Putting it all together: part-5

Iam no psychologist. But i strongly believe that the answers to environmental crisis lie not in technology but in the human mind — in reworking our relationship to the world outside, be it non-human world or other humans. That’s why i don’t jump up and down when someone announces a technological breakthrough in tapping solar energy or a miracle fuel from jatropha seeds or a success story in cloud seeding.

But, not for nothing, mind is referred as terra incognita. As a National Geographic documentary put it: “The paradox is that the most power force on the earth today — the human brain — doesn’t have the power to understand itself”. Having recognized that iam treading on a risky path, let me walk you through a simple framework which encapsulates my ideas on how we might approach ecological issues from a psychological standpoint.

instincts

As i discussed in part-4, it seems fairly obvious to me that our behavior towards something is driven by the value we associate to that. Where does our sense of value originate from ? We value something that we perceive to be “close” to us, or identify with. Generally, we value our selves most. Maybe family next. Then, maybe friends, or some community which we feel we belong to. A person who speaks “my” language .. my school football team .. our national cricket team, etc. We build circles of concern around us. The “closeness” fades away as we go farther from the center of our concern. The care and the value we associate and our sense of responsibility also fade away. I believe its the same with nature. Anthropologists tell us that agricultural revolution which started some ten thousand years back, has started the physical separation of humans from natural settings. As agriculture generated surpluses, people moved increasingly into towns and cities, and built a whole civilization based on importation of food and resources into the cities. Ramachandra guha and Madhav Gadgil made a very perceptive observation regarding the consequences of this physical separation. ( In their book “This fissured land — An ecological history of India”). It goes: “Hunter-gatherers live in the forest, agriculturists live adjacent to but within striking distance of the forest, and urban-industrial men live away from the forest. Paradoxically, the more the spatial separation from the forest, the greater the impact on its ecology, and the further removed the actors from the consequences of this impact”. The spatial separation contributes to two things (a) loss of instinctual connection with rest of life (b) remove urban people from the immediate consequences of impact of their economic activity on an ecosystem. Both of these result in our associating very little value to nature, which in-turn contributes to destructive behavior.

As a product of urban civilization myself, i frankly admit that i’d get a D grade in instinctual awareness and ability to live without the accouterments of civilization. It’s something i need to work on. My understanding of the ecological issues is mostly from above-the-shoulders, and i suspect so is the case with most of the urban people today. (Although when i see a beautiful green hill by the sea being destroyed to build a film studio upon it, which is happening in my town, something in me says “this is insane”. I don’t think that is coming from intellect). I believe the reason our current civilization is not reacting adequately to the environmental crisis upon us is because we only have an intellectual understanding of the issues, and so respond in a limited way. Take for example — scientists have been crying out from the rooftops about sixth extinction. But for most of us, species loss is only an abstraction. We have never seen many of those species in real life other than on national geographic channel, much less interact with them. No wonder our response is tepid.

intellect

We are thinking beings after all , and thought dominates our perception of the world outside. So, with all its limitations, we do need intellectual awareness as well. You know, understanding ecological issues from scientific perspective. Figuring out what greenhouse effect means. Knowing whats involved in making that plastic bag, and what happens to it after we throw it. All that stuff. It seems to me, this is the easiest but least effective forms of awareness. But a start nonetheless.

intuition

What beyond instincts and intellect ? Are there any dormant or still-to-be-evolved faculties in us, which bring about a wider consciousness than a limited consciousness which is clearly our present state ? What about the vast body of knowledge and evidence coming from east, asserting that there is indeed a next level of consciousness ? Are these mere dogma’s of modern anthropocentric civilization (ten thousand years is afterall a blip, in terms of geological timescales) to delude ourselves of human superiority and place ourselves on top of the evolutionary hierarchy ? The answer is for each one to decide on their own. I do feel ancient philosophies which are comprehensive in their world-view and exhibit a scientific attitude, warrant our attention. Especially, if they point to solutions to todays problems. My interest in Yoga philosophy started long before i was interested in environmental issues .. and i was glad when i started seeing traces of solutions for our ecological crisis in the ancient philosophy. As i discussed in this post, Yoga is very much concerned about the relationship of the individual with the larger world. The idea is to slowly extend our circle of concern, and see ones life as part of a larger scheme of things. Thus a move away from individualistic perspective to an inclusive perspective. This introduces a feeling of responsibility to the whole, rather than an emphasis on “rights” to the individual which is popular so much in our society today. This gels well with the ecological way of thinking which emphasizes on relationships, rather than parts. Western thinkers are calling for a paradigm shift in our thinking to a “systems” world-view which emphasizes “seeing the wholes” rather than the parts. Call it yoga or systems thinking or integral psychology, it seems to me they have the same basis and are pointing towards developing a more holistic world-view.

Ecological consciousness

I would put the three i’s — instincts , intellect , intuition — under the umbrella term “ecological consciousness”. They nicely map to the physical, mental, spiritual aspects of our being. Body, mind, soul .. if you will. Feed them by spending time in nature or educating oneself on ecology or through meditation. I believe, to effectively address the modern challenges (not just environmental but social as well), there is a need for everyone to develop ecological consciousness on all three levels — the whole of our being — and not just the intellect. As Theodore Roszak eloquently says:

The great changes our runaway industrial civilization must make if we are to keep the planet healthy will not come about by the force of reason alone or the influence of fact. Rather, they will come by the way psychological transformation. What the Earth requires will have to make itself felt within us as if it were our most private desire. Facts and figures, reason and logic can show us the errors of our present ways; they can delineate the risks we run. But they cannot motivate, they cannot teach us a better way to live, a better way to want to live. That must be born from inside our own convictions. (From “The voice of the earth — An exploration of eco-psychology”).

Conclusion

The ecological health of the earth is a function of the economic/technological tools we choose, on a personal scale and on a societal scale through our collective political will. These choices are function of our value judgments. The value judgments are a function of our ecological consciousness. My attempt in this series has been to discuss the relationship between these aspects so that we can focus on the more fundamental drivers of our behavior than get bogged down with superficial technological solutions which merely address symptoms of the problem.

(This concludes the 5 part series)

Putting it all together: part-4

A quick recap: What matters to the health of the earth system is the real physical impact imposed upon it by the human economy. The physical attributes ultimately count — the co2 in the atmosphere; the forest cover left; the topsoil intact; the species surviving; the ecosystems preserved; the plastics floating in the ocean; the chemicals in our waters. The earth doesn’t check whether we count our wealth as gross domestic product or gross wellness indicator. There are no bonus points if our economies are twice as efficient as few decades back. The bottom-line is the physical attributes. Its upto us, politically, to choose to direct our economies to be within ecologically safe range of physical attributes.

It is an open debate on what is to be considered “ecologically safe”, where we should draw a line on our ever increasing economic footprint and how we should go about drawing the line. From cornucopian to deep ecologist, there is a wide spectrum of opinion. Following is a “sustainability spectrum” which captures the differing views and some of their implications. (From “Blueprint 3: Measuring sustainable development” by David Pearce). Obviously there is lot of gray area in between these choices, but they capture a trend.

Ultimately, the choices a society makes on where it positions its economy within the spectrum is driven by “value judgments” the society makes. The value we associate to a particular thing drives our behavior with respect to it. The cornucopian and the deep ecologist associate a differing value to nature at large. The cornucopian sees nature in terms of a utilitarian value. “What can it do to me ? How much is it worth to human interests ?” — an anthropocentric position. The deep ecologist sees nature in terms of intrinsic value. “Its valuable and beautiful on its own. Lets not disturb it unless there is a very strong reason” — an ecocentric position. Obviously there is a large spectrum in between and most people take position somewhere in between the two extremes.

A small personal anecdote — The apartment complex where i live has a huge tree, which is perhaps a few decades old. The tree provides shade to surroundings, houses some bird nests, and invites bees to its flowers. Unfortunately, a small portion of the compound wall on which the tree leans, has developed a few cracks. The apartment management has seen this as a threat, and arranged for the tree to be cut. I argued that iff a portion of the wall actually falls in the future, we could rebuild it around the tree — a small price i thought, for keeping the tree alive. So we debated for a while and then the management lady finally said “You see Chaitanya, the wall is more important than the tree” !! Is there a way to argue around that ? The management’s view is that the value of rebuilding a small portion of the wall (plus the money they could get by selling the timber), is more than the value of keeping the tree alive. The surviving base of the tree trunk now serves me as a daily reminder of the power of value choices.

Our society runs a similar script on a much larger scale. Granted, the equations are much more complex and difficult to solve, but ultimately, consciously or subconsciously, our society makes value choices. As i discussed in the post on scale of the economy, a global economy ensures that these choices are made by very few people, by separating key players such as the consumers from the resource base which is actually affected by economic activity. Ofcourse, that doesn’t absolve us — the consumers — from the blame, as we mostly give silent acquiescence to our current economic paradigm.

The sustainability spectrum presents the range of options available to us on the kind of economy we could choose, by associating different values to the environment around. The current economy allocates an extremely low value — much less than what the environment deserves from a practical systemic-health point of view and ethical point of view. We are almost at the left end of the spectrum. We need to start moving towards the right of the spectrum. Where is the balancing point between viable human civilization and nature ? We don’t know for sure. The biggest challenge of this century will be to move to an appropriate sustainability point on the spectrum.

(To be continued. This is part-4 of a series)