Taking less,
having more
A discussion paper on sustainable
production and consumption
July 2002
Bryan R Evans
Tearfund, 100 Church Road, Teddington, Middlesex TWI 1 8QE, UK
Tel. 020 8977 9144 Fax 020 8943 3594
Tearfund information briefings are aimed at providing a resource for provoking thought and
discussion of development-related issues among Tearfund staff and the organisations and
individuals with which Tearfund works. They do not necessarily constitute Tearfund policy.
Comments from readers are welcomed.
Bryan Evans is a researcher in Tearfund’s Public Policy Team and may be contacted by email at: Bryan.Evans@tearfund.org
Contents
Executive summary
Page
1
Introduction
3
1.
Outline of the problem
Global warming and climate change, loss or degradation of land,
deforestation, loss of biodiversity, air pollution, water pollution, toxic waste,
human numbers
4
2.
Understanding the problem
Consumption and waste in the North: energy and greenhouse gas
emissions, transport, food consumption and agriculture, wood products,
water consumption, waste, conflict and military spending, the growth of
world trade, the ‘ecological footprint’
A culture of ‘economism’
Concepts and measurements of progress
Questions of equity
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6
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3.
Towards solutions
Salvation through technology?
Salvation through trade?
A new paradigm
Measuring genuine progress
Shallow and deep ecology
Where does Christianity stand?
A biblical approach to consumption, growth and the environment
Some conclusions
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25
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4.
Moving to action
Action by national government
Intergovernmental action
Action by business
Action by NGOs
Action by individuals and local communities
Ten questions for discussion
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Appendices
A) Further reading
B) International conventions and policy processes
C) Key organisations
D) Key resources
E) Main sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK
F) The largest emitters
G) Energy consumption: a look at the ‘culprits’
H) Calculating the 2000 Genuine Progress Indicator
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Glossary
Abbreviations
Sources
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Executive summary
Planet Earth is ‘ill’. There are clear symptoms, a reasonably sure diagnosis, and some
pointers to the nature of the disease. There is less agreement about what ‘treatment’ may be
available, or whether it is more a matter of a change of lifestyle.
Outline of the problem
The paper begins with a brief account of ‘symptoms’: global warming, rising sea levels, more
extreme weather conditions, the loss of forest cover and biodiversity, and the pollution of
air, land and water.
Understanding the problem
The problem can be ‘diagnosed’ in terms of consumption and waste. Since the industrial
revolution, the growth in human economic activity has consumed more resources than the
Earth can replenish, generated greenhouse gas emissions the Earth cannot absorb, and
spewed out waste. The disease, then, manifests itself in over-consumption, and is traceable
to the pre-eminence in modern Western culture of restless economic pursuit, aided by
technological progress. ‘Economism’, as we may call it, elevates material prosperity,
competition, choice, and human resource in harnessing and exploiting nature. A telling
reflection of the values of the economist society is its assessment of the progress of nations
by the measure of Gross Domestic Product. This measure takes no account of noneconomic ‘goods’ (family, neighbourhood, purpose in life), treats economic ‘bads’ (intensive
farming, monotonous housing estates), as added value, and the depletion of natural
resources as income rather than asset depreciation (violating both basic accounting
principles and common sense).
Another aspect of the problem is that economic growth has been placed above equity,
allowing the rich to justify to themselves leaving the poor behind. There are now almost a
billion people (mostly in the South) who cannot meet their basic consumption needs, and the
inequalities are so dramatic as to amount to a violation of human rights. The poor are hardly
heard at the big international institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF, they lack the
technology and infrastructure to cope with climate change, and they lack a way out, firstly
because their productivity is limited by lack of access to credit and to assets, and secondly
because economic gains are so unequally shared. Thus the supposed poverty-reducing
effects of growth are much weakened.
Towards solutions
Even economism cannot ignore ecology, but its search for salvation through more
technology, more trade, is in the nature of ‘palliative care’ (not a remedy, but an easing of
death). While some technology options (renewable energy sources, tree-planting) are
limited in their application, others raise new environmental issues. Nuclear power, for
example, requires a huge capital investment and creates a problem of radioactive waste
disposal. Large hydroelectric dams radically alter the local environment. As for salvation
through removing trade barriers (‘globalisation’) this is not so much a remedy as a feeding of
addiction (and like addiction it is seen as inevitable). It is argued that the lowering of trade
barriers will raise the incomes of the poor so that they will be less inclined to damage the
environment. Even if there are negative environmental impacts it is urged that these tend to
1
fall after a certain level of growth is reached, and that the reversal of environmental
degradation is largely a matter of ‘correcting’ anti-market domestic policy. Moreover, the
greater general prosperity will mean that the world has the resources to ‘clean up the
environment’. Environmental protection measures are not the way, for they put rising
incomes for the poor at risk, they may amount to ‘back-door’ protection, and they affront
national sovereignty. This approach is complacent as regards the environment, and
disingenuous as regards poverty reduction.
This thinking is being challenged by a new ‘paradigm’ with an ecological dimension
(mankind embedded in an interdependent natural world), a religious dimension (the natural
world as a living organism, almost a Mother figure), and a scientific dimension (science that
is environmentally destructive ruled out as being contrary to the plausibility structure). The
Genuine Progress Index (GPI) is offered as an alternative to GDP. This adds in the care of
family and neighbourhood, and subtracts negatives (crime, commuting, environmental
damage, inequity in incomes). Economism and the new paradigm are paralleled by
‘shallow’ ecology (anthropocentric, politically pragmatic, concerned with eco-efficiency and
corporate survival) and ‘deep’ ecology (biocentric and, ultimately, pantheistic).
Where does Christianity stand in this debate? A Christianity twisted by Renaissance
humanism has been used to justify mankind’s progressive dominance over nature. Christians
should reject this distortion and take up the issue of sustainable consumption: 1) because of
the call to honour God (and his creation) by putting him first, and 2) out of concern for the
poor who are denied their basic consumption needs. Prosperity as such is a mere marginal
note in the biblical story, and there are built-in checks against acquisitiveness (sabbath years,
jubilee, and so on). The watchword is: ‘God first, then the rest’. The life of ‘simplicity’
(with aims and loyalties undivided), action for the poor, and community solidarity in the land
(including solidarity with other generations), follow naturally when God has first place.
It is, then, the contention of this paper that economism has created gross inequity between
rich and poor, that the planet cannot possibly sustain a ‘Western’ lifestyle for all, and that
consumption in the West must be drastically cut. It is further contended that ‘economics
first, then the rest’ was always a blind alley, because human well-being has less to do with
material prosperity, and much more to do with relationships and spiritual growth.
Moving to action
Reducing consumption to sustainable levels will require, first, change at the national level.
Governments will need to deploy taxation policy (making prices reflect true environmental
costs), regulation (to limit supply to what is environmentally affordable), and positive
incentives to sustainability (for example, fostering changes in employment patterns to reduce
commuting). It may be necessary to transfer key public utilities (energy, water, transport) to
not-for-profit trusteeship status. To secure public consent changes will have to be
thoroughly egalitarian, in a context of a reinvigorated democracy, with public education in
consumption issues.
Then there must be international action, because natural resources, pollutants, and human
economic activity cross man-made borders, and consumption will not be cut sufficiently by
2
nation states acting on their own. So far international treaties have proved inadequate in
design and/or implementation. International bodies have a key part to play, but their roles
need to be re-thought. The role and powers of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
should be subordinated to multilateral environmental agreements, and to the task of
achieving the millennium development targets by 2015. The World Bank needs to review its
funding of giant public works projects, and pursue development that prioritises the
environment and basic public services. Other issues to tackle include technology transfer,
conflict resolution (armed conflict consumes resources without creating value), and
corruption (because it thwarts environmental agreements).
Business (prodded by governments, international accords, and consumer pressure) can
bring about an ecological-industrial revolution, focusing on the provision of quality services
rather than materials, and rendering account not just to shareholders, but to the whole
community for their investment in natural capital stock.
NGOs have a key role in challenging government on the issues of political influence and
enabling rights (such as freedom of information on environmental damage), in moving
supporters to political activism, in forging international coalitions to campaign on
consumption issues, and (with the media) fostering a wide ‘ecological literacy’. This last
point is crucial because, in the end, ‘conscious consumerism’ will happen only when the
hearts of individuals are changed. Christians have a particular responsibility because they
know that the root of unsustainable consumption is sin, in particular conformity to the culture
of a ‘fallen’ world. They have the answer in a life of simplicity, that is the outworking of an
inward detachment from things in the light of a prior love for God and neighbour. With less
‘things’, we yet have more in terms of relationships and growth as human beings.
The paper concludes with some questions for discussion.
Introduction
This is a paper about sustainable production and consumption, here defined as:
‘The measured use of materials and energy in the provision of those goods and
services that will enable all men and women (including future generations) to flourish
as human beings.’
The issue is of critical importance to humankind in general, because the Planet’s life-support
system is under threat, and present counter-measures are not strong enough, nor are they
pursued with sufficient urgency. (Northern governments are clearly reluctant to change
economic policies that in the last fifty years have brought unprecedented prosperity to their
peoples.) The issue is of particular concern to development agencies such as Tearfund and
their partners, for it is the poor who are most threatened by the losses that result from
environmental damage (floods, crop failure and the like). The poor live in more immediate
dependence on the natural environment and rarely have adequate ‘buffers’ in the form of
wealth, technology and infrastructure. Moreover the expected slowing in the expansion in
the global food supply, relative to growth in global food demand, is likely to push up food
3
prices and worsen food security in the developing world . This will mean more malnutrition
and impaired child development.
There is another reason why the issue of sustainable production and consumption is
important to a development agency: the current distribution of resources is grossly unfair. In
truth much of the material prosperity enjoyed in the developed world has been achieved
through the rich taking more than a right share of the earth’s resources, at the expense of the
poor and of future generations. The richest 20 per cent of the world population now have
86 per cent of world GDP, and they control 71 per cent of global trade in goods and
services. In contrast the poorest 20 per cent have only 1 per cent of world GDP. Close to
one billion people cannot meet their basic consumption requirements.
This paper seeks to help Tearfund and its partners clarify their thinking on the links between
consumption, degradation of the environment, trade, and poverty. It suggests that three
stark choices face the human race, three ways by which consumption and emission levels
might be brought down. The first way is for everyone in the world to pursue the lifestyle at
present enjoyed in the North. Consumption will then collapse through the break down of
ecological and social systems. The second way is for the North to maintain the present
divide between rich and poor. This is both unjust and unrealistic. It would very likely end in
the collapse of consumption as an overwhelming tide of anger in the South stirred
widespread social chaos. The third option is for consumption to be brought down
deliberately through more efficient use of resources and, above all, through ‘purposeful
frugality’, that is, consumption restraint in the North. Only thus can all people in the world
enjoy a decent standard of living.
1. Outline of the problem
Environmental and conservation issues are receiving increasing attention in the media, and
terms such as ‘greenhouse gases’, ‘global warming’, and the ‘ozone layer’ are now readily
familiar. In this opening section we look at the signs or ‘symptoms’ that all is not well with
planet Earth.
Global warming and climate change
The world is getting warmer. Seven out of the 10 warmest years since 1860 occurred in the
1990s. In fact analysis of tree rings, ice cores, corals and historical records indicates that
the 1990s were the warmest decade of the last millennium. Among the expected
consequences of this global warming are increased water-scarcity and water-stress in
tropical and mid-latitude regions, and a rise in sea level through thermal expansion of the
oceans and the melting of glaciers and ice caps. The climate of our world is also becoming
more uncertain. In 2001 parts of Russia experienced a particularly severe winter, with
temperatures near -60°C in central and southern Siberia, while the western United States
experienced much less than average winter rain and snowfall. In May of that same year a
broad region centred on Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan (already suffering a devastating
drought) had to endure extreme heat, with temperatures of near 50°C in parts of Pakistan.
In June 2001 Tropical Storm Allison brought more than 750 mm of rain to several locations
in south-eastern Texas. It would seem that abnormality is becoming the new normality.
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Loss or degradation of land
Land is being degraded both as a side effect of global warming, and as a direct result of
over-use by humans and their livestock. The latter trend is often the result of rapid
population growth in the developing world, and inequity of land distribution. Among the
results are declining crop yields and animal productivity, scarcity of wild products, salination,
pollution, loss of soils through water and wind erosion, declining water supplies,
desertification, famine, and migration to camps or urban slums.
Deforestation
Forests are a vital part of the ecosystem, acting as carbon ‘sinks’, preventing soil erosion,
and inhibiting flooding. Yet they are being cleared at an alarming rate, to make way for
agriculture and human settlement, to provide timber (for local use or for export), to obtain
wood for fuel, or to gain access to other resources (for example, minerals, or the site of a
dam). In the developing world issues of economic development, corruption and poverty are
intertwined with the problem of deforestation.
Loss of biodiversity
The term ‘biodiversity’ has been coined as short-hand for the number of species of plants,
animals and ‘lower’ organisms in a given area. The Living Planet Index (LPI) gives some
indication of the changing state of the earth’s natural forest, freshwater and marine
ecosystems. The forest index declined by about 12 per cent, 1970-99, the freshwater index
by about 50 per cent, and the marine index by 35 per cent. Overall, the LPI declined by
about 33 per cent, 1970-1999. The major causes of the loss of species are increased
human population, resulting in the destruction of wildlife habitat, and increased human
economic activity, including over-fishing, and the pollution of air and water through waste
production.
Air pollution
Four air pollutants are particularly important: sulphur oxides (emitted mainly by power
stations and industry), nitrogen oxides (from power stations, industry and vehicles),
hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide (mainly from vehicles), and soot and dust (known
technically as ‘suspended particulate matter’ or SPM). In windless weather conditions, air
pollution in cities may result in winter or summer ‘smogs’.
Another problem is damage to the ozone layer. A thin veil of ozone, 15 to 25 miles above
the earth’s surface, protects life below from the portion of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation that
would otherwise harm many forms of life. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), widely used in
refrigeration, aerosols, and as cleaners in many industries, have been damaging this ozone
veil.
Water pollution
The world’s population are not only using too much water, they are polluting it. About 10
per cent of the earth’s rivers are said to be polluted. The main culprits are (in order): 1)
fertilisers and pesticides from agricultural land, 2) industrial waste, 3) untreated sewage.
5
Toxic waste
A consumer society produces increasing amounts of waste: ‘affluence matched by
effluence’. 1 By the early 1990s annual production of hazardous waste (mainly from
chemical production, mining, the pulp and paper industry, and the leather industry) had
reached 400 million tons, 75 per cent of this from OECD countries. Although overall
industrial efficiency is improving, total materials throughput, and related waste generation,
continue to grow.
Human numbers
The resources of the earth are being strained by the sheer weight of growing human
numbers, putting pressure on marginal land, forests, and water supplies. (The present
population of six billion is projected to reach from 8.9 to 12 billion by 2050.) The
developed world is very ready to blame environmental degradation on what it sees as
uncontrolled population growth in poorer countries, but this view takes insufficient account
of the poverty factor. When life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is only 48 years, when
there are still 34 developing countries where more than one child in ten dies before the age
of five, and when child labour is an essential part of the family income, then family planning
remains a non-issue. It should be recalled that overpopulation is not determined by numbers
alone, but rather by numbers times per capita consumption, and by population distribution.
(Urban populations consume more resources than rural populations.) It could be argued
that if the environment is threatened by over-population, then it is by over-population in
industrialised countries, for they are consuming too much.
2. Understanding the problem
The thread running through the problems outlined above is the growth in human numbers,
and in human economic activity, particularly in the period since the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution in the 18th century. In this section we look at some of the manifestations of
over-consumption, and point to the roots of the problem in ‘economism’ – a culture that
exalts material prosperity and technological prowess above equity.
Consumption and waste in the North
Both at the individual and at the corporate level there is a failure to acknowledge that much
that is called economic growth (e.g. mining, oil-drilling) is not wealth-creation, but wealthdepletion, and that the exhaustion of these resources is hastened by wastefulness.
Energy and greenhouse gas emissions
The accumulation of so-called ‘greenhouse’ gases has come about through the burning of
fossil fuels, deep ploughing, and deforestation. The resulting emissions would normally be
removed by the so-called carbon ‘sinks’ (forests, peat bogs, ocean surfaces), but they have
been such that the capacity of these natural systems to cope has been exceeded, with the
result that the gases have been accumulating in the atmosphere. Concentrations of carbon
dioxide (CO2) reached 368 parts per million (ppm) in the year 2000, compared with 280
ppm in the pre-industrial era. Computer predictions based on the Intergovernmental Panel
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on Climate Change’s (IPCC) ‘business as usual’ model indicate concentrations of CO2 by
the year 2100 in the range of 540 ppm to 970 ppm, and this translates into an increase in
globally averaged surface temperature of between 1.4°C and 5.8°C over the period 1990
to 2100.
The total environmental impact of using fossil fuels is considerably more than the emissions
from the fuel at the point of final use. Extraction of fossil fuels involves large amounts of
machinery, and often the disposal of waste material from which the fuel has been separated.
Energy is used in the manufacture of the extraction equipment, and in its operation. The
transformation and transport of energy is intrinsically inefficient, even with the best available
technology, so there is loss before the energy reaches the user.
Business and industry are responsible for a large proportion of emissions. They depend
heavily on electricity to meet their energy needs, and on road transport for receiving and
delivering goods. Agriculture also contributes its share of emissions. Not only is
sophisticated heavy farm machinery dependent on oil, but deep ploughing allows oxygen
deep into soils, speeding up the decay of organic matter and the release of CO2. However,
the shift in some economies towards services means that more and more of the resource use
and pollution are caused by activities in the residential, transport and commercial sectors.
Space and water heating account for two thirds of domestic emissions of greenhouse gases
in the UK. Next come the powering of appliances, and lighting.
What level of cuts are needed? The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says
that the world has to agree a maximum concentration of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere, and a figure of twice pre-industrial levels has been suggested. This would work
out at 50 per cent above today’s levels, but because key gases such as CO2 linger in the
atmosphere for a hundred years or more this will mean actually lowering emissions
substantially over the next few decades. Cutting emissions by 60 per cent is one suggested
figure. Others talk of a 90-95 per cent cut. 2
Transport
Transportation accounts for over 25 per cent of the energy consumed by modern society.
(The figure for the UK is 33 per cent, road transport alone accounting for 26 per cent.) The
transport sector generates 60 per cent of carbon monoxide (CO) emissions, 42 per cent of
nitrogen oxides, 40 per cent of hydrocarbons, 13 per cent of particulates, and 3 per cent of
sulphur oxides. This is only part of the story. Each mile of motorway takes up 30 acres of
land, whereas a mile of railway line takes just under 10 acres. 43 per cent of rock
aggregates quarried in England and Wales goes to road construction and maintenance. 11
per cent of the UK population is exposed to noise levels of 65 decibels and above, on
account of road traffic. Every year 23 million worn and discarded tyres go to landfill sites.
Lorries deliver 80 per cent of UK freight, but 27 per cent of all lorry journeys are made
without a load. Some aspects of market theory add to the problems. For example, the ‘just
in time’ manufacturing and distribution orthodoxy results in needless freight transport, and it
downgrades local production and sourcing. 66 per cent of all journeys in the UK are less
than three miles in length, for example to out-of-town shopping centres. The average British
car is parked for 95 per cent of its life. The average person travels 124 miles a week
7
(excluding any trips abroad), 100 of which are by car or van, and only 17 by public
transport. Average bicycle usage is only ¾ mile per week, per person.
Buses and trains are the most fuel efficient means of transport. Yet whereas in 1951 50 per
cent of all journeys in the UK were by bus, now the figure has fallen to 8.8 per cent. About
80 per cent of passenger transport in North America, and 50 per cent of freight transport, is
by road. The USA boasts almost 400 cars for every 500 people, four times as many as
Europe, ten times as many as the rest of the world. Increased car usage in the developed
world has already overwhelmed two decades of efficiency improvements, and today’s
world ‘population’ of vehicles (estimated at between 500 million and 645 million) is
expected to reach 1,000 million early in the 21st century. 3
Air travel is the fastest growing source of emissions in the world, and because planes fly in
the sensitive upper atmosphere, their exhaust gases cause between two and four times more
global warming than the CO2 alone. Even taking the lower of these figures each person on a
long haul flight is responsible for the equivalent of 124kg of CO2 per hour of their journey.
Planes can match the private car only when they fly with a full complement of passengers,
and there is only one person in the car. This is not all. Terminals also use a lot of energy for
lighting, heating, and air conditioning. Heathrow disposes of 13,000 tonnes of rubbish from
aircraft cabins each year.
Food consumption and agriculture
Cropland is being lost to urbanisation, industrialisation and soil degradation. Since 1950
grainland area per person has halved, from 0.24 hectares to 0.12 hectares. Food
production is also affected by changes in land use. Grain-raising yields far more usable
calories per acre than stock-raising. From 25 acres (10 hectares) of land it is possible to
produce enough meat to feed two people, maize for ten people, grain for 24 people, and
soya for 61 people. 4 The European Union (EU) effectively imports land and water,
because the food it buys from other countries uses more land and water than the food it
exports. Cutting this ‘trade deficit’ would mean reducing consumption of tropical products
such as coffee and bananas by about half. (It is also worth remembering that 81 per cent of
food transport in the UK is by road, and up to two thirds of all packaging is used for food
and drink.)
Global warming and water pollution are also affecting the food mankind derives from the
sea. Even more serious is the over-fishing. Between 1957 and 1997 ocean fish catches
rose from 19 million tons to over 90 million tons.
Wood products
Paper represents about half of primary wood consumption in the UK, and 40 per cent of
this paper is used for packaging. The average household throws away paper equivalent to
25 copies of a broadsheet newspaper every week.
Water consumption
The earth’s hydrological ‘capital’ is being over-spent. Worldwide use of water in 1990 was
double that in 1950, and it was expected to almost double again by 2000. At present
8
between 12.5 and 14 billion cubic metres of water are available for human use each year.
This amounts to about 7,800 cubic metres per person, per year. By 2025 population
growth is expected to reduce each person’s share to 5,100 cubic metres per year. And if
per capita consumption continues to rise it is expected that humankind could be using over
90 per cent of all available freshwater by that date. The Swedish hydrologist Malin
Falkenmark developed measures of water stress and water scarcity. A country is said to
experience water stress when annual supplies drop below 1,700 cubic metres per person.
When annual supplies drop below 1,000 cubic metres per person the country faces water
scarcity. By these measures 48 countries, with a total population of 3 billion people, will
face water shortages by 2025. The water table under the north China plain (which
produces some 40 per cent of the country’s grain) is falling by about 1.6 metres (5 feet) a
year. A number of countries in the Middle East can be said to have run out of water in
1972, in the sense that each year since then withdrawals of water from rivers and aquifers
have exceeded replenishment. This is so despite the use of micro-irrigation in the region.
(In 1991 48.7 per cent of Israel’s irrigated farmland was using drip irrigation techniques, and
21.1 per cent of Jordan’s irrigated farmland. Only Cyprus, with 71 per cent of irrigated
land using ‘micro-irrigation’, is ahead of them.)
Worldwide about 69 per cent of water usage is for farming, 23 per cent for industry, and 8
per cent for domestic purposes. In the UK about 19 per cent of water goes to domestic
use, 6 per cent to industry, while about 60 per cent is used in electricity production.
Agriculture is also a thirsty activity. It apparently requires 800 gallons (3,600 litres) of water
to produce 1 lb (453 grams) of grain-fed beef on a modern farm.5 Of the domestic water
consumption 32 per cent is used in toilet flushing and waste disposal, 17 per cent in washing,
baths, and showers, 12 per cent in washing machines, and 3 per cent in gardening and other
outside work. 6 Of the rest, about 2.5 per cent is actually drunk, while the remaining 33.5
per cent is used for such tasks as washing the car, or is lost through dripping taps and
leakages. A single use of the washing machine takes 22 gallons (100 litres) of water, a bath
18 gallons, a dishwasher 11 gallons, a shower 7 gallons, and a toilet flush 2 gallons.
Waste
Waste may be defined as any human activity that absorbs resources without creating value.
‘Most materials do not get converted into products, but become waste by-products.’7 Even
the assets and goods that are produced are, for the most part, temporary. They are
discarded after a while, and so waste accumulates. Two stories, one concerned with the
growth of computer usage, and the other with the canned drinks industry, provide sobering
case studies.
The rapid obsolescence and discarding of computers is a good example of wasteful
consumption today. The Basle Action Network (BAN) estimates that the 500 million
computers in the world contain 6.32 billion lbs of plastics, 1.58 billion lbs of lead, and
632,000 lbs of mercury. It is estimated that about 70 per cent of heavy metals found in US
landfill sites comes from electronic discards such as circuit boards, wires, steel casings and
other parts. The problem is now being exported. A study led by the BAN found that 50 to
80 per cent of the electronic goods collected for recycling in the western USA are exported
to Asia, exploiting weaker environmental laws and lower waste handling costs.
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Consumption of canned drinks in the USA now averages 358 cans per person, per year.
This is not simply a matter of how much is being drunk, but is related to a growing ‘awayfrom-home’ culture, in which people spend more time in their cars, and buy drinks from
vending machines and convenience stores. This canned drink culture has contributed
significantly to the ever-rising demand for aluminium, which has seen world production grow
sixteen-fold since 1950. Primary aluminium production is both energy intensive (it accounts
for about 2 per cent of global energy consumption) and water-intensive. Because electricity
expenditures comprise 20-30 per cent of the total production cost of aluminium, the industry
is forever seeking out cheaper supplies. It is now standard practice to ship either bauxite or
alumina halfway round the world to take advantage of cheap electricity contracts. For
example, the Brazilian aluminium company Aluvale is reported to be looking for cheaper
energy in central America and Africa. (Mozambique with its Cabora Bassa dam, and
proposals for another dam at Mepanda Uncua, is a likely option.) Altogether it is hardly
surprising that the aluminium industry remains a fervent supporter of big dam schemes.
The aluminium saga does not end with the consumption of the drink, for there is the question
of waste. Aluminium cans comprise only 1.4 per cent of the US waste stream by weight,
but they contribute 14 per cent of the emissions in a ton of waste sent to landfill. 8 Yet
aluminium can be recycled cheaply and indefinitely. According to the US Environmental
Protection Agency, making aluminium ingot from recycled aluminium uses only 5 per cent as
much energy as making ingot from bauxite ore, and net carbon emissions are 40 times lower
when materials are produced from recycled aluminium. Despite these facts recycling rates
are falling in the USA, from a high of 65 per cent in 1992 to 54.5 per cent in 2000. Among
the reasons suggested are: Russia has been exporting millions of tons of aluminium for much
needed cash, driving down both primary and secondary aluminium prices; prosperity in the
USA has made ‘scavenging’ less attractive; canned drinks are becoming more and more
popular in places that have not yet developed a recycling infrastructure; public attention has
been redirected to other environmental issues (such as global warming); there is an illusion
that recycling is well established.
Conflict and military spending
One particular form of resource consumption without creation of value is that incurred
through conflict and military spending. In an armed conflict infrastructure may be destroyed,
resources plundered to finance the war, displaced people bring new stresses to the local
environment, and good land may be poisoned by the debris of war.
The West has rarely been willing to get closely involved in conflict resolution, except where
it perceives a threat to its own interests. There are perhaps two main deterrents to action.
The first is the temptation to be over-pessimistic or apocalyptic, and assume that nothing can
be done. Many conflicts are rooted in criminality, and neither side may seem worthy of
support. So a psychological barrier is raised, making it possible for the rich world to dismiss
the zones of conflict as irredeemable, or ‘fated’. Secondly, the West may be too
complacent, seeing conflicts in the developing world as remote and insignificant.
10
Yet there are very strong arguments for action. The rich world bears some measure of
responsibility for wars in the developing world, because of the carving out of artificial and
unviable states during the colonial period, and Cold War policies of supporting corrupt
regimes and supplying arms. There are also arguments from long-term self-interest. The
environmental degradation, and displacements of population resulting from wars, threaten
wider economic and social stability.
The growth of world trade
Much is heard about the role of trade in spreading prosperity, but it is less clear that the
environmental costs have been weighed. There are a number of questions that need
answering. Firstly, how much trade simply panders to materialist expectations, such as the
assumption that what the developed world wants (e.g. out-of-season fruit) should always be
available? (Heffernan notes that on average our food travels 1,800 miles to our tables. 9)
Secondly, how far is trade stimulated by the developing world’s lack of bargaining power,
so that, for example, tropical hardwoods become falsely cheap and hence too readily used?
Thirdly, how much trade is necessary trade in the sense that what Country A is buying from
Country B is a product that it needs and lacks? Lastly, what proportion of greenhouse gas
emissions is generated by the transport of goods that the importing country could in fact
make or grow for itself?
The ‘ecological footprint’
The ‘ecological footprint’ is a measure of the impact on the environment of the consumption
activity of individuals and nations. It is based on ‘area units’, one area unit being equivalent
to one hectare of world average productivity. The footprint of any individual is the sum of
six separate components, namely the area of:
cropland needed to grow the food that person eats
grazing land needed to produce the animal products
forest needed to produce the wood and paper
sea needed to produce the marine fish and seafood
land needed for his/her housing and infrastructure
forest needed to absorb the CO2 emissions resulting from that person’s energy consumption.
In 1996 there were 12.6 billion hectares of biologically productive land on the earth, made
up as follows: 1.3 billion hectares of cropland, 4.6 billion hectares of grazing land, 3.3
billion hectares of forest land, 3.2 billion hectares of fishing grounds, 0.2 billion hectares of
built-up land. This amounted to 2.2 hectares for each of the world’s 5.7 billion people. If it
is assumed, for the sake of argument, that 10 per cent of all biologically productive space
should be left undisturbed for the use of other species, then the available space per person
falls to 2.0 area units.
Yet the world average footprint in 1996 was 2.85 area units, an overshoot of more than 30
per cent. Carbon dioxide emissions perhaps represent humanity’s biggest overshoot. The
biosphere has a finite capacity to absorb CO2 – currently about 12 billion tonnes of carbon
dioxide a year (or roughly two tonnes per person). Emissions now stand at 24 billion tonnes
per year (or four tonnes per person). While this is a particularly clear case of overshoot, it is
only part of the problem. In virtually every area humanity is depleting environmental capital.
11
Overall humanity’s ‘ecological footprint’ on the earth, 1970 to 1997, increased by about 50
per cent.
A culture of ‘economism’
The popular portrayal of the Western way of life is one of success, happiness, and selfesteem through a rising income flow and the consumption that this makes possible. Rewards
for work are measured in monetary terms, virtue is defined in terms of economic success,
and leisure has become a matter of consumerism. The advertising industry and the media
‘evangelise’ on behalf of the consumer culture by their portrayal of the affluent lifestyle,
constantly stirring dissatisfaction with anything less. For someone to join in this lifestyle it is
not even necessary to have the resources in hand. Consumption can now outpace income
because borrowing to finance consumer spending has been made respectable. (Even the
language has been adapted, so that what used to be called ‘debt’ – with negative
connotations – is replaced by the much more positive ‘credit’.)
All this is based on a number of very large assumptions, namely:
that by attending to what has been called mankind’s ‘lesser hunger’ (the need for the goods
and services that sustain life), somehow the ‘greater hunger’ (the yearning to understand
what life is for) will take care of itself
that through more competition we will have more choice, at better prices, and so be richer,
and more content
that globalisation (that is, competition on a worldwide scale) will infinitely extend choicecreation and price-cutting, to the benefit of us all – and anyway it is a historical necessity
(‘the market’ and ‘globalisation’ are portrayed as great natural forces to which we must
simply adapt)
that resources are unlimited, so that when economists talk of a scarcity of products they
have in mind no more than a local, and immediate, shortage – with more capital the product
can be purchased elsewhere, or substitutes can be found from other products
that for every problem (and it is not denied that there will be problems) technology will
provide an answer.
Other aspects of Western culture – power, faith in scientific progress, individualism – may
be viewed as part of the sub-text of economism. Power gives access to natural resources,
money and technology, and so it becomes a virtue to value power. Faith is placed in a
scientific worldview that portrays the cosmos as a giant machine which mankind explores
and brings under control. Individualism, guided by self-interest and (supposedly) by reason,
thrives on, and feeds, economism. It is linked to the Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’
outlook which has entered capitalism. It is graphically illustrated in the ‘frontier mentality’ of
the American West. Dayton Roberts writes: ‘If our ancestors needed meat they shot it. If
they needed fur they trapped it. If they needed wood they chopped it. Land was theirs for
the taking. Water was theirs for the taking. Trout and bass were theirs for the fishing. Gold
and silver were theirs for the mining.’ 10 Small wonder that Walter Wink should exclaim that
our entire social system had become an ‘economy’.
12
Concepts and measurements of ‘progress’
The concept of ‘Gross Domestic Product’ (GDP) was developed during the Second World
War as a way to measure production, but after the war it was asked to measure growth in
the standard of living, a task for which it was not designed. In what ways is GDP an
inadequate measure?
GDP does not measure non-economic ‘goods’
GDP measures only those human activities that involve the exchange of money. It ignores
any economic tasks that are performed without charge, such as voluntary work in the
community, the running of the household, the bringing up of children, and the care of elderly
relatives at home. (It would, indeed, surely be a sad day if these tasks were to become
monetarised.) GDP takes no account of the fairness or otherwise of income distribution. It
overlooks the vital part played in individual and community well-being by friendships,
neighbourliness, family ties, and a sense of purpose in life and work. On the contrary it may
laud the closing of branch banks and post offices (for example) as ‘efficiency savings’, even
though the result may be that employees and customers are simply compelled to travel more,
and so have less time to give to human relationships. GDP disregards the importance of
justice, of freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and freedom from oppression,
violence and exploitation. It does not value security from persecution and arbitrary arrest,
freedom to express religious and cultural values, adequate leisure time, the opportunity to
take part in civil society.
GDP treats loss as gain
Perversely GDP is able to measure economic ‘bads’ and treat them as added value. Thus
intensive farming that squeezes out wildlife, the building of monotonous housing estates for
low-income groups, the growth of intrusive car travel and national chain stores – all
contributing to the spread of de-humanising monocultures – these add to GDP. It goes
further and reckons the depletion or degradation of natural resources as income rather than
asset depreciation, violating both basic accounting principles and common sense. Much of
what GDP measures as economic growth in fact consists of borrowing environmental and
other resources from the future, or simply fixing social problems. Insurance against theft or
criminal damage, new locks and security systems to combat burglary, divorce proceedings,
care of abused children – all these involve monetary transactions and so add to the GDP
figure. Environmental disasters will add to GDP. To take one example: if a road-tanker
carrying toxic chemicals is involved in an accident, so that the chemicals are spilled on to the
road verges and seep into the water-table, and people in the area become ill from drinking
polluted water, then the clean-up operation, the repair or replacement of the tanker, and the
medical costs of those who have become ill will all add to GDP.
GDP distorts the way society views itself
The assessment of ‘bads’ as ‘goods’ and of losses as gains not only makes accounting
nonsense, but it has further implications. The indicators that a society chooses to report to
itself about itself are a telling reflection of the collective values of that society. GDP figures,
and the philosophy from which they stem, are a powerful ingredient in the collective
decision-making of that society.
13
The United Nations Human Development Programme recognises that the current standards
for measuring growth may provide a very inadequate picture of human well-being. They
urge that much more attention should be given to the quality rather than the quantity of
growth. They identify ‘five damaging forms of growth’ (calling them neither sustainable, nor
worth sustaining), that is, growth in the numbers of:
jobless – growth which does not translate into jobs
voiceless – growth which is not matched by the spread of democracy
rootless – growth which snuffs out separate cultural identity
futureless – growth which despoils the environment
ruthless – growth where most of the benefits are seized by the rich.
Questions of equity
The UNDP Human Development Report for 2000 argues that North/South inequalities are
now so dramatic and dangerous that the situation of the poorest amounts to a violation of
human rights. And to many in the South, noting the vastly higher rates of consumption in the
North, concern for the environment looks like ‘the leisure interest of the rich’ and gross
hypocrisy. In truth, concern for ecology, without concern for oppressed human beings, is
incongruous. Why, asks Modou Ngie, do Africans practise slash-and-burn farming? Why
do they kill animals on the verge of extinction? Why, he goes on, does someone who owns
a penthouse in New York also need a ranch in Wyoming? 11
The bald statistics of inequity are very telling. The richest 20 per cent of the world
population have 86 per cent of world GDP, the poorest 20 per cent have 1 per cent. The
assets of the three richest people in the world are greater than the combined GNP of the 48
least developed countries, and their 600 million people. 12 The world’s 358 billionaires own
45 per cent of its resources 13 The USA, with 6 per cent of the world’s population,
consumes 35 per cent of the world’s resources. One fifth of the world’s population in the
North consume 46 per cent of all meat production, 65 per cent of all electricity, 84 per cent
of paper production, and 85 per cent of metals and chemicals. Close to one billion people
cannot meet their basic consumption requirements. 14 OECD countries have 19 per cent of
the world’s population, but receive 58 per cent of foreign direct investment (FDI). 97 per
cent of patents worldwide are held by the industrialised countries. Trade liberalisation has
created most opportunities for those with substantial existing assets, and OECD countries
now control 71 per cent of global trade in goods and services. When it comes to CO2
emissions the world average, per capita, per year is 4.02 tonnes. The average for the USA,
however, is 20.50 tonnes, for the UK 9.40 tonnes, and for Africa 0.99 tonnes.
Taking the poor man’s ‘lamb’
The plight of the poor is tied inexorably to the power and excess of the rich. A story in the
Bible, in 2 Samuel 12:1-4, tells how a rich man took his poor neighbour’s ewe lamb, to feed
his own guest. Today, the rich North have the poor use their land and water to grow outof-season fruit and fresh flowers for them. They encourage the clearing of forests, to create
grazing for cattle to provide meat for burgers. And, having depleted their own fishing
grounds, they now fish in other people’s waters.
14
The poor lack a political voice
Voting power at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is based on a country’s
subscription, which in turn is based on the size of that country’s economy. Belgium has
more votes than India, the UK more than sub-Saharan Africa. The voting power of the
USA equals that of East Asia, South Asia, Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa
combined. Although decision-making at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is based on
‘one country, one vote’, in practice there are huge differences in representation. While rich
countries can afford to maintain permanent delegations in
Geneva, and send in large teams of
Fishing other men’s waters
commercial staff, lawyers, academic
The United Nations Environment
consultants and special advisers to key
Programme (UNEP) has been studying
meetings, some developing countries can
the operations of foreign fishing fleets off
afford no more than one non-specialist
the coasts of West Africa and South
representative. Two-thirds of world trade is
America, conducting case studies of
controlled by a small number of transArgentina, Mauritania, and Senegal.
national corporations (TNCs), most of them
Their report notes that the European
based in the North, and these have
Union has paid the Mauritanian
tremendous lobbying power.
government £300 million for the right to
fish in its waters from 2001 to 2006.
When considering the consequences of such
Industrial, factory-style fishing boats from
an unbalanced system, one is struck not
the EU, along with others from China and
simply by the injustice of it, but by the
Japan – altogether some 250 in number –
hypocrisy. Acting through bodies such as
now operate off the coast of Mauritania.
the IMF and the WTO the developed world
The UNEP report comments, ‘Overrelentlessly calls upon developing countries
fishing, due to a failure by some fishing
to dismantle trade barriers and remove
boats to comply with the rules, lack of
subsidies. This is called ‘facing up to hard
enforcement and a shortage of fisheries
choices’. Meanwhile the developed world
protection boats, alongside other factors,
maintains trade barriers that are estimated to
have led to a dramatic fall in catches.’
deny poor countries $700 billion of exports
The catches left for local fishermen are
per year in low-tech industries alone, and it
now so low that the number of people
subsidises its own farming industries to the
employed in traditional octopus fishing
tune of $353 billion per year. This is
has fallen from 5,000 in 1996 to 1,800
excused on the grounds of ‘political
15
today.
pressures’ at home. 16
The poor lack ‘coping mechanisms’
More people are projected to be harmed than benefited by climate change, and the likely
economic impacts seem set to exacerbate the disparity in well-being between North and
South. The poor live in more immediate dependence on the natural environment and rarely
have adequate ‘buffers’ against the losses that result from environmental damage (floods,
crop failure and the like). The ability of human systems to adapt to, and cope with, climate
change depends on such factors as wealth, technology, education, information, skills,
infrastructure, and access to resources. The increase in economic losses resulting from
extreme weather events may lead to certain risks being classified as uninsurable, and slow
the expansion of financial services to developing countries. The expected slowing in the
15
expansion in the global food supply, relative to growth in global food demand, is likely to
push up food prices and worsen food security in Africa. This will mean more malnutrition
and impaired child development.
The poor lack a way out
Inequality hinders anti-poverty strategies in two main ways: 1) the productivity of the poor is
limited by their lack of access to credit or assets, 2) the greater the inequality the weaker the
poverty-reducing effect of growth because a smaller share goes to the poor. Unequal
societies suffer weakened social cohesion and incur huge ‘defensive expenditures’ such as
measures to combat crime, and to ‘pick up the pieces’ after family breakdown.
Jeremy and Carol Rifkin write, ‘Every human being has unimpeachable rights to pure air and
water, uncontaminated food, adequate clothing, shelter and healthcare, and meaningful work
that nurtures and sustains the ecosystem from which we draw our economic well-being’. 17
This would seem to be unarguable, but do people in the North really believe it? We could
go further and say that if the average family in the UK expects to take a Mediterranean
holiday each year, why not a Bolivian family going on holiday to the Caribbean? If
schoolchildren in the UK expect access to an IT suite, why not children in Malawi? Families
in the UK take for granted refrigerators, washing machines, and one (or two) family cars.
Why not families in India and China? Yet the fact is that the planet simply could not sustain
a future population of, say, ten billion, all living the kind of ever-expanding lifestyle that
people in the North have come to expect. Already, by 1996, the emerging middle class of
China, India, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and
Thailand amounted to about 750 million people, almost as many as the 880 million in the
industrialised countries. If car ownership in China, India and Indonesia rose to the present
world average of 90 cars per 1,000 people, some 200 million vehicles would be added to
the global fleet of 500 million.
What is to be the goal? That everyone should pursue the lifestyle at present enjoyed by the
North? That would bring the collapse of the Earth’s life support system very quickly nearer.
Should the present rich/poor divide be maintained, then? This implies that in order for some
people to have very much, many people must go without very much. So far there has been
no serious abatement of the lifestyle enjoyed in the developed world, and this raises the
almost unthinkable question. ‘The point is not made in so many words but the implication is
clear. The Third World must not be allowed to achieve the same comforts as the West
enjoys because that would threaten the Western lifestyle’. 18 (The West’s faith in technology
may be partly a means of hiding from ourselves the idea that we would rather continue
exploiting the poor and the environment than give up any of our own material prosperity.)
Yet such a proposal is simply not acceptable. The foremost concern of any consumption
policy must surely be that the consumption needs of the poor (adequate food, clothing,
housing, education and health care) must first be met. It is meaningless to talk about
sustainable consumption, when one billion of the world’s population lack basic needs. If it is
not possible for everyone to live a ‘Western’ lifestyle, and if it is unacceptable that the ‘good
16
life’ is restricted to the few, there is only one alternative, namely, that people in the West
simplify their lifestyles.
3. Towards solutions
We are faced with the paradox that the rapid technological and commercial growth that now
threatens to overwhelm environmental sustainability has, in the past fifty years or so, created
better living standards for hundreds of millions of people in the North. So it is hardly
surprising that governments are reluctant to face up to the necessity for reforming a system
that has ‘delivered the goods’ for so many, for so long. Northern governments also seem to
be inhibited by a fear of environmentalism. Possible reasons for this attitude include: the
fear that environmental policies impose burdens on business; the perception that
environmentalists are ‘anti-growth’ and ‘anti-modernity’; the view that tougher
environmental policies will hurt the poor (for example, through higher fuel prices). The
received wisdom seems to be that moves to cut unsustainable consumption will be
unpopular and economically damaging. So politicians are eager to suggest that with
‘efficiency savings’ and ‘growth’ we can still afford more consumption. Thus the call is for
yet more technology, and more trade. Let us look at each of these options in turn.
Salvation through technology?
There is much talk today of ‘eco-design’, ‘recycling’ and ‘eco-innovation’. The danger is
that such efforts will prove to be little more than tinkering with the problem, and will be more
than countered by a continued rise in consumption.
Transport
One option is to continue seeking ways to make vehicle and aircraft engines ‘cleaner’ and
more efficient. Clearly any gains made would need to be large enough to outweigh the
energy needed to manufacture cleaner vehicles. Another option is alternative fuels. The oil
price rises of 1973/4 and 1979/80 stirred considerable effort in reducing energy intensity,
and exploring other fuel sources such as alcohol, hydrogen, and methane, yet without finding
a better alternative. Hydrogen based fuels, for example, have the advantage of unlimited
supply, but need other energy for their manufacture.
Energy
As with transport there are two main ways of reducing emissions, first, by increasing energy
efficiency and, second, by substituting ‘renewable’ energy sources for ones based on
burning fossil fuels. CO2 ‘sequestration’ is another possibility. This refers to the removal of
CO2 from fuel emissions and locking it in geological formations, underground or under the
sea. This is probably technically possible, but it would be very expensive, and only
applicable to large sources, such as power stations, rather than individual buildings or
vehicles.
17
1) Energy efficiency technologies range from low power, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs)
through to more efficient power stations. Energy efficiency not only cuts emissions, but it
almost always saves money (though there may be a higher initial price to pay).
2) Alternative technologies can be substituted for ones that use fossil fuels. The Industrial
Revolution was mainly based on the use of fossil fuels, but only because they were cheap
and plentiful, not because they were technologically superior. It is, for example, possible to
generate electricity from latter-day versions of windmills and watermills, as well as from
tides. There are now new technologies that allow electricity to be generated directly from
the sun (photovoltaic solar generation). Energy can also be obtained by ‘biomass
generation’, burning natural products such as wood, straw, or liquid fuels made from
vegetation. In such cases the plants are re-grown and they then take up the carbon dioxide
that they released when burnt, thus yielding no net carbon dioxide emissions.
The contribution that can be made by renewable energy is constrained by a number of
factors. Firstly, to harness renewable energy on a large scale would require a huge capital
investment, and so long as fossil fuels remain relatively cheap, such investment will need the
encouragement of government subsidy. Secondly, renewable energy is not necessarily
without environmental impact. The manufacture of the equipment requires inputs of energy
and materials, and that equipment will have disposal costs at the end of its working life.
Thirdly, renewable energy is available only up to a certain rate of consumption. For
example, energy derived from wood is limited by the growth rate of trees and the land
available for those trees.
There is scope to increase the amount of energy generated from wind and wave power, and
from small hydroelectric schemes, but it will not be possible to satisfy all demands for
electric power from these sources. What, then, of nuclear power, and large hydroelectric
schemes?
Nuclear power
Nuclear power generation creates minimal amounts of CO2 and other climate change agents
compared to a similar amount of energy generated from fossil fuels. However, a huge
amount of energy is needed to build a nuclear power plant, and to mine and refine the fuel.
A further serious problem with nuclear power is that reactors produce radioactive byproducts, mainly in the form of spent fuel. Some of these materials remain radioactive for a
very long time, so that the wastes from nuclear reactors need to be stabilised and stored for
hundreds, or even thousands, of years before they cease to be dangerous. No fully
satisfactory solution to this problem has yet been found.
Hydroelectric power
Hydroelectric power is clean, and renewable, but has other, heavy environmental costs.
Every dam has an impact on the environment. Whether its purpose is hydroelectricity
production, flood control or irrigation, a dam is a very concrete obstacle to the river’s
natural course and functions. The reservoir it creates is the very antithesis of a river, and the
more immediate effects are obvious:
farmland, forest and human settlements are drowned in the dam’s reservoir
the river downstream can be severely depleted
18
dams trap not only rivers but the contents of rivers, the nutrient-rich silt and sediments
which may now interfere with the dam’s function, and lessen the fertility the river can bring to
agricultural lands downstream
the river, deprived of its sediment load, erodes the downstream channel and banks;
riverbeds are typically eroded by several metres within ten years of first closing a dam, and
the damage can extend for tens, or even hundreds, of kilometres below the dam
riverbed deepening downstream from the dam will lower the groundwater table along the
river, threatening vegetation and local wells
dams can also affect the quality of the river water by concentrating pollutants, depleting or
increasing oxygen levels, or altering the river’s temperature; if a river is used to carry away
urban waste the dam will vastly reduce the ability of the river to purify itself
there may be health risks because the water in the dam’s reservoir stagnates as the plant life
it has flooded rots, helping to create a breeding ground for unhealthy organisms
flora and fauna may be adversely affected; some 80 per cent of the world’s fish catch comes
from areas where fresh water meets the sea, areas that depend on the volume and timing of
nutrients and fresh water; the alteration of the flows reaching river estuaries is a major cause
of the sharp decline of sea fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico, the Black and Caspian Seas, the
East Mediterranean, and elsewhere
dams delay and reduce the downstream floods that deposit nutrients on the land, flush out
backwater channels, and replenish wetlands
the local human population may pay a heavy price – uprooting and resettlement (possibly
with inadequate compensation), the break-up of communities, the loss of their cultural
heritage. Big dams epitomise how development policies can increase inequality, strip the
poor of their livelihoods and lead to violence.
‘Carbon sinks’
Can we not continue our present lifestyle
in the North, and just plant more trees to
soak up CO2? Because trees die and
then re-emit CO2, planting single trees
will make no difference (except perhaps
indirectly, through their shade in summer
cutting the demand for air-conditioning,
and their shelter in winter cutting the
demand for heating). A better approach
is to create forests that are a mix of trees
of different ages, with growing and dying
trees in equilibrium. However, Climate
Care say that to soak up all the UK’s
emissions, for example, even for one
year would mean planting a forest the
size of Devon and Cornwall, and looking
after it for ever. Then the following year
a similar area would have to be forested.
In short, there simply is not enough land
to do this. One US electricity company,
The Chixoy Dam, Guatemala
The case of the Chixoy Dam in Guatemala
provides an example of how a major dam
can have a high human cost. The indigenous
Maya Achi community of Rio Negro, whose
village was to be drowned by the reservoir,
refused to move to the cramped houses and
poor land provided by the Guatemalan
power utility INDE. The result was that on a
number of occasions between 1980 and
1982, a total of 376 people, mostly women
and children, were brutally murdered by the
army and paramilitary units. The World
Bank and the Inter-American Development
Bank both gave loans for the building of the
dam, and stand accused of turning a blind
eye to the massacres. The dam has not even
been an economic success. The final cost
was 521 per cent of the original 1974
estimate, and since it began operating in
1983 it has been plagued by technical
19
AES, calculated that during the 40-year
problems and a shortage of water in its
reservoir.
operating life of a new plant they were
building the emission of pollutants would amount to 15 million metric tons of carbon in the
carbon dioxide emitted. To match this they would need to plant 52 million trees in a tropical
zone (where trees grow faster). In fact deforestation accounts for only about 20 per cent of
the greenhouse effect, and there is no escaping the fact that somehow emissions from fossil
fuel consumption have to be cut.
Salvation through trade?
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is at the forefront of a trade liberalisation lobby,
calling for the dismantling of barriers to international trade. Poverty and environmental issues
are acknowledged, but it is argued that freer trade will, long-term, help resolve both. The
reasoning seems to be that the lowering of trade barriers will encourage trade, that more
trade will mean more income for the poor, and that as the income of the poor rises they will
be less inclined to damage the environment. Anyway, the further opening-up of world trade
is not seen as an option, but as an inevitability. For example, Clare Short, the UK Secretary
for International Development, said in the House of Commons, June 2002, ‘I am not in
favour of globalisation, and I am not against globalisation. Globalisation is history.’
It is argued that any negative environmental implications of increased trade will, for the most
part, be overcome by ‘natural’ (that is, market) forces. It is claimed that there is
considerable evidence to show environmental damage does not increase indefinitely with
rising incomes. According to this theory pollution follows a ‘Kuznets’, or A-shaped, curve,
rising as a country develops economically, then declining to a lower pollution intensity after a
certain income level has been achieved.19 (This decline is attributed to changes in economic
structure, demands for improved environmental standards, and improvements in
technology.) Apart from the fact that the downward curve evidently does not happen of
itself (it is a response to demands for improvements), the theory ignores the fact that
consumption assuredly increases with income, leading to the over-consumption that is a
major cause of our environmental problems. It may be argued that the curve is not Ashaped, but N-shaped. In other words, emissions rise again after a while, as economic
growth continues.
Another assumption of the trade lobby is that the correction of environmental degradation is
largely a matter of domestic policy. From this it follows that if the environmental problems
of a developing country increase as trade increases, the first area to examine is domestic
economic policy. Only when domestic policies are ‘correct’ (which presumably means
when they are in line with the received wisdom of the WTO/World Bank/IMF) can blame
be laid at the door of trade. And then the answer urged upon the affected country is not to
restrict trade, but to institute compensatory policies that will alleviate the effects on the poor.
The trade lobby is wary of environmental protection legislation, arguing that if the legislation
imposes costs in terms of forgone income, the effect on the poor may be worse than the
environmental damage. It is pointed out that although the Agreement on Subsidies and
Countervailing Measures (ASCM) allows subsidies in order to protect and improve the
20
environment, there is a danger that this exception may be used as a back-door to the
imposition of trade protection. (The trade lobby seems obsessed with the threats of
protection and subsidies – so long as they are not one’s own.) The lobby point out that
such subsidies can be challenged at the WTO if they cause demonstrable injury to
producers. ‘Encumbering trade agreements with instruments and tasks designed to achieve
non-trade objectives runs the risk of reducing the effectiveness of such agreements in
promoting improvements in global welfare through greater openness and international
trade.’20 They observe that if trade is restricted on environmental grounds there is a risk that
consumption will be curtailed. (Yet this paper sees the curtailment of consumption not as a
risk, but as a necessity.) It is perhaps worth pondering the fact that trade is ‘encumbered’
with non-trade objectives whenever economic sanctions are used in the effort to attain
political ends, for example the use of sanctions against apartheid South Africa, Cuba and
Iraq. It should also be borne in mind that many developing countries are suspicious of
environmental clauses, which look to them very much like ‘prosperity constraint’, and a new
expression of imperialism.
The trade lobby are also unhappy with the so-called ‘moral argument’ for linking trade and
environmental standards. (This approach holds that the adoption of lower standards, such
as catching tuna with nets that also kill dolphins, is morally reprehensible and trade measures
should be used to force countries to raise their standards.) The argument is adjudged by the
trade lobby to be in conflict with the conventional economic view, namely, that individuals
and societies are said to know what is best for them and make choices accordingly. Thus if
one country chooses fishing methods that seem reprehensible to another country, then the
use of trade measures against the first country has to be based on one of two assertions: that
the fishing policy does not truly represent the will of the people, or that the people of that
country ‘do not know what is good for them’. Either view may be held to raise questions of
interference with national sovereignty. Yet when did concerns over national sovereignty
ever deter the World Bank, the IMF or leading members of the G7 from laying down the
law to developing countries? Also, it is self-evidently untrue that individuals and societies
always make choices based on a rational assessment of what is best for them. At the
individual level one has only to point to the persistence of tobacco smoking in the face of the
proven link with lung cancer. Even in the ivory tower of economic theorising a growing
school of ‘behavioural economists’ is now taking account of irrationality among investors
and market traders. ‘Economic man (or woman)’ is as likely as any other to be swayed by
‘cognitive dissonance’ (that is, holding to a belief plainly at odds with the evidence – usually
because the belief has been held for some time), by a disproportionate fear of feeling regret
if an apparent opportunity is missed, by compartmentalised thinking, by miscalculating
probabilities, and by plain emotion. 21
International trade, then, is seen as the surest route to economic growth. It thus becomes
the greatest good, and from this it follows that anything which hinders international trade
becomes a ‘bad’. At the root of the free trade agenda lies the assumption that happiness is
to be equated with greater incomes and higher consumption. And in its attitude to the
environment the trade lobby seems remarkably complacent. The activity of trading is itself a
major environmental issue because of the fuel and other costs involved in the physical
21
movement of goods from one place to another. With the quest for more trade being pushed
so vigorously the development of cleaner transportation can never be more than a palliative.
The further orientation of developing economies to the export market will accelerate the
trend towards the production of luxury products by cheap labour in poor countries for rich
consumers in the North. It will also extend the diversion of land and water from production
of staple foods for local consumption, and shift control over resources from small-holders to
agribusiness corporations.
A new paradigm
‘Economist’ thinking is now being challenged by another ‘paradigm’ or model, with
ecological, spiritual and scientific dimensions. The ecological dimension is seen in the
portrayal of the world as one whole that is interconnected, interdependent, fragile.
Individuals and societies are in no sense ‘outside’ or ‘over’ this world, but are embedded in
the cyclical processes of nature. In terms of values the new paradigm favours integration (to
counteract the self-assertive tendencies of the reigning paradigm), co-operation, partnership,
quality, conservation.
This ecological dimension is joined with a religious awareness. James Lovelock, wishing to
convey the idea of the earth as a living organism or entity, and humanity as an integral part of
the web of life, used the Greek term ‘Gaia’ (the idea that the earth is a goddess, and mother
of the Titans). The New Age movement co-opted the term, combined it with the
personification and deification of nature, and made the elements of nature our ‘ancestors’.
The science dimension is set within a ‘plausibility structure’. The structure determines what
kind of science is perceived as plausible, and any scientific activity that would lead to
environmental damage is ruled out. Present capitalist activity is perceived to be a
detrimental organism. It is not so much a parasite as a cancer devouring its host.
Measuring genuine progress
Is there any alternative to the GDP measure of human well-being? Can a price tag be
placed on social and environmental factors? Yes, there are alternatives. Admittedly they
are imperfect (but then so is GDP), and although they suffer from a degree of arbitrariness in
their valuations and weightings, they surely form a catalyst for debate.
In the USA a Genuine Progress Index (GPI) has been developed, while in the UK, Friends
of the Earth, the New Economics Foundation and the Centre for Environmental Strategy at
the University of Surrey have co-operated to compile the Index of Sustainable Economic
Welfare (ISEW). These indices were inspired by the work of the US environmental
economists Herman Daly and John Cobb.
The GPI begins with the personal consumption component of the GDP. Then it puts a value
on unpaid labour and treats it as a positive contribution to the economy. It deducts the cost
of ‘defensive spending’ and damage (such as tackling crime, family breakdown, oil spills),
22
and it factors in the ability or otherwise of people to enjoy the benefits of economic growth
by subtracting the value of the hours they spend commuting. The GPI also includes a factor
for income distribution, so that the greater the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer
hands the lower the GPI. (Most of the apparent GDP gains in the past thirty years have
accrued to the richest 20 per cent of society.)
The contrast between the two measures is stark. In the case of the USA, for example, the
GPI suggests that growth in the quality of life ran parallel for some years with growth in
GDP. Then, starting from 1974/75, while GDP continued to rise, the GPI tailed off.
Altogether GDP indicated that human well-being grew by 79 per cent in real terms from
1974-1994, but GPI said that it grew by only 2 per cent. This conclusion is confirmed by
the ‘threshold’ hypothesis developed by the Centre for Urban and Rural Development
(CEPAUR) in Chile. They concluded that there is a threshold, a point beyond which any
further economic growth will lead to a deterioration in the quality of people’s lives.
Shallow and deep ecology
The two worldviews that have been discussed, the ‘economist’ and the ‘new paradigm’, are
paralleled by two ecologies. These may be delineated as a ‘shallow’ and a ‘deep’ ecology
(a distinction first made by the Norwegian philosopher, Arne Ness, in the 1970s).
Shallow ecology is inherently anthropocentric. It sees human beings as outside and above
nature, which is valued only as a resource to meet the desires and needs of men and women.
It is characterised, first, by political pragmatism, for the environment is held to be only one of
a number of important issues, rather than a fundamental one. The outcome is environmental
half-measures. A second characteristic is confidence in technology as the solution to
environmental problems. For every environmental problem the technological optimists have
an answer, whether it be desalination, deep-sea mining, or bioengineering. Nature
can/should be constantly adapted to meet human demands. And it is held that what is called
a ‘healthy, growing’ economy is needed, to enable us to pay for cleaning up the
environment. A third characteristic is that the business world views ‘eco-efficiency’ as a
matter primarily of the competitive edge and of public relations management. In other
words it concerns the company’s, rather than the general public’s, need for survival.
Deep ecology does not separate human beings from their environment. Ultimately deep
ecological awareness is a spiritual awareness. It questions the whole scientific/ materialistic/
growth-oriented worldview from an ecological perspective. Deep ecology seeks a new
language to help people see, think and understand in a new way. Ultimately deep ecology
does not separate God from the environment, in other words, it is pantheistic (where God =
nature). Its biocentric philosophy can end up being almost anti-human.
Other terms within the deep ecology fold are ‘social ecology’ and ‘feminist ecology’. Social
ecology sees the social and economic structures of mankind as rooted in a ‘domination
system’ of patriarchy, imperialism, capitalism and racism. Ecofeminism goes further, holding
that exploitation of the environment has gone hand in hand with exploitation of women, and
that women have a natural kinship with nature.
23
Where does Christianity stand in the ecological debate?
Some writers blame the Christian faith for creating the mind-set that has justified human
domination of the environment and brought us to the present crisis. In 1967, Lynn White
junior, a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, published a paper
charging Christianity with ‘de-sacralising’ nature. 22 He wrote, ‘The victory of Christianity
over paganism was the greatest psychic revolution in the history of our culture … Our daily
habits of action, for example, are dominated by an implicit faith in perpetual progress which
was unknown either to Greco-Roman antiquity or to the Orient. It is rooted in, and is
indefensible apart from, Judeo-Christian teleology … we shall continue to have a worsening
ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence
save to serve man … We will not get out of our ecologic crisis until we get a new religion, or
rethink our old one.’
White’s line of thought was taken up, and extended, by Richard L Means, associate
professor of sociology at the College of Kalamazoo, Michigan (‘Why worry about nature?’
in the Saturday Review, 2/12/1967). He suggested that pantheism is the answer to
mankind’s ecological dilemma. If we could believe that everything is of one essence, this
would surely lead to greater reverence for nature, and so to a gentler touch.
The contentions of White and Means seem almost upheld by the strength of opposition in
some Christian circles to any action on environmental degradation. Many conservative
Christians in the United States actively oppose the environmental movement. Among the
assertions made are: ‘Dominion means what it says’, ‘People are more important than the
environment’, ‘We would have to support abortion’ (because of the relationship between
environmental degradation and human population growth), ‘It will lead to world
government’, and ‘This world is not my home – I’m just a-passing through’ (what has been
called a ‘departure lounge’ mentality). Ronald Sider notes that, ‘Many evangelicals come
close to celebrating the demise of the Earth, enthusiastically citing the decay as proof that the
return of Christ is very near’. 23 Beneath the surface of these statements there is a deepseated political ideology: the American dream of liberty and prosperity, and free-enterprise
economics. Environmentalism is labelled ‘politically correct, New Age, pagan, pantheistic’.
According to Richard Wright, the propagation of this line is funded by industries like timber,
real estate, mining, oil and gas. 24
Seeking to answer Lynn White, Richard Bauckham (‘Stewardship and relationship’ in The
Care of Creation) first acknowledges that from the Early Fathers onwards most Christian
thinkers have interpreted the human dominion over creation to mean that the rest of creation
exists for human benefit. Then he goes on to point out that this interpretation is drawn more
from Greek philosophical than from biblical sources. Moreover the dominion was
understood in a static way, authorising the rather limited use of the environment that humans
made before the Renaissance period. And this doctrine was balanced by a more
fundamental doctrine: that humans are creatures of God alongside other creatures. Thus the
modern project of technological domination of nature has its ideological roots not in the
Christian theological tradition itself, but in the way it was modified in Italian Renaissance
humanism and by the English philosopher Francis Bacon.
24
Granted that many who have taken up environmental and consumption issues may come
with a ‘New Age-type’ perspective, yet there is surely promise (as well as danger) here. Is
this not an opportunity for Christians to make ‘cross-cultural’ contact? And if the churches
do not offer biblical foundations for action to halt unsustainable consumption, they leave the
world with a choice between a concerned paganism and an uncaring Christianity. For
Christians there are two key reasons for being passionately committed to sustainable
consumption. First, it is a matter of honouring God by putting him first in our lives, and not
destroying his creation. Secondly, when the affluence and consumption of some has its
immediate counterpart in the lack and suffering of others, then sustainable consumption
becomes a deeply moral and spiritual issue. Concern about lifestyle will be inseparable from
authentic love for our neighbour.
A biblical approach to consumption, growth and the environment
The Bible pictures mankind in terms of lowliness and exaltedness, made from the dust of the
earth, yet made also in the image of God (Genesis 1:26, 2:7). In one sense mankind are just
like the animals, needing food and water, sleep and shelter. Yet because they are made in
God’s image they are able to enter into personal relations with Him (for the Three-personal
God is above all a relational God). This lowliness and exaltedness is expressed most
strikingly in the Incarnation. The Word of God took human flesh, which is to say he
accepted weakness and vulnerability. Yet he did so in order to lift men and women above
the angels (Hebrews 2:5-9).
Some key lessons may be drawn from the Bible’s account of God and creation:
Men and women are, firstly, relational beings made in the image of a relational God. The
dominion over creation comes second (Genesis 1:26-28).
‘Stewardship’ or ‘priesthood’ may best describe the role of mankind, which is that of
picturing God to the rest of creation, and leading it in worship. We may see men and
women as God’s ‘under-kings and queens’ as long as we remember that biblical kingship is
more a kind of ‘elder brother-hood’ (Deuteronomy 17:14-20).
The creation, in turn, ‘speaks’ to mankind about God. The pattern of the seasons, for
example, witnesses to his trustworthiness, and the unshakeable mountains portray his
righteousness (see Psalms 19:1-4, 36:5-6, Romans 1:20.)
God delights in His creatures and He included all of them in the covenant that He made after
the great Flood (Genesis 9:8-17). The creatures of the wild live there independently of
mankind, each assigned a place within a wondrous whole, each having significance, value
and purpose (Job 37-39, Psalm 104).
God is ‘other than’ his creation. He also indwells it as divine Word, and fills it with the
dynamic energies of his Holy Spirit. Misuse of creation is thus an act of sacrilege. 25
God calls mankind to share in His sabbath, to enter with Him into the contemplation of the
beauty and the goodness of what He has made. (This is the surest safeguard against the
tendency to measure all meaning in terms of doing and accumulating.) The French
theologian Henri Blocher argues that the climax of Genesis 1-2 is not the creation of man the
worker, but the institution of the sabbath for man the worshipper. 26
25
Because of mankind’s key place in the created order his ‘fall’ or rebellion has had dire
consequences for all other creatures. Relationships have been distorted and the whole
creation subjected to futility (Genesis 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-21, 8:18-23, 1 Corinthians
15:42-50). The life of fallen men and women is now shot through with bitter irony. These
godlike beings, having denied God his honour, worship created things. Their idols may be
the gods of wood and stone of ‘primitive’ societies, or the consumer goods of modern
materialism.
The First and the Rest
God responded to the Fall by calling out a people to be his own. The lifestyle of this people
was to be a constant tussle between ‘The First’ and ‘The Rest’; between putting God first
or putting in his place all the other things that may capture the hearts of men and women.
The people of Israel began their life with God in the Wilderness. That life – like the life of
their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – was characterised by ‘transitoriness’ and
‘simplicity’. It was not by careworn toil that Israel made their living, but by God’s provision.
Every day he gave them manna to eat, enough for everyone, but no more. ‘He that gathered
much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack’, but when some, in distrust,
put food aside for the next day, it rotted overnight (Exodus 16:16-20). There was no
extraction and accumulation of economic resources. Acquiring wealth would have been a
diversion, simply adding to the ‘things’ to be carried about. The priority was to know God,
and to learn his ways.
In after-time the Wilderness experience was seen as an idyllic period, a kind of
‘honeymoon’ when God had Israel all to himself (Deuteronomy 32:12, Jeremiah 2:2-3).
The experience was recalled every year during the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles,
when the people again lived in booths. The Rechabites continued to be a living parable of
the old, uncomplicated way of life (Jeremiah 35:6-7).
By the time the Israelites came to settle in the Promised Land they had a blueprint for the
lifestyle they would follow. It was based on a covenant that included God, his people, and
the land where they would live together. (To see the land as part of the community implied
using it with love and respect.) Economic and political power were dispersed. Twelve
‘tribes’ made up the nation, each tribe was divided into ‘clans’ (a number of extended
families with a common ancestor), and within the extended family were a number of nuclear
families. Each kinship unit had its own ancestral land, which was ultimately inalienable.
Here was a social, political and economic system characterised by closeness to the land and
to nature, ‘subsidiarity’ (decisions taken, as far as possible, at the local level), and cooperation rather than competition within the community. Among the detailed guidelines for
life in the land were the following:
God took responsibility for Israel’s daily needs, but he asked them to put him first
(Deuteronomy 8:3, cf.Psalm 37:4).
The Israelite farmer was not to aim at maximising output from the land, because the poor
and their needs were more important than profits (Leviticus 19:9-10, Deuteronomy 24:1922). ‘Casual harvesting’ by a hungry wayfarer was allowed (Deuteronomy 23:24-25).
26
The people were to beware of covetousness (Exodus 20:17). Landmarkers, for example,
stood as a warning against encroachment, and they were not to be moved (Deuteronomy
19:14).
All produce was to be tithed, in thanks to the Giver and as a check on acquisitiveness
(Deuteronomy 14:22-29, 15:19, 26:1-11, see also Leviticus 23:24-25).
There was to be no needless plunder of the resources of the wild. The young, or eggs, of a
bird might be taken, but not the mother (Deuteronomy 22:6-7).
Even in war there was to be no needless destruction (Deuteronomy 20:19-20).
In biblical thought there is not only solidarity within the household, clan, tribe and nation, but
there is also inter-generational solidarity. For example, when Jesus spoke to a Jewish
audience at Capernaum he identified them with their ancestors of Moses’ time (John 6:32).
This solidarity was vividly expressed in the yearly keeping of the Passover. The people
were not merely remembering the past. The past became present once more as the new
generation entered into that key event.
Here was the ideal, but how was such a lifestyle to be protected against the threats of human
greed and distrust? God’s answer was a sevenfold ‘structure of interruption’, that is, breaks
in economic activity on the seventh (sabbath) day, at the Feast of Tabernacles in the seventh
month, in the seventh (sabbath) year, and in the jubilee year (after seven sabbath years). By
means of the sabbath and jubilee laws God set limits to mankind’s use and appropriation of
the riches of creation, and he called upon them to go on trusting Him for their needs. In
Exodus 23:10-11 the reason for the Sabbath year is a matter of social justice (that the poor
might eat), in Exodus 23:12, Leviticus 25:4 it is an ecological matter (that the animals and the
land itself might have rest). In the jubilee year, the poor farmer who had been forced to give
up his land was to receive it back, and with it his stake in the local community (Leviticus
25:13-16). The structure of interruption was as vital for the rich as for the poor, that the
stranglehold of a life of selfish consumption might be broken. By these means the rich/poor
divide was kept as narrow as possible, and the divine dignity of men and women, and their
relationships with each other, were upheld.
If God was placed first, blessing would follow (Deuteronomy 28:1-14, Malachi 3:8-12).
But prosperity would be a true mark of God’s blessing only when enjoyed in the context of
all members of the community sharing the environment and its resources fairly. If God’s
people were disobedient their labour would be fruitless (Isaiah 5:8-10, Haggai 1:6),. The
rains would be withheld (Amos 4:6-9), and the land itself would ‘mourn’ (Hosea 4:1-3).
The moral law, then, is embedded in the created order, so that the natural world becomes a
‘mirror’ of mankind’s spiritual state. The author of the book of ‘Proverbs’ wisely prayed
that he might know neither riches nor poverty. If he became rich he might forget his need of
God. If he was ground down by poverty he might be tempted to steal, or even to deny
God’s love (Proverbs 30:7-9).
In sum, wealth-creation and consumption are a legitimate part of human life, but they are to
take second place to God. Material prosperity is a kind of ‘marginal note’ in the Bible.
God adds it to the lives of people who will not be overwhelmed by it, because their hearts
are filled with love for Him. But when people have an eye on this prosperity the relationship
with God is spoiled, the poor are neglected, and the environment is degraded.
27
The New Testament
The theme of ‘The First and the Rest’ is, if anything, even more clearly seen in the New
Testament. Men and women are urged to seek, above all, God’s kingdom and
righteousness, and be free from anxiety over ‘the rest’ (food, drink, clothing, and so on),
Matthew 6:25-34. ‘The rest’ may be things that we truly need, but God must still come
first. ‘He who does not seek God’s kingdom first does not seek it at all’. 27 Such a life may
be truly described as ‘simple’, for it is uncomplicated in thought and deed, undivided in its
aims and loyalties. The life of the follower of Jesus is to be characterised by the
‘transitoriness’ and ‘simplicity’ that marked out the people of Israel in their ‘honeymoon’
period. The first disciples left homes and livelihoods to follow the Jesus who, unlike the fox
or the bird, had no place to lay his head (Luke 5:11, 9:57-62). When they were sent out on
a mission the twelve were told to take no money or spare clothes, and to be content with
whatever lodgings were offered (Matthew 10:9-11). The disciple is a ‘soldier’ on active
service, who must beware of ‘civilian’ entanglements (2 Timothy 2:4). Even close family ties
must come second to Jesus (Luke 14:26-27).
Not only does the love of wealth-creation and consumption deny God his honour, it also
complicates life. The follower of Jesus may rightly ask God for today’s bread, but not
tomorrow’s, for that only feeds anxiety (Matthew 6:11). Wealth comes like a wolf in
sheep’s clothing, pretending to be security against anxiety. In fact wealth is always uncertain
(1 Timothy 6:17), so that the possession of wealth soon becomes the object of anxiety,
choking off the spiritual life (Matthew 6:19-21, 13:22). 28 The heart cannot love both God
and ‘mammon’, and riches separate a man or woman from their God (Matthew 6:21, Luke
12:13-21), as well as from fellow human beings (Luke 16:19ff). The desire for wealth and
consumption may become a craving, thus leading to all manner of evil (1 Timothy 6:10).
Is it better, then, to get rid of wealth in order to preserve the relationship with God? In one
instance Jesus urged a rich young ruler to sell all his possessions and give to the poor
(Matthew 19:16-30). Is this call to renunciation the ‘gold standard’ of Christian
discipleship? In pondering this question it is important to remember that what Jesus said to
his followers was ‘God first, then the rest’. If renunciation is put first the result will be one of
two possible outcomes. The person who makes renunciation his/her priority will either be
torn by an anxious scrupulosity about possessions – how to keep them at a certain
‘Christian level’ – or he/she will glory in a defiant, nonconformist asceticism. (There have
indeed been many, throughout church history, who have seen asceticism as a kind of shortcut to Christian perfection, yet it is really Gnostic and Greek rather than Christian.) To seek
personal satisfaction in a life of simplicity is at bottom no different from seeking satisfaction in
a life of luxury. Both are forms of hedonism, seeking pleasure for oneself. We need
liberation from ‘things’, but this cannot be won by an attack on the things themselves. 29 The
sole motive for Christian simplicity is the enjoyment of God himself. The rich young ruler
was strongly attached to his wealth, but he also had a sincere interest in eternal life. Thus for
him, and others like him, voluntary poverty became the condition of discipleship.
28
Are we to ‘live simply so that the poor might simply live’? Yes, in the light of the poverty in
the developing world, well-off Christians can hardly maintain the ‘good life’ and a good
conscience at the same time, but concern for the poor is not an adequate and a lasting
motive for a simple lifestyle. Yet, if God is made the centre of our loyalty then the poor will
receive more effective help, more quickly, than if the poor themselves are put first.
Should we seek to rein in unsustainable consumption, and pursue a simple lifestyle, in the
light of the threat of ecological disaster? Certainly we should, but again it must be God first,
then the environment. Ecological concern on its own is ultimately a matter of self-interest,
and thus not a sufficient motive in itself. And men and women never have been particularly
good at forgoing present pleasure for the sake of future advantage, as witness the
persistence of cigarette smoking in the teeth of clear evidence of the health risk. It seems
that often a strange perversity moves men and women to act against their own best interests,
just to prove they do not have to be compelled by logic.
Poverty and simplicity, then, are not quite the same thing. Christian simplicity does not have
to involve the least possible consumption of worldly goods, for it is always a positive
doctrine of the enjoyment of God before it is a negative doctrine concerning ‘unrighteous
mammon’. It is possible for the well-off to live by true Christian simplicity, for even
unrighteous mammon can be put to good use (Luke 16:9). This means that the truly simple
life will be outwardly ambiguous. Jesus followed a simple lifestyle, yet was accused of selfindulgence (Matthew 11:18-19). The key is an inner change of attitude which may be
characterised by the phrase ‘as if not’. The man or woman with many possessions will then
think and act as if they did not have them. The man or woman without possessions will
consider the lack as if it did not exist. The apostle Paul is a good example of the ‘as if not’
attitude. After giving up his worldly security, he declared he could face plenty or poverty,
and be content in either state (Philippians 3:7-11, 4:1-12). He recognised that God gave
abundantly, but that was so that men and women might have enough, while the surplus gave
them the means to help others (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Because the outward marks of the simple life are not wholly clear it is possible for men and
women to deceive themselves, and others. (Mankind’s natural drift is towards shrewdness
and complexity.) Possessions remain a snare that can lure a man or woman out of their
freedom, and it may be that making oneself literally poor will be the surest and safest way to
simplicity.
Some three centuries ago, one Christian 30 sought to explain the ‘mystery’ of Christian
contentment, a contentment enjoyed with or without ‘things’. Here are some of the things he
said:
The relationship with God is all in all. With God, bread and water are enough, but without
him, even kingdoms and empires will not satisfy.
A Christian gains contentment not by addition, but by subtraction, reducing his or her desires
to the level that God, in his wisdom, has granted.
‘A Christian comes to contentment not by making up the wants of his circumstances, but by
performance of the work of his circumstances.’ 31
29
The Christian recalls that he/she has an immortal soul, and no amount of worldly goods will
ever be enough to sustain it. He/she may have little, but that little is the earnest of an eternal
inheritance.
The things that the Christian lacks are really very small, whereas the things he/she has
(fellowship with Christ, treasure in heaven, and so on) are without price.
Some conclusions
It is the contention of this paper that, first, the unprecedented material prosperity enjoyed in
the developed world has only been achieved through the rich using their power to take more
than a right share of the earth’s resources. ‘More than a right share’ here means a) a share
that does not leave enough for the poor, b) a share that is more than the earth can replenish
(i.e. ‘capital’ is being used up).
Secondly, the claims made on behalf of technological innovation and freer trade – that they
will enable the developing world to enjoy a like prosperity with the North – are held to be
wholly unrealistic. Economic growth beyond a certain point becomes ‘uneconomic growth’,
and is unsustainable. To suggest that everyone in the world, in the North and the South,
should pursue the lifestyle at present enjoyed by the North would be sheer madness, for it
would bring the Earth’s life support system to a speedy collapse. A more honest suggestion
would be that the present rich/poor divide should be maintained, yet that is manifestly unjust.
So, thirdly, one answer remains. A decent standard of living for all peoples can be achieved
only through greatly reduced consumption on the part of the rich. People in the North have
to simplify their lifestyles. Whether or not this means giving up their prosperity depends on
how we understand human life and human well-being. If the sum and end of human life is
really found in possessions, power, status, leisure pursuits, and such like, then we may well
conclude that the most successful men and women will be egocentric, competitive,
materialistic. Yet the link between material prosperity and human well-being is, at bottom,
largely an illusion. In his book The psychology of happiness Michael Argyle observes,
‘Any relation that does exist between happiness and income is relative rather than absolute.
The happiness people derive from consumption is based on whether they consume more
than their neighbours and more than they did in the past.’ 32 Many studies have noted that
people’s reported happiness or satisfaction depends far more on their health, on their family
and other relationships, on finding meaning, love, tranquillity. (Financial security is also a
high priority, but that is not the same thing as having high levels of consumption.) In the end,
‘economics first, then the rest’ is a blind alley.
Moving to action
If it be accepted that a decent standard of living for all peoples can be achieved only through
what has been called a ‘purposeful frugality’ in the North (other options being unrealistic,
unjust, or both), then what action is required, and how will people in the North be
persuaded to rein in their consumption? In this section we put forward suggestions for
action on the part of national governments, international bodies, business, non-government
30
organisations (NGOs) and individuals. The section closes with ten questions as discussion
starters.
Action by national governments
Governments can use taxation policy to bring prices into line with true (environmental) costs,
they can use regulation to relate supply to availability (rather than to demand), and they can
influence changes in energy and water consumption, and in transport patterns, by fostering
sustainability initiatives.
Taxation policy
Governments should urgently address the perverse system whereby ‘goods’ such as labour,
investment, and non-polluting forms of consumption are taxed, while ‘bads’ such as high
fossil fuel usage, waste and congestion are under-taxed or, even, subsidised. Brown and
Flavin estimate that, worldwide, perverse subsidies total around $650 billion, giving plenty of
scope to tax ‘bads’ while reducing the general level of taxation. 33 Such a shift translates
environmental concerns into language that markets understand, namely ‘costs’ and ‘prices’.
For example, in the Netherlands gradually rising taxes (since 1970) on the discharge of
organic materials and heavy metals into canals, rivers and lakes have spurred companies to
reduce their emissions by 72-99 per cent. 34 It has been suggested that if carbon taxes were
phased in worldwide, reaching say $250 a tonne by 2050, global emissions might roughly
plateau by then, as individuals and businesses used fossil fuels more efficiently and moved to
solar and other energy sources.
Regulation
Fiscal tools and markets may reduce consumption, but on their own they are unlikely to
reduce it to the level the environment can truly afford. Thus, unfashionable though it may be,
there is a need to review the current obsession with deregulation. Three keys to success
are: a focus on results rather than prescribing solutions; consistency (ensuring regulations in
one area of the economy are not negated by loopholes or differing regulations elsewhere);
proper enforcement. Here follow some examples of what may be done.
Planning controls can be used to discourage out-of-town retail and office development
(most of it based on car usage), and to favour local traffic needs as against external and
through traffic.
The Duales System Deutschland (DSD), established in Germany in 1991, makes
manufacturers of products such as detergents and toys legally responsible for all the
packaging on their goods. Supermarkets are legally bound to accept materials such as
cardboard boxes and plastic bottles, returned by customers, and the producers in turn are
bound to take back these materials from the supermarkets. Companies have been left free
to respond as they will. Some have found ways to recycle the packaging (70 per cent was
being recycled by 1994), while others have simplified what they produce in the first place.
Austria, France and Belgium have since adopted versions of the DSD system.
Germany and other European countries are experimenting with Extended Producer
Responsibility (EPR) policies, seeking to make companies responsible for the emissions and
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other environmental costs not only of manufacture, but also of use, and ultimate disposal.
Aims include: encouraging manufacturers to phase out the use of toxic materials, and
encouraging them to design goods that can be repaired/upgraded rather than replaced.
The Netherlands has worked not only on the structure of regulation, but the process. After
consulting with industry and public interest groups, the government published the National
Environmental Policy Plan in 1989. The plan sets national goals in eight problem areas,
ranging from waste disposal to climate change. The government has since taken various
steps towards reaching these goals, including taxes, regulations, and quasi-voluntary
covenants with industry (with the threat of more burdensome regulation if the covenants are
then ignored).
Rather more drastically it may be necessary to consider some kind of rationing. For
example, each family might be allocated a certain quota of CO2, enough to allow them X
miles of motoring, with a flight to a Mediterranean holiday destination, say, once in two
years, and central heating for three winter months, then steeply rising taxes on usage above
the allocation. This may sound draconian, but in the end it may be the only way to drive
home the point that supply is limited, that we have fed our consumption habits by taking
from the South and from future generations, and that this is unsustainable.
Fostering sustainability initiatives
The development of renewable energy will not be cheap. As well as using taxation policy to
correct the unrealistic pricing of fossil fuels the government needs to consider giving start-up
grants for renewable energy suppliers. At the individual level local government might award
grants for such household measures as roof and wall insulation.
As regards water, key strategies may include, firstly, the setting, and enforcement, of
standards for water efficiency in production processes, as well as in particular products such
as washing machines, and in the design of new buildings. Secondly, governments might
encourage regulation and differential pricing according to end use (for example, higher water
charges for lawn watering). This may be taken a step further by establishing different water
distribution systems, one for drinking and most household uses, and another with treated
waste water (including nutrients) for irrigating lawns, parks, and so on. Another option is
nation-wide water metering, with steeply rising charges above a certain level of
consumption. (There would have to be safeguards to ensure poor families get the water
they need.)
As regards transport, the only long-term solution is to cut transport volumes. The provision
of an integrated, efficient, affordable public transport system, for people and goods, should
be a priority. For example, rail services might be integrated with reasonably priced car hire
facilities, and luggage handling arrangements, at all main stations. People could be
encouraged to plan their journeys better, so that they travel less often, but stay longer,
following up several objectives on the one trip. The government might encourage changes in
employment patterns, to reduce the need for people to commute long distances. This could
involve making more use of telecommunications (a low energy consumer), for much
transport is involved with communication. For example, government might encourage
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communities to establish local shared office facilities where employees from a number of
organisations could work physically, whilst connected by electronic means to their company
headquarters. Better rural facilities, combined with the encouragement of community
ownership of a number of vehicles, are other possible measures. (There will, however,
always be some people who genuinely need access to a car. Among such would be the
elderly, the disabled, and people in very isolated rural communities.)
Public versus private ownership
The drive to privatisation may have to be reviewed. Market orthodoxy requires that
wherever there is a demand, that demand must be met, and that in the interests of profits
demand should be stimulated. Yet in some crucial sectors of the economy that are now in
private ownership (in particular, energy, water, and transport) it is vital that demand be
curbed. How can these sectors of the economy be entrusted to the private sector and the
profit motive? If public ownership is ruled out, then some kind of not-for-profit, trusteeship
status should be considered.
Strengthening democracy and civil society
Reducing consumption to sustainable levels cannot be made to happen solely through
taxation, regulation, and environmental initiatives. Real change can only be brought about
through consent, democratically given. In other words governments need to carry
electorates with them. Changes will have to be clearly egalitarian, sharing out the ‘pain’ of
reduced affluence. Electorates will have to be equipped with ‘moral fluency’ so that they
can participate in debate and make informed choices. All this requires a strong national and
local democracy, based on trust between citizens and the state.
Intergovernmental action
Policy-making is still mainly national in focus and scope, yet natural resources, pollutants,
and human economic activity such as trade and investment, all cross over man-made
borders. This means that action on consumption cannot be pursued by nation states in
isolation. International co-operation and agreements are vital if oceans, rivers, natural
habitat, biodiversity, and the atmosphere are to be protected.
So far international treaties, agreements, action plans and communiqués have proved
inadequate, either in design, in implementation, or in enforcement. Institutions have been
created, then left with minimal authority and funding. The best that can be said is that
conferences such as Rio 1992 have paved the way for longer-term progress, and have
made environmental problems newsworthy. The 1987 Montreal Protocol on Depletion of
the Ozone Layer is a template for effective treaties on environmental problems. To forge a
strong treaty the signatories yielded sovereignty in several notable ways. For example, as
regards chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) the parties agreed not to trade in CFCs with nonparties. Further, only two thirds of the signatories were needed to ratify accelerations of
reductions, and the richer countries set up a fund to aid poorer countries with
implementation.
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International bodies such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
have key roles to play in achieving sustainable consumption. If they are to succeed there
will have to be some ‘upward devolution’ from governments. At the same time these bodies
will have to win public trust, which means that they will have to become much more
accountable. So far they have failed to bring in business representatives, NGOs, and other
actors from civil society, and have tended to take the side of the big players – Northern
governments and the top 500 multinationals who control most of the world’s trade,
investment and patents.
The role and powers of the WTO need to be re-thought. Thus far the organisation has
failed to ensure that global economic policy is integrated with international accords on the
environment and social protection. (It is by no means certain that the vital Montreal
Protocol would survive a challenge at the WTO today.) This situation needs to be reversed,
so that the work of the WTO is subordinated to multilateral environmental agreements, and
to the task of achieving the millennium development targets by 2015. Instead of trying to
‘make the world safe’ for trade and investment, the goal should be to shape trade and
investment to meet social and environmental needs. The emphasis should be on fostering
local trade, in accordance with the principle of ‘subsidiarity’ – that is, economic activities are
least harmful when they happen at the lowest possible level. By implication such trade
would be small-scale, and it would be between small-holders and other small businessmen.
The priorities would be, first, meeting the needs of the local community, then serving the
wider domestic market, with the export market coming last. For example, if protectionism is
needed to enable local energy efficient businesses to flourish against competition from
elsewhere, then trade agreements that restrict that protection will need to be renegotiated or
dismantled outright. In the end, healthy global trading depends on healthy local economies.
The World Bank has been a major funder of giant public works projects, and it seems to be
finding it difficult to change its ways. For example, since the landmark treaty on global
climate change was signed in Rio in 1992 the Bank has loaned six times as much for fossil
fuel projects as for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. The Bank also
continues to favour big dam schemes, and to neglect adequate post-construction evaluation
and monitoring, and full evaluation of other options. The Bank needs to put in place a much
more sophisticated conception of development that takes full account of 1) the environment,
2) public services such as education and health (on which the poor depend), and 3) the
status of women. For example, one of the strongest pressures on consumption levels arises
from the poverty, high birth rates and high child mortality rates in the developing world.
Parents will desire smaller families only when they believe more of their children will survive.
Thus we have the paradox that efforts to keep children alive and healthy, and to lift them out
of poverty, constitute one of the best keys, in the long run, to reducing population growth
rates and consequent pressures on consumption levels. The provision of adequate health
care, freedom, and education for women is the key factor in these efforts.
Other areas in which international action can foster sustainable consumption, include
technology transfer, conflict resolution, and tackling corruption.
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Technology transfer to the South
If the rich world wants sustainable consumption in the South, it must help pay for it by
enabling developing countries to ‘leapfrog’ environmentally destructive forms of economic
growth. In view of the fact that the North will not be left untouched by the ecological
damage that will be done if the South follows the same path of unsustainable, carbonintensive growth, such technology transfer should be seen as ‘enlightened self-interest’. The
1997 Kyoto Protocol included a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allowing countries
in the North to earn emissions credits by exporting low emissions technology to the South.
Conflict resolution and military spending
Armed conflict consumes resources without the creation of value (in other words waste).
Among measures urgently needed from governments are: tough new export controls to
stamp out illicit arms deals organised from, or channelled through, their territory; help with
conversion to civilian industry; investment in preventive strategies, including ‘due diligence’
preparation; an end to the system of subsidising arms exports through government export
credit guarantees.
Corruption
International agreements to conserve natural resources and protect the environment can be
thwarted by corruption. For example, South-East Asia is plagued by the illegal felling of
timber. On the Thai/Burmese border (to cite one specific case) considerable bribes were
paid to officials of the forestry, customs and local administration, as well as the army and
police, to allow the removal and transport of 13,000 teak trees to Burma and their return
across the border as ‘Burmese’ trees. Bribery has facilitated the loss of almost 90 per cent
of primary forest cover in the Philippines, and this in turn has resulted in erosion, and local
climate change. In Indonesia forest destruction over the past thirty years has been tied in
with a patronage system linking an undemocratic government, the military and business
leaders.
Action by business
There is a need for a new industrial revolution, what might be termed an ‘ecologicalindustrial’ revolution, dedicated to meeting people’s needs rather than finding new ways of
selling what industry wants to make. The following are some of the key elements of this
revolution.
Firstly, business must use resources more effectively. This implies making appliances that
are more efficient, making those appliances more efficiently, and stretching their life-span by
making them more durable, easier to repair, easier to upgrade and, at the end of their life,
easier to recycle. Other measures include credible and independently verified sourcing
systems for natural resources and products.
Secondly, business needs to adopt ‘biomimicry’, or the elimination of the very idea of waste.
This will include: 1) avoiding waste in the first place, 2) using renewable resources, 3)
developing industrial models in which wastes are treated as inputs into other processes (at
the same time reducing costs and increasing revenues).
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Thirdly, we need a ‘service and flow’ economy, in which well-being is based on the
continuous receipt of quality and utility. Business needs to recognise that they are selling
services more than materials. Some profit opportunities will be closed off, but new
investment opportunities will open up in energy conservation, in waste minimisation and
recycling, in sustainable forestry, and in organic and low-input farming.
Fourthly, business should be investing in natural capital, seeking to restore and expand the
capital stock, so that the biosphere can produce more abundant natural resources. Linked
to this there would be a new approach to auditing and accountability. Business reporting
has always focused on money and invested financial capital. Yet there are two other basic
building blocks of an economy, namely raw materials and people. Business should develop
standards for business reporting, auditing and accountability on environmental and social
responsibility. An environmental audit would probably need to be conducted over a 36-60
month period, and an audit of human/employee factors would probably need even more
time to measure improvement or decline in health, productivity, and so on. The
environmental audit might include an investigation of the organisation’s ‘footprint’. In the
area of transport, for example, the company could spell out its policy on vehicle purchases
(which should be on the basis of fuel efficiency and minimum emissions), loans to staff to buy
railway season tickets, and the provision of changing and shower facilities, and secure
parking, for staff who cycle to work.
These changes would certainly be very radical, yet no more so than other structural changes
and upheavals of capitalism, such as the Information Technology and e-commerce
revolution, or the ‘re-engineering’ of manufacturing in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Some
business people will respond to the challenge because they have genuinely adopted an
environmental ethic. Others will recognise that ignoring environmental concerns could prove
costly to the organisation and its reputation. The latter may be influenced by ‘drivers’ such
as the enhancement of competitive advantage, ‘reputation management’, pressure group and
consumer politics, regulation or the threat of regulation. There is a danger that without a
vision born of ethical concern corporations will respond to these drivers with imagery, public
relations, and minor adjustments in management systems and practices. Overall, it is unlikely
that business will bring about an ecological-industrial revolution on its own. Business will
need to be prodded by governments, by major international accords, and by consumer
pressure.
Action by civil society
Government needs to be constantly challenged by civil society, that is, by non-government
organisations (NGOs), trade unions, the media, the academic world, and so on. The
abysmal environmental record of the former Eastern bloc countries is a reminder of what can
happen when government power cannot be challenged at all. Even in more open Western
societies the challenge offered by NGOs has been muted. In an article in Our Planet
Charles Secrett points out that the USA has the oldest, wealthiest and most diverse
environment movement of any country, yet the ‘combined might’ of the environmental
NGOs could not stop the USA rejecting the Kyoto Protocol. He suggests that too many
environmental organizations are preoccupied with issues of nature conservation and animal
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welfare, and not sufficiently aware of matters of inequity (in access to resources, in
consumption levels, and in political power).
Two key areas where government needs to be pressed are the questions of influence, and of
‘enabling rights’. The more egalitarian avenues of influence (for example, elections) need to
be strengthened, while those that favour the wealthy few (such as campaign donations) must
be lessened. Government must also be pressed to agree certain enabling rights, such as the
right of access to data on the state of the environment, to information on green services,
even the right to bring private prosecutions against businesses responsible for environmental
crimes.
NGOs will have to go further and be prepared for political activism if they are to challenge
government and society on sustainable consumption. ‘Armchair’ support is no adequate
substitute for action at the ballot box, participation in peaceful demonstrations, and the like.
There is a need for stronger and more radical international coalitions, linking
environmentalists, poverty campaigners, subsistence farmers and others.
NGOs can also play a key role in fostering ‘ecological literacy’. When ordinary men and
women understand the issue of sustainable consumption then they may back the NGOs,
who in turn can push government and big business. The mass media could play a part here,
too. Given that television is credited with setting benchmarks for increasingly affluent
lifestyles, it may be argued that changes in programming, to present more sustainable
lifestyles in drama and documentaries, could help change consumption patterns.
Action by individuals and local communities
Without action at the national and international level, and action by business, individual effort
will continue to be overwhelmed by the activities of governments and big corporations. But
the opposite is also true. It is only when ordinary men and women change their lifestyles that
consumption will be reduced to sustainable levels. This implies a radical change of heart, a
submitting of one’s lifestyle to the ‘ecological footprint’ test, and then acting accordingly as
consumption choices, great and small, are made on a day-by-day basis.
Living sustainably will mean engaging in ‘conscious consumerism’ (a kind of positive version
of the boycott). This means stopping to think about the impact of our buying, asking who
benefits and who loses? Among possible outcomes are the following:
A decision to encourage local production and local trade, instead of buying goods which
have been transported half-way round the world. This may involve patronising local
farmers’ markets and/or community-supported agriculture (CSA). An example of CSA
would be, say, 80 households making a commitment that each will buy a 1/80th share of the
produce of a smallholding.
A decision not to buy imported, out-of-season products.
A decision to share (everything from newspapers, to tools, to cars and houses) rather than
buy.
A decision not to buy at all, recognising that there is a danger of assuming a right to consume
indefinitely in a finite world, so long as the goods are ‘green’.
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It would not necessarily mean buying the cheapest, for that might mean buying from
businesses that pay low wages, that reinvest very little in the community, and which have
aspirations after monopoly control.
Each decision would have to be weighed. For example if consumers in the North decide to
stop buying food imported from the developing world, they should consider the possible
short-term impact on small farmers there. Consumption decisions would have to be linked
to involvement in issues of poverty and inequity in the world. Again, because
environmentally friendly products are often more expensive, some consumers might have to
consider ways of helping poorer members of their own community, otherwise there is a
danger that green consumerism may become the prerogative of the well-off.
The conscious consumer will consider energy use in the home. This may be cut by adding
insulation (wall and loft insulation, draught-proofing, and hot water tank and pipe lagging),
and by using energy efficient household appliances and rechargeable batteries. More
intelligent operation (such as drawing the curtains on a cold winter’s night, wearing warmer
clothes instead of heating the house to shirt-sleeve temperatures), can greatly reduce
demand. Such measures can reduce consumption by as much as a third to two thirds.
Another step is to switch to renewably generated electricity. Electricity producers want to
sell electricity, and they have no long-term vested interest in any particular form of
generation. If consumers demand electricity generated without greenhouse gas emissions,
then they will provide it.
Ways of cutting water consumption include taking showers rather than baths, re-using water
on the garden, and allowing the lawn to get by without chemicals and sprinklers (grass is
remarkably resilient).
As regards transport the options include using a more efficient car, using the car less
(perhaps even changing one’s job in order to cut out the commuting), shopping locally
instead of out-of-town, using trains and buses wherever possible, and bikes and walking for
shorter distances.
Leisure activities will also have to be weighed. For example, what is the cost, in terms of
CO2 emissions, of a grand prix motor racing event, or of a major festival or exhibition to
which a lot of people travel by car? It may be decided that a holiday abroad should be
forgone in order to avoid air travel and the consumption that this entails.
In the end there is no escaping the fact that moving to sustainable consumption involves far
more than unleaded petrol, wind farms, and loft-insulation. It means adopting not only a
different lifestyle, but a very different view of the purpose and significance of human life.
This is where churches and individual Christians have a distinctive contribution to make.
Churches and individual Christians
Christians have a particular responsibility to act for they know, or should know, that the
roots of unsustainable consumption are found in human sin. They also know that the people
of God have always been called not to conform to the culture and religion of the nations
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about them, for this is idolatry. Yet many churches and individual Christians in the West
today interpret the scriptures through the lens of a Western cultural worldview, and follow
their non-Christian neighbours in measuring success by wealth.
The opposite of conformity is simplicity. We have already seen that simplicity and poverty
are not quite the same thing, though poverty may be the safest and surest way to simplicity.
Can simplicity be defined more closely? Richard Foster urges simplicity as a way of living,
and he lists a number of outward actions that may express an inward simplicity of heart. His
counsel may be summarised as follows. Firstly, things should be bought for their usefulness
rather than their status. Secondly, we should refuse to be persuaded by the portrayal of
‘affluence’ or ‘convenience’ in the media, and give no heed to ‘buy now, pay later’
schemes. We ought to stick by a plain yes/no and live in simplicity of speech, for lying is
one of the greatest complicators of our daily lives. Thirdly, we should reject any goods
whose production contributes to the oppression of others. Fourthly, we ought to learn to
enjoy things without owning them, for though we may feel that ownership adds to the
pleasure, this is in fact an illusion. Having masses of things complicates life, and if we do not
need them we should give them away. Fifthly, we should develop a deeper appreciation of
the creation, not as an end in itself, but as that which God has made. Always remember the
main goal – the kingdom of God and his righteousness. 35
It is important that a change in lifestyle is not mere ‘tokenism’. It is also important that
simplicity does not become an unattractive miserliness that deters the world we would win
over (though there may be times when the world’s derision will be the price of obedience).
And, perhaps above all, it is vital that simplicity is not twisted into asceticism, so that it
becomes an end in itself and we make ourselves into ‘environmental Pharisees’. Ronald
Sider comments that compassion and simple living, apart from structural change, may be
little more than the pursuit of personal purity. 36
And personal action needs to be part of a collective effort at the church/school/ community
level. It is probably true that the challenge of living more simply can best be met in some
form of Christian community. This does not have to be a latter-day version of the
monastery, but is rather a local fellowship of Christians who share material goods,
encourage one another in simplicity, and are accountable to one another. The church
fellowship might consider its own ‘ecological footprint’. How much paper is it consuming?
Do members share transport on a Sunday? Is the church building put to good use
throughout the week? Positive steps a church might take include: setting up a shop for
recycling surplus household goods, organising a system of members loaning each other
equipment that is only needed from time to time, encouraging walking and cycling to church.
The church also has a vital role to play in education, for example in teaching stewardship (to
include a socially responsible life-style), in sharing information on environmental issues and
innovative ideas for living more ‘lightly’ on the earth, and in re-assessing what is the love of
neighbour. We are perhaps too used to thinking of sin in terms of drinking, gambling,
stealing, and extra-marital sex. In the circumstances of our world today, matters such as
throwing out good furniture merely because it is ‘old-fashioned’, buying new consumer
durables when the old might be repaired, and going abroad on holiday by air, become moral
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questions. Who is doing the most harm to their neighbour, the single mother who shoplifts in
a supermarket, or the man or woman who commutes to a church by car, neglecting their
local church?
And it is worth stressing once again that it is not for pragmatic reasons that Christians refrain
from self-indulgent consumption. They hold back because of their inward detachment from
things in the light of a prior love for God and their neighbour, including neighbours of the
generations to come. It is ‘God first, then the rest’. And although the Christian may take
less, he or she has more – more, that is, in terms of relationships and growth as a human
being.
Ten questions for discussion
The following questions seek to highlight some of the dilemmas that face men and women
today as they consider the complex issue of unsustainable production and consumption. The
questions aim to stir thinking about the actions we might/should take, both as individuals and
as members of the local, and the wider, community.
1) There is a growing call for world trade to be conducted on a more level playing field,
giving developing countries fair access to Northern markets. Should the focus rather be on
developing local trade by freeing it from unfair international competition?
2) Should people in the North cut their consumption of tropical products such as tea, coffee,
cocoa, on the ground that farmers in the developing world need the land to grow food for
local consumption? If they do cut their consumption what will be the consequences shortterm? long-term?
3) Among the countries of the world the greatest over-consumers are also the countries that
wield the greatest political and economic power. What sanctions can/should be applied
against these countries? Can/should sanctions be applied against offending individuals in a
local community?
4) Consumption rises to the level of income, but banks and credit houses can seemingly
create money from nowhere, so that consumption rises beyond income. What dangers does
this situation pose, and how can it be corrected?
5) The ‘law’ of supply and demand has long been a fundamental of economics. The
biosphere can ‘supply’ the capacity to absorb about two tonnes of CO2 per person, per
year. In the UK we ‘demand’ that it absorb 9.40 tonnes per person, per year. If demand
in the North is to be limited to what the environment can afford is there any alternative to
some form of rationing?
6) Who is the greater thief, the one who burgles another’s house, or the one whose demand
for fruit and flowers out of season takes up land and water that might otherwise be used by
the poor? Who shows least regard for human life, the one who in anger threatens his fellow,
or the one whose commuting contributes to global warming and the drowning of coastal
settlements?
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7) How can people be helped to gauge their own ‘genuine progress’ and their own
ecological footprint (with a view to making it lighter)? Are there dangers in such an
approach?
8) What do you understand by the word ‘simplicity’? What would be the outstanding
characteristics of a truly simple lifestyle?
9) What are the minimum consumption needs (material and non-material) that every man
and woman made in the image of God should enjoy?
10) What can your local church do to bring its corporate consumption to sustainable levels,
and to encourage members to live sustainably? What should it be doing to foster
sustainability in the local community and equity in the world?
Appendices
A) Further reading
Editor EJ Berry, The Care of Creation (Leicester: IVP, 2000)
Jane Collier and Rafael Esteban, From complicity to encounter: the church and the
culture of economism (1998).
Herman Daly and John Cobb, For the common good: redirecting the economy towards
community, the environment and a sustainable future (1990)
Dr Rick L Edgeman, Pondering excellence and sustainable development (1999)
John Elkington, The Chrysalis Economy: how citizen CEOs and corporations can fuse
values and value creation (2001)
Joanne Green, Poverty and the Environment (Tearfund information briefing)
Peter Singer, How are we to live? Ethics in an age of self-interest (1993)
UNEP Sustainable consumption: a global status report (2002)
B) International conventions and policy processes
Among international conventions and policy processes the following are particularly
significant. (They are listed in chronological order.)
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
(CITES), 1973, prohibits trade in certain species (such as rhino horn, tiger products, ivory)
in order to protect them from extinction.
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The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, 1987 (amended
1990, 1992, and 1995) aims to reduce the production and use of ozone-depleting
substances.
The Basle Convention on the Control of Trans-boundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes
and their Disposal, 1989, allows states to prohibit the importation of hazardous wastes.
The UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was held in Rio in 1991.
The Earth Summit proper in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992 agreed the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a research programme for the twenty-first
century (Agenda 21), and a set of principles described as the Rio Declaration.
WTO rulings with environmental implications
The Rule of Exceptions (Article XX) allows a country to introduce measures that restrict
trade, if the purpose is to protect human, animal, or plant life or health, or to conserve
exhaustible natural resources. These measures must not constitute arbitrary or unjustifiable
discrimination between countries (domestic production and consumption must also be
restricted), and they must not be a ‘disguised restriction to international trade’.
The Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement recognises the legitimacy of government
environmental protection policies. However, the measures taken must be scientifically
justified, and they must not create unnecessary obstacles to trade.
The Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Agreement (SPS), negotiated in the Uruguay Round,
contains similar provisions to the TBT.
The Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) allows subsidies of up
to 20 per cent of firms’ costs in adapting to new environmental laws.
The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) exempts payments made to farmers under
government environmental or conservation programmes from the general requirement to
reduce subsidies.
Intellectual property: under the TRIPS Agreement, Article 27, governments can refuse to
issue patents that threaten environmental health.
Article 14 of the GATS exempts policies to protect human, animal or plant life or health
from normal GATS disciplines ‘under certain conditions’.
The OECD Targets for International Development, 1996, include the implementation of
national strategies for sustainable development in all countries by 2005, to ensure that
current trends in the loss of environmental resources are effectively reversed at both global
and national levels by 2015.
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The Kyoto Protocol, 1997, was a follow up to the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (1992). It defined emission targets for industrialised countries for an initial period
of 2008 - 2012, committing them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from 5 - 8%
below their 1990 levels within this period. The Protocol also included a requirement that
negotiations for a second period must begin by 2005. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) says that the Protocol will buy the planet ten years at most, and
much more radical measures are needed, and needed quickly, to halt warming. However,
the Protocol carries built-in mechanisms that allow for stronger action in the future as well as
the inclusion of developing countries.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) takes place in Johannesburg,
South Africa, in August/September 2002 (ten years after the Rio Earth Summit). The main
task of the Summit is to agree action on poverty eradication and environmental sustainability.
Among the subjects scheduled to be discussed is ‘over-consumption of resources by
industrialised nations’. The Summit brings together world political leaders, UN agencies,
international financial institutions, and NGOs, and it is the best chance in ten years to
address the linked issues of sustainable production and consumption, poverty, and
environmental degradation.
C) Key organisations dealing with consumption/environment issues
International bodies and academic institutions
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
UNED-UK aims to serve as a conduit for civil society
UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
University of East Anglia, Climate Research Unit
University of Surrey, Centre for Environmental Strategy
World Meteorological Organisation
Non-government organisations
Earthscan
Environmental Change Network
Forestry Integrity Network (FIN), ‘a coalition of concerned stakeholders’ seeking to
address the threat to the world’s forests posed by corruption. FIN is based at Harvard
University’s Centre for International Development.
Friends of the Earth
Global Exchange
Global Forest Watch combines on-the-ground knowledge with digital and satellite
technology
Greenpeace
International Rivers Network
New Economics Foundation
People and the Planet
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Sierra Club
World Business Council for Sustainable Development
World Resources Institute
43
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) issued the ‘Assisi Declarations’ in 1986.
Christian organisations
The Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) came into being as a result of a 1992
meeting between the Theological Commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship (now the
World Evangelical Alliance, WEA) and the Au Sable Forum, and their subsequent cooperation. (The original Au Sable Institute was established in 1979 to serve as a centre for
Christian environmental education.) One of the first products of EEN was ‘An Evangelical
Declaration on the Care of Creation’ (1994).
A Rocha, ‘an international conservation organisation working to show God’s love for all
creation’.
Address: 3 Hooper Street, Cambridge CB1 2NZ, UK
Telephone: 01387 710286 E-mail: international@arocha.org Website: arocha.org
The John Ray Initiative, ‘an educational charity bringing together scientific and Christian
understandings of the environment in a way that can be widely communicated and lead to
effective action’.
Address: University of Gloucestershire, QW212, Francis Close Hall, Swindon Road,
Cheltenham GL50 4AZ, UK
Telephone: 01242 543580
Fax: 0870 1323943
E-mail:jri@glos.ac.uk
Website: jri.org.uk
The World Council of Churches (WCC) runs the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation
Programme (JPIC).
The National Religious Partnership for the Environment, in the USA, is a coalition of four
groups: the US Catholic Conference, the National Council of Churches, the Evangelical
Environment Network, and the Coalition on Jewish Life and the Environment.
D) Key resources
Internet sites:
Dept. for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), UK
Department for International Development (DFID), UK
Earthscan
Environmental Change Network
Friends of the Earth
Global Exchange
Global Forest Watch
Greenpeace
Ilisu Dam Campaign
Imperial College
44
defra.gov.uk
dfid.gov.uk
earthscan.co.uk
ecn.ac.uk
foe.co.uk
globalexchange.org
globalforestwatch.org
greenpeace.org
ilisu.org.uk
ad.ic.ac.uk
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
International Rivers Network
New Scientist
Our Planet (UNEP magazine)
People and the Planet
RSPB
UNED
UN Environment Programme
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
University of East Anglia, Climate Research Unit
World Business Council for Sustainable Development
World Resources Institute
World Meteorological Organisation
WWF
ipcc.ch
irn.org, rivernet.org
newscientist.com
ourplanet.com
peopleandplanet.net
rspb.org.uk
unedforum.org
unepie.org
unfcc.de
uea.ac.uk
wbcsd.org
wri.org
wmo.ch
panda.org, worldwildlife.org
E) Main sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK
(in millions of tonnes of carbon).
Source
Energy supply
Business
Transport
Domestic
Agriculture, forestry and
land use
Public sector
Total
(Source: RSPB)
Emissions in
1990 (MtC)
67.9 (32%)
55.9 (22.6%)
35.6 (17%)
23.5 (11%)
23.8 (11%)
Emissions in
2000 (MtC)
45.6 (25%)
47.2 (26%)
37.9 (21%)
23.3 (13%)
21.9 (12%)
5.0 (2%)
211.7
4.8 (3%)
180.7
F) The largest emitters
(Note that the units used here are the United Nations reporting units of tonnes carbon
dioxide, rather than carbon, equivalent. To convert from carbon dioxide to carbon units
45
multiply by 12/44. Note also that the table omits some categories of emissions, notably
agriculture, forestry and land use change, and aviation emissions.) Source: United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change.)
Per capita, the highest emitters are the USA and Australia. 37
Country
USA
Russian
Federation
Japan
Germany
Ukraine
UK
Poland
Canada
Italy
1
Emissions in 1990
(millions of tonnes of
carbon dioxide)
4,960
2,372
Emissions in 2000
(millions of tonnes of
carbon dioxide)1
5,627
1,750
1,124
1,014
700
584
476
464
432
1,250
894
530
550
425
500
421
(Source: RSPB)
These were projections. The UK emissions will, in fact, be far less than this.
G) Energy consumption: a look at the ‘culprits’
Electricity
Although electricity seems clean it is mostly generated from a range of fossil fuels including
coal, oil and gas. It is an inefficient source of power, firstly because older power stations
extract only 60% of the energy from the fuel they burn, and secondly because some of the
electricity fades away before it reaches the home. Electricity produces 0.44kg of CO2 per
kWh in the UK.
Gas
Burning gas for cooking, heating and hot water produces less global warming, but it does
produce some CO2 – about 0.2kg per kWh.
Transportation
Petrol cars emit about 2.3kg of CO2/litre of fuel burned. An average European car with a
fuel consumption of around 7.8 litres/100 km (36 miles per gallon) travelling 16,000 km
(10,000 miles) per year emits almost 3 tonnes (6,500 lbs) of CO2 per year. Diesel cars
emit about 2.8kg CO2/litre of fuel, and LPG cars emit 1.5kg CO2/litre of fuel. However,
these figures do not tell the full story. Diesel cars tend to go much further on a litre of fuel
than petrol cars, so overall their CO2 emissions per km are lower – though they do emit
other local pollutants. LPG cars do not go as far per litre, but on balance they emit less
CO2 per km than petrol cars. The real benefit of LPG is that it is better for local air quality
(and it is much cheaper than petrol). Only an electric motor is emission-free (although
46
generating the electricity in the first place causes emissions). Passenger miles per gallon for
different modes of transport are compared below:
Mode of transport
Commuter rail car
(diesel powered)
Intercity train
Bus
Small car
Wide body airliner
(1,000 mile stage)
Twin jet airliner
(500 mile stage)
Passengers
Miles per gallon
Passenger miles
per gallon
125
720
75
4
2.0
0.5
4.1
30.0
250
360
307
120
256 - 385
0.14 - 0.22
56 - 60
68 - 106
0.44 - 0.54
37 - 47
H) Calculating the 2000 Genuine Progress Indicator, in billions of 1996 US$
US$ billion
The GPI’s starting point
Personal consumption in 2000
6,258
Costs ignored by the GDP, subtracted from the GPI
Economic costs:
Adjustment for unequal income distribution
Net foreign lending or borrowing
Cost of consumer durables
Social costs:
Cost of crime
Cost of road accidents
Cost of commuting
Cost of family breakdown
Loss of leisure time
Cost of underemployment
-959
-324
-896
-30
-158
-455
-63
-336
-115
Environmental costs:
47
Cost of household pollution abatement
Cost of water pollution
Cost of air pollution
Cost of noise pollution
Loss of wetlands
Loss of farmlands
Depletion of non-renewable resources
Cost of long-term environmental damage
Cost of ozone depletion
Loss of old-growth forests
-14
-53
-39
-16
-412
-171
-1,497
-1,179
-313
-90
Benefits ignored by the GDP, added to the GPI
Value of housework and parenting
Value of voluntary work
Services of consumer durables
Services of roads
Net capital investment
2,079
97
744
96
476
The total: the Genuine Progress Indicator
2,630
Per capita GPI in 2000 was $9,550. Per capita GDP was $33,497
Glossary
The Cairns Group of agricultural exporters was inaugurated at a meeting in Cairns, Australia
in 1986. The member nations work together to lobby for greater access to Northern
markets. The members of the group are: Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada,
Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Fiji, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand,
Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Uruguay.
Ecology “The study of the balance of living things in nature” (Francis Schaeffer).
El Niño is a warming of the eastern and central equatorial Pacific Ocean surface by several
degrees. El Niño occurs irregularly, typically once every three to seven years, and can last
for about a year. (It last occurred in 1997/98.) La Niña is its cooling counterpart.
The ‘Factor 10’ Club (1994) called for innovations to bring about a tenfold increase in
energy and material efficiency over the next generation.
48
‘Greenhouse’ gases
The key anthropogenic ‘greenhouse’ gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4),
nitrous oxide (N2O) and tropospheric ozone (O 3).
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Product (GNP) measure the total
income of an economy. The difference is that GNP includes all sources, while GDP
excludes net income from foreign loans, and remittances from nationals working overseas.
Phenology is the study of seasonal plant and animal activity. Phenological observations
contribute significantly to the assessment of climate change impacts on ecosystems,
agriculture and human health. In the UK the Government uses phenological indicators, such
as the emergence of oak leaves in spring and the arrival of swallows, to monitor climate
change. The International Phenological Gardens in Europe network covers a large
geographical range of genetically identical trees and shrubs, as a first step towards better
coverage.
The precautionary principle
A central tenet of many environmental agreements is that where there are threats of serious
or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a
reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent that damage. (The dispute panel’s
interpretation of WTO agreements generally means that harm must be proved scientifically
before a restriction can be allowed, effectively nullifying the precautionary principle.)
Sustainable consumption
Consumption involves the transformation, by humans, of materials and energy, to make
goods and provide services that people need or want. This transformation may be carried
on at such a level as to raise questions whether enough materials and energy will be available
to future generations, and whether the transformation activity itself is having a negative
impact on the environment. Hence the discussion about ‘sustainable consumption’, an
umbrella term bringing together a number of issues.
Whether the rate of transformation of materials and energy is sustainable will depend, firstly,
on:
the rate of natural regeneration of resources,
the capacity of the environment to assimilate effluents,
the availability of alternatives or substitutes for materials and energy sources of limited
availability.
But this is only part of the story. Most attempts to define sustainable consumption start with
the Brundtland report’s definition of sustainable development, as development that meets the
needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their needs. To be sustainable human consumption also needs to be equitable. However, a
number of key concepts here are ambiguous. How do we define ‘needs’ as distinct from
‘wants’? What do we mean by ‘equitable’? How will we know if/when limits have been
passed? (We need clear and timely indicators of unsustainability.) Among the factors to
consider are: enabling individuals and societies to flourish, intra- and intergenerational justice
49
in access to resources and in rights to a healthy environment, responsibility for our impact on
the environment.
The definition adopted by the third session of the Commission for Sustainable Development
(CSD III) in 1995 is: ‘The use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring
a better quality of life, while minimising the use of natural resources, toxic materials and
emissions of waste and pollutants over the life-cycle, so as not to jeopardise the needs of
future generations’. 38
Sustainable development
‘Development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs’ (Brundtland Commission report, Our Common
Future 1987). ‘Sustainable development is a dynamic process which enables all people to
realise their potential and improve their quality of life in ways that simultaneously protect and
enhance the Earth’s life-support systems’ (from the NGO, Forum for the Future).
Abbreviations
GEMS
GPI
IPCC
ISEW
MtC
Mtoe
ppmv
UNEP
UNESCO
WHO
WMO
WTO
Global Environmental Monitoring Service (a joint project of
UNEP, WHO, WMO, and UNESCO)
Genuine Progress Index
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare
Millions of tonnes of carbon
Million tonnes of oil equivalent
parts per million by volume
United Nations Environment Programme
UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
World Health Organisation
World Meteorological Organisation
World Trade Organisation
Sources
Editor EJ Berry, The Care of Creation (Leicester: IVP, 2000)
Lester R Brown and Christopher Flavin State of the world 1999 (London: Earthscan,
1999)
Jeremiah Burroughs The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (London: Banner of Truth
Trust, 1964 reprint of 1648 edition).
Tony Campolo How to rescue the earth without worshipping nature (Milton Keynes:
Word Publishing, 1992)
Ian Christie and Diane Warburton, From here to sustainability (London: Earthscan, 2001)
50
Ed. Felix Dodds, with Toby Middleton, Earth Summit 2002, a new deal (London:
Earthscan, 2000)
Vernard Eller The Simple Life (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973)
Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1978, 1983)
Holy Ground (Washington DC: Sojourners Resource Centre)
Dewi Hughes with Matthew Bennett, God of the Poor (Carlisle: OM Publishing, 1998)
Neil McCulloch, L Alan Winters, and Xavier Cirera, Trade Liberalization and Poverty: A
Handbook (London: Centre for Economic Policy Research)
W Dayton Roberts, Patching God’s Garment (Monrovia USA: MARC/World Vision,
1994)
Francis A Schaeffer Pollution and the death of man (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1970).
John Stott Issues facing Christians today (London: Marshall Pickering, 1984 and 1990).
UNEP, Global Environment Outlook 2000
‘World Rivers Review’ October 2001
1
John Guillebaud ‘Population numbers and environmental degradation’ in, Editor EJ Berry The Care of
Creation (Leicester: IVP, 2000), p.156.
2
Brown and Flavin, State of the world 1999, p.171.
3
W Dayton Roberts Patching God’s Garment, p.90.
4
Ethical Consumer No. 38 (Nov/Dec 1995), p.21, citing ‘Vegetarian Issues’ resource pack, produced by
the Vegetarian Society, 1992.
5
Sandy Irvine, Real World resources guide (published by Campaign for Political Ecology, 1996).
6
Ethical Consumer No. 38 (Nov/Dec 1995), citing Social Trends (HMSO, 1995).
7
Ian Christie and Diane Warburton, From here to sustainability, p.62.
8
‘Solid Waste and Recycling’, April 2000, cited in World Rivers Review October 2001, p.9.
9
Judith Bortner Heffernan, ‘Our daily bread’ in Holy Ground, p.30.
10
W Dayton Roberts Patching God’s Garment (Monrovia USA: MARC/World Vision, 1994), p.64.
11
Modou Ngie, ‘Shaped by the powerless’ in Holy Ground, p.46.
12
Ian Christie and Diane Warburton, From here to sustainability (London: Earthscan, 2001), p.111.
13
Rosemary Radford Ruether, ‘To speak truth to power’ (essay in Holy Ground p.45).
14
‘Towards sustainable consumption in Latin America and the Caribbean’ (background paper for the
workshop on sustainable consumption, Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 2001), p.9.
15
Guardian, 16/3/02.
16
Felix Dodds (editor) Earth Summit 2002: A New Deal (London: Earthscan, 2000), pp.162-3.
51
17
See Jeremy Rifkin and Carol Grunewald Rifkin, ‘The Greening of Economics’ in Holy Ground
(Washington DC: Sojourners Resource Centre), p.53.
18
Dewi Hughes with Matthew Bennett, God of the Poor (Carlisle: OM Publishing, 1998) p.290.
19
Neil McCulloch, L Alan Winters, and Xavier Cirera, Trade Liberalization and Poverty: A Handbook
(London: Centre for Economic Policy Research), pp.321-2,
20
McCulloch, Winters and Cirera, p.325.
21
‘Rethinking thinking’, in The Economist, 18/12/99, pp.77-79.
22
Lynn White jnr., ‘The historic roots of our ecologic crisis’, Science magazine, March 1967.
23
Ronald Sider, ‘Biblical foundations for creation care’ in The Care of Creation, p.44.
24
Richard T Wright, ‘The Declaration under siege’ in The Care of Creation, p.74.
25
Jurgen Moltmann, ‘God’s covenant and our responsibility’ in The Care of Creation, p.109.
26
Cited in The Care of Creation, p.9.
27
Søren Kierkegaard, quoted in Vernard Eller, The Simple Life (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973),
p.86.
28
Vernard Eller, p.103.
29
Vernard Eller, p.58
30
Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1964
reprint of 1648 edition).
31
Burroughs, p.51.
32
Michael Argyle, The psychology of happiness.
33
Brown and Flavin, State of the world 1999, p.172.
34
Brown and Flavin, State of the world 1999, p.173.
35
Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1978, 1983), pp.73-81.
36
R Sider in Third Way magazine, November 1997, p.23.
37
‘Global warming threatens Australia’s unique habitats’, Guardian 5/2/02
38
Quoted from ‘Towards sustainable consumption in Latin America and the Caribbean’ (background
paper for the workshop on sustainable consumption, Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 2001), p.5.
52