NAGINI PRASAD
Knowing is the key to caring, and with caring there is hope that people will be motivated to take positive actions. They might not care even if they know, but they can’t care if they are unaware.1
—Sylvia Earle, Oceanographer
At the Centre For Learning (CFL), as a school, we have had certain practices that could be considered ecologically sound or that aim to create ecological awareness. For instance, all students are involved in aspects of growing vegetables organically; we source produce from local or organic growers as much as possible; we have dry pit latrines; educational resources are reused or upcycled multiple times; we encourage car pools or bus transport; students are taken on day and night walks in the surrounding landscapes, encouraged to closely observe their natural surroundings, and develop an ease and affection for these landscapes.
I have taught the Environmental Management curriculum at CFL for the last five years. Every year the scale and immediacy of the ecological crisis has grown and become increasingly apparent. I want to convey this to my students without causing alarm, a sense of hopelessness, or guilt. By the time they are in the ninth standard, students can engage in rigorous questions about the ecological state of the world and how the ecological crisis is a reflection of the crisis in human consciousness. When they begin this engagement, they seem to have heard ubiquitous phrases such as ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ but do not have exposure to the causes and the myriad, interlinked and interdependent aspects of environmental management. I wish to open their minds to this intricate web and hope to touch a chord. Are they moved by what they learn? Are they moved to care? Guilt is definitely not on the agenda. Rather, a looking at all the motivations and insecurities that we as humans have, which has resulted in the situation we find ourselves in today. If nothing else, can we be at the very least aware of the consequences of our lifestyles and actions as we live them?
At the back of my mind, however, Amitav Ghosh’s voice lingers, but I keep it at bay, “…the quandary that now confronts the world’s status quo powers: how do you reduce your dependence on the very ‘resources’ on which your geopolitical power is founded? How do you reduce the fossil-fuel consumption of a gargantuan military machine that exists largely to serve as a ‘delivery service’ for hydrocarbons?”2 My concern, if I were to share this idea with students, is that there may be a sense of hopelessness or a feeling that whatever we may do at a personal level, it is nothing in the face of the huge military-industrial complex.
Personally, I swing between Earle and Ghosh. However, something a tinkereractivist-scientist friend of mine shared always surfaces. I asked him how he keeps going, questioning power tirelessly for decades, “There is nothing else we can do”, came the immediate reply. This quickly puts Ghosh’s voice, however valid, to rest, as it seems even in the face of such power, there is nothing else I can do but care, at whatever level and to whatever extent. And one of my attempts then becomes to answer Ghosh’s question: What are the many ways in which people are innovating and working towards reducing our dependence on hydrocarbons?
Beginning with the notion that environmental management lies at the intersection of society, economics, ecology and politics, there are several threads that we explore. Once a student asked, “What has politics got to do with it?” However, it was not long before case studies and field visits illustrated that politics is a primary force in most environmental management scenarios. The title of the course, ‘Environmental Management’, is itself of interest: whereas all other species adapt to their environment, is it humans alone who manage the environment to suit them? Further, we come to wonder whether under the predominant economic system of ‘profit at all costs’ (which one student cheekily suggests is an oxymoron), there is any hope for ecological and socially sound environmental management? Quite often human rights and ecological rights are undermined by our ever-increasing desires and insecurities.
A potpourri of case studies
Case studies and field visits are an excellent way to bring the curriculum to life and illustrate how the issues are linked to each of us and our patterns of living and thinking. I see the importance of the students knowing about the issues that require our attention and care. However, increasingly, I have been trying to include more examples of positive action. I share a potpourri of case studies below.
Waste not, want not: Studying aspects of the food industry, students learn about the immense waste generated when edible items are discarded as urban consumers look for the perfectly shaped vegetable or will not buy a slightly damaged package. Is it really more profitable to discard these items than to attempt selling them at a lower price? What is our responsibility as consumers in the demands we create? Where are our desires for the so-called ‘perfect’ product stemming from? Do we even know the consequences of this in a world where millions are going hungry? What about ‘food miles’—the distance a food product travels (thereby consuming fossil fuels) to get to our plate? And what about our diets? Are we aware that a meateating diet has by far more negative and far-reaching consequences on ecosystems around the world, than, say, a vegetarian or vegan diet? Are we aware of the impact on ancient forest ecosystems that are being ‘clear cut’ to feed our tastes? What about the impact of this destruction on greenhouse gas levels?
Slaves to fashion: I draw attention to the ‘mountains of clothing waste’ from some western countries lying in Accra, Ghana and the Atacama Desert, Chile (20 metres high at times). I share this data: “Since 2000, global production of clothing has doubled. We’re buying 60 per cent more clothes now than we did 15 years ago and keeping them for half as long. A major survey in the UK six years ago found one in three young women considered garments ‘old’ if they had been worn just twice. An estimated 85 percent of all textiles go to the dump every year, according to the World Economic Forum. Globally, that’s the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles being burned or going into landfill every second.”3 We then explore the idea that if consumers paid the social and environmental costs of our clothing, would we buy less? For instance, do we pay for the impact on communities elsewhere when trapped methane in these ‘mountains’ causes towering fires? Or do we pay for the impact of ‘ropes’ or ‘nets’ of excess clothing that finds its way into the ocean ecosystem off the coast of Ghana? I further ask what is it in our psyche that marketers and advertisers hook onto, making us feel we must have this or that item of clothing? What deep psychological insecurities or desires must they be tapping into?
Niger on fire:
The Niger Delta has been home to major oil companies since oil was first discovered there in the 1950s by European explorers. The people whose lands are being pillaged to extract oil do not benefit in any way. Instead, large oil companies and their executives rake in profits and the delta is left literally blackened by crude oil; the soil and waterways become completely unproductive and in fact toxic. Desperate locals whose agricultural and fishing livelihoods have been decimated struggle in a dangerous and violent landscape ruled by the gun. None of these oil companies pay the environmental and social cost of their operations. If they did, if at all that were possible, what would this mean for the price of oil and all its derivatives from plastic to synthetic clothing? What would it mean for our production and consumption levels, our levels of waste?
Copious consumption: In just one generation it seems that we want things yesterday, that is, even today is too long to wait! Instant gratification seems to be the king and international online shopping companies are happily and profitably catering to our ‘needs’. Is it really so difficult to live with what is available in our neighbourhoods or to wait until we have a chance to go out and purchase locally? With any product in the world literally a click away, our desires and ability to fulfil these are endless and instant. Whereas for my generation, this is quite a new way of being, for our students’ generation, this is the ‘norm’. We, as adults, need to be very cognisant of the impacts of our normalizing this way of living and consuming. The impact of this is not only excess consumerism and its associated fossil fuel consumption and habitat destruction, but just as crucially, a possible feeling of entitlement. It could also mean a minimising of human connections with our immediate neighbourhoods, potentially increasing the sense of isolation, separateness, and ‘othering’ at a very gross level.
A pinch of salt: We engage in a case study of the Agariya salt harvesting community of the salt pans in the Rann of Kutch. It makes students aware of the back-breaking and heart wrenching work conditions and paltry remuneration this community receives. One student asks, “Why can’t they be paid and looked after well? Surely it will benefit the company as workers can work better?” In this instance, I open a discussion on an economic system that maximises profits by keeping wages meagre and working conditions minimal.
Learning from field visits
Planet or plastic? Plastics in our ecosystems, both in habitats and within the tissues of living organisms, are a mammoth issue. A field trip tracing the path of our school trash shows the extent of the waste challenge. A river or coastal walk shows first-hand the impact of plastic and other waste on our waterways. I can open up many questions: What is the link between the synthetic plastics industry and the fossil-fuel industry? Should it be the consumers’ or producers’ responsibility to manage plastic waste? What is the impact of micro plastics on our ocean ecosystems? What about plastic derivatives in the clothing we love and the brands we are made to love as if our selfworth depended on them? What about the impact of discarded nylon fishing nets on our coral reefs and other sea life?
Fish, anyone? As part of an excursion, I take students to a fishing village on the banks of a river in Goa to meet fisher people. They share that they were impacted generations ago by the local university acquiring their land. Now five-star hotels and possibly an Adani port coming up soon, will further affect their mackerel fisheries. This fishing community faces an uncertain future and the students learn this first-hand. Later, being hosted in the home of a fisherman along the Maharashtra coast, they meet his family and play with his children. They learn about his livelihood, and how it is being affected by modern, commercial fishing practices. They also learn of his work in beach cleanups and the conservation of Olive Ridley turtles.
What else can we do?
The title of Bill McKibben’s book, Hope, Human and Wild,4 seems apt for the range of efforts that concerned and caring humans are making to address the ecological crisis. We view and discuss several films. For instance, the 2019 film Our Gorongosa beautifully illustrates how human-elephant conflict can be addressed and go hand-in-hand with basic human needs, as shown by a group of young women in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. The 2017 film, Chasing Coral, documents mass coral bleaching events between 2014 and 2017, attempting to open the public’s eyes to this potentially catastrophic effect of climate change. The 2007 film Andrea: Queen of the Mantas follows a young biologist’s quest to map manta ray populations in a bid to protect this magical species of marine megafauna from overfishing and the Chinese medicine trade. These are efforts by individuals and communities to counter climate change and its related issues. They must feel, as my friend does, that “there is nothing else that we can do”, and so they continue to tirelessly address issues of pollution, fossil fuel consumption, habitat destruction and so on.
However, despite these commendable and much needed efforts, I cannot help but wonder: Are we trying to tend a deep gash with a too-tiny band aid?
How do students respond?
One student reflects, “I don’t like the phrase ‘save the planet’ because the planet is going to be there. It is almost as if the whole thing is about saving ourselves.” She probably meant that we Homo sapiens are most concerned about saving our physical selves. However, must we not look at ourselves and consider how our very ‘thought’, creating the illusion of a separate ‘self ’ that is identified with our physical bodies, is the cause of that deep gash? Do we perceive everything through this illusion? Can we simply see this and be totally responsible?
These are some other responses I get from my students:
We are very tiny actually and there are a lot of big issues happening in the world; this makes me realise my issues are rather tiny.
All of us may not think we can do much but a lot of people who think like this may make a bigger change. If you think you can’t make a big change, maybe you can, by getting other people involved; you don’t need status, what if you just know a lot of people.
Even aside from this class, when I wonder what people can do for the earth, it’s difficult, as there’s so much that needs working on: social, economic, environmental. It became damaging when it changed from ‘assurance of life’ to ‘quality of life’.
So, it changed from ‘wanting to live’ to ‘how comfortable will we be’. But can it be argued that this is evolutionary?
I think humans need to adapt rather than adapting the environment to us. Whenever I start imagining my life in the future, I feel I can’t imagine it, I have no idea how it’s going to be as things can be very different. I kind of know it’s not going to be the way it is now due to climate change, coral dying, deforestation. It’s going to be a very different place.
It also depends on the way you look at it. There have been other mass extinctions. It could create a new scenario, as last time mammals took over and maybe insects will now.
Where are we humans in all this?
Each of these issues that we explore in the Environmental Management curriculum are intricately linked to us. As I discuss with my students, to put it crudely, any one of us who has money in a bank is linked, whether we like it or not, to each of these situations. So, is there any other way? The students and I share ideas: What if there was a maximum ratio in salary between the highest and lowest paid person in a company? What if environmental and social costs were transferred to consumers? What if we had locally owned and operated companies so that those investing (the owners) also faced the impacts of the operations on their immediate environment and workforce? Would this not compel us to weigh how much profit we wanted and at what cost? Is it not possible for world leaders, political and industrial, to steer a change towards a more equitable way of being? With so much funding being available for the military worldwide, surely it cannot be a case of there not being enough money.
All this is very well and seems to put the onus squarely at the feet of the ‘world outside’. But what of each of us? As Krishnamurti asks, “Where shall we start to understand the world about us and the world within us? The world within us is so enormously complex but we want to understand the world of nature first. All this becomes our mania. Perhaps if we could start with ourselves. Not to hurt. Not to be violent. Not to be nationalistic. But to feel for the whole of mankind. Then perhaps we shall have a proper relationship between ourselves and nature. Now we are destroying the earth, the sea, the things in the sea because we are the greatest danger to the world.”5
We are the world’. But do we truly see this? We may have an intellectual grasp and understand the tremendous danger in the separative nature of thought. But do we really see this? Are we prepared to consider our inner worlds, without guilt? Are we prepared to turn that proverbial torch inwards to pause and consider our insecurities and fears, our aspirations, or sense of becoming? This seems the crux of the matter. Imagine a world where all of us—every single human—was content with living within our means; where there was no desire to outdo each other; no fear of missing out on something for ourselves or our children; no yearning for knowledge or entertainment to escape so-called boredom. In such a world, would we not ‘need’ less, consume less and thereby feed the military-industrial complex less? Or is this too simplistic?
If I feel no sense of separation, that I am the world, and feel total responsibility, then in that feeling is there another way of living? What will this mean for our currently fragmented way of living? What will this mean for global consciousness?
1 The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean’s Are One, Sylvia A. Earle, 2009, National Geographic
2 The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, Amitav Ghosh, 2021 University of Chicago Press.
3 ‘Dead White Man’s Clothes: How Fast Fashion Is Turning Parts Of Ghana Into Toxic Landfill’, Linton Besser in Ghana, October 2021, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, http://www.abc.net.au
4 Bill McKibben, Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on Earth, 2007, Milkweed Editions.
5 “We are the greatest danger to the world”, J Krishnamurti, 2nd Question & Answer Meeting, Brockwood Park, 1980