Am I part of the problem?

When something appears on Isonomia that I think will interest my friends, I post it on Facebook. I hoped Sam Taylor’s piece on the EU ETS would prompt a bit of discussion. And indeed it did – one which struck right to the heart of my reasons for becoming an environmental consultant.

Sam explained how EUA carbon allowance prices are deflated by the 300 million credits being sold to fund the NER 300 low carbon investment scheme. He suggested measures that would reduce this deflationary effect, and saw that one benefit would be to “help to smooth the transition to Phase III of the ETS and avoid an unwanted systemic shock to European Industry in 2013.” To this, one of my friends responded:

“Unwanted systemic shock?! Unwanted by whom? A giant systemic shock to European Industry is precisely what is needed, preferably in the form of its complete disintegration and failure… Carbon trading is BS. Perhaps if [environmentalists] just came out and said that, we’d take a little step away from the lies and pretence that characterise pretty much everything the mainstream environmental movement promotes.”

The revolution will not be outsourced

As an environmental consultant, I suppose I’m right there in the mainstream. I make my living from presenting clients with ways in which they can achieve their environmental goals – some statutory, some self-directed, some challenging, some minor. But none revolutionary. I can only help clients get the best environmental results within the resources they choose to make available, and work to inform and shape government policies. But isn’t that better than doing nothing? Possibly not, as my friend continued:

 “It is rather like fairtrade in that it is another way in which we get to fool ourselves and each other that we are actually achieving anything through some kind of collaborate-with-Capitalism approach. But even by most mainstream accounts, carbon trading has achieved almost nothing of worth; worse – it has done plenty of damage by moving pollution around the world to more sensitive sites, and allowing major polluters to buy and sell their way to a utterly fictitious carbon neutrality. I just don’t see any sanity in environmentalists lending an air of respectability to a giant corporate lie.”

There is definitely an argument that by helping to implement small-scale environmental changes, we give a false impression that they can make a real difference. I formerly worked at DECC, and it reminds me of an astute comment from David Mackay, the department’s Chief Scientist: “if everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little.”

So by advising on incremental changes, am I complicit in helping give the impression that “doing a little” is enough, sustaining an environmental “false consciousness”, and providing illusory comfort with the idea that with a few easily swallowed changes we can save the planet while carrying on much as before?

Human sacrifices?

I find this deeply troubling – the idea that by trying to do a little good I may be inhibiting more significant change. Tackling environmental problems will require major political will and focus, and the projects currently seen as feasible could in this light be seen as little more than a distraction. In a recent Isonomia article Peter Jones OBE suggested that incremental changes “cannot now deliver what is required”. So is the only goal worth pursuing a fundamental change in our economic system?

For me, there is one important point missing in this analysis. You don’t have to be Rick Santorum to think that part of the what we’re doing in trying to live more sustainably is to avoid the human suffering that environmental threats betoken. The sort of disruptive change envisaged above – even if it led to a radically different, preferable arrangement – would entail immense hardship during the transition. While I want to put the environment much higher up the political priority list, I don’t think this demands misanthropy or the suspension of democracy.

We are yet to find the discourse and the imagery that will persuade people that their broader, longer term interests demand environmental measures, and warrant sacrifice in the short term. Until we do, there will be no mass support for profound change. Revolutions rarely succeed without at least popular acquiescence. A green revolution that started tomorrow would have to be imposed – and so would be doomed to fail.

While we work on building support for major change, consultants and activists must continue to tackle problems where we can. But we must be mindful of the need to concurrently develop the theoretical framework for the bigger changes required – and that at best we are buying time to change minds and develop the policies that will enable us to live in a massively less impactful way.