I always enjoy John Pearson’s reflections, but I was disconcerted by the final question in Going Green, his recent piece in Sofia: ‘Are we all doing all we can for a sustainable future?’ And not because I would have to answer ‘No,’ but because I never will be able to. For I am aware of being a part of a greater whole – civilisation – that has largely taken control of what provides for my needs; and I find myself one of an unsustainable species on the planet. For this and other reasons I have come to regard sustainability as one of the great illusions of our time.
But an even greater threat, one that John does not refer to in his article, is that of sheer numbers. The statistics are staggering. in the UK a population of 68 million and rising; 200 million in Nigeria, soon to be a billion. Our demands for unlimited consumption of limited resources have already driven whole ecosystems to the point of collapse. Vast agro-deserts result from monoculture; opium and tea plantations gratify seekers of illusion and luxury. Wilderness is almost a thing of the past and something we imagine we can do without. Even sustaining the present rate of consumption would require another planet the size of Earth.
Still, the shapers of the world order – from Putin to the Pope – urge increased human reproduction. But the problem is more than numbers; it involves the very nature of our species. It is no coincidence that the collapse of the mega-fauna across the continents followed the appearance of homo sapiens. This new species, with it big brains, lust for power, indifference to consequences, was not satisfied to take an occasional woolly Mammoth, but entire species (recall the charnel pits at Predmosti in Moravia), the near-elimination of the American buffalo, the extinction of the passenger pigeon and baiji.
Our history shows that we value abundance and dominance more than sustainability. The Stone Age hunter’s way of life destroyed the herds on which it depended. How ironic that the so-called Neolithic agricultural revolution, the site of the fabled Garden of Eden, began as an alternative necessity. Crops helped sustain larger populations and then cities. But the acropolis always ended as the necropolis.
From Troy and Carthage to Mariopol and Gaza the pattern remains unchanged – though bronze swords and chariots have been replaced by ballistic missiles and tanks. Such is the record of human progress. Archaeologists now trace the history of ‘civilisation’ by the devastation and waste left behind. Mounds of debris, ‘tels’, mark the sites where human populations grew and then vanished. Nineveh, one of the first great cities, supported a growing population by sophisticated crop irrigation, until resulting salt pans poisoned the soil and created the arid waste we see today.
Modern intensive industrial farming and fishing have similar unsustainable consequences today. Though the mantra of sustainability is popular, actual social trends deny solid affirmations. Take the purchase of cars. Environmental gains from improved efficiency in automotive technology have been off-set by increased demand for larger cars, pickup trucks, and SUV’s. Clearly, logical resistance to the reptilian brain’s lust for what is bigger, stronger, and faster is futile. Raising the issue with motorists parked outside the school opposite my house with engines running whilst engrossed in finger flicking their smart phones tends to produce responses like ‘There’s no law against it.’ Now I just shrug – what’s the point?
It is a paradigm for our predicament: we are too engrossed in our personal worlds to be concerned about real world consequences. The demand for ever more super yachts, cruise liners and long-haul flights seems insatiable – the 80 million passengers a year at Heathrow and 46 million at Gatwick now renew the call for the infamous third runway to be built. Who gives a toss about the sustainability of the planet?
The juggernaut of selfish demands, human rights and indifference to nature has led me increasingly to affirm the doctrine that all living things have rights. I am drawn to the nobility of Jainism, which insists on respect for all life. Not only animals but insects and plants have the right to life and protection from harm. Yet the path to sustainability includes a dire warning: Mahavira’s doctrine of non-violence to living things, ahimsa, led to his death by starvation. Must the ultimate cost of life for the planet be death for us?
Can there be any hope for humanity? Here I find myself coming back to observations of Victor Frankl in the harrowing confines of Auschwitz: one must focus on the will to live and the possibilities of each present day: a gesture of kindness, an act of creation, and a burden borne – and to recognise those sparks of life that encourage us to rise above our instincts and sustain life. To me this is also the essence of Don Cupitt’s Solar Living, the outpouring of generosity that makes life possible; the commitment to transcend the life of the present and enable hope for the future.