact that there are more sustainable ways of doing things. There are similar examples in sectors such as energy supply, agriculture and forestry-despite an economic framework stacked against them. The same applies to the success stories that can be increasingly found in the field of small-scale, community-based enterprises.
Often, it is a matter of governments simply getting out of the business of environmental destruction. Many destructive activities-overtilling the soil, overgrazing, wetland drainage, overfishing, forest felling and inappropriate afforestation, nuclear power development, premature writing off of still serviceable equipment etc-only happen because governments subsidise them. Private road transport, for example, has been subsidised in a variety of ways whilst, in Britain's case at least, the more sustainable alternative of rail, has been deliberately run down. In some cases it is simply a question of extending or revising controls already in existence, possibly making compulsory what is now voluntary (eg BS 7750).
Overall, however, the central role of government will be measures to create direct links between the cost of living and the cost of replenishing and repairing any losses in the Earth's 'budget'. At present, especially in highly technologically cocooned societies, there is little feedback, economic and otherwise, to discourage people from degrading the biological, chemical and physical 'capital' upon whose yield humans, like all species, inescapably depend.
Since we have not been 'paying our way', it follows that, in general, prices will rise and, as a result, per capita consumption in countries like Britain will fall. Action to raise energy prices or introduce water metering and similar measures often provokes fierce resistance, often on the grounds that the poor will be hit the most. This very real problem, however, should be solved in other ways-wealth redistribution and the subsidy of energy- and water-saving devices to enable people to live well with less-rather than used as an excuse what will be inevitably part of the transition to a sustainable society, especially in the richer countries.
At a time when a concerted run on a national currency by speculators or threatened relocation of industrial plant to another country by a multinational corporation can bring politicians to heal and, if need be, turn them out of office, it seems excessively optimistic to think that governments can do much. Certainly the extent of global interdependence today makes it extremely difficult for any single government to go it alone. GATT regulations seem likely to tie even further the hands of any country which wants to protect local environments and communities.
Yet, in a myriad of ways, there is scope for more sustainable practices through government initiative. As noted above, the simple fact that there are enormous differences between the track record of different countries suggests that there is room for manoeuvre. Britain's building regulations, for example, are only just beginning to catch with those that Sweden had back in the 1930s. This sorry performance cannot be blamed on external constraints. Governments like that in Denmark have been able to give enthusiastic backing wind energy schemes.
Obviously, real progress will depend upon joint action between different governments. Here too the picture is not totally bleak. At a global level, for example, the action agreed to conserve Antarctica and to phase out CFCs happened at a speed that was remarkable in the history of international diplomacy
In sum, then, governmental action is not an alternative to other avenues of changes but part of what can only be a comprehensive process of change, top-down and bottom-up, global and local, individual and collective. Direct action such as the attempts to block the Newbury by-pass or the 'ecotage' (ecological sabotage of equipment) practised against loggers in the Pacific North West is a vital part of the fight for a sustainable world. So too is individual lifestyle change. Enlightened use of the tiller of government will be always critical in the testing times ahead. Nothing should be allowed to detract from that task.
Aberley, D., ed.. Boundaries of Home: Mapping for Local Empowerment. New Society Publishers, 1993. How to get one's head around the deeper politics of bioregions.
Berg, P., ed. Reinhabiting a Separate Country. Planet Drum, 1975. An example of bioregional thinking.
Bryan, F. & J. McClaughry. The Vermont Papers: Recreating Democracy. Chelsea Green Publishing, 1989. For a human scale democratic system.
Goldsmith, E. Ethnocracy: The Lesson from Africa, The Ecologist 10/4, 1980: 134-140
Jacobs, J. The Question of Separatism. Junction Books, 1981. It argues that political fission, not greater fusion, is the way forward, using the peaceful separation of Norway and Sweden as the model of how it can be done without the disastrous civil wars raging today.
Johns, D. The Practical Relevance. Wild Earth, Summer, 1992: 62-66. Argues that a Land Ethic is not just abstract moralising.
Kohr, L. The Breakdown of Nations. RKP, 1957. A pioneering study of why the political 'giantism' usually spells disaster, even when well-intentioned.
Morris, D.& Hess, K. Neighbourhood Power: The New Localism. Beacon, 1975.
O'Riordan, T. & A. Weale. Greening the Machinery of Government. FoE, 1990. Discussion paper.
Paehlke, R. & D. Torgheson, eds. Managing Leviathan: Environmental Politics & the Administrative State. Broadview Pr., 1990.
Plant, C., Plant, J., et al. Home! A Bioregional Reader. New Society Publishers, 1990. An excellent collection of bioregional writings.
Plant, C.& J. Putting Power in its Place. New Society, 1992 Various essays exploring the case for and mechanisms of greater decentralism.
Sale, K. Dwellers in the Land. Sierra, 1985. A good introduction to bioregional thinking from a leading American writer.
Smookler, A.B. The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution. Univ. California Pr., 1984
Sessions, G. Shaping Up in the 90s: Green Governmental Structures. Real World, 3, Spring, 1993: 6-7.
Stone, C. Should Trees Have Standing? Kaufmann, 1974. A stimulating exploration of one way in which to give life- and landforms greater standing in human decision-making.
Taylor, C. The Politics of the Stable State. New Universities Quarterly, 1978: 157-184.
Local Government.
Similar problems to those noted above about national governance manifest themselves at a local government level where repeated reorganisations have failed to pay attention to ecological boundaries. Here too, there are policy conflicts, with more environmental initiatives taking place in some departments, while in others down the corridor, perhaps most notably Highways and Economic Development, remain in hot in pursuit of more traditional goals which will cancel out any good achieved elsewhere. Manchester Council, for example, hosted the post-Rio Earth Summit Global Forum '94 conference whilst working to expand the local airport.
Most of this green activity, often under the heading of Local Agenda 21, also tends towards the production of better descriptions of local environments and economies, rather than full-blooded programmes of action, within a rounded ecological framework. Often, environmental matters outside the remit of conventional development control are given to small and insignificant units buried in fringe departments like Leisure Services.
The difficulties are complicated by the fact that, though many actions proposed under Agenda 21 and the EU's Fifth Action Programme, need to happen at a local level, there has been a systematic reduction, in the UK at least, of power and financial muscle from that tier of government by political action from above. Despite these constraints, there is still a huge diversity in the track record between different local government administrations, not just between those led by different parties but also between ones controlled by members of the same party.
Many local steps towards greater sustainability don't require vast amounts of money and certainly could be funded by those councils which now squander huge sums on one destructive 'redevelopment' programme after another. Even an indication of support for an initiative by local councillors can help it attract private capital.
Agyeman, J. & B. Evans. Local Environmental Policies and Strategies. Longman, 1994.
Association of Metropolitan Authorities. Action for the Future: Priorities for the Environment. AMA, 1989.
Department of the Environment. Your Council and the Environment. DoE, n.d. A suggestion for a local government environment charter.
Environmental Management Limited. Summary Report of Environmental Audit for Northumberland County Council. E.M. Ltd., 1992. An example from a mainly rural council.
HMSO. A Guide to the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme for UK Local Government. HMSO, 1993
Local Government Management Board. UNCED: A Statement on Behalf of UK Local Government. LGMB, 1992.
Local Government Management Board. A Framework for Local Sustainability. LGMB, 1993.
Local Government Management Board. Greening Economic Development. LGMB, 1993.
Raemaekers, J., ed.. Local Authority Green Plans: A Practical Guide. Heriot Watt University, Working Paper No. 39, 1992.
Tyldesley, D. Gaining Momentum: An Analysis of the Role of Local Authorities in Nature Conservation. BANC, 1986.
Tyldesley, D. & I. Collis, eds. Councils for Wildlife Guide. BANC, 1990.
Warwick, H. Wiser Councils? Real World, 10, Spring, 1994: 11. Brief look at restrictions and barriers in the way of more positive local government action.
Global Maldevelopment
There is a voluminous literature on the way the world trade system, 'development' projects funded by bodies like the World Bank as well as indebtedness due to past loans have caused great poverty and associated environmental degradation across Latin America, Africa and Asia. Writers such as Susan George and Frances Moore Lappé have shed great light on these matters.
However, there is a tendency in this literature to treat the less developed countries simply as victims, not recognising the active part they often have played in their own maldevelopment. Furthermore, Third World cultures are often treated as above criticism, often on the grounds that we in the West have no right to pass judgements. Nor is there a forthright recognition that in any conventional sense the ordinary citizens of these lands will never lead western lifestyles. There is also a refusal to recognise the environmental destruction caused by existing, let alone projected human numbers. Instead the environmental crisis is perceived one-dimensionally in terms of overconsumption in the rich countries. Sometimes facile rhetoric such as the slogan that 'poverty is pollution' (Mrs Ghandi) drives out sound reasoning (affluence is actually far more polluting). Fortunately there are books and articles that do make the necessary connections.
Adams, P. & L. Solomon. In the Name of Progress: The Underside of Foreign Aid. Toronto: Energy Probe, 1985. Compendium of development debacles, including a useful critique of electrification, something almost automatically assumed to be a 'good thing'.
Adams, P. Odious Debts. Earthscan, 1991.
Agarwal, A. The State of the Environment and the Resulting State of 'The Last Person'. World Wildlife Fund-UK, 1985. How the poor pay for 'development'.
Agarwal, A. & S. Narain. View from the South: We Can No Longer Afford to Subsidise the North. UN Development Forum, 20(3), 1992: 15
Amin, S. Maldevelopment: Anatomy of a Failure. Zed, 1990. Critique of development strategies from a more traditional left-wing perspective.
Bello, W. Development Debacle. Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1982.
Bello, W. & S. Rosenfield. Dragons in Distress. 1992. Critical look at the so-called tiger economies of the Far East.
Chatterjee, P. & M. Finger. The Earth Brokers: Power, Politics, & World Development. Routledge, 1994.A critique of international and national development strategies, largely from a populist "Third World' perspective.
Chomsky, N. Year 501: The Conquest Continues. Verso, 1992. Chomsky comes from a more traditional school of radical thought yet that does nothing to diminish the power of this critique of contemporary imperialism.
Coote, B. The Trade Trap. Oxfam, 1992.
Davis, S. Victims of the Miracle. CUP, 1977. The realities of Brazil's economic 'take-off'.
Dumont, R., & N. Cohen. The Growth of Hunger. Marion Boyars, 1980
Durning, A. Guardians of the Land: Indigenous Peoples and the Health of the Earth. WorldWatch Institute, 1992.
Eckholm, E. The Dispossessed of the Earth: Land Reform and Sustainable Development. WorldWatch, 1979.
Freeman, J. Inside a Little Tiger. New Internationalist, Feb., 1990:8-9. Snapshot of life inside one of the new car plants of Asian economic 'tiger', Korea.
George, S. A Fate Worse Than Debt. Weidenfeld, 1990.
Goldsmith, E. Is Development the Solution or the Problem? The Ecologist, 15, 1985: 210-219
Goldsmith, E. Aid: Enlightened Self-Interest or Gun-Boat Politics?. The Ecologist, 18(2), 1988: 46-47.
Goodland, R. & H. Daly. Poverty Alleviation is Essential for Environmental Sustainability. World Bank, Envion. Work Paper 42, 1993.
Goodland, R. & H. Daly. Why Northern Income Growth is not the Solution to Southern Poverty. Ecological Economics, 8, 1993: 85-101.
Gray, A. Indigenous People and the Marketing of the Rainforest. The Ecologist, 20(6), 1990: 223-227
Hardin, G. Living in a Lifeboat. In G. Hardin & J. Baden, eds. Managing the Commons. Freeman, 1977. Controversial analysis of the dangers of notions like the creation of a world 'food bank' to feed the world.
Hardin, G. Limited World, Limited Rights. Society, 17(4), 1980: 5-8. Important critique of the 'one worldism' found in many aid and development circles.
Hayter, T. Exploited Earth: Britain's Aid and the Environment. Earthscan, 1989.
Kemf, E., ed. Indigenous Peoples & Protected Areas. Earthscan, 1993.
Kent, G. Food Trade: The Poor Feed the Rich. The Ecologist, 15(5/6), 1985: 232-239
Linear, M. Zapping the Third World: The Disaster of Development Aid. Pluto, 1985.
Little, P., ed. Lands At Risk in the Third World. Westview Pr., 1987.
Madeley, J., Does Economic Development Feed People? The Ecologist, 15(1/2), 1985: 36-41.
Mitchell, T. The Use of an Image: America's Egypt and the Development Industry. The Ecologist, 26(1), 1996: 19-25.
Omo-Fadaka, J. Industrialisation & Poverty in the Third World. The Ecologist, 4(2), 1974: 61-63.
Payne, C. Lent and Lost: Foreign Credit & Third World Development. Zed, 1991. The disasters caused by international loan system
Shiva, V. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology & Development. Zed, 1988.
Sivaraksa, S. Rural Poverty & Development in Thailand, Indonesia & the Philippines. The Ecologist, 15(5/6), 1985: 266-268.
Timberlake, L. Africa in Crisis. Earthscan, 1985.
Trainer, F. Developed to Death. Green Print, 1989. Shows in great detail but very lucidly how development has left environments devastated and left poor people often even poorer.
Snapshots of Maldevelopment
Bello, W. & S. Rosenfeld. High-Speed Industrialisation and Environmental Devastation in Taiwan. The Ecologist, 20(4), 1990: 125-132.
Bhatari, R. et al. The Narmada Valley Project-Development or Destruction? The Ecologist, 15(5/6), 1985: 269-290. Critique of World Bank mega-project in India.
Drucker, C. Dam the Chico: Hydropower Development & Tribal Resistance. The Ecologist, 15(4), 1985: 149-156. Philippine case study.
Graham, O. A Land Divided: The Impact of Ranching on a Pastoral Society. The Ecologist, 19(5), 1989: 184-185. Break-up of Maasai tribal land system in Kenya and its effects.
Gribel, R. The Balbina Disaster: The Need to Ask Why? The Ecologist, 20(4), 1990: 133-135. Critique of Brazilian HEP scheme.
Hyndman, D. Ok Tedi: New Guinea's Disaster Mine. The Ecologist, 18(1), 1988: 24-29.
Linear, M. The Tsetse War. The Ecologist, 15(1/2), 1985: 27-35. Critique of the campaign to eradicate the Tsetse fly in Africa.
Lutzenberger, J. The World Bank's Polonoroeste Project: A Social & Environmental Catastrophe. The Ecologist, 15(1/2), 1985: 69-72. Attack on huge transformation of Brazilian forest region.
Rupesinghe, K. The Effects of Export-Oriented Industrialisation in Sri Lanka. The Ecologist, 15(5/6), 1985: 246-256.
Tampoe, M. Economic Development & Coastal Erosion in Sri Lanka. The Ecologist, 18(6), 1988: 225-230.
Tuntawiroon, N. The Environmental Impact of Industrialisation in Thailand. The Ecologist, 15(4), 1985: 161-164.
Various. Indonesia's Transmigration Programme. The Ecologist, 16(2/3), 1986: 58-117. Set of special articles on Indonesia's resettlement programme.
Vikas, G. & the Pradan group. Communal Rights vs. Private Profit: Tribal Peoples and tea Plantations in Northeast India. The Ecologist, 20(3), 1990: 105-107.
Maldevelopment: Agricultural Development & Food Trade
Ahmed, M. Poverty, Food and Aid Politics in Bangla Desh. The Ecologist, 15(5/6), 1985: 261-262
Banerjee, S. & S. Kothari. Food and Hunger in India. The Ecologist, 15(5/6), 1985: 257-260.
Bull, D. A Growing Problem-Pesticides & the Third World Poor. Oxfam, 1982.
Clairmonte, F. & J. Cavanagh. Merchants of Drink-Transnational Control of World Beverages. Third World Network (Penang), 1988.
Coote, B. The Hunger Crop: Poverty & the Sugar Industry. Oxfam, 1987.
Cross, D. FAO & Aquaculture. The Ecologist, 21(2), 1991: 73-76. Critique of the promotion of hi-tech. fish farming.
Dinham, B. & C. Hines. Agribusiness in Africa. Earth Resources Research, 1982.
Dinham, B. FAO & Pesticides: Promotion or Prescription. The Ecologist, 21(2), 1991: 61-65.
Dogra, B. Forcing the Starving to Export Their Food. The Ecologist, 15(1/2), 1985: 42-48. Critique of export-oriented agricultural development.
Dogra, B. India's White Revolution: Another World Bank Financed Disaster. The Ecologist, 15(4), 1985: 183-186. Critique of dairy products scheme.
Goldsmith, E. & N. Hildyard. World Agriculture: Toward 2000. The Ecologist, 21(2), 1991: 81-92. Critique of FAO Agricultural Development Strategy.
Gupta, Y.P. Pesticide Misuse in India. The Ecologist, 16(1), 1986: 36-39.
Kaur, N. Food Production in a Developing Country: The Malaysian Experience. The Ecologist, 15(5/6), 1985: 263-264
Madeley, J. Tobacco; a Ruinous Crop. The Ecologist, 16(2/3), 1986: 124-129.
Maharaj N. & G. Dorren. The Game of the Rose: The Third World in the Global Flower Trade. International Books, 1995.
Shiva, V. The Green Revolution in the Punjab. The Ecologist, 21(2), 1991: 57-60. Critique of the effects of using high-yield hybrids.
Simonian, L. Pesticide Use in Mexico: Decades of Abuse. The Ecologist, 18(2), 1988: 82-87.
Tanner, J. Cocoa Addicts. New Internationalist, Feb., 1990:14-15. Portrait of cocoa production and its effects in Ghana.
Thomson, R. Green Gold: Bananas & Dependency in the East Caribbean. Latin American Bureau, 1987.
Weir, D. & M. Schapiro. Circle of Poison. Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1980.
Wright, A. The Death of Ramon Gonzalez. Univ. Texas Pr., 1990. The problem of both pesticides and general agricultural exploitation in the Third World.
Conserver Alternatives for Poorer Countries
Agarwal, A. & S. Narain. Toward Green Villages: A Strategy for Environmentally-Sound and Participatory Rural Development. Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, 1989.
Apffel-Marglin, F. Counter-Development in the Andes. The Ecologist, 2796), 1997: 221-224. Moves to defend and reaffirm vernuclar values and lifestyle in Andes
Ariyaratne, A. No Poverty Society. Resurgence, Jan./Feb./, 1985: 4-8.
Bandyopadhyay, J. & V. Shiva. Chipko: Rekindling India's Forest Culture. The Ecologist, 17(1), 1987: 26-34.
Bandyopadhyay, J. & V. Shiva. Development, Poverty & the Growth of the Green Movement in India. The Ecologist, 19(3), 1989: 111-117.
Burch, D. Appropriate Technology for Third World Development. Griffin Univ. Pr. Why technology transfer must be both culturally and environmentally appropriate.
Conroy, C. & M. Litvinoff. The Greening of Aid: Sustainable Livelihoods in Practice. Earthscan, 1988.
Eckholm, E. The Dispossessed of the Earth: Land reform & Sustainable Development. Worldwatch, 1979.
Fathy, H. Architecture for the Poor. Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1973. Example of traditional skills within supposedly backward countries, skills with which the most 'advanced' countries would benefit.
Freeman, P. & T. Fricke. The Success of Javanese Multi-Storied Gardens. The Ecologist, 14(4), 1984: 150-152. A case study of an old but sustainable and productive farming system in Indonesia.
Goldsmith, E. Dedeveloping the Third World. The Ecologist, 7, 1977: 338-339
Goldsmith, E. Ethnocracy: The Lesson from Africa. The Ecologist, 10(4), 1980: 134-140
Goldsmith, Z. Back to the Future in Rajasthan. The Ecologist, 28(4), 1998: 222-227.
Kapur, J. India in the Year 2000-A Vision. The Ecologist, 5(8), 1975: 290-300.
Macy, J. Dhama & Development. Kumarian Pr., 1983.
Pereira, W. & J. Seabrook, eds. Asking the Earth: Farms, Forestry & Survival in India. Earthscan, 1990.
Sachs, W. Delinking from the World Market. Paper to The Other Economic Summit, London, 1985.
Sattaur, O. The Green Solution for India. New Scientist, 15/9/90: 28-29.
Senanayake, R. The Ecological, Energetic and Agronomic Systems of Ancient and Modern Sri Lanka. The Ecologist, 13(4), 1983: 136-140. How more modern is often far from more appropriate.
Tongdeelert, C. & L. Lohmann. The Muang Faari Irrigation System of Northern Thailand. The Ecologist, 21(2), 1991: 101-105. Lessons from traditional agriculture.
Wells, P. & M. Jetter. The Global Consumer-Best Buys to Help the Third World. Gollancz, 1991.
Wolf, E. Beyond the Green Revolution: New Approaches for Third World Agriculture. Worldwatch Institute, 1986.
Yuan, L.J. Traditional Housing: A Solution to Homelessness in the Third World. The Ecologist, 18(1), 1988: 16-23. Malaysian case study
European Union
The European Union is playing an increasingly role, through its Directives and other means, in areas such as pollution control and waste management. In some cases, national governments have been forced to accept stronger measures to protect the environment. However, like most transnational bodies today, the EU has, at its heart, goals, structures and policies which are quite incompatible with ecological sustainability. The Common Agricultural Policy and Regional Development programmes have been justly criticised for both their financial profligacy and environmental destructiveness.
The Maastricht Treaty and its precursors, the Treaty of Rome and subsequent agreements were not about the creation of a democratic commonwealth of European peoples pulling together to solve their problems. The Community was and still is essentially a rich man's club, its rules, particularly the 'single market' and related harmonisation, shaped in the interests of transnational corporations for whom the old borders have become an irrelevance and inconvenience. Big businesses want one similarly big political authority with which to strike sweetheart deals, instead of a confusing mass of the little states, with their own currencies and regulations.
At the same time, the Community's structures have provided an ideal niche for careerist bureaucrats devoting their time to the elimination of such threats to civilised life as unpasteurised milk, Bramley apples and the word 'cream' as in 'ice cream'. More seriously, like Dr. Frankenstein, the 'Eurocrats' have created some real monsters, particularly the Common Agricultural Policy and the regional 'modernisation' under the Structural Funds, have been social, economic and environmental disasters.
EC-regulations on bidding for public contracts states that price, customer service, delivery time and even aesthetics may be taken into account when comparing bids-but make no mention of environmental standards. The EC court has decided that waste disposal regulations must not bloc trade. In its partial rejection of the Danish law demanding returnable drink containers, the court concluded that "There has to be a balancing of interests between the free movement of goods and environmental protection, even if in achieving the balance the high standard of protection sought has to be reduced." The EC's rush to "deregulate" and slowness to raise standards may yet be its downfall as environmental conflicts multiply.
Single market-driven rationalisation of industry on the lines of the internal American market will reproduce patterns found there where, in key sectors such as car manufacture, only 2 or 3 major firms survive. The expansion of the Community into eastern Europe and Turkey will result in the movement of cheap labour from east to west or the relocation of firms eastwards to take advantage of badly paid and 'grateful' workforces, driving down wages, working conditions and levels of environmental protection in western Europe.
We need to work through and against the existing structures of the European Union. In the short term, attempts to reform the EU, for example by overhauling policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy, will be vital. Yet in the longer run, we need to look beyond existing structures and think in terms of a Europe of Regions, one in which present nation state boundaries are dissolved and replaced by 'bioregional' ones, with only those powers and responsibilities truly appropriate to a continental level being surrendered to a transformed Union.
Corporate Europe Observatory. Europe Inc..: Dangerous Liaisons Between EU Institutions and Industry. CEC (Amsterdam), 1997.
CPRE. Out of Field Corners? Conservation and the Future of European Agriculture. C.P.R.E., 1984.
Haigh, N. EEC Environmental Policy & Britain. Longman, 1992. Detailed description from an author who seems to have cornered the market on this theme.
Hildyard, N. Maastricht: The Protectionism of Free Trade. The Ecologist, 23(2), 1993: 45-51.
Irvine, S. EC Come, EC Go: A Green Perspective on the EC. Real World, Summer, 1992: 16-17.
Mansolt, S. The Common Agricultural Policy. Soil. Association, 1979. Remarkable critique of the disastrous impacts of the CAPby its architect!
Paul, H. Moral Bankruptcy: Adoption of the EU Life Patents Directive. The Ecologist, 28(4), 1998: 203-206.
Global Institutions & Initiatives
Although the slogan 'think globally, act locally' has become a commonplace slogan, it is actually misleading in many ways. Today's problems range with unprecedented breadth and depth, making it difficult to view things in isolation from a regional, continental or even global context. For a start, locally generated acid rain, 'greenhouse gas' emissions and so forth contribute to an alteration in atmospheric balances world-wide. Furthermore, many problems such as the conservation of specific ecosystems, be it tropical moist forests or whole regions like Antarctica, as well as action against trade in endangered species, overfishing of the high seas or waste dumping in international waters, can be solved only if there is agreement between national governments. For this reason, 'acting globally' can be just as important a strategy in many cases as local and national action.
However, appropriate global action is far from easy. The Earth Summit in Rio, 1992, illustrated the difficulties of developing an effective international response. It is already forgotten by many, including the media who devoted so much space and time to what was hailed as the last chance to save the planet. Though it is possible to point to minor achievements, the fact is, when set against what needs to be done to secure the future for the Earth and all its inhabitants, the Summit was a massive failure. But it will have served some purpose if the roots of the debacle are recognised.
More importantly, ways still have to be found to work at a global level since attempts at 'sustainability in one country' are clearly doomed in our integrated world order. There have been some successes, limited but real nonetheless. The changes required to ensure sustainable livelihood security for everyone are blocked by the distribution of power at the global level. Only a democratically elected institution can have the legitimacy and be given the power to set fair ecological boundaries, within which all human activities must function.
Bowles, I., & G. Prickett. Reframing the Green Window. Conservation International, 1991. Look at the role of global environmental initiatives.
Bramble, B. The Debt Crisis: The Opportunities. The Ecologist, 17(4/5), 1987: 192-199. Looks at debts-for-nature' swaps.
Caldwell, L., 1972. In Defence of the Earth; International Protection of the Biosphere. Indiana UP., 1972.
Chatterjee, P. & M. Finger. The Earth Brokers: Power, Politics, & World Development. Routledge, 1994. In part, a critique of the Earth Summit and its outcomes, largely from a 'Third World' perspective.
Greenpeace International. UNCED Undone: Key Issues Agenda 21 Does Not Address. Amsterdam: Greenpeace, 1992.
Hays, P. & K. Smith, eds. The Global Greenhouse Regime: Who Pays? Earthscan, 1992.
Hildyard, N. Sustaining the Hunger Machine: A Critique of the FAO Sustainable Agriculture & Rural Development Strategy. The Ecologist, 21(6), 1991: 239-243.
Irvine, S. What Went Unsaid at UNCED. Real World, 1, Summer, 1992:4-6.
MacNeill, J., et al. Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World's Economy & the Earth's Ecology. OUP, 1991.
Mathews, Jessica. Redefining National Security. Foreign Affairs, Fall, 1989: 162-177
McCoy, P. & P. McCully. The Road from Rio. World Information Service, 1993.
McCully, P. The Case against Climate Aid. The Ecologist, 21(6), 1991: 244-251. Argues that a few crumbs from the table of the rich are being used to disguise the real problems of overconsumption and exploitation.
Mische, P. M.. Ecological Security & the Need to Reconceptualise Sovereignty. Alternatives, 14/4, 1989: 389-427
Nimitz, M. & G.M. Caine. Crimes Against Nature. Amicus Jnl, Summer, 1991: 8-10. The importance of international conventions, especially during periods of intensifying competition for resources.
Prins, G. Politics & the Environment. International Affairs, 6694), 1990: 711-730
Reed, D. ed.. The Global Environmental Facility: Sharing Responsibility for the Biosphere. World Wide Fund for Nature, Washington, 1993.
Retallack, S. Kyoto: Our Last Chance. The Ecologist, 2796), 1997: 229236. What the climate change conference should have done-and didn't do, preferring to fiddle while the Earth burns.
Sands, P., ed. The Effectiveness of International Environmental Agreements. Grotius, 1992. Exploration of existing international agreements and the extent to which they are succeeding
Shiva, V. Global Environmental Facility Third World Network, Penang, 1992. Critique of, amongst other things the top-down nature of GEF-type initiatives.
Soroos, M. Beyond Sovereignty. Univ. South Carolina Pr., 1986.
Swift, A. Global Political Ecology: The Crisis in Economy & Government. Pluto, 1991.
Weizsåcker, E. Earth Politics. Zed, 1994.
Foreign Policy
The following mainly to the foreign policy of British governments. It is fair to say that some of the most complacent, blinkered thinking in government is to be found in diplomatic service, whose senior offices enjoy lifestyles grossly pampered in comparison to those of the average citizen they claim to represent. Writers from a more traditional left-wing background such as Noam Chomsky have produced first rate critiques of the role of the American government in the world order. See also references on Global Maldevelopment for critiques of official aid policy, and on War and Militarism for material on the arms trade.
Curtis, M. The Ambiguities of Power. The Ecologist, 26(1), 1996 : 5-12. A critique of British Foreign Policy Since 1945
War & Militarism
War and preparation for war are the greatest sources of environmental destruction, human suffering, economic waste and political oppression. Contrary to the predictions of pundits like Francis Fukuyama, there is little sign of an outbreak of universal peace, prosperity, and democracy. As with environmental destruction, we seem to be approaching a crossroads where continuation of current trends could wreak global chaos, the easing of the AmericanRussian 'cold war' notwithstanding.
Despite vast expenditures on defence, the world is a dangerous place for ordinary citizens in most countries. Civilians have formed a larger and larger proportion of the killed and wounded in war. Since 1945, the number who have died in the 140 or so post-war wars has outnumbered the total dead of World War 2
Many governments will attempt to solve increasing social, economic and environmental problems by seizing other countries' resources (e.g. oil or water) or by an intensification of 'internal imperialism (e.g. the Indonesian government's onslaught on Borneo and East Timor). The social changes caused by economic development are also likely to fuel more backlashes from religious fundamentalism in areas like North Africa, the Middle East and south Asia.
Peace is furthered threatened by the aggressive posturing characteristic of most national defence policies. So-called deterrence triggers off cycles of action and reaction by rival powers. International arms races inevitably follow and their usual result in history has not been lasting peace but war. Nuclear proliferation is putting more fingers on the button of the one weapon that really could lead to the war to end all wars since an all-out exchange would undermine fatally the prospects for long-term survival.
The military-industrial complex that has burgeoned inside most industrial countries has become virtually a law unto itself, well and truly meriting the old epithet of 'merchants of death'. E.P. Thompson once called this whole system 'exterminationism'. It thrives upon fantasies of physical power'. The pathology of 'defence through aggressive strength' was voiced by the British Labour politician Aneurin Bevan who, dismissing what he called the 'infantile spasms' of nuclear disarmers, said that he would never 'walk naked' into international conference chambers.
Defence policies dependent upon the export of weaponry help to create militaristic juntas and encourage their expansionist ambitions. Similarly, possession of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons encourages others to follow suit. At the same time, the secrecy and surveillance needed by militaristic defence and foreign policies undermines the very democratic rights at home and abroad that governments claim to be defending. As one defence spending scandals follows another, it is clear that many defence bureaucracies are monumentally ineffective and inefficient, if not downright corrupt.
For centuries the waging of war has not only caused environmental destruction as 'collateral damage' but has also deliberately destroyed environments as a war-winning strategy and as a punishment for defeated opponents. The Romans, for example, were vicious practitioners of this tactic. Much 18th century deforestation in Scotland was linked to forest clearances to destroy Jacobite hideouts. The near extinction of America's once vast herds of buffalo was in part linked to an assault against Indian tribes through their resource base. Deliberate flooding has been another tactic in areas like the polder lands of Holland and Belgium. The industrialisation of warfare, starting with the American Civil War, has given sharper and bigger teeth to the 'dogs of war'.
There are, sadly, many case studies of the ecological costs of modern warfare, war training, weapons testing and weapons disposal, for instance: the guerrilla war in Mozambique; defoliation and the use of toxic chemicals in Vietnam; the burning of the Kuwaiti oilfields in the Gulf War, plus the drainage of Tigris-Euphrates marshes by the Hussein government to drive out dissident tribal groups; the atomic bomb tests in Australia and the Pacific; military testing of anthrax on Gruinard Island in Scotland; and the dumping of old soviet nuclear submarines in the seas. Many woodlands disappeared to feed war industries in the two World Wars while others were destroyed during fighting.
Even seemingly pastoral areas like the Shenandoah Valley in the USA still bear the scars of Civil War destruction. Many historic townscapes have been flattened in the course of war, with recent examples in Bosnia. Wars can trigger environmentally ruinous population movements while wartime technological innovation has bequeathed many technologies of dubious environmental compatibility. The direct human costs speak for themselves.
Some of the following references are products of the period when the cold war seemed to be turning 'hotter' in the late 1970s. The siting of Cruise missiles in Europe was symptomatic of this trend. However, the immediate risk of a conflagration between the USA & the old USSR has evaporated with the collapse of the Communist empire. Yet the threat from possible nuclear confrontation has not gone away. More and more states, many of them highly unstable, are developing the potential to join the 'nuclear club'. The risk from accidental missile launches and other mishaps also remains. French nuclear testing in the Pacific demonstrated in 1995 how insane some 'stable' governments can be. At the same time, dangerous developments are taking place in the field of chemical and biological warfare. For these reasons, the arguments developed by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and similar organisations are still highly relevant.
Barnett, A. Iron Britannia. Allison & Busby, 1982. Attack on British policy over the Falkland Islands.
Beer, F. Peace Against War: The Ecology of International Violence. Freeman, 1981.
Boulding, K. Perspectives on Violence. Zygon, 18(4), 1983: 425-437.
Boulding, K. Pathologies of Defence. Jnl of Peace Research, 21(2), 1984: 101-108. How defence policies can destroy more than they protect.
Caldicott, H. Missile Envy, the Arms race & Nuclear War. Bantam, 1985.
Cox, J. No No NATO. CND, 1982. Pamphlet attacking NATO & the nuclear connection.
Crosby, A. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Imperialism of Europe, 900-1900. Canto, 1993. A classic study of the ecological dynamics of encroachment and aggrandisement.
Cruttwell, P. History Out of Control: Confronting Global Anarchy. Resurgence, 1995.
Finger, M. The Military, the Nation State & the Environment. The Ecologist, 21(5), 1991; 220-225.
Goldsmith, E. The Ecology of War. The Ecologist, May, 1974: 124-135.
Goodland, R. Environmental Sustainability: Imperative for Peace. In Graeger, N., et al, ed. Environment, Poverty, Conflict. PRIO (Oslo), 1994.
Irvine, S. The New World Disorder. Real World, 3, Spring, 1993, 10-11.
Kennedy, P. The Rise & Fall of Great Powers. Random, 1987. Argues that, even in its own terms, the whole power politics game does not succeed for long, though it costs the rest of us so much in the meantime.
Kidron, M. & D. Smith. The New State of War & Peace: An International Atlas. Grafton, 1991.
Porritt, J. Embrace the Earth: A Green View of Peace. Green CND, 1983.
Postel, S. The Politics of Water. Worldwatch, 6(4), 1993: 10-18. How water shortages could open the floodgates of new 'resource wars'.
Renner, M. National Security: The Economic & Environmental Dimensions. WorldWatch Institute, 1989.
Renner, M. Budgeting for Disarmament: The Costs of War and Peace. Worldwatch Institute, 1994.
Renner, M. Fighting for Survival: Environmental Decline, Social Conflict and the New Age of Insecurity. WorldWatch, 1996.
Renner, M. An Epidemic of Guns. WorldWatch, 11(4), 1998: 12-29. Small arms are proliferating across society.
Rogers, P. & M. Dando. A Violent Peace: Global Security after the Cold War. Brasseys, 1992.
Ryle, M. The Politics of Nuclear Disarmament. Pluto Pr., 1981. Critique of the 'nuclear state' as well as specific nuclear policies.
Smith, G. Who Really Needs NATO?. Earth Island, Summer, 1997: 26-27. Includes snapshot of NATO's environmental impacts.
Thompson, E.P. Beyond the Cold War. END/Merlin Pr., 1982. Short pamphlet.
Trainer, T. Peace, Justice, & Affluence. In D. Green & D. Headon, ed. Imagining the Real. ABC Enterprises (Sydney), 1987. Looks at connections between need for growth limits and the search for peace and justice, one neglected by most anti-militarists & peace campaigners.
Ecological Impacts of War
Barnaby, F. The Environmental Impact of the Gulf War. The Ecologist, 21(4), 1991; 166-172.
Bennett, O., ed. Greenwar: Environment and Conflict. Panos, 1991. Look at vicious circle of environmental degradation and war in Sahel region in Africa.
Bloom, S., et al. Hidden Casualties: Environmental, Health & Political Consequences of the Persian Gulf War. Earthscan, 1993.
McKinnon, M & P. Vine. Tides of War: Eco-Disaster in the Gulf. Boxtree, 1991. Documentation of the environmental destructiveness as well as the human costs of modern warfare in a conflict which, many argue, has its roots in competition for control of future oil supplies.
Makhijani, A., et al., eds.. Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Wweapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects. MIT Press, 1995.
Renner, M. War on Nature. World Watch, 4, May/June, 1991: 18-25.
Thompson, W. Scorched Earth. New Society, 1995.
Turner. T. Ground Zero: The American Military vs the American Land. Wilderness, Fall, 1991: 10-15, 31-33, 36.
Weinberg, B. War on the Land: Ecology & Politics in Central America. Zed, 1991. The ecological destructiveness of conflicts in that region.
Westing, A. Ecological Consequences of the Second Indochina War. Almquist & Wiksell, 1976.
Military Spending & the Arms Industry
Anon. Gunrunners Gold; How the Public's Money Finances Arms Sales. World Development Movement (London), 1995.
Chester, G., et al, eds. Bombs for Breakfast. COPAT, 1981. Pamphlet attacking the arms trade.
Davis, I. Military Research & Development in Europe: Who's In Charge? Oxford Research Group, 1992.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. SIPRI International Yearbook: World Armaments & Disarmament. OUP, annual.
Webb, T. The Arms Drain, Job Risk & Industrial Decline. CND, 1982. Pamphlet attacking the common defence of military spending & the arms trade that they are good for the economy in general and employment in particular.
The Threat from Nuclear Weaponry
Akizuki, T. Nagasaki 1945. Quartet, 1981. Eyewitness accounts.
Aronson, R. Technological Madness: Toward a Theory of the Impending Nuclear Holocaust. Menard Pr., 1983.
Barnaby, F. The Nuclear Arms Race. Housmans, 1981. Short pamphlet.
Britten, S. The Invisible Event. Menard Pr., 1983. Pamphlet exposing risks of accidental nuclear conflict.
Cox, J. Overkill: the Story of Modern Weapons. Penguin, 3rd ed., 1981.
Dotto, L. Planet Earth in Jeopardy: Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War. Wiley, 1986.
Greene, O. Europe's Folly: The Facts & Arguments about Cruise. CND, 1983.
Harford, B. & S. Hopkins, S, eds. Greenham Common: Women at the Wire. Womens Pr., 1984. The struggle led by women's groups against American cruise missile siting in the UK.
Humphrey, J. et al. The Medical Consequences of Nuclear War. MCANW, 1981. Short pamphlet.
MacKinnon, D. Creon & Antigone: Ethical Problems of Nuclear War. Menard Pr., 1982. Short pamphlet.
Makhijani, A., et al., eds.. Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Wweapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects. MIT Press, 1995.
Postgate, O. Thinking It Through: the Plain Man's Guide to the Bomb. Menard Pr., 1982. Short pamphlet.
Postgate, O. The Writings on the Sky. Menard Pr., 1983. Pamphlet attacking the 'bomb culture'.
Prins, G., ed. Defended to Death. Penguin, 1983.
Rogers, P. et al. As Lambs to Slaughter: The Facts About Nuclear War. Ecoropa/Arrow, 1981. General analysis.
Thompson, E. Protest & Survive. CND, 1980. Pamphlet bitingly condemning government nuclear policy.
Thompson, E.P. et al. Britain & the Bomb. New Statesman, 1982. Collection of articles.
Tucker, A. & J. Gleisner. Crucible of Despair: the Effects of Nuclear War. Menard Pr., 1981. Short pamphlet.
White, A. The Terror of Balance. Menard Pr., 1983. Short pamphlet attacking the policy of 'nuclear deterrence'.
Towards a More Peaceful World
Alternative Defence Commission. Defence Without the Bomb. Taylor & Francis, 1983.
Axelrod, R. The Evolution of Cooperation. Basic Books, 1984.
Barnaby, F. & E. Boeker. Defence Without Offence. Housmans, 1982. Short pamphlet.
Boulding, E. ed. New Agendas for Peace Research: Conflict and Security Re-examined. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992.
Deudney, D. Whole Earth Security: a Geopolitics of Peace. WorldWatch Institute, 1983.
Eavis, P. & M. Clarke. Security After the Cold War: Redirecting Global Resources. Saferworld Foundation, 1990.
Goldsmith, E. An Ecological Defence Policy for Britain. The Ecologist, 1392), 1983: 50-53.
Lovins A. & L. H. Lovins. Building a Secure Society. The Ecologist, 14(4), 1984: 141-145.
Miall, H. New Conflicts in Europe: Prevention & Resolution. Oxford Research Group, 1992.
Miall, H. The Peacemakers: Peaceful Settlement of Disputes since 1945. Macmillan, 1992.
Overy, B. How Effective are Peace Movements? Housmans, 1982. Pamphlet arguing that peace movements can make a difference.
Renner, M. Sword into Ploughshares: Converting to a Peace Economy. WorldWatch Institute, 1990.
Renner, M. Critical Juncture: The Future of Peacekeeping. WorldWatch Institute, 1993.
Schmookler, A. Out of Weakness: Healing the Wounds That Drive Us to War. Bantam, 1988.
'Vested Interests'
The ecological crisis has not come about all of its own accord-it is the product of identifiable factors. It is crucial that they are addressed to make sure that the danger does not reoccur. The phrase 'Vested interests' refers to the self-serving behaviour of specific individuals, social groups and organisation which gain profit and power from economic exploitation and environmental destruction, often passing the costs onto innocent third parties. This has a well-documented and sordid history. The most obvious examples are to be found within the ranks of big business.
In many areas of life it is possible to identify mutually closely guarded webs of profitable back-scratching, whose tentacles entwine both private business and government circles. The most famous is the military-industrial complex spotlighted by President Eisenhower. Today, this web links arms manufacturers and suppliers, military chiefs, and career diplomatsplus, of course their political cronies. But there are many more examples such as agribusiness and the chemical corporations, many of whom possess their own tame scientists to fend off criticism. Behind the promotion of high-tech. surgery and expensive drug treatments lies what might called medibusiness. The media too are falling into fewer and fewer hands which are also getting their fingers into many other pies such as leisure. Presiding over the legal system is one the most secretive, powerful and lucrative 'closed shops' in the world, one dedicated to preservation of the status quo in a myriad of ways.
The response of private sector as a whole to the sustainability crisis is, in general, too little too late. It is largely a record of denial of problems, evasion of responsibility, blockage of necessary measures and feet-dragging when action can no longer be avoided. Indeed, organisations are being set up by business groups to resist environmental action. For example, various energy and other corporations set up the Climate Council in America to fight those wanting measures to cut greenhouse gas generation. The same people vociferously and successfully whipped up opposition to the 'Big Green' package of legislative action when it was put to the Californian electorate. In France, there is Enterprises Pour l'Environnement, an umbrella group of 14 of France's largest industrial group, led by Rhone Poulenc, to combat 'rampaging dangers of environmental protection', including carbon taxation and bills to the polluter for clean-up of old toxic waste sites.
Bodies like the Chemical Industrial Association seem primed to react against the merest whiff of criticism of their sector's track record. Perhaps the most tenacious and unrepentant is the lobby fighting for more roads and associated infrastructure as well as attacking those who dare to suggest that drivers and their vehicles might be partly to blame for traffic accidents, congestion or environmental damage.
Many organisations with dirt on their hands are of course now claiming to be cleaning up their act. Witness the rise of a corporate environmentalism within the business world, perhaps symbolised best by the production of the Valdez Principles after the Exxon oil disaster in Alaska. The slogan of this greener way of business has often been 'Pollution Prevention Pays'. Usually, all this talk is little more than a lick of green gloss applied to cloak the same old business practices which have helped to create the crisis in the first place. The very businesses that sold products that damaged the environment are now profiting by selling goods to clean up and restore environmental systems.
Furthermore, continued business expansion must soak up any gains in resource saving and pollution prevention. To that extent, the debate about green business parallels that about 'sustainable growth' and 'sustainable development' discussed elsewhere in this website, both under the heading of Ideas and in the listings under Economics. The more specific issue here of course is the compatibility of corporate goals with public goods such as environmental protection.
The green credentials of some environmental initiatives from the business world deserve close scrutiny. The Business Council for Sustainable Development, for example, includes amongst its corporate members some of the world's polluters. Its head is Stephen Schmidheiny, a Swiss billionaire who made his money from the asbestos trade. Of course, fairness demands recognition that it is possible that individuals and organisations are turning over a new green leaf. Sir James Goldsmith would provide an interesting case study. But it is equally fair to look behind new green faces.
The above factors mean that the 'voluntary approach' in which private bodies are left to put their own house in order is quite inadequate, to say the least.
Allin, C. The Politics of Wilderness Preservation. Greenwood Pr., 1982.
Bean, M. Reconciling Conflicts Under the Endangered Species Act. World Wildlife Fund, 1991. More American politics.
Bosch, R. van den. The Pesticide Conspiracy. Prism Pr., 1978.
Colby, G. & C. Dennett. Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon, Nelson Rockefeller & Evangelism in the Age of Oil. Harper Collins, 1995. God and Mammon hand in hand.
Deal, C. The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organisations. Odonian Pr., 1993.
Doherty, A. & O. Henderson. Misshaping Europe: The European Round Table of Industrialists. The Ecologist, 24(4), 1994: 135-141.
Fairlie, S. The Infrastructure Lobby. The Ecologist, 23(4), 1993: 122-124.
Goldsmith, E. & N. Hildyard. Green Britain or Industrial Wasteland. Polity Pr., 1986. Case studies of various UK environmental problems, with focus on those who stand in the way of satisfactory solutions.
Hall, C. The Forestry Club. Ecos, 3(1), 1982: 10-13. Vested interests behind coniferous afforestation in the UK.
Hamer, N. Wheels Within Wheels: A Study of the Road Lobby. RKP, 1987.
Hildyard, N. Cover-Up. NEL, 1983. Well documented case studies of denials of problems, evasions of responsibility, persecution of critics and blocking of effective action by assorted government, business and other interests, ranging from leaded petrol to asbestos.
Hurst, P. Rainforest Politics. Zed, 1991.
Karliner, J., et al. The Barons of Bromide: The Corporate Forces Behind Toxic Poisoning and Ozone Depletion. The Ecologist, 27(3), 1997: 90--98.
Karliner, J. The Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in the Age of Globalization. Sierra Books, 1998.
Kapp, K. W. The Social Costs of Private Enterprise. Harvard Univ. Pr., 1950. A pioneering study of how private enterprises pass the costs of the external damage they cause to the general public.
Kerski, A. Pulp, Paper and Power: How an Industry Reshapes Its Social Environment. The Ecologist, 25(4), 1995: 142-149.
Lash, J. et al., eds. A Season of Spoils: the Reagan Administration & the Administrative Attack on the Environment. Pantheon, 1984.
Lohmann, L. Peasants, Plantations & Pulp: The Politics of Eucalyptus in Thailand. Bulletin of Concerned Asia Scholars, 23(4), 1991: 3-17.
Mahar, D. Government Policies & Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon. World Bank, 1989.
Marshall, G. The Political Economy of Logging: the Barnett Enquiry into Corruption in the Papua New Guinea Timber Industry. The Ecologist, 20(5), 1990: 174-181.
Martin, E. Flexible Bodies: Health & Work in the Age of Systems. The Ecologist, 25(6), 1995: 221-226. How businesses are using the notion of flexibility to intensify exploitation.
Moore, P. The Unacceptable Face of Private Forestry. Ecos, 6(4), 1985: 34-39. UK study.
Morehouse, W. Unfinished Business: Bhopal Ten Years After. The Ecologist, 24(5), 1994: 164-169. How corporate power enables responsibilities to be evaded.
Mumford, S. The Life and Death of NSSM: How the Destruction of Political Will Doomed a US Population Policy. Centre for Research on Population and Security (NC, USA). Most studies of 'vested interests' focus upon private corporations the state machine. Here is a look at the machinations of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church sabotaging efforts to tackle the overwhelming problem of overpopulation.
Repetto R. & M. Gillis. Public Policies & the Misuse of Forest Resources. CUP, 1988.
Revkin, A. The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendez and the Fight for the Amazon. Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
Sachs, W. If Wishes Were Horses: Desire & Democracy in the History of Transport. The Ecologist, 24(3), 1994: 94-99.
Sexton, S. Transnational Corporations and Food. The Ecologist, 26(6), 1996: 256-258.
Smith, G. Meet the Logger Barons: The Chainsaw Billionaires. Earth Island, Winter, 1996: 28.
Sterling, J. Washington's Top Ten Environmentalists. Earth Island, Winter, 1995/96: 31. Gallery of Earth enemies in the American Senate and Congress-and their corporate connections.
Tobin, M. Expendable Future: US Politics & the Protection of Biodiversity. Duke Univ. Pr., 1990.
Wilson, R. The Political Power of the Forestry Lobby. Ecos, 8 (4), 1987: 11-17
Various. Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGAIR): Agricultural Research for Whom. The Ecologist, 26(6), 1967: 259-270.
Yaffee, S. The Wisdom of the Spotted Owl: Policy Lessons for a New Century. Island Pr., 1994.
Anti-Ecological organisations and movements
Beder, S. Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Enviromentalism. Green Books, 1998.
Burton, B. & S. Rampton. The PR Plot to Overheat the Earth. Earth Island, Spring, 1998: 29-30. Exposes the machinations of the Global Climate Coalition to stop action over global overwarming.
Corporate Europe Observatory. Smooth: Greenwash Guru Burson Marsteller & the Biotech. Industry. The Ecologist, 28(3), 1998: 134-137. The propaganda drive in favour of biotechnology.
Deal, C. The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organisations. Odonian Pr., 1993.
Echeverria, J. & R.B. Eby. Let the People Judge: Wise Use & the Private Property Rights Movement. Island Pr., 1995. Critique of a very dangerous development, born in the USA, which uses rhetoric about individual freedom and the right to 'use' one's property as one wishes to legitimise further rape of the Earth.
Goldsmith, Z. Legalised, Random Genocide. The Ecologist, 28(1), 1998: 2-5. Contrasts the reality of corporate activities and the greenwash with which it is camouflaged.
Helvarg, D. The War Against the Greens: The Wise Use Movement, the New Right, & Anti-Environmental Violence. Sierra Books, 1994.
Jacobs, D. The Bum's Rush: The Selling of Environmental Backlash. Legendary Publishing Co., 1994. A guide to an anti-ecological big mouth, Rush Limbaugh
Levidow, L. Domesticating Biotechnology: How London's Science Museum has Framed the Controversy. The Ecologist, 28(3), 1998: 143-145. How sponsorship is distorting museum exhibition, with a focus on biotechnology but also looking at energy and food examples.
Manilow, M. & T. Schwarz. The Assault on Eco-Education. Earth Island, Winter, 1996: 36. Big business and the Religious Right unite to stop tomorrow's citizens being environmentally aware. Includes panel on 'corporations in the classroom'.
Passacantando, J. & A. Carothers. Crisis? What Crisis? . The Ozone Backlash. The Ecologist, 25(1), 1995: 5-7.
Rowell, A. Green Backlash: Global Subversion of the Environmental Movement. Routledge, 1996.
Stauber, J. & S. Rampton. Toxic Sludge is Good for You!: Lies, Damn Lies & the Public Relations Industry. Common Courage Pr.,1995.
Tokar, B. The 'Wise Use' Backlash: Responding to Militant Anti-Environmentalism. The Ecologist, 25(4), 1995: 150-156.
Tokar, B. Earth for Sale: Reclaiming Ecology in an Age of Corporate Greenwash. Sound End Pr., 1997.
The Limits of Corporate Self-Reform
Commoner, B. Can Capitalists Be Environmentalists? Business And Society Review, Vol. 75, 1990: 31-35
Deal, C. The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organisations. Odonian Pr., 1993. How big business is setting pseudo-environmentalist front organisations to roll back the tide of environmental reform.
Donahue, J. Mischief, Misdeeds & Mendacity: The Real 3M. Multinational Monitor, May, 1991: 29-31. Attack on a company famous for its Pollution Prevention Pays programme and often cited as evidence that businesses are going green. The reductions in pollution are only relative to what they might have been and have increased in absolute terms due to on-going growth in output. Even those gains are questionable given the number of lawsuits against the firm for pollution and health and safety violations.
Doyle, J. Hold The Applause, A Case Study of Corporate Environmentalism. The Ecologist, 22/3, 1992: 84-90. A critique of the record of the record of Du Pont in particular, but shows that most corporate 'greening' is a very superficial preening with unchanging goals of more expansion and power.
Fairlie, S. Long Distance, Short Life: Why Big Business Favours Recycling. The Ecologist, 22, 6, 1992: 276-283
Finger, M. & J. Kilcoyne. Why Transnational Organisations are Organising to 'Save the Environment'. The Ecologist, 27(4), 1997: 136-137. With friends like these
Goodpaster, K.E. The Concept of Corporate Responsibility. Jnl Business Ethics, 2 1983: 1-22.
Gray, R. & Collison. Environmental Audit: Green Gauge or Whitewash. Managerial Auditing 6(5), 1991: 17-25
Greer, J. & K. Bruno. Greenwash: The Reality Behind Corporate Environmentalism. Third World Network (Penang), 1996.
Irvine, S. Consuming Fashions? The Limits of Green Consumerism. The Ecologist, 19/3, 1989: 88-93. A revised version was published by FoE.
Jones, T. Corporate Killing: Bhopals Will Happen. Free Association Books, 1988.
Matsch, M. Coca Cola: Recycling Outlaw. Earth Island, Winter, 1977/98: 21. Anothe rinstance of the gulf between rhetotic and reality, this time Coca Cola's promises back in 1990 to start using recycled plastic and its failure to do so.
Megalli, M. & A. Friedman,. Masks of Deception: Corporate Front Groups in America. Essential Information, 1991.
Montague, P. Polluted Politics and Corporate Welfare. Earth Island, Spring, 1995: 28. The so-called "Contract With America" shown to be contract for more troughs for corporate pigs.
Smith, G. Detroit Says: "Screw the Planet". Earth Island, Summer, 1997: 13. Despite all the evidence about the ecological destructiveness of road transport, American car manufacturers are planning a new generation of monster, gas guzzling, pollution-spewing station wagons.
Tokar, B. Earth for Sale: Reclaiming Ecology in an Age of Corporate Greenwash. Sound End Pr., 1997.
The Bhopal disaster provided an interesting case study of corporate investment strategies, risk assessment and response to disaster. See, for example:
Morehouse, W. Unfinished Business: Bhopal Ten Years After. The Ecologist, 24(5), 1994: 164-169. How corporate power enables responsibilities to be evaded.
Pearce, F., & Tombs. Bhopal: Union Carbide and the Hubris of Capitalist Technocracy, Social Justice, 16 (2), 1989: 116-45
Shrivastava, P. Bhopal-The Anatomy of a Crisis. Chapman, 1992.
'Social Traps'
It is foolish to blame each and every problem on the greed and wastefulness of big business. Articles regularly appear, for example, brandishing the fact that household refuse is only a fraction of wastes generated in factories, farms and especially mines. Such facts, it is claimed, demonstrate corporate culpability - as if all these industries have nothing to do with household consumption.
This 'populist' approach will back public measures like a carbon tax and the application of the 'polluter pays' principle to the industrial and commercial sectors. Yet it attacks direct measures (e.g. domestic water metering) that also might cut down individual consumption. Such policies are rejected on the grounds of inequity and their effect on the poor (a problem which should not stop such measures but which should be addressed separately, for instance by more steeply progressive taxation).
The concept of 'social traps' switches the focus to behaviour and decision-making processes where there is no deliberate intent to exploit, damage or destroy. In today's anonymous mass societies, the common resources of air, water and migratory wildlife, as well as specific facilities such as the 'open road', suffer from over-exploitation by their users. In a famous article, the American biologist Garrett Hardin described this phenomenon as the 'tragedy of the commons', though the notion had been used by writers as far back as ancient Greece. Other writers have used terms like 'the tyranny of micro motives'.
Some of our worst problems, for example, started life with the best intentions. The scientist who bears the dubious honour of developing CFCs and leaded petrol did so to improve matters, not make them worse. Similarly, Norman Borlaug's work on high-yielding hybrids, for the 'green revolution' in farming, was part of a drive to feed the world, not starve it. This reality is not altered by the subsequent behaviour of corporate interests in connection with those developments. But their disastrous impact would not have been any different in an economic or political system dedicated to human needs.
Every day, a myriad of decisions are made, often with nothing but good intended and/or no knowledge of any harmful consequences. Yet their cumulative effect, once added together, does great damage. An individual person or organisation may gain from those decisions and, if they decided differently, they might incur all kinds of costs and disadvantages. For all kinds of reasons - convenience, laziness, comfort, entertainment, safety, security etc.-things are done whose bottom line is resource depletion, pollution, and the extermination of wildlife.
A major driving force in overpopulation, for example, has been humanitarian attempts to reduce infant mortality, extend life spans, and overcome limits to child-bearing. Medical advances and other factors apart, increases in human numbers are nothing more than the product of innumerable couples deciding to parent three or more children i.e. more than their 'replacement'. Those couples might gain all kinds of benefits and satisfactions but, as the singer Paul Simon once wrote, 'another child is born and the Earth groans'.
At the more mundane level of energy conservation in buildings, many people, especially women working at night, are glad to see lights wastefully left on in empty corridors, simply because they feel safer. Even the simple act of going for a walk or a bike ride is now fast eroding footpaths across many parts of the Lake District and other popular upland areas.
In business circles, this dynamic will reduce to the lowest common denominator attempts to green production systems. In particular, the principle of BATNEEC (Best Available Technology Not Entailing Excessive Cost) will become the practise of CATNIP (Cheapest Available Technology Not Inviting Prosecution) since enterprises in the commons of an open market will be forced to act on the assumption that rivals can gain a competitive edge if financial costs are not kept to the minimum. Similarly, planners usually consent to one more bit of development - another housing estate, a new factory, an additional hotel - because the perceived gains outweigh the cost: the loss of just a few acres of open space after all is not going to bring the ecosystem crashing down.
Private individuals also make similar choices every day. Many people, for example, choose to drive to work instead of catching the bus, even when there is a perfectly good service. They gain the convenience and privacy of their own vehicle while the pollution its use causes scarcely registers on any environmental scale. Similarly, the biggest source of oil pollution on beaches is the ordinary household. It is easier to pour old oil down the drains and such a few drops, it seems, cannot do any harm.
Especially in the short-term, there is often a conflict between the good of the individual and that of the collective as a whole. Heroic surgery to prolong the life of the old and seriously ill, for example, might be a very desirable thing for those individuals who otherwise would die and for their loved ones but, for society as a whole, such medical 'advances' are creating massive demographic and economic problems.
An interesting example of the tragedy of the commons/tyranny of small decisions at work in the field of public policy was the debate about the University of Northumbria's purchasing procedures. On the table was a proposal to exclude desks made from tropical hardwoods. The objection came back that this was a 'global issue' and that the effect of the institution not purchasing such materials would be negligible. Other institutions, it was argued, would still buy the goods and the forest destruction therefore would continue unabated. Yet the demand for tropical hardwoods, in part, is simply the consequence of all those little purchasing policy decisions added together. Maintenance of the existing policy would mean that still more forest would be cut down, with the result that in the long run there would be fewer resources and reduced environmental 'life-support' services for other users of the one of the Earth most critical ecosystems.
Unless such factors are taken into account, policies of popular 'empowerment' conceivably could make matters worse, not better. There are plenty of examples where increased public access has led to great environmental damage or where a popular vote might restore some rather destructive practices. But most advocates of sustainable development have little to say on the subject, preferring the Romantic vision that The People will be good once their chains have been removed. Indeed, Garrett Hardin's writings on the Tragedy of the Commons are often singled out for special denunciation in magazines like The Ecologist., despite the essential truth they contain. A more sober assessment of popular culture and individual decision-making than that available from populist thinkers is needed if society is to be made more sustainable.
Clark, C. Economic Biases Against Sustainable Development. In R. Constanza, ed., Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability. Columbia UP, 1991.
Cross, J., & Guyer, M., 1980. Social Traps Univ. of Michigan Pr.
Costanza, R. Social Traps & Environmental Policy. Bioscience, 37/6, 1987: 407-412
Dustin, D. & L. McAvoy. Hardining National Parks. Environmental Ethics, 2, 1980: 39-44. How open access slowly but surely eats away at protected areas, with case study of tourist pressures on Yosemite National Park.
Hardin, G. The Tragedy of the Commons Science, 162, 1969: 1243-1248. The Tragedy of the Commons is one of the most widely cited and reprinted articles of all time. It has been attacked for ignoring the fact that many traditional societies had value systems and social structures which prevented their members from overexploiting common lands.
Kahn, A. E. The Tyranny of Small Decisions Kyklos, 1, 1968: 23-47.
Moore, C. Does Your Cup of Coffee? International Wildlife, 21(1), 1991: 12-17. Exploration of the links between personal choices and collective consequences.
Odum, W. Environmental Degradation and the Tyranny of Small Decision. Bioscience, 32(9), 1982: 728-729.
Schelling, T. C. On the Ecology of Micromotives. The Public Interest, 25, 1971: 59-98.
Examples of how communities have managed their common property resources sustainably, albeit usually in smaller scale circumstances with less powerful technologies, can be found in:
Berkes, F., ed. Common Property Resources. Belhaven, 1989.
McKay, Bonnie J. & Acheson, J. M., eds. The Question
of the Commons. University of Arizona Pr., 1987
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