I have never met a person who is displeased
by green spaces. As a species, we take great pleasure in making gardens and
parks. An extreme example is Los Angeles, a city hundreds of miles from a major
clean source of water. To make the city, water was stolen from the Colorado
river and transported all the way to the coast. Yet gardens abound in millions
of backyards.
Ethically,
too, mankind has long recognised the care we must take of nature, and the care
we feel from nature. In the monotheistic religions, the story of Jonah and the
tree is instructive. Jonah, abject and abandoned on the shore, is left to suffer
fierce heat. This lasts. Then God makes a tree grow near to him. Jonah feels
the shade of the tree and develops a keen love for the tree and its protection.
The tree dies; and Jonah complains to God for his cruelty in killing the lovely
tree. Thus nature is a pivotal sustaining force in man’s life, ever present as
a source of self-renewal during hardship. All that we eat and breathe
ultimately comes from organic sources.
Yet
as my cousin Ewan adroitly observed, “If outside was so good, why do we make
indoors?” If nature were purely a source of pleasure, man-made structures would
be a bane on our existence. Of equal importance to our continued wellbeing is
security. We need to be secure from the ravages of nature – extremes of heat
and cold (right now, feet of snow fall outside the NYC window); disease, human
and agricultural; natural disaster; and our own waste. Each culture sustains
its own vision of the relation between nature and security.
In
many parts of the world, security is winning out. In China, millions have moved
from centuries-old rural serfdom, suffering the most appalling deprivations, to
the city. In the past 25 years, worldwide poverty has reduced by half – a
substantial portion of which was in China. At the same time, more concrete has
been produced in China in the last 3 years than in the USA in the 20th century.
As a consequence the pollution in major Chinese cities is legendary. A more
destructive impact on nature cannot be imagined – and yet at such benefit to
humanity. Of similar significance is the Electrify Africa Act 2014 – the very
title promises such a massive improvement in the conditions of a billion human
beings.
Discussion
in the energy industry centres around resolving the energy trilemma – how to
achieve sustainability, security and affordability. For example, I suspect that
most eco-warriors little consider that, by prioritizing sustainability and
blocking energy projects, they deprive millions of energy affordability and
reduce energy security (of course the energy companies are to blame, in their
view). Of those who do consider this, they may argue that the current pleasure
of millions is nothing to the preservation of nature for billions in future
generations. I have much sympathy with this argument, though do not find it
fully convincing.
As a geographer
friend at Oxford pointed out, by making more energy and providing opportunities
to more of humanity, we increase the chance of developing a technology that
will solve the energy trilemma. In particular, where energy is scarce, human
ingenuity comes up with new ways of providing it – given sufficient support.
See this video - http://www.ted.com/talks/william_kamkwamba_on_building_a_windmill?language=en.
Moreover, if we are to solve the problems of man-made climate change, we need
the reasoned consent of all world citizens, not just of the privileged few.
This needs energy investment now.
On
the other hand, many uses of energy are just plain stupid. In the height of
summer in Houston, air-conditioning is so strong that you have to wear an extra
layer or two. This is a ridiculous waste. You could hardly put nature at a
greater distance than making wintery conditions in summer.
The ethics of
using energy in other instances is more complex. Consider Wang Jianling who
began his career installing toilets in Chinese apartments – a major benefit to
the health of the Chinese. He thus extracted our own undesirable natures from
our dwelling places. Now he is a multi-billionaire who profits from building
dozens of Dalian Wanda plazas and shopping malls. Having gone through the
unpleasant business of relieving human necessities, he now seeks ever more
diverse ways to supply consumer wants. This consumes a vast quantity of earthly
resources. But who am I to deny to the Chinese what I have benefitted from my
entire life?
My attention to
the Chinese has a point. The Chinese vision of nature is very different from
our own and it will play at least as decisive a role in the future of our
planet as the USA, and certainly more than the UK. Many (if not all) societies
are having an internal discussion, often a mixture of rationality and feeling,
about what world of nature we would like to see in the Anthropocene age. And
undoubtedly the world of nature in each of us will play a role in the world of
nature we see outside us.
I have to admit
to not knowing any truly native Chinese people. My closest encounter to a
proper discussion was with my room-neighbours in my first year at St
Catherine’s, Oxford (‘Catz’). On both sides I had Chinese neighbours. They were
third years and not very interested in talking with non-Chinese, in
integrating. I felt it jarred with the communal spirit of Catz. St Catherine’s
itself is beautifully integrated with nature. The floor-to-ceiling windows look
out on lawns, moats, fields and trees where swans, moorhens and ducks take
their leisure. The back leads out to Mesopotamia, a splendid natural area.
But my brief
discussion with them about what was weird about Oxford revealed a very
different perspective. They had grown up in southern China surrounded by
millions of human beings. The emptiness of Oxford was to them extremely
unnatural. Their vision of nature was shaped by the norm that being immersed in
innumerable other human beings is natural. Of course the Chinese revere nature
as much as any other society; but their perspective on how we are as beings in
nature is very different from our individualistic, Wordsworth-like sense of the
self alone in the universe.
Given our
current stupid uses of energy, I have little doubt that each society needs to
cultivate a more favorable attitude towards the environment. Some progress is
underway. But a key element to progressing in this direction is to generate
better visions of nature in man and man in nature. We need better rationality
in discussing the tradeoffs of the energy trilemma. We need artists and writers,
marketers and advertisers, in every medium to create myths that will persuade
us emotionally as well as rationally of the sustenance that comes from the
world outside our homes.
