Sustainability: Are we kidding ourselves?

OK, so we all know the drill. I’d rather not labour the point here, but I think it’s safe to say that we’ve pretty much pushed our planet to the brink — scientists suspect that within decades we might find ourselves on an Earth that is no longer a “safe operating space” for humanity. There is little doubt that our social, economic and political systems, so delicately built upon perpetual growth in the exploitation of land and labor, are now being undermined by critical issues such as climate change, resource and land scarcity, and the coming of the end of cheap oil.

Never being one to take a moderate position, I have been criticised in the past for advocating a version of sustainability that questions the very foundation of consumer society and the growth paradigm. This idea is far from new. But, although its scientific basis is accepted in many scholarly circles within the social and environmental sciences, it has been historically dismissed across the political spectrum for its radical nature.

Typically, the idea of transforming or overthrowing consumer capitalism with the aim of re-localising our economies and re-defining our notion of prosperity is seen as either a wildly unrealistic goal, or an insidious backdoor for dictatorships and genocide. In fact, a number of critics have all but made careers out of discrediting even the most middle-of-the-road sustainability advocates by distorting and misrepresenting their message as nothing more than a socialist plot that may or may not be linked to the establishment of a UN-led One World Government.

In retaliation, environmentalists often dismiss these people as immoral ideologues and reckless conspiracy theorists. Chances are, if you are reading this post, you probably think this is a reasonable assessment. But do these conspiracy theorists not have, in their own twisted way, a point? Is it possible that the vision of sustainability that liberal environmentalists, such as myself, have been upholding for so long is, quite simply, bullshit?

An uncomfortable thought

That we may be kidding ourselves when it comes to sustainability is not a thought we like to entertain for long, but let’s allow it to sit uneasily in our minds for a bit. I suspect that most people serious about sustainability recognise that it will do us little good to rely on our formal political structures, which so clearly benefit a few at the expense of the many, and are beholden to powerful corporate and military interests, to bring about any meaningful climate action in the near future. We may hope for political reform through the institutionalised electoral system, but it can’t be denied that the neoliberal stranglehold on our common future is gripping tighter than ever, and concentrated power rarely offers itself up for negotiation.

In fact, because we continue to prioritise economic prosperity over avoiding “dangerous” climate change, there is now little to no chance of keeping global temperature rise below the infamous two-degree limit. Inertia is a bitch.

So in the absence of real, functional leadership — at least for the foreseeable future — we are left largely with our old friend “people power”. We must, as the sustainability mantra goes, work to cultivate an enlightened citizenry to avoid critical ecological tipping points. It is a powerful idea: the masses rising up against a corrupt system to fight for a better, more sustainable and just world. And it is an idea with some serious historical precedents — think universal suffrage and the end of slavery.

But can we be so sure that a revolution would (or could) again take place within the critical timeframe of a few decades from now, not to mention one on a scale larger than anything we’ve ever seen before? I’m not talking about the granting of rights to a previously-oppressed group within a single nation. I’m talking about a global fight to radically reduce our own consumption levels, to reshape our own lifestyles, and to challenge the very systems that have given us so much prosperity, all in the name of protecting countless nameless, faceless souls completely cut off from us across space, time and biology.

There is a reason that climate change has been labeled the “perfect moral storm”.

And what if, god forbid, even after all of this deliberating and educating and pleading, we still collectively decide that we have absolutely no desire to change our lifestyles to fit within planetary limits, and that the warm comforts of modern civilisation will do just fine for now, thank you — Hey, the ship’s going down anyway, why not have a good fucking time while we still can?

Sure, we can find tiny pockets of resistance and hope in everything from small-scale sustainable farming, to protests against projects such as the Keystone pipeline, from corporate social responsibility initiatives, to tentative international climate agreements. But I suspect that one day we may well wake up to the fact that these efforts are simply not enough; that the course of history is largely mapped out for us in the short-term; that waiting for a voluntary, democratic and (relatively) peaceful resolution to the climate crisis is no longer viable; and that we may not even want the future we think we want. At that point, does advocating for such a resolution actually start to become morally dubious, considering what is at stake?

What happens if, one day, we suddenly find ourselves face-to-face with the ugliest of futures where once we had only imagined beauty?

If we, as sustainability advocates, are so willing to use the rhetoric of ‘collapse’ and ‘crisis’ to argue for radical social change, then surely we can’t ignore the fact that avoiding unpleasant events may well mean the implementation of at least some perhaps equally unpleasant measures. Might we even reach the point when, compelled by morality, by greed, or even the sheer drive for survival, some start to force the unwilling to change, coercing us to give up our cherished freedoms for the “common good”?

This may not be as far-fetched as it first seems. Some scholars have argued that “environmental authoritarianism” may actually become commonplace as environmental crises worsen, and governments struggle to maintain control and stability. Others have even gone a step further to claim that democracy has failed us, and that we must therefore start thinking about what form an authoritarian solution to climate change should take. Planning for despotism?

Blinded by optimism

We stand at an odd point in history. Although we must avoid speaking in certainties, there is very real possibility that we have backed ourselves so far into a corner that there is no desirable escape plan — we may well be wedged between potential collapse, and what we hope would be a very benevolent “green dictator”. If true, this is a terrifying prospect. For many, such a choice is evidently too much to contemplate, and it is avoided at all costs.

When is the last time you heard a respected environmental leader say that we should plan for a dose of authoritarianism, or that we’ve reached the point of no return for many coming crises? I suspect such confessions would confirm the worst nightmares of conservatives and liberals, alike.

Indeed, all we seem to hear about are politically-palatable (read: democratic, liberal, justice-based, technological, non-militaristic) sustainability solutions, and never the more sinister and ugly possibilities we face.

In order to protect our own hopes, as well as our social integrity, we have allowed ourselves to construct a world of make-believe, where things are going to be more-or-less okay. Perhaps there will be a bump or two in the road, but we’ll prevail in the end — much like a Hollywood disaster movie, but with less disaster and more Hollywood. In breeding this limited imaginary, we are seriously compromising our ability to envision or plan for what reality might hold for us.

Now, I am certainly not suggesting that we should give up the good fight. Indeed, there is no surer way of securing failure. What I am suggesting, though, is that the success of our cherished sustainability agenda is far from guaranteed, and that it in fact appears increasingly unlikely to pan out as we might hope. Yet the broad environmental movement remains in complete denial (at least publicly) about the prospect of failure.

Is this denial not just as unforgivable as the denial of climate change itself? Are we not being utterly irresponsible by failing to talk about every possibility? What happens if, one day, we suddenly find ourselves face-to-face with the ugliest of futures where once we had only imagined beauty?

Fuck the optimism. It’s time to get real about sustainability.