Debra Efroymson
Dhaka, 2009
What if the disease is the cure?
Imagine a patient facing his physician, who is watching him grimly. He has just been informed that he has a fatal disease and only a draconian cure can save him. Quaking in his seat, he inquires of the doctor what the drastic steps are that he must take. The doctor heaves a deep sigh?why waste words when she knows how unlikely her patient is to agree??and replies, "You need to work less. You should spend less time in traffic jams and more with your family. Watch less TV and enjoy more books and conversation. Indulge in fewer things, in less mindless consumption, and instead socialize more." Who could blame the patient for choosing a long, slow, painful death instead of such major lifestyle changes?
Ludicrous as the analogy may seem, it may shed some light on common reactions to climate change. The nature of the threat grows ever clearer. People's vehicles grow ever bigger. Threats are not just in the future, but are wreaking havoc here and now; we continue in denial, responding with trivializations, expecting technology to save us. Yet the oddest, most tragic and yet most hopeful aspect of climate change may be the fact that a concerted international response to it could well improve quality of life for most people on the planet.
Before dismissing me as completely delusional, consider a few things. One reason given for the need to continue a high consumption of fossil fuels is economic growth. But if one pauses to look around, it becomes clear that such growth has a funny way of concentrating its benefits among the wealthy few while destroying the environment, using up precious natural resources, and often further impoverishing--or at least not helping--the many. In low-income countries, much of those fuels go to power the cars driven by the minority which take over streets formerly occupied by pedestrians, cyclists, pedicabs and vendors.
Much of the electricity goes to the homes of the wealthy to operate air conditioners, refrigerators, and washing machines while the poor do not get enough for a few lights and a fan, and farmers continue to rely on thousand-year-old methods of agriculture. Where fuel does go into factories, the owners assuredly benefit while many of the workers labour long days seven days a week for starvation wages. Yet we are assured that not only would more of this (cars, air conditioning, polluting industry) be better, but that economic growth must be encouraged no matter how high the environmental (and human) toll.
And do we really believe that this generation of children, chauffeured to school and to organized activities, is better off and happier than the previous generations which walked, cycled, and played in the streets?
What then of the obesity epidemic, which means that in the US it is now abnormal to be of normal weight, and is caused in part by burning too much fossil fuel and too little of our own?
The recent international day of action on climate change, organized by 350.org, was a remarkable display of international unity to send the message that we need to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere from the current level of 390 to 350, if we wish to maintain some semblance of life as we know it. Inspiring as the actions were, they rang a bit hollow in my ears. It is easy to send a message that someone else should act to save us. To ask the doctor to provide the magical painless pill for us to swallow.
But the real, urgent, and to my knowledge unanswered question is, if governments were finally to get serious about climate change, would their populations support them? If people understood that to reach 350 would require making real and significant changes to their lives--not just their light bulbs and fuel source for their cars?would they still have joined in the demonstrations?
In Bangladesh we rallied to the slogan "Change Behavior Not Climate." In a sense it was ironic: the average Bangladeshi is the victim, not cause, of climate change. The very atypical Bangladeshi, meanwhile--the elite 2% or so--clog city streets with their SUVs. Small shops are being torn down to provide more car parking. Buses move on average no faster than rickshaws and even sometimes pedestrians as a result of the car-clogged streets. The rapid growth in car ownership is clearly a result of economic growth, and requires a fair amount of fuel, but it is hard to see how these changes benefit the masses. The SUV owners are unlikely to join us under a banner with our slogan about behavior change. The people we did recruit included disabled freedom fighters, domestic workers, slum residents, and some middle class NGO workers. They aren't the ones whose behavior needs to change to save us.
How, likewise, do more cars make India and China richer? Would their economies really collapse if the government worked to reduce car use and promote public transport and a return to the age of the bicycle?
Which brings me back to my question: would the people who are contributing to climate change be willing to make significant changes to their lifestyles if they knew they would be joined by others and backed by government? Would they be more likely to agree if they realized that many of the changes would involve an improvement rather than deterioration in their quality of life?
Governments need to act. Many of the key changes require government support: changes must be facilitated and enabled, transport systems reworked, labour- rather than energy-based forms of economic organization encouraged. We need to focus on redistributing existing wealth far more fairly rather than continuously trying to create enough that the poor can gain a decent share without the rich having to give anything up. (This, more than all else, is the illusion that is killing us?or at least killing the poor now, and threatening our common future.) The rich will never feel they have enough, nor will the poor ever get a basic minimum by relying on economic growth without redistribution. But redistribution without economic growth could transform the world into an infinitely more humane and liveable place.
People can wait for their government to act, and governments can wait for people to send clear signals that they are willing to make major changes (like using public or active transport rather than driving, and reducing wasteful consumption in exchange for more leisure). Or rich countries can point the finger at China and India, and vice versa, while everyone waits for someone else and some new technology to prevent the need for any real change. Obviously none of this will solve our problems.
But what if instead of finger pointing and blame, instead of dragging our feet (and driving SUVs), we took a radically different and far more rational approach to the issue? What if the incredible mobilizing forces of 350.org were used to spread an even stronger message to the world's governments? What if the message were that we understand the diagnosis and see that the cure involves not just sacrifice but the one chance for a liveable future. That we want less consumption and more sociability, less growth and more justice. That we will start, today, to make major changes to our lives in order to send a strong clear message to our governments: if you take strong, concerted, radical action now to reverse climate change, we will wholeheartedly support you.
What I envision is an international version of the Victory Garden movement during World Wars I and II, when local food production soared in response to threatened starvation. It occurs to me that part of why citizens plunged so eagerly into the effort was that the worst way to face a crisis is passively. Sitting and waiting for destruction is soul-destroying; acting to save yourself (and your fellow citizens) represents soul-restoring empowerment, or as Wikipedia describes, "these gardens were also considered a civil 'morale booster'--in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown."
We need to take that fear and empowerment to a higher and broader level. It is not just one generation or a few countries that are threatened, but the future of human (and much other) life on the planet. The worst way to face such a threat is passively. Surely if we could combine an understanding of the magnitude of the threat with the potential for a richer and happier life from the response, we could see a mobilization around the world that would make the climate change awareness actions on 24 October a mere blip on the screen.
Imagine the fatal disease becoming the impetus to solve some of our greatest social problems. Surely people could grasp that this is a better way to respond than by waiting for governments or technology to save us while we continue with life as usual. Because it is clear that life as usual is not going to save us?and that life as unusual could offer an amazing array of benefits that would make us wonder why we ever hesitated to change direction. And the beauty of it is, even if it is too late to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to any reasonable level, people would, for the most part, benefit simply by trying.
Debra Efroymson
Photos by Richard Risemberg
