Feeling something's wrong - Part 1

Feeling something wrong is, of course, the trademark of the anxious person. But still, I can't help feeling there's something terribly, fundamentally wrong in the way we live.

Without doubt, things have improved. In general, we tend not to treat other people as badly as we have in the past. I have no doubt that there is less killing, war, persecution and discrimination that there was, though those things continue, perhaps at times with more sinister, corporate twists. This is not to say we treat people better, that people are more respected or valued. I don't think they necessarily are, but more on that later.

I think the two very important ways in which we fail are in our relationship to the environment around us, and in our relationship to each other.

When you say it that way, it's tempting to ask: what else is there? Indeed! If we lived in harmony with our environment, and treated each other well, surely that would be some sort of pinnacle of human achievement? But so much of human endeavour, so much of our combined resourcefulness and intelligence is directed not at improving either of these things, but at extending our lives and fighting illness (not necessarily improving our quality of life), making bigger and 'better' things, building our knowledge, making our cities run more efficiently, trying to fit in, making money, getting thrills, making an impression and so on. None of which necessarily make us happier or make the world a better place.

I don't propose to argue the point that humans have been a very bad thing for the Earth's ecosystems. It is very plain to me that we, as animals who depend at a very basic level on having a steady supply of clean water, clean air and food, need a healthy environment to provide all those things.

Okay, you say, but we produce food on farms. We have enough water, and anyway we can always capture more rainwater or produce clean water through treatment of dirty water. And the air, well, it is clean enough. In short, so long as we have farms and water treatment plants, and we put our aluminium smelters and power plants a little way away from our cities, we'll be fine! I truly believe that this is the thinking of many people out there.

But here's the catch. The plants and animals that make our food depend on other plants and animals, sometimes plants and animals that we don't know much about. In the very simplest example, many plants require bees to pollinate them in order for them to fruit and reproduce, and not just any old bee. Many plants require a particular species of bee. That bee requires a particular combination of plants, a particular type of environment to grow and develop healthily and so on. I'm convinced that we simply cannot provide the environment for all these things to work properly. It is too complex. And even if we could somehow reproduce it, it would be too expensive. We need healthy ecosystems to live. And beyond that, healthy ecosystems, healthy environments are beautiful. We need them for our mental health as well, so we don't end up living in a world of cities, roads, concrete, wheat fields and nothing else.

And that is just looking at it from the egocentric human-focused perspective. I also fail to see how we have a right to drive other species to extinction by destroying their habitat.

Leaving that aside, it does seem that many if not most people living in developed, western style societies, do not understand this basic relationship between ourselves and the environment in which we live. I think the main explanation for this is that we don't actually live anywhere near the environment that ultimately sustains us. Most of us live in cities. We may or may not have a little backyard, or some ornamental plants growing in pots to make our balconies look nice. But we are far, far away from the farms, forests and rivers that provide the food, clean air and clean water that we need to survive.

Most human societies throughout history were not like this - they understood the importance of preserving the environment, and often formalised that understanding through their cultural or religious practices. This is because, for most of human history, we have been close to the environment. We have seen at close range where our food comes from, where our water comes from, and what happens when the environment that provides these things is disrupted. If the river from which a village collected drinking water became contaminated, the villagers would get sick.

We are so completely removed from our environment that the connection between our actions and the security of our food, water and air supply is difficult to conceive. How does throwing my old mobile phone in the bin rather than taking it to a shop to be recycled contribute to contaminated water supplies? My water comes from the tap. It is always clean. How does my bar of soap in the shower affect the level of oxygen in the atmosphere and the risk of flooding and landslides in Indonesia? How does running my air conditioner full-blast 24 hours a day 7 days a week in summer contribute to global warming, and what's wrong with a little improvement in temperatures anyway?

Unless we do a much better job on showing each other the connections between our basic human needs for food, water, and clean air, the health of large ecosystems, and the activities in our day-to-day lives, we will struggle to avoid dangerous damage to our environment.

To be continued...