Environmentalism as religion

Shiva's Cosmic dance at CERN

In his review of two books about global warming,  Freeman Dyson writes:

” There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world. Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.”

The quote has led me to ponder to what extent, if any, is environmentalism a religion, and what its implications are.

In any typical Econ-101 text book, one is introduced to two “branches” of Economics. (1) Positive economics: The branch which focuses on “facts, and cause-effect relationships”. A better phrase perhaps is “value-free” economics. (2) Normative economics: “The branch that incorporates value judgments about what the economy ought to be like, or what particular policy action ought to be recommended to achieve a desirable goal”.  Simply put, positive economics deals with “what is”, and the normative flavor deals with “what ought to be”.

Along the same lines, we can say, positive aspects of environmentalism deal with pure facts about the state of environment and how the humans are affecting it. Normative aspects deal with what our response should be.

Fact: Humans have eliminated much (more than 90%) of the old growth forest, taking with it a number of species. Human activities continue to extend into more and more natural spaces of the planet, resulting in further decrease in biological diversity.

Fact: Humans continue to pump enormous amounts of co2 into atmosphere, altering the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, thus mucking with heat regulating mechanisms of the planet.

Fact: Humans are starting to muck with nature at “operating system” level, through genetic, bio and nano technologies.

Now, coming to the normative aspects, there is a vast spectrum of opinion on what we should actually be doing about the situation. From primitivists / deep-ecologists who reject almost any use of technology, to techno-salvationists who propose extreme technological solutions to handle issues. Between the ultra-conservative deep-ecologist and  the ultra-liberal technologist, there is a vast spectrum of opinion on what is the best approach to handle environmental problems.

Much of the opinion is not based on blind belief / authority, but informed by a combination of instinct/emotions/intellect/intuition. Why opinions differ at all when everyone is looking at the same facts, is in itself an interesting question. Perhaps one’s life experience, education, psychological makeup etc, contribute to the widely differing opinions. A person who has spent major part of one’s life in Amazon forest is likely to have an opinion different from a person who has spent life in a megacity.

Anyway, we digress from the main point, which is — opinions vastly differ. But when does a particular opinion become a “religion”. Only when one holds onto one’s own opinion as the final truth, even in the absence of absolute evidence.

Although I personally have an opinion, based on my current understanding of the world, I do recognize that it could possibly be far from the ultimate correct view (if there is such a beast at all).  In fact, I wonder if any single person can really have a claim on the ultimate correct view (unless one is Enlightened). What all of us have are muddled opinions based on limited understanding of reality. And none of the opinions are objectively verifiable as the final truth. If that were the case, they would be called a “fact”, not an opinion. Suppose i take a view against using “genetically modified carbon eating trees” as a solution to global warming, because i somehow perceive it to be too much mucking with nature, and some scientist advocates it, is there a way to objectively judge which view is “right” ? I think not.

All that said, i guess we have no option but to continue to work with tools at our disposal, and try to hone our opinions to be as close as possible to the “ultimately right” views, through a right understanding of reality. That is why iam attracted now a days to Buddhist philosophy and practice of Meditation. Given sufficient practice, it appears there is a reasonable possibility of getting deep insights into nature of reality, which the physical sciences have been very very slow in delivering.

Buddhism 101

I recently finished listening to this series of lectures:

The Buddha’s teaching as it is, by Bhikkhu Bodhi

Its good to know the lingo and some important foundational concepts in Buddhism.

(Total running time about 13 hours).

Note on July 1st, 2009: There is no E=M*C-squared ‘ ism

I now regret using the word “Buddhism” above. Attaching a tag “ism” to Buddha’s teaching, i think, does great disservice to the teaching. Because, there is a danger that it is painted with the same brush as other ism’s — environmentalism, feminism, communism, capitalism, primitivism, hedonism,agnosticism etc etc.

One website defined “ism” as “representing a philosophical, political or moral doctrine or a belief system”. Agreed, many ism’s may have their validity in some relative sense, and Buddha’s teaching also may be considered a “philosophical system”, hence an “ism” too. However, it seems to me that Buddha’s teaching deserves to be referred as and elevated to the level of “scientific doctrine”.

In my novice intellectual understanding, following is the experiment that is central to the doctrine :

Tool: Observation. Sharp and focused observation.

Field of observation: Every aspect of body-mind complex. Every sensation that we normally regard as our own. That means, eventually, every physical sensation, every feeling, every thought, and every state of mind.

Method: Using laser beam like observation, observe each sensation and know it really really well.

Result: Well, the Buddha has apparently seen some result which he told everyone. One can see for oneself.

What beauty and simplicity ! Perhaps the most fruitful experiment a human will ever perform ?

All this brings up an interesting question — For a hypothesis to be regarded as “scientific” and “correct”, it should be verifiable by anyone through an experiment. But what if, as it is the case here, the verification is entirely subjective and personal. Who will verify the verifier ? . Wait .. that difficult process of bringing Buddhist ideas into ambit of science is perhaps underway through the likes of “Mind and Life Institute“.

Gandhiana

Sunday evening is shutters down at the Gym. So, random browsing at the library seemed like a good timepass idea. I took a “shared auto” to reach closer to the destination. “shared autos” run between important bus stop’s in the city, picking up passengers waiting for the bus. Its almost cost competitive with the bus, maybe one or two rupees extra, for which you get an immediate ride (need not wait for the bus) and a guaranteed seat (may have to stand in the bus). I like these shared economy solutions ! For a lot of people though, going in a bus or a shared auto seems to be a “prestige” issue. But i have no such reservations, and i try to spare ourselves of more fumes and traffic, as much as possible. On the walk to the library, i stopped over at the Shravan cafe, to enjoy a cup of filter coffee.

“Gandhiana” is a section of our local library devoted to Gandhian studies. I picked up at random, “Economics of the spinning wheel: Development without destruction” by Nandini Joshi (impressive background). After reading the first few pages, i realized that Charkha (the spinning wheel) is not a just about an instrument of production, but has an a lot of philosophy behind it, touching the topics of village economics, self-reliance, local markets, local production etc. In Nandini Joshi’s own words:

“The charkha is an economic concept, being an instrument of production; nonetheless it is the only instrument of production — except for its counterpart, the spinning machine — which has profound political, social, psychological, cultural, environmental and, above all, ethical implications. Gandhi conceived it in its entirety and therefore far more intensively, which had a vital bearing on the various aspects of an individual’s as well as a society’s growth.”

Photo by Margaret Bourke-White for Life Magazine, 1946.

Now, that’s interesting ! Iam curious to find out how Charkha could symbolize so many aspects. It seems to me, Charkha could be an emblem for distributed, localized, “small is beautiful” type of economy. I have checked out the book to take home, and will keep you all posted if i learn anything interesting.

While at Gandhiana, i remembered out of the blue that i read a book long time back, which had a passage on implications of Gandhi’s philosophy for environment. I searched out the book “Gandhi — A sublime failure” by S.S.Gill, and looked for relevant passages, and jotted them down on a paper. By the way, iam neither a Gandhian nor a non-Gandhian. I haven’t read enough about his philosophy nor thought through the full implications of his philosophy. But the passages below are about Gandhi’s views on ecology, and i have no problem relating to these views. I think he saw through the problems of hyper-industrialization decades ago. Here are the relevant passages from the book:

Gandhi was the first great ecologist of the twentieth century. His instinctive preference for an austere way of life and limitation of wants had an important ecological dimension. Then there was his innate reverence for life in all its manifestations. His strict adherence to vegetarianism owed, its origin to this view. Explaining his rationale for ‘cow worship’ he wrote, “Man through the cow is enjoined to realize his identity with all that lives .. [it meant] protection of the whole dumb creation of God”.

Here again it was a question of clash of civilizations. (..) The western man treated the earth as his personal estate, and plundered and ravaged it for his pleasure. How far ahead of his times Gandhi was may be seen from the fact that it was only in 1962 that the publication of Rachel Carson’s ’silent spring’ and the club of Rome’s ‘The limits to growth’ ten years later, shocked the western world about the horrendous consequences of poisoning the earth’s environment and depleting its non-renewable resources in its blind pursuit of affluence. (..)

When people criticized Gandhi for his ‘villagism’, he said, “It is not an attempt to return to the ignorant dark ages but it is an attempt to see beauty in voluntary simplicity, poverty and slowness”. In 1927 he told Saklatwala, the communist MP from Britain, that he “detested the multiplication of wants and machinery, the mad desire to destroy distance and time, to increase animal appetites, and go to the end of the Earth for their satisfaction”. For him, the sole object of production was to satisfy needs and not wants. In a remarkably perceptive statement he said “The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every mans greed“. This should serve as a motto for all ecologists. It is well known that he just would not allow any waste. He scribbled notes on the vacant space of used post cards, incoming letters, undistributed leaflets, and any other scrap of paper. He used his pencils down to the stumps. Whereas every country is racing madly to raise the living standards of its people through sustained economic growth, Gandhi said in 1928,

“God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the west. The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom is today keeping the world in chains. If the entire nation of three hundred million people took to similar economic exploitation it would strip the world bare like locust”.

This is a striking insight, and it shows how well Gandhi understood the dynamics of modern industrial civilization and its prognosis.

Brilliant-to-the-power-of-n

‘Ecological conversation’ by Stephen Talbott

I normally try to have original content, and not simple link ups. But this one is exceptional.

Gaia and Yoga

(‘Think global’ is the message of yoga. Image by chaitanya pullela)

When we look around us, two seemingly irreconcilable principles grab our attention — matter and consciousness. We observe forms either as completely inanimate matter or a curious mixture of matter and consciousness (I’ll use the terms ‘consciousness’ and ‘life’ interchangeably, even though all life forms may not be “conscious” or self-aware in classical sense). A great debate of our times is about the ultimate nature of these two principles and the relationship between them. Consider: (a) Is inanimate matter the primary reality and consciousness just an evolute of matter ? That is, consciousness explained wholly in terms of material electro-chemical processes. (b) Is consciousness the primary reality and matter just a kind of condensation of consciousness. (c) Neither of the two are sole primary, but each maintains an identity ultimately independent of the other.

The popular “science” of today has not been able to crack this puzzle yet. However, even if most of us consciously don’t consider this question, we implicitly take position-(a), that is primacy of matter. This is not surprising, since matter appears very real to our senses. Since we implicitly grant so much importance to matter, our “sciences” are almost exclusively directed to the study of matter. Even biological sciences, which is supposedly studying ‘life’, mostly focus on the material basis of life — which molecules are present in the cells, the electro-chemical-mechanical basis of physiological processes etc. I admit iam not very familiar with western psychology, but to my knowledge, it too does not present a comprehensive view of life.

This raises interesting questions. If most of our efforts are directed towards study of laws of matter, what are the laws that apply to the behavior of life ? If we take the position of primacy of matter, does it mean that all laws of human behavior ought to be derived from laws of matter ? The argument goes as: since consciousness is entirely an evolute of matter, the only laws that apply to consciousness, hence by extension human behavior, are the laws of matter. Think about this — Laws of human behavior can ultimately be derived from laws of matter ? The commonly accepted ethical precepts of our society such as “thou shall not kill”, are derivable from law of gravity or law of mass-energy equivalence or laws of thermodynamics ? Clearly, ethical precepts are not derivable from laws of matter.

We are left with two choices.

(a) Accept the primacy of matter. Then, It is up to life (human society at human level of consciousness), to frame laws of behavior in an arbitrary fashion without having any support and direction in the form of universal laws of life. In this case, there would be no ultimate universal law to judge or direct human behavior, but the whole human society (and evolution of life for that matter) stands on an edifice of principles which have been arbitrarily chosen by life itself. Going with position-(a), any discussion on social or environmental issues is futile, because social or environmental issues are ultimately ethical in nature, and here ethics stands on a weak edifice of arbitrarily chosen rules.

(b) Believe that just as matter operates precisely under a set of physical laws, consciousness is governed, supported and directed by a set of universal laws. Lets call them laws of consciousness or laws of life. I personally subscribe to this position. I simply find it hard to believe that life evolved from uni-cellular to multi-trillion-celled beings without an implicit direction or goal.

Tools

So, assuming that there are laws-of-life in the universe, what are the instruments at our disposal to discover these laws ?

By far the most dominant instrument immediately available with us is our intellect or thought power. But, it appears that while thought is a great instrument to comprehend matter, it does not appear to be helping us regarding laws-of-life. The great thinkers of our time, Einstein, Newton or the other great scientists, did not give us the laws-of-life. They gave us the laws governing matter and space-time. It’s amusing to see one of the greatest physicist our times, Stephen Hawking, turn to yahoo online community, for answers to pressing issues of our times. See Guardian and yahoo and more-yahoo. Thank you Dr.Hawking for being honest. This is strange indeed. Thought can comprehend black holes that supposedly exist gazillions of light years away, but does not know how to handle life itself ? Perhaps an indication that we should be more humble about the abilities of our intellect.

The great sages of past and present, have recognized this limitation of intellect. Infact, they assert that intellect and thought is a great barrier. They see thought as being an incomplete reflection of the full power of consciousness. Thought as a very poor imitation or ‘effect’ of the ’cause’ that is consciousness. How, they ask, can an effect fully comprehend the cause ?

So they dived deep into the cause (consciousness) itself to uncover its laws. The Matrix is cracked not by staying within the instruments of matrix (thought), but by taking the ‘red pill‘ and diving into deeper source which is unperturbed by the vicissitudes of the matrix.

Yoga

The gem that the great sages uncovered by diving deep into the consciousness itself, is Yoga.

The whole of Yoga is based on the following first principle:

“Where there is a division, there MUST be conflict .. this is law .. reason .. logic”. (Thanks to Krishnamurti for putting it in these simplest of terms. To be fair, he never referred to his philosophy as “Yoga”, but i see unmistakable similarities).

So, here is the crux. Yoga asserts there is only one ultimate consciousness which is the cause or source of everything. (primary of consciousness). When there is a division in that consciousness, as in “me” and “outside-of-me”, there has to be a conflict between the two entities. We know that plant, animal and human consciousness, are in this state of duality — we have clear division between “me” and “outside-of-me”. So, there has to be a conflict, and all subtle tensions in life are ultimately rooted in this conflict. If there is inevitable conflict in division, Yoga sees the whole of life to be a march towards a realization of non-division or non-conflict or oneness of the universe. This movement towards oneness is the “law” that consciousness is implementing, through the process of evolution. The whole of evolution from unicellular organism to plant to animal to human being and beyond, is a progressively increasing awareness-of and identification-with the whole. The human community is a larger whole surrounding the human individuals. Gaia is a larger whole encompassing the human and other communities. The universe is a still larger whole encompassing all. It is interesting to see that various progressive social movements asserting human equality, are clearly derivable from the Yoga law. The ethical principles which human society has intuitively and instinctively fought for, perhaps find an ultimate support in Yoga law.

Iam a beginner student of Yoga myself, and obviously the above is just a minute hint on what Yoga is about. Great masters have spoken at length on this subject. See for example, one of my favorites, Swami Krishnananda.

Gaia and Yoga

Earth system (Gaia) is an organic whole in which life plays a significant role in regulating bio-geo-chemical processes. It may be likened to a giant organism (though not conscious as far as we know) consisting of millions of individual species as its ‘cells’. The point of this whole post is, whether in the spirit of Yoga, we might see ourselves as an integral part of this larger whole — Gaia, and that Yoga provides the inspiration to work towards the health of Gaia. In that sense, the environmental movement takes on a whole new meaning — as an integral part of Yoga itself.

The opposite is quite clear: extreme assertion of ones own individuality to the disregard of the whole, is going in opposition to law of Yoga itself. It is bound to create disharmony in the system. Its like our brain cells decide to do their own thing, without regard to the whole human organism. (This is just an analogy. Iam not claiming that brain cells are conscious of their role in a human being ).

So, there we go. Any small action we take towards the big picture — be it donating $1 to social charity or taking a small step in reducing consumption with the larger whole in mind — is a positive step in Yoga direction. Iam starting to believe that all positive steps in life, though they may appear to be different from the outside, have an underlying unifying purpose.

We all have world-views according to which we conduct our lives. Some people may be explicit and conscious of their world-view. While for others the world-view is implicit, and mostly determined by society through a mixture of social-religious-scientific conditions prevailing at that time. To me, the weltanschauung that best explains the world, and provides a coherent basis for action, is Yoga.

The terms of debate

In ‘Markets and Environment‘, i have discussed the well known fact that the current market prices of goods and services do not reflect the true environmental costs of producing and using them. The price of oil does not include the costs of climate change, the price of timber does not include the environmental costs of cutting a forest (loss of carbon sink etc), the price of metals does not include the costs arising due mining activity, and so forth. Naturally, the “solution” seems to be that we add up all the environmental costs of producing and using a product, and incorporate those costs into the price of the product.

Framing the debate on environmental issues in economic terms, as done above, walks right into the hands of existing world view of anthropocentrism (or resourcism). The dominant world view of anthropocentrism is so ingrained in our thinking by now, that we accept it and behave according to the world view, without even realizing it or debating it. What is the dominant world view today ? That, humans are the owners of the Earth, and we have the right to manage and use whatever is available on the planet, to our economic use, with utter disregard to rest of life that evolved on the planet for millions of years. This characterization of our world view may sound harsh, but if we are honest and open, we can see the truth of this statement. The dominant world view views nature simply through a utilitarian perspective. Neil Evernden refers to this paradigm as ‘Resourcism’, “.. a kind of modern religion which casts all of creation into categories of utility. By treating everything as homogeneous matter in search of a use, it devalues all”.

Even the so called “environmental” debates, are mostly cloaked in anthropocentric terms — We need to tackle climate change because it could hurt *our* economy. We need to think twice about constructing dams because it could displace a lot of *people*. We need to oppose mining in sensitive mountain areas because the waters that come to plains from those areas may become polluted and effect *our* health. We need to reduce the use of pesticides because *our* food may get contaminated as a result. We need to protect old growth forests because they may have some plants which may be useful in curing *our* illnesses. We need to have natural parks because it serves *our* tourism industry.

The above line of argument is markedly different from — We need to tackle climate change because we simply have no right to alter planetary balance which jeopardizes lives of innumerable species, including some of our own in low lying islands. We need to rethink dam construction because it submerges lacs of hectares of precious land and disrupts marine life, and local peoples’ livelihoods. We need to preserve old growth forests and other natural areas, simply because we have no right to destroy ecosystems that have evolved over millions of years.

It is understandable why the former strategy is chosen most of the times. Initially, the environmental movement arose out of subjective experiences of people with respect to nature. These environmentalists saw inherent value in untouched nature. The poetic writings of early environmentalists and philosophers were filled with spiritual connotations regarding relationship between man and nature. For example, Rabindranath Tagore in Sadhana :

The Indian mind never has any hesitation in acknowledging its kinship with nature, its unbroken relationship with all.

The fundamental unity of creation was not simply a philosophical speculation for India; it was her life-object to realize this great harmony in feeling and in action.(…)

The earth, water and light, fruits and flowers, to her were not merely physical phenomena to be turned to use and then left aside. They were necessary to her in the attainment of her ideal of perfection, as every move is necessary to the completeness of the symphony.

India intuitively felt that the essential fact of this world has a vital meaning for us; we have to be fully alive to it and establish a conscious relation with it, not merely impelled by scientific curiosity or greed of material advantage, but realising it in the spirit of sympathy, with a large feeling of joy and peace.

But, subjective experiences are seen as too sentimental by the dominant paradigm based on science and reductionism. Hence, gradually, the defensive strategy of couching environmental issues as scientific objective problems and in human self-interest terms, is employed.

Neil Evernden — “This shift in tactics has constituted a change in emphasis as well, from the personal testimony of experienced value to an ‘objective’ elucidation of public interest. That is, while in the past the naturalist-orator tried to evoke in his listener a sensation reminiscent of his own in the presence of nature, it is now possible simply to show the man in the street what’s in it for him. By excising emotion and concentrating on numbers, the environmentalist can show even the disinterested that it is prudent, economic, to retain a particular mountain in its present state.“

But what if there is no economic use for a particular natural place or species. They then become ‘economically indefensible’ ? How can we value subjective experience of a person in the presence of nature ? Even if we argue that subjective experiences of some people is also somewhat anthropocentric, how can we put a value on the life of another species ? The strategy of addressing environmental issues solely on economic terms, is fundamentally weak and facts are often twisted in favor of increased exploitation of natural places while paying lip service to environmental concerns. Case in point — “Environmental impact assessments” which are a joke the way they are practiced. Even the popular “sustainable development” agenda is a watered down version of required environmental agenda. It strives to achieve a balance between ‘economic growth’, ‘environmental concerns’ and ’social concerns’. Basically, a ‘you can have the cake and eat it too’ approach. In practice, as we can observe in the real world, there is absolutely no compromise made when it comes to economic growth. In summary, the watered-down strategies distract us from important value based arguments, which form the fundamental support to environmental movement.

Neil Evernden — “There in lies the fatal weakness of the so-called ecology movement. In seizing arguments that would sound persuasive even to indifferent observers environmentalists have come to adopt the strategy and assumptions of their opponents. As Anthony Brandt has observed, the industrialist and environmentalist tacitly agree on one thing: that nature is for something. Nature is a conglomeration of natural resources, a storehouse of materials. The industrialist and the environmentalist are brothers under the skin; they differ merely as to the best use the natural world ought to be put to. In their haste to persuade society of the significance of the non-human they have succumbed to the temptations of expediency. (…) Applying monetary evaluation to nature is dangerous to start with, just because it encourages a comparison between the uses of each mountain. As soon as its worth is greater as tin cans than as scenery, the case for the mountain vanishes. But, more important, monetary evaluation distracts us from the fact that the values at issue are not economic in the first place. It is all these other values that are at risk when the environmentalist opts for the argument from expediency“.

There may be a short-term benefit in addressing environmental issues purely in human-self-interest terms, as it could bring much needed attention to the issues among general public. However, there is a flip side as well. Our myopic society sees human-interest to be in liquidating natural capital into tangible economic goods. In which case, arguing solely on economic terms is simply not enough. So, there is clearly a need to widen the terms of debate to include the value based arguments — questioning over-consumption, our responsibility towards the environment etc. These arguments must be rooted in world views that are eco-centric, and accord more rights to all life forms and natural environments to exist without disruption. We observe in media today, there is lot of talk about “rights”. Political right to vote, economic right to keep one’s earnings, social right to dress and behave as we like, religious rights, human rights, sexual rights, right to information, right to education, right to clean drinking water, right to employment, right to social security etc etc etc.

What about the right of other life forms to just exist ? What about our responsibilities towards the larger environment ?

(Quotes of Neil Evernden are from his must-read book “The Natural Alien”)