Red Green and Blue: Environmentalism vs. Humanitarianism
Editor's note: In the newest edition of Red, Green and Blue, writers Jimmy Hogan and Shirley Siluk Gregory take a look at the "big issue" of environmentalism vs. humanitarianism.
Jimmy: I was thinking the other day, and it struck me that I don’t have a very well-formed stand on the distinction between environmental and humanistic issues. Is there a point where being green comes at the expense of human welfare?
The statement seems a contradiction, but in the future, as in the past, we will discuss and debate issues relating to this fundamental choice. Is it morally wrong to use food-stuff like corn and soy in biofuels while other people around the world are starving? Do our lofty environmental goals sometimes have negative unintended consequences?
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
Have you considered this balance before? In the spirit of open discussion and debate my challenge today is to ask our readers to contribute their thoughts on the matter in the comments thread below and to see where there is common ground and where society needs work.
Tags: Activism, Culture, environmentalism, food, Food Production, humanitarianism, politics, Red, Green and Blue, Religion
- Uncategorized
May 15th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I think the question of being green vs. being humanitarian is best split into two parts: conservation green vs. consumerism green.
In the conservation approach (reduce, reuse, recycle) toward environmentalism, I can't find any way in which it's at cross purposes with humanitarianism. When I recycle my old cellphone or computer rather than dispose of it irresponsibly, I help reduce the demand for precious metals extracted at a terrible human cost in places like Africa, or reduce the mountains of toxic waste that accumulate in the poorest parts of Asia. When I compost my kitchen scraps, I give back to the soil in my backyard.
In the consumer green world, though, the picture grows more tangled. Am I causing some harm to a distant coffee-grower when I choose organic coffee over fair-trade? (I try to find brands that are both, and it is getting easier to do so, fortunately.) And how green am I really being if I buy an organic cotton t-shirt if it was assembled by a 15-year-old Chinese girl who works 80 hours a week in some far-flung factory?
Every decision we make has ramifications, whether we see them or not. But I believe responsible green living, one that doesn't simply try to buy a green existence by accumulating more stuff that looks environmentally correct but really isn't (See this interesting take on the issue: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/28/833/), is the way to go, both from an environmental AND a humanitarian standpoint.
May 15th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Personally, I think environmentalism and humanism are two sides of the same coin. Most environmental issues are public health issues, cleaning up our environment can only benefit us in the long run.
But there are gray areas, like biofuels. The way I see it, we need to get off of oil (it’s a humanistic and an environmental issue) so bio-fuels are a good thing. But growing huge batches of one mono-crop like corn that is not that sustainable to produce them is not so good.
However, most of the mono-cropping (growing soy and corn, usually) is currently done to raise food for cattle (the Amazon is still being cut down - to grow soy for cattle more often than for the cattle themselves). Because we are feeding so much of our foodstuffs to cattle to raise meat (which is a horribly inefficient way to feed people since most of the plant energy is wasted), less goes to the world’s hungry. Third world countries are exporting their crops here to feed our cattle instead of feeding their own people!
So, if we’re going to increase our production of home-grown biofuels, we need to be careful to do it sustainably, and it also would best go hand in hand with a reduction of meat consumption and fewer animals raised for food. Reducing meat consumption is also a public health and humanistic issue - considering the many diseases such as obesity and heart disease that plague us. (A vegan diet can literally reverse heart disease - handy fact for the day).
~Megan Prusynski
my site | volksvegan adventures | unplug
May 15th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
I may buy a Prius but I’m not giving up my steaks!
Regarding crop feed-stocks for bio-fuel; our surpluses tend to be regional. Most world hunger has less to do with supply than it does with distribution. Are we wrong to use a resource that has such an ample local supply? It’s a very desirable substitute for oil for many reasons.
What about carbon offsets? Does it make more sense to give the money to world hunger or health charities?
May 15th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Megan, your points about the inefficiency of our food chain are very good though… how about I cut back on steaks?
How do you feel about livestock from non-grain sources? I know personally you aren’t interested but does the idea of natural grazing without human grain processing sit any better with you?
May 15th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Very true, Megan: our taste for meat carries a steep environmental cost and contributes to the destruction of rainforests and other environments that have sustained people and animals for thousands of years. It also does little good for our health.
I realize the meat-and-potatoes types don't relish the idea of giving up their steaks, Jimmy, but consider this: your dietary choices more than outweigh any benefit from your decision to drive a Prius. The Center for Science in the Public Interest calculates that the methane gas alone emitted by livestock and their manure equals the greenhouse gas impact of 33 million cars on the road.
I do agree with you, though, that the root cause of hunger is more distribution (difficulties caused by politics and warfare, in particular) than supply. According to Christopher Cook, author of "Diet for a Dead Planet," enough food is produced globally to provide every person with 2,800 calories and 76 grams of protein per day … yet close to a billion people are chronically undernourished.
What's the solution? Emergency food and health relief is the first step, but without resolving ongoing political disputes AND fostering self-sufficiency, we can't permanently eliminate global poverty. The aid organizations I admire the most, and that I think have the best chances for long-term success, are the ones that emphasize home-grown, sustainable agriculture and other projects that enable people to support themselves and their families (see, for example, the Lambi Fund of Haiti, http://www.lambifund.org, or Heifer International, http://www.heifer.org). Good for the environment AND good for people.
May 15th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
So… what about carbon offsets vs. humanitarian aid?
Do we look for something that overlaps? That would be maybe doing offsets by paying poor countries not to cut down rain-forests… but I think environmental salvation is going to come from technology investments that don’t directly benefit the poor… particularly not the poor of third world countries.
I’m really not trying to be adversarial at all. As I said, I’m trying to form an opinion about how to strike this balance.
May 15th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Carbon offsets per se have proven questionable in value — some are effective efforts to curb greenhouse gases, while others turn out to be boondoggles or worse.
Again, I think the best solution to both humanitarian crises and the environmental crises is one that helps the poor become sustainably self-sufficient. If a family can learn how to make a solar cooker, for example, it saves on the need to cut down firewood, which preserves precious forests. And environmentally sustainable agriculture practices enrich the land and the atmosphere as well as people.
I'm not holding my breath for a technological breakthrough that miraculously and swiftly solves our environmental problems, either. As Jared Diamond noted in "Collapse," every technological advance implemented to solve a problem brings with it a whole new set of other problems.
I think a far more promising approach are simple, inexpensive but elegant and effective technological innovations such as the ones recognized by the Rolex Awards: http://www.rolexawards.com.
May 15th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Hey Shirley… have you seen Amy’s interview with Colin Beavan?
May 15th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
I’d have to disagree with Jared Diamond somewhat there. Our world would not have survived as it has without our innovation and imagination. That’s what Malthus failed to consider in his pessimistic predictions. Ehrlich, too, predicted doom to no avail stirring everyone into a panic so the latest generation of these prophets of trepidation don’t lend me much concern.
Caution heeds the pessimists but history favors the optimists.
May 15th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Jimmy, good to hear you’re considering cutting back on the steaks. Even cutting back helps. And it does more to adopt a vegetarian diet than buying a prius does (much cheaper too!) - the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization found that raising livestock for food produces more greenhouse gases than all the cars & trucks in the world combined (http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html).
I can’t say I support raising animals for food at all, although I know it’s impossible to expect the whole world to go veg overnight. (One can dream, right?) Even grass-fed free-range cattle cause erosion, produce methane and other pollution, and I don’t even want to think about what happens to the poor things at the slaughterhouse… I’ve seen enough videos of that already.
As for carbon offsets, I agree that they are a good idea in theory but a bit of a cop-out. It’s far better to make changes in your own life than to just think you can offset all your negative impact. I also think a good way to help global poverty is by helping on a local level and working with poverty-stricken people to come up with sustainable solutions that work for them, within their budgets and with local materials. As green technology becomes more affordable, that will help, but we also need to come up with solutions that don’t rely on the latest technology - often the best solutions are primitive and use local materials.
One example is a recent trip that a friend of mine went on to Kenya - several students at the University of Idaho worked on a sustainable solution to help a nomadic Kenyan tribe filter their water. They ended up using a seed from the tribe’s local area to create a filtration system. My friend went to Kenya to help them begin building and using the new filters so they could have clean drinking water. He’s a mechanical engineer, so he should be working on some high-tech gadget, but instead the best solution they found was very low-tech.
It’s solutions like this that help change things for the better, but that doesn’t mean that our actions and consumption patterns over hear don’t have an impact. All things connect.
This is a great discussion, btw!
~Megan Prusynski
my site | volksvegan adventures | unplug